Letting out a roar that sounded like a mix between a human scream and a bestial growl, the primitive humanoid looked at Valyr with fury as it charged at him.
Seeing that he had successfully attracted its attention, the young man quickly distanced himself from the humanoid, making sure to not attract the attention of other humanoids along the way.
"[Crimson Blade Descent]." While doing so, he conjured a large blade made out of crimson flames, sending it directly to the humanoid that was trying to catch up with him.
Bang!
Within seconds, the crimson blade and the humanoid made contact, prompting Valyr to stop in his tracks to assess the amount of damage he had dealt.
However, at the very moment the dust caused by the collision had settled down, the young man could not believe what he was seeing.
"Nothing…?" With his mouth slightly agape, Valyr saw that there was no injury on the humanoid's body at all. It was as if the blade hadn't even collided with the humanoid in the first place.
Noticing that the humanoid was attempting to close the distance between them again, the young man proceeded to send out a crimson blade once more. However, this time, he focused his attention on the outcome of the collision.
Bang!
Watching the dust in the area get kicked into the air once again, Valyr kept both of his eyes peeled as he wanted to know what was going on. Thankfully, with [Hunter's Tracking Eyes] running on overdrive, he was able to find it out.
"Mana barrier…" muttered the young man to himself, glancing at the expression of the humanoid he was fighting against.
Though the humanoid still looked at him with great anger in its eyes, for some reason, Valyr could feel like there was now a hint of mockery within the gaze.
It was as if he felt like the humanoid was now beginning to look down on him.
"[Crimson Blade Torrent]!" Pushing the useless thoughts that lingered in his mind to the side, the young man decided to sent out yet another attack. Though, unlike the two previous attacks, he opted to overwhelm the humanoid through sheer numbers.
'Since it can cast barriers to intercept and defend against my attacks, I wonder how it would fare against a barrage of attacks?' With this thought in mind, a slight smile appeared on Valyr's face as he distanced himself from the humanoid.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Then, after hearing the blades collide with something, Valyr pushed his perception to its very limits to find out how the humanoid was faring. Not only that, but he even manipulated the crimson blades to rain down from above in order to avoid dust being kicked up.
"What in the…" With Valyr's eyes widening in great disbelief, it went without saying that the humanoid had been able to defend against the barrage of attacks.
However, even though the humanoid was successfully defending against the attacks, if one were to look at the way it was currently defending against it, one would instantly say to themselves that the humanoid's method was incredibly wasteful.
"…" Blankly staring at the barrage of crimson blades raining down from above, the humanoid stood in place as it conjured barrier after barrier to intercept the crimson blade and dispel it.
Then, after the blade had been dispelled, rather than keep the barrier where it was since it could still withstand a few attacks, the humanoid instead dispelled it before conjuring a barrier that would intercept another blade.
Without even moving an inch from its place, the humanoid conjured over a couple dozen barriers every second, intercepting every crimson blade that threatened to inflict an injury on it.
Even Valyr's conscious manipulation of the skill to conjure the blades did not make the humanoid falter. Instead, it pushed itself to conjure even more barriers than before, reaching over 40 barriers a second after the young man had pushed his skill to the limit.
Seeing how the humanoid did not even care about how much it wasted in dispelling and conjuring multiple barriers every second, a thought eventually surfaced on Valyr's mind that brought him a slight smile.
Letting out a soft snicker, he said to himself, "With its current mana expenditure, it won't take long until the humanoid runs out of mana and succumbs to the barrage of blades I'm sending down."
With that in mind, he went ahead and cast his identification skill to find out how much mana the humanoid had left. However, once the humanoid's status screen appeared in front of him, Valyr was left at a loss for words once more.
Ding!
MP: 18,534/26,720
"It's only used up a quarter of its mana?" Muttering these words out in disbelief, Valyr began to calculate in his mind as to how long it would take for the humanoid to run out of mana if he kept the skill up.
Unfortunately for him, the answer to this question could not be obtained…
Since he would be the first one to run out of mana.
"What to do…" Frowning at this realization, Valyr allowed the skill to run for a bit longer before eventually terminating it since he found out that it was just a waste of his mana.
"Groooaaggghhh!!!" On the other hand, after seeing that it had no need to defend against magic attacks anymore, the humanoid charged at Valyr once more, its expression filled with rage.
Watching the humanoid close the gap between them, a flash of inspiration appeared in Valyr's eyes as he avoided the humanoid's strike at his stomach. Then, in one swift motion, he took out the spear from his back before thrusting it towards the humanoid.
"[Arcane Shadow Serpent Combat Style]."
"[Strike of the Lightless Arcane]!"
Bang!
"Graagggh!!!" Swiftly manipulating Shadow Energy and mana into the tip of his spear, Valyr's strike landed on one of the weak spots he was aiming to hit. In response, the humanoid cried out in pain before attempting to land an attack in retaliation.
"[Descent of the Dark Arcane Fang]." Unfortunately for the humanoid, as if Valyr had finally realized what was going on, he avoided the attack once more.
Then, utilizing another technique from [Arcane Shadow Serpent Combat Style], his spear directly collided with the humanoid's head.
Boom!
With the strength and the energy he had put into the attack, it was no surprise that the humanoid's head burst into chunks, its headless body falling to the ground not long after.
"That… was more difficult than I thought it would be." Hearing the notification sound confirm his kill, Valyr stared at the corpse of the primitive humanoid he had killed for a bit before opening up the notification screen to view his gains.
Ding!
[With a 10+ level disparity between the user and the opponent, the amount of experience obtained shall be increased by 200%.]
[You have slain a Level 75 Primitive Humanoid (Mythic Elite). You have gained 2,407,995 XP.]
[You have made progress in realizing the next stage of Slayer of Ascendants (2/1000).]
"At least the XP gained makes up for it." Briefly whistling in response to the notifications he had obtained, Valyr began to make his way to where the five of them previously were, arriving there around half an hour later.
…
"So, how was it fighting against the primitive humanoids?" At the very moment Valyr appeared in front of the others, the four looked at the young man with apologetic smiles as they thought about their seemingly delusional ideas from earlier.
Hearing the four of them briefly apologize for something even he had thought about, it was no surprise that Valyr quickly brushed it off, telling them that their current situation was far better than getting stuck on their previous ideology.
After talking with the four for a bit more regarding other things, the young man finally responded to the question one of them had asked him earlier. "Unexpectedly tedious."
"How so?" Being on par with Valyr when it came to combat prowess, Hal raised his eyebrow in curiosity at the response.
"I have no idea if it applies to all of the primitive humanoids in the four quadrants, but the one I fought had near-impenetrable magic defense," replied Valyr to the question.
After that, he began to tell the others his experience against the lone primitive humanoid, causing almost all of them to frown after hearing that even sending a barrage of magic attacks was easily defended by the humanoid.
Though, once they heard that the humanoid's defense against Valyr's magic only consume a quarter of its mana pool in doing so, the ones that relied on magic looked in horror as they continued to listen to the young man's retelling.
Hearing that the humanoid was surprisingly easily killed with physical attacks without much problem, the others' greatest fears weren't realized, prompting them to muster up the courage needed to fight against their new foes.
"Let me try fighting against one." After Valyr was done retelling his experience fighting against the primitive humanoids, Hal became incredibly eager to fight against them.
After all, with how he relied on his blade for combat most of the time, that meant his upcoming battles would be a piece of cake.
Hearing how eager Hal was, Valyr quickly gave him the go ahead, prompting him and the other three to watch Hal as he eventually found a lone primitive humanoid not far away from where the others stood.
Watching Hal send out blade after blade against the humanoid he was fighting against, a weird thought began to bubble up in Valyr's mind as he saw the humanoid easily defend against each and every attack.
"Don't tell me…" Though, just as he was about to voice his thoughts to the others, Hal quickly sheathed his blade before switching to magic.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Seeing that magic was the more effective combat style against the primitive humanoid Hal chose, Valyr could only let out a sigh.
"And just when I thought fighting against them couldn't get any more tedious."
