Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 208: Apex Hunter

The next moment the two found themselves at the bottom of the crater, both warily looking around. Ogras had already covered them in a sphere of shadows, hiding their presence and muting their sounds.

“The cosmic energy here has an even higher density than the mountains of Port Atwood,” Ogras said with some surprise, his eyes shining with greed. “The Mystic Realm must be really thriving. Perhaps it’s a leftover herb garden of some powerhouse. We need to quickly need to stabilize it before all energy leaks out, ruining the treasures inside.”

“Or it’s the home of a horde of D-Grade monsters,” Zac said with a snort as he took out his axe. “Do you think the beast is close to the entrance, or at the edge?”

“Being too close to the field is extremely dangerous, with shifting cracks between the dimension appearing at random. If a crack opens where you stand you’ll suddenly be split into two without a chance to react. The beast you heard should be somewhere near the edge of the barren field though since the energy would be densest there,” Ogras answered after some deliberation.

“Ok, let’s go,” Zac nodded.

The two warily made their way through the forest of the crater, but they were happy to note that it seemed completely deserted. There were some critters scuttling about, but they couldn’t find a single beast. Hopefully, it meant that the crater was the exclusive territory of the Lord of the island.

It actually was easier than they expected to find their target. A huge tiger was lazily sunbathing at a hill not too far away from the core of the crater, its snores making the ground shake. It was roughly five meters long, but apart from its size and slightly dark hue it didn’t look much different from a normal tiger.

Clearly it had grown lax after having the whole crater to itself, with no real rivals on the island. Zac hoped that meant that the beast simply was lucky to have had a good early start on the island, allowing it to capitalize on the best area to keep growing.

“Please take care of it if something wants to join the fight. But don’t help me out unless I ask,” Zac said as he took a steadying breath.

Memories of his first real battle with a large beast resurfaced. It was his desperate struggle with Vul, the barghest alpha. The situation right now was a bit similar to that time, since he still didn’t possess a class when fighting the first Herald.

However, this time he didn’t feel ready to soil his pants from fear. Instead, Zac calmly looked the slumbering beast over for any clues to hidden aces. Since it was E-Grade it would have to have at least one Dao Seed, and Zac hoped it was an offensive one.

The natural defenses of E-Grade beasts were high enough, and Zac wasn’t sure he’d be able to kill the animal if it had something like the Dao of Toughness. He only had his body and this Daos at the moment, and no skills to amplify his powers.

“Good luck,” Ogras only said as he receded into the shadows.

Zac hid for another few moments and observed the snoring beast until he started to push the miasma in his body down toward his legs. He knew that the amount of energy available to him at level 1 was extremely limited, but he didn’t want to ration it. His goal was to get in and quickly kill the animal before it could retaliate.

He slowly inhaled and adjusted the grip of his axe, before exploding into action.

He didn’t have [Loamwalker] to push his speed to the limit, but he did have almost 350 strength to propel himself forward, each step creating an explosion of stone flying all over and leaving a crater in his wake.

He didn’t expect to be able to sneak up on the beast, as it was completely out in the open, and the aura he passively emitted was much too conspicuous. Instead, he chose to ignore any attempts at stealth, instead pushing forward with maximum speed.

The tiger woke up with a start as he approached, but before it could orient itself Zac was in melee range with his axe falling. A strike containing everything Zac could muster, and enhanced with the Dao of Sharpness, struck the throat of the tiger like a falling meteor. Over half of his available Miasma was contained in that strike.

The power was so great that the beast was slammed into the ground, and a large jagged rip could be seen. But to Zac’s disappointment the damage didn’t look deadly. He didn’t stop for a second, and followed the swing by forcefully kicking the throat of the beast with all his accumulated speed and his Dao of Heaviness.

It sounded like something was damaged in the throat of the tiger as it gave out a weird gurgling in pain. But while the beast had been too lax about its security since it was all alone in the crater, it wasn’t any pushover.

Weird cracks in space burst out from the animal, completely shattering the hill and the closest trees. Zac was affected as well, bloody wounds opening over all his exposed skin even before he could use his defensive gear. He was lucky that he had such a high Endurance, othwise he feared he would have been diced into small cubes by the attack.

He wasn’t sure what the attack did, but its effect was similar to The Dao of Sharpness. However, he couldn’t discern the attacks themselves, but only the results.

Even though Zac wasn’t seriously hurt he was briefly stopped by the weird wave, and the tiger capitalized on it to attack him with a fierce swipe. This time Zac used his defensive charge to block it, but it cracked in no time.

The strike almost made Zac black out as he flew across the air. He had wrongly thought Dexterity was its main attribute since it was a feline beast, but clearly it was Strength. To Zacʼs horror, he noticed he was actually flying toward the large field housing the Mystic Realm entrance.

Vicious cracks in space randomly spread all over the field, anyone able to cut him into pieces without any effort. He knew no defensive measure would be able to put up the slightest resistance against a dimensional tear, and he immediately started sprinting back toward the tiger the moment he landed.

Zac thanked the stars for his high Luck attribute as he bobbed and weaved going by his gut instinct, praying that a tear wouldn’t crop up right inside his body. Luckily the cracks weren’t too densely spread at the edge of the field, leaving decent wiggle room to get out. He kept running and jumping around until he finally reached the edge of the clearing.

However, Zac’s brows furrowed when he noticed the tiger standing in wait, just at the edge of the clearing. Their eyes locked for a second and Zac roared as he jumped straight at it. The tiger roared straight back, and it was clear that it wanted to swat him back into the lethal field.

The beast understood just how dangerous it was close to the entrance, and it tried to have the dimensional tears do its work for it. But Zac didn’t flinch at the incoming paw but instead unleashed his Dao Field for his Seed of Heaviness to the fullest just before he arrived at the monster.

The odd mental heaviness from his Dao froze the tiger for a split second, and that was all that Zac needed as he passed by the incoming paw and embedded his axe into the left eye. Immediately after he plunged a tomahawk into the other eye of the beast with his left arm, completely blinding it.

The tiger wailed in pain and started to trash all over, and Zac swiftly jumped out of the way. Its throat was still bleeding, but Zac knew it wouldn’t be enough. With a sigh he waited a bit for an opening, once again jumping in to attack the same spot on its throat as before.

Since he’d managed to blind the beast the fight was essentially over, though it took a couple of sneak attacks until the tiger finally bled out. It also managed to get in another decent swipe at Zac when he attacked, though this time he wasn’t punched into the field of dimensional tears.

Zac sat down next to the corpse of the tiger, heavily panting, letting the System drown him with a deluge of refreshing power from gaining multiple levels. Felling an E-grade beast at level 1 was no joke, even if many factors were in his favor. This tiger was on the bottom rung as far as evolved beasts went, but a kill was a kill.

He was pretty spent, so he took out a crystal as he opened his status screen, but he quickly threw the crystal away after it felt like hand caught on fire. Confused he looked down at it, only to realize his mistake. He had suspected this might be the result, which was why he also hadnʼt dared activate his Dao of Trees so far.

He had been occupied with checking out the results from his battle, and had forgotten to pick out the correct type. He quickly swapped out his nexus crystal with an F-Grade Miasma Crystal and once again opened his menu.

Name

Zachary Atwood

Level

22

Class

-

Race

Draugr (E)

Alignment

Port Atwood - Lord (Earth)

Titles

Born for Carnage, Ultimate Reaper, Luck of the Draw, Giantsbane, Disciple of David, Overpowered, Slayer of Leviathans, Adventurer, Demon Slayer I, Full of Class, Rarified Being, Trailblazer, Child of Dao, The Big 500, Planetary Aegis, One Against Many, Butcher, Progenitor Hegemon, Core, Apex Hunter

Dao

Seed of Heaviness - Middle, Seed of Trees - High, Seed of Sharpness - Early

Core

Duplicity (F)

Strength

344

Dexterity

162

Endurance

220

Vitality

188

Intelligence

90

Wisdom

85

Luck

93

Free Points

42

Nexus Coins

21 533 653

The experience gain was extraordinary, pushing him straight to level 22, just 3 levels shy of level 25. He also sensed that he wasn’t too far off from gaining another level as well. It was just crazy to think that one kill was equal to all the pain and struggle he underwent the first month up until killing Vul.

But that was simply how things worked, the difference in Cosmic Energy gained between different level beasts was far higher compared to the difference in Nexus Coins gained. It was the same with the amount of energy needed to gain another level, as it increased exponentially.

However, Zac was a bit confused as he looked at his status screen. His attributes were exactly the same as before, his new title not giving him a single point. He quickly focused on his new title to see what was going on.

[Apex Hunter: Solo kill enemy one whole tier above you. Reward: Effect of Attributes +10%]

Zac’s brows rose in surprise since this was something he hadn’t encountered before.

“Nice fight, you looked very heroic jumping back and forth to avoid the cracks like a monkey,” Ogras said as he emerged from the shadows.

“Whatever. It worked, didn’t it?” Zac snorted. “More importantly, take a look at this. What does this mean?”

He displayed his new title to Ogras, who whistled in surprise.

“So it was a high tier Title, should have figured,” Ogras muttered.

“High tiered Title?” Zac asked confused.

Of course he knew that some titles were better than others, but he never had heard of any classification like this.

“Yeah. Low tier titles give static rewards. They are good in the beginning to help accumulate other advantages, but by the end of E-Grade class they are mostly worthless apart from those that give luck. The mid-tier gives the percentage boosts. These are what most people desperately try to gain, as they will always be useful.

“Next are the high tiered ones, who also gives percentage boosts. But these titles work differently. Each one will independently boost your whole attribute after the other titles have been added. And they each do this independently of each other. The effect can get enormous.”

Zac understood what he meant. This was a top tier title that worked just like his Hatchetman’s Rage-skill. Instead of boosting his base attribute, it instead increased the effect of the attribute. This boost was far better, especially for him who already had a bunch of percent based boosts.

“Not bad,” was all Zac said as he placed his axe in the wound of the tiger that still bled profusely.

It wasn’t a top tier beast, but he wouldn’t turn his nose at the blood of an E-Grade animal, and clearly neither did his axe. It greedily sucked in a good deal of blood, and it actually started humming and vibrating. But soon it calmed down again and the sounds stopped.

“It’s almost there,” Ogras commented from the side.

Zac nodded with anticipation as he tucked away his axe. He would have to ask the explorers to keep their eyes open for more E-Grade beasts lurking on the islands they visited. Most of them in his territory were still unexplored after all.

“So what now?” Ogras asked curiously.

“I need to gain a couple of quick levels before the treasure hunt. You can go back if you want,” Zac said.

His goal was to attain a class first, then figure out how to turn himself back into a human.

“Sure, but I’ll take a leg of this guy, I deserve a nice meal as compensation for acting bodyguard,” he said as a couple of shadows severed one of the tiger’s hind legs after some effort.

Zac only smiled as he stored the rest of the tiger. For the following two days there was a new apex predator on the island, sneaking from territory to territory like a deadly specter. When Zac finally left, it was as though a terrible pressure had left the island, and the beasts could once again go about their lives.