Lloyd's voice boomed out in every direction despite being cold, low, and emotionless. Scientifically speaking, his voice should not have been carried such a far distance, especially because he had not raised his voice. Yet, in a world of mana and magic, breaking the rules of physics was something that had become common.
All the wasps let out loud screeches and quickened their paces before beginning to attack Lloyd with their stingers and maws, yet when they reached him, one could say that their fates were already sealed.
His ability [4-Dimensional Thought] was already showing its prowess by completely neutralizing any emotions that could stand in the way of his bloodbath. He only felt the immense desire to kill the wasps before him.
His eyes grew cold, and when the forefront wasp came within a certain distance, Lloyd did not hesitate to swing up in an arch and slice the wasp vertically, turning it into two pieces with a single attack.
While he felt much more resistance this time, the creature before him was still far too weak to be considered a threat.
If anything, the normal wasparitica's battle prowess and strength were probably just a little higher than a full-grown non-awakened tiger's strength. The soldier wasps, though, were another conversation on their own as one could not compare them to any of the non-awakened animals, yet they still proved to be nothing but weaklings in front of Lloyd and his katana.
Lloyd's void walk might have only been 6 hours, but it was more than proficient in both giving Lloyd real battle experience and forming the first embers of his battle style. A battle style that, in the future, would cause many to shudder to their cores and others to wet themselves at the very sight of it.
Lloyd continued to cut down the remaining wasps. Lloyd's battle style could have been considered beautiful to many due to his blade weaving through the air and striking down his enemies... It was the battle style of his father, and therefore, he had inherited it, yet that all changed after the void walk.
His sword, rather than looking like an entrancing blade, now looked bestial and even ferocious. There was no elegance in Lloyd's movements, and behind every slash was the pure and heavy intent to kill.
Covered in blue blood, Lloyd quickly used his sleeve to wipe off the blood that had splattered on his face.
Thinking back to his abilities and how they could help him in the upcoming boss fight, he could not help but scratch his chin.
Abilities were things that were learned on instinct when a person awakened. This was also the case with his racial abilities, yet there was one crucial difference between his normal and racial abilities that came with being a void walker.
'Racial abilities use way too much mana. Especially that Void Channel ability. I have a feeling that I would instantly die of mana fatigue the moment I use it. Void Gaze has a very low minimum mana requirement for me to use the ability, but it also left the maximum requirement open-ended...' Lloyd nodded to himself and side-glanced at the nest in the distance.
Having no maximum mana requirement meant that the user could use all their mana at once with this ability.
'Void Step is just... What the hell is it? It sounds like an ability that would allow me to teleport short distances or even create portals, but I have no idea how to use it. Its mana requirement is huge though...' Lloyd sighed
'And the last one...' Lloyd furrowed his brows and looked at his watch, which was telling him all his racial abilities. His eyes landed on one of the abilities, and he could not help but scratch the back of his neck.
'Aspect of void... it feel like I know what it is, and I know that it would take a little over half my mana if I used it right now. But just like void channel, I have no idea how to use it!'
Minutes passed, and eventually, Lloyd stopped contemplating everything and started to move toward the nest. He knew that he had to finish the dungeon as quickly as possible. The faster he finished the dungeon, the less likely it would be for someone to find the dungeon and report it to the authorities.
Most dungeons had a time discrepancy, meaning that 5 minutes inside a dungeon could mean 1 minute outside it. An example was the labyrinth permanent dungeon that had a time discrepancy of 10 to 1.
Flashing through the forest, he appeared in front of the nest in mere minutes.
[Shadow Movement]
Lloyd began to sink into his shadow; before he knew it, he had become nothing but a blob of shadows on the ground. Despite being shocked by the sudden feeling of sinking into the ground, he became even more amazed when he finally entered his own shadow.
'I don't know what I was expecting, but this was certainly not it!'
Despite being nothing but a blob of shadows, he could still see and observer everything quite easily. Another thing he felt was that his movement speed had almost quadrupled in an instant, so now he had become a shadow capable of moving on the ground and seeing everything above.
Not wanting to waste any more time, Lloyd shot into the nest and again felt his speed increase.
When he entered the shadows created by the nest, his speed increased threefold, and his mana consumption dropped significantly. The amount of mana used was proportionate to how far away from the starting point he was. He could not regenerate mana in his current form, but now he realized that he could use the shadows of other objects or people to move quicker and further while using less mana.
However, the mana consumption was still a little high for Lloyd, so instead of taking his time, he blitzed through the nest, and after looking for almost 2 minutes, he finally found the queen's location with a little more than half of his mana left.
Leaving the shadow, he took a step to the side and blended in with the darkness of the walls while peering into the boss room. While he could have chosen to stay in the shadow, he could not regenerate mana inside there.
Peering inside the boss room, he could see an absolute goliath of a wasp, and immediately, he knew what the creature was.
Scanning it with his watch, he looked at the holographic screen and squinted his eyes.
[Warpiritica Queen]
Instead of charging in like a complete fool, he blended in with the shadows and waited for his mana to reach at least 75% or more, depending on his recovery speed. To his surprise, he regained his mana at a much faster rate than he thought he would, while at the same time, he felt like his body felt slightly stronger.
Thinking back, he quickly linked his feelings to one of his abilities, or to be exact, one of his passive abilities.
[Shadow Sustenance]
[An ability that gives a 30% boost in categories (Agility, Strength, Mana, Mana recovery, Damage output, Etc.) whenever the user enters an area with minimal light.]
After almost half an hour, Lloyd stood up again and entered the boss's room. He knew that the Wasp Queen hadn't reached the first commandment yet, so he had nothing to worry about. Or so he thought...
The moment he entered the room, a gigantic pressure pushed down on his body, and as if he was being looked at by an apex predator, he could not help but begin to sweat buckets.
'Maybe I should have just run away...'
Seeds of doubt began to sprout in his mind, but he quickly realized what was happening.
With a shaking body, he muttered-
"4-Dimensional Thought."
[4-Dimensional Thought]
[Once 4-Dimensional Thought is activated, the ability user will lose all irrational thought. Their minds would become calculative, and their thinking speed would skyrocket.]
In an instant, all the fear Lloyd felt dissipated into nothingness. His eyes went from wariness to being completely cold, while his expression showed no emotion.
In what seemed to be a flick of a switch, his persona completely changed, and he had become a completely different person.
Killing intent seeped out of his body while he suddenly began to leisurely walk towards the Wasp Queen, who was staring daggers at him.
Standing up, the Wasp Queen let out a nest-shaking roar, yet despite the power and pressure behind the roar, Lloyd seemed completely unaffected.
Unbeknownst to him, he had previously used a fraction of 4-Dimensional Thought's power. Now, however, he was using it to its full potential.
Only one thought went through his mind, and it was-
'I need to get stronger.'
Analyzing his opponent, he immediately found several weak points that he could try and exploit, and in the middle of a single step, he had already created a plan.
The moment his foot touched the ground, the battle started for real.
Without waiting for another second, both of them began their attacks.
In an instant, several smaller wasps began to appear from behind the Wasp Queen. While alone, those wasps were not a threat in the least; together, they stood a chance against him. However, he was not idle either.
His body slowly began to sink into his own shadow, and before the Wasp Queen could understand what had happened, he had already disappeared.
A few seconds later, she felt overwhelming pain surge from her stomach as blood gushed out like a waterfall.
Letting out another screech, she disappeared from where she was with a single flap of her wings before appearing 30 meters high.
The wind pressure alone was enough to make all her children get flung into the distance, yet due to Lloyd having submerged from under her, he was left completely unscathed.
'It has a wind affinity...' Lloyd thought, and without waiting for an instant, several plans formed in his head.
Affinities were things that people could naturally awaken. While not many awakened an affinity before their first commandment, it was not rare for someone to have an affinity before that.
The Wasp Queen had the win affinity, and therefore she was extremely fast...
While the [Shadow Movement] ability was powerful, Lloyd found it difficult to control what direction he would reappear in. If the Queen happens to have a quick reaction speed, she would not have a problem killing Lloyd the moment he appeared since she already saw him use the ability before.
Despite the Wasp Queen clearly having the advantage of being airborne, Lloyd was not worried in the least.
Looking at her with an apathetic gaze, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Opening his eyes again, they began to glow brighter than ever before.
In the same instance, the Wasp Queen suddenly felt a powerful pressure weigh down on her before her vision changed.
Suddenly, she found herself in the middle of an infinite void. It spanned out for millions of miles and seemed to have no end. However, this was not what startled the Wasp Queen.
In an instant, she felt a shudder that reached her core as her eyes slowly drifted towards the thing that caused her to feel this way.
A pair of enormous illusionary eyes stared down at her from the depths of the abyss. Its gaze was one that saw her as nothing but an insect, and ironically enough, she was just that. An insect in front of a king.
A bug in front of a limitless void walker.
While Lloyd's talent assessment suggested that he was barely a 2-star talent, in reality, that was just the assessment of his mortal body, or to be specific, it was the result he would have gotten if he wasn't a void walker.
There was no way that a machine so pathetic would have the ability to scan a void walker's talent, and this was due to one thing...
A void walker's talent was limited only by their dedication and hard work.
After a few seconds, the void the Wasp Queen was put in had become no more, and her mind was promptly returned to her body.
Before she could do anything, however, she found herself falling to the ground with several cuts on her body that sent blue blood gushing out in all directions.
She immediately tried flapping her wings but quickly realized that her wings were falling alongside her, yet this time, they were detached from the rest of her body.
*BOOM*
A loud explosion shook the nest as the Wasp Queen finally reached the ground. She was on the verge of death, yet she still forced herself to look up one more time and see the person responsible for this.
Peering through the dust cloud, her eyes met with a pair of cold bright violet eyes that looked down on her. As those eyes came closer, a figure stepped out of the dust cloud while brandishing their blade. Despite being unintentional, a pressure far exceeding the power of a normal human seeped out of their body and pressed down on the Wasp Queen.
"Looks like this is the end for you..." Lloyd muttered under his breath as he was more than aware that the Wasp Queen would not understand a word of what he said.
Lloyd continued to walk to the Queen's side while not uttering a single word.
*Swoosh*
*Thud*
With a single swing, he decapitated the Wasp Queen, her head dropping to the ground with a loud thud, and its cries of agony no longer echoing within the nest.
