"What in the…"
The participants looked at Eren's recent victim's remains with shocked and terrified faces. In the blink of an eye, the butcher had managed to completely neutralize his opponent using the most bizarre power possible.
The power to devour Life Force and vitality to the point that the mortal shell that housed it would cease to exist. The witnesses to this scene couldn't help having goosebumps on their skin when they looked at Eren's bemused expressions.
"Let's see… who's next?"
Eren looked around as he asked a casual question. The participants also decided to retaliate against the butcher.
"This fucking cultist…."
"Let's… let's kill him."
"Fuck… we can worry about the test later. We need to first get rid of this monstrosity."
The participants decided to create a united front against their common enemy. They looked at each other and came to a common understanding quickly. All of them were veteran rankers. They didn't need to think much to initiate team play.
Eren looked at his opponents and smiled. A pair of matte black daggers were summoned in both his hands before he raised them in front of him in a defensive stance to counter the incoming attack.
Blitz. Clang. Shook.
Eren successfully managed to block the incoming sword attacks one of the participants launched at him. However, his flying sword slashes were too potent and forceful for him to kill them while staying in his position. They managed to send him in the air away from where he stood originally while clashing with them.
Eren had to say that the sword master's mastery of his craft was truly impressive. Although the butcher was able to block his attacks, the swordsman didn't seem to want to escalate the situation. His only job was to send Eren to a particular location where he would be dealt maximum damage.
Wind-element projectiles.
Fire element slashes.
Water element weapons.
Earth element summons.
Spatial barriers that restrict movement.
Attacks powered by various elemental and Aspect fusions.
Restrictive spells.
Debuffing spells.
Elemental and non-elemental attacks -- launched with the help of Perks.
Before Eren knew it, he was bombarded with various offensive moves at once in mid-air. Participants had launched a sync offensive on him that was nearly impossible to dodge.
The participants watched with glee on their faces as their attacks sealed Eren's exit. Their timing and cooperation were as flawless as could be. Plus, some of them had enhanced the various aspects of their attacks with the help of the Perks.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Eren was bombarded with a barrage of offensive spells at once. He was forced to disappear amid their sheer intensity and quantity. A mana cloud was formed around Eren as a result which kept on expanding. It didn't take long for the mana cloud to descend on the ground following Eren's supposed trajectory.
"Heh! Was that guy a one-hit wonder? He didn't even retaliate."
One of the participants voiced his thoughts with a suspicious look on his face. He had to wait for the wild mana fluctuations in the surroundings to cool down a bit before he found anything about the target.
"Don't let your guard down. Prepare for..."
There was a female ranker who wanted to warn her allies about their common enemy. She felt that he couldn't be taken down with a single barrage of spells alone. However, she stopped her speech midway because she started seeing something through the mana cloud.
They were mouths.
Human and inhuman-looking mouths.
As the mana cloud shrouded Eren's supposed image, spectral mouths of various shapes and sizes surrounded it. Some of them showed that they had teeth inside them. Some looked like they were the mouths of beasts and monsters.
Their spectral lips also had long tongues sticking out. These tongues would move and lick the lips from which they came out. It also looked like the mouths were mocking their viewers.
These mouths could change their size depending upon the attack they were inflicting. They could be as imposing as an elephant and as small as a hummingbird's beak. It looked like they could appear anywhere inside the Domain of Gluttony, making them as omnipotent as the air in the surroundings.
It was gluttony mana that made these mouths.
Because their mouths were made from gluttony mana, they reeked of their intent. It felt like these bodiless mouths had been starving for centuries on end. And no matter how much they ate, their hunger would not be satiated anytime soon.
Their appearance shocked Eren's opponents-making them more terrified of his Ability.
The participants didn't understand the effects and uses of the Gluttony mouths. But they became wary of Eren's retaliation all the same. Some of them had also started feeling hungry after being exposed to the Gluttony mana. Intent-based mana was trying to enter their bodies, making them feel an unsatiated hunger rising from within them.
It didn't take long for the participants' elemental attacks to completely disappear. Their elemental manifestations ceased to exist after the mana that was used to power them was devoured by their mouths.
It seemed these mouths could even nullify the non-elemental attacks to some extent after devouring the very vector force behind them. However, the physical shocks the non-elemental attacks produced were enough to distort them to some degree.
"No way… our attacks were neutralized just like that?"
Another participant saw their elemental and non-elemental attacks being devoured by these mouths. These Gluttony mouths were the ones creating half of the mana clouds in the surrounding area by literally eating the spells and exhaling the residual mana.
Maya also observed Eren's bizarre Ability. She had no idea that he could devour the spells of his opponents inside the Domain of Gluttony. The spectral mouths devoured elemental spells relatively easily.
The Gluttony mouths were increasing the quality and quantity of gluttony mana inside the domain as they devoured the participants' attacks. But Maya had a feeling that was not the only thing they could do.
