Lloyd found himself walking for an hour straight. He knew now that he had just a little more than half his time in the void walk left, so he wanted to spend them fighting, not walking around the entire time.
Of course, several monsters attacked him on the way there, yet even though they were all at the peak of the first commandment or even half steps, Lloyd killed them with ease because he no longer had to hold back against these creatures.
Lloyd had already established to himself that he could take on a monster with 3 to 5 topaz seals without having to use a single one of his abilities, and now that his core was strengthened, it meant that even that any attack imbued with any mana of his would be extremely deadly.
However, now that he was in the void, there was no need to hold himself back since no humans were around to see his prowess.
"I'm honestly surprised how well a quaterstaff does in combat. You'd never think that a blunt weapon like this would be capable of so much damage." Lloyd thought while smashing a monster's head like a watermelon under the butt of his staff.
Looking up, Lloyd saw a deep crater that spanned out for miles. The crate itself looked like it had been there for decades, having been mostly terraformed by trees, plants, and animals.
Yet despite that, there remained a part of plain earth in the middle of the crater with a tiger/leopard laying in the middle of it, sleeping soundly as if nothing in the world could or would even dare disturb it.
"That's it..." Lloyd muttered to himself before creating a pair of shadow wings and floating in the air.
Lloyd didn't have the pride or stupidity of other folks who would have walked up to the creature and challenged it to a duel. No matter how much knowledge or experience he would gain from the battle, it wasn't worth risking his life, so he did the only thing that made sense.
Stretching his arms out on either side, Lloyd closed his eyes and expanded his magical aura.
He had to do this quickly so the creature wouldn't wake up.
Taking control of the energies in the air, Lloyd quickly activated a set of abilities while moving his stretched-out hands in front of him, and aiming right at the tiger monster that he was now certain was a Raiju. The creature had white fur with black lines that turned blue every time it breathed in.
Despite it being unconscious, lightning arcs zapped around its body and disintegrated anything within a 30-meter radius.
[Aspect of Void + Void Control + Flame Control]
Lloyd activated his void rune and channeled 70% of his entire mana pool through his arms and out of his palms.
The energy was intense, to the point that it sent mana fluctuations in all directions. The power was intense, and Lloyd had to use every bit of his will and concentration to keep it in the same place, stopping it from breaking apart or shattering.
Of course, he could have used [4-dimensional thought], but despite everything he thought earlier about using all he had from the start, [4-dimensional thought] was not one of the things he wanted to use.
After a month of using it and getting horrible headaches, he had felt a slight change in his attitude.
He had become colder and more prone to bursts of anger or killing intent. He became more self-centered and, to an extent, even obnoxious.
While at first, he thought that it must have been his grief and anger at himself that caused this, he only later realized that every time he used [4-dimensional thought], these thoughts of anger and violence only increased.
He still didn't understand why it happened. [4-dimensional thought] was supposed to isolate him from his emotions, and increase his thought speed and capacity while also taking his intelligence to its peak.
Anyway, the energy whirled around a single point, and as the purple flames concentrated on creating a ball of pure void plasma.
All of this happened in less than three seconds, yet by the end of the last second, the monster had awoken to look up at the attack that was being formed.
Opening its maw, ambient mana from all around it go instantly sucked through the black lines that had become bright blue now.
The energy went through its body and channeled itself into its maw, creating a powerful ball of pure electricity within it in less than a second.
Both beams shot simultaneously and clashed in the middle. Yet, despite slight resistance, Lloyd's beam instantly swallowed the Raiju's energy beam before appearing before the Raiju in the blink of an eye.
The tiger was about to turn into a bolt of electricity to move away as fast as possible and dodge the attack, but it was a little too late. If it swallowed its pride and did that from the start, it would have been able to move out of the way in time, even though it would have been caught in the residual blast of the attack.
Lloyd knew that it wouldn't move out of the way; after all, it was the king of this area of land; why would it move out of the way for a small bipedal creature that was challenging its authority?
Seeing that it was far too late for it to run away, the Raiju shrouded itself in several layers of protective lightning and took the attack head-on.
The blast caused a shockwave that spanned for several hundred meters, and possibly even several miles.
Everything within a hundred meters of the epicenter turned into ash and scorched land. When the black dust cloud that covered it finally dissipated, Lloyd saw the Raiju leaning on the ground, its fur scorched and its body on the brink of death.
Its breathing was weak as blood gushed into its throat every time it sucked in a breath, while its eyes were listless and white, as if its retina had been burned to the point of blindness.
Landing a few meters in front of it, Lloyd kept his wings active and took his staff into his hands, coating one side of it with void energy that he shaped in the form of a blade on either side, making the staff a two-sided spear.
"You know what I want." Lloyd spoke. His voice was cold, and his eyes were even colder, yet what scared the creature more than anything was the magnificent yet terrifying aura he was radiating.
