Autophagy

Facing the five monsters, Song Lei's soul was calm as ever. Instead, the ones that were worried were the monsters. Because of the difference between their souls and Song Lei's, they felt pressure weighing down on them. Looking at each other briefly, they all came to a silent agreement to fight together against Song Lei.

As they carefully looked at Song Lei, trying to guess his general abilities, Song Lei also did the same to them.

He could somewhat feel the difference between himself and the monsters.

"They are all physical monsters other than the seemingly normal human spirit," Aston whispered to Song Lei. "Fortunately, that sword in your hand seems to be able to hurt ethereal beings. Just looking at it causes me to shiver..."

Hearing Aston's words, Song Lei sucked in a deep breath. The Excommunicator was truly an exceptional sword. Its sturdiness, sharpness, and weight distribution were on another level than any other weapon he had put his hands on inside Aston's dream space. However, most importantly, it had a strong spirituality that allowed it to hurt living beings significantly. Put together with Song Lei's soul, they were an absolute menace.

Lifting his sword horizontally and lowering his body, Song Lei flared up his soul. As if the engine of a car had been kickstarted, an ethereal hum resounded throughout the floor. Soul energy poured out of Song Lei, covering his body alongside The Excommunicator. While doing so, he activated his skill 'Adrenal Rush' and decided his course of action.

For now, the two sides were in a status quo. Neither of the sides was making a move, waiting for the other to start. Normally, in such a situation where he was outnumbered, Song Lei would've been smarter and used tricks or strategies to split the 5v1 into a few sequences of 1v1s. However, such a thing wasn't needed at the moment. He felt like he could overwhelm the monsters in a direct confrontation.

Kicking the ground, Song Lei dashed towards one of the mouth-faced monsters to his left. Before the monster could react, Song Lei appeared in front of its face, swinging The Excommunicator that was encased in his soul energy in a wide arc. As a streak of light flashed inside the corridor, the monster's chest was split open, bleeding out a gray, gooey substance.

In an instant, the monster was left in an incapacitated, barely living state. Not betting another thought on it, Song Lei turned his head to his right and saw that the monsters had spread out into a crescent, trying to siege him from every side. Unfortunately for them, that wasn't an easy thing to do against someone like Song Lei.

As his blood was fueled with adrenaline by his adrenal gland, Song Lei felt his muscles roaring with energy. All of his senses became sharper and sharper until they eventually reached a state where he felt everything around him slow down.

Utilizing this, Song Lei dodged an incoming glob of red-colored liquid that had been launched towards him by the amalgamation of human body parts. Although he didn't know what it was, it was easy to guess that it was something dangerous.

After dodging the attack, Song Lei noticed the remaining two mouth-faced monsters barreling towards with their mouths open at an impossibly wide angle. Seeing this, Song Lei didn't dodge and took a quick step forward, dashing to their backline.

Behind this line of three monsters was the male human spirit. As opposed to before, it was making erratic facial expressions that made no sense. One moment, it was smiling. The next, it would cry... Accompanied by this, its eyes were completely black. Just looking into them made Song Lei remember the illusion sent to him by the mysterious being.

As Song Lei swung The Excommunicator, he felt it ripping through the spirit cleanly. The heavy spirituality of the sword was much greater than its physical self, making it even stronger against such ethereal enemies.

As Song Lei created a deep wound on its waist, leaving its uniform insides open. This caused the spirit to fall down from its floating state and stay on the ground motionlessly.

Seeing this, the rest of the monsters became even more fearful of Song Lei. They did their best to make their bodies look big as they slowly backed down towards the main entrance.

Obviously, Song Lei wasn't going to let them. He had to cripple all of them thoroughly until they had no energy left to move. Seeing their scared states made Song Lei feel an awkward satisfaction. However, that feeling was quickly scattered as his intuition started ringing alarm bells.

In a split second, he heard a muffled explosion from his behind. He wanted to dash forward and dodge, however, he still had to deal with the three monsters in front of him. As he was unable to dodge, Song Lei was covered in black smoke in an instant.

The feeling it gave was awkward. Rather than a gaseous substance, it felt more like a gel.

"Ugh..." Song Lei grunted as he did his best to protect his eyes from getting blocked. Unfortunately, the black smoke was blocking his vision. Also being stripped of his smelling sense, Song Lei sealed off his unusable senses and focused on the others.

However, quickly, he noticed a subtle difference in his senses. Before, even in a state where he would be blind, he wouldn't feel too uncomfortable. Now, however, he felt lost. As if he was in the middle of a vast ocean in the night with no land in his vision, his intuition had dulled.

'This might be the effects of me closing my spiritual eye...' He guessed. However, as he had no way of confirming, he discarded this thought.

Fortunately, his senses had improved a lot compared to before. Even with the noise created by the black smoke, Song Lei could hear three distinct footsteps slowly encircling him.

'Heh... Did you really think that you would be able to take me down like this...?'