Cosmic Peak

The place behind the door that Aren went to was like a big cave. The ceiling was just 40 meters from the ground, and the whole cave was only 200 meters wide and 250 meters long.

Such a low ceiling limited Aren's ability to fly high and avoid damage, so he would have to be fully focused on dodging while fighting because this creature in front of him...too powerful.

[Ancient Creature, Lorn]

-Lifeform: Special

-Health: [1,20,000/1,20,000]

-Attack: Phy. [12,900], Umbra Wind [10,450]

-Defense: Phy. [3200], Energy [3140], Soul [600]

-Skills:??

-Abilities:??

The creature looked like a harpy but with black wings and a body with creepy dark-green patterns.

It was three meters tall creature with a wingspan of 7 meters. Its legs had sharp talons while its arms were connected to its wings like a harpy.

*Screeeeeeeeeee.....*

Lorn released an inhuman screech as it attacked Aren by flapping its wing and releasing dark wing blades.

On the other hand, Aren was in his most powerful form with his <Demonic Overlord> skill activated.

Without wasting a single second, Aren unleashed his gears and started attacking after dodging the fast dark-wind blades.

'Impairment..., I don't know its skills or ability, so I have to make sure it gets as few as possible chances to attack me properly,' Aren thought while attacking as he shot ten seeds of <Demonic Grasp> from his gear [Slinger] on his hand.

The Ring of Fire was releasing fireballs towards the creature's eyes as intended by Athan while his hammer was at the corner of the cave as he prepared to make a big bang with it like usual.

Aren manipulated the Legumeta Chainwhip [Lech] to attack the creature continuously at a fast speed. He was not releasing Sound slash as he had to be careful of his spirit energy limitation this time. He had already consumed 5000 spirit energy by using <Demonic Overlord>, and each sound slash would consume 1200 spirit energy as well.

*screeeee...*

After two seconds, Aren was surprised as the ancient creature, Lorn, seemed to be confused. There were dark purple spots on its body wherever the fireball or chain whip attacked.

'It's working! Well, it should,' Aren thought. He was also feeling more powerful, and a strange kind of energy that felt very familiar and similar to him was overflowing inside him, which felt like the Demonic power he felt when he obtained Demonic Affinity. All of this was the effect of <Demonic Overlord> skill.

<Demonic Overlord>

-Special Ability: It will grow as your Demonic affinity grows

-Effect 1: You can use your will to pressure your opponents

-Effect 2: +300 soul defense

-Effect 3: Demonic Descent

[Demonic Descent]: Consume 5000 spirit energy to gain a boost in your overall power for 2 minutes. Your attacks will be converted to demonic damage that can weaken your opponent's mind and decrease their overall defense. Temporary gains stats boost: +30 STR, +30 CONT, +30 AGI, +200 Soul energy, +200 soul defense.

-Note: The ability will unlock more effects and upgrade existing effects as you level up your Demonic affinity.

All of his attacks were now converted to demonic damage that weakened Lorn's mind and decreased its overall defense, causing his damage to increase.

-6789 (chain whip)

-5764 (fireball)

-6945 (chain whip)

-5978 (fireball)

*Screeeeee....*

A burst of dark wind released from the Lorn, and a whirling barrier formed around. The creature roared at Aren before dashing towards him with several blades of dark wind forming around it.

Aren turned somber as he focused and dodged the blades. But the creature was after him, and its speed was almost as fast as him.

By now, Aren had finished buffing his hammer as well, and this time, he went all out because the longer he dragged on, the more he would be in danger. He didn't want to experience all skills and abilities of this creature.

Since Lorn was now mind weakened due to his demonic attacks and had lowered defense, it was wise to kill it as soon as possible. After all, who knows if how long those debuffs will last on it?

Thankfully, being in <Demonic Overlord> gave him a boost in his overall state. His perception had increased a notch higher along with his various speed because his Agility was at...249.

Yes, it was not at 225 but 249. Normally, it should be at 225 because his Agility was capped at 200 while having 219 points. However, being in <Demonic Overlord> mode seemed to have broken that limit for 2 minutes. So it was 219+30=249 Agility, which increased his thought process, body moment, and such actions' speed, allowing him to be safe from the ancient creature's attacks by dodging at better pace.

*Zooooooooom..*

The burning hammer seethed with power as its <Impact Burst> skill was activated through 600 Mutant magic energy, boosted by 500 soul energy.

All of Aren's abilities were activated like <Demonic Flame: Zarkhel> and <Icy Enchant> as well, which helped lower the speed of the ancient creature.

Before finally unleashing the power of his hammer, Aren activated one last skill <Hyper Charge> by consuming 200 Armalist energy.

*Zoooooooom...*

The ancient creature screeched in anger while following Aren with utter madness in its eyes as if it had lost its mind.

Since the creature produced that barrier around it, the attacks of [Lech] and [Pyrin] were not hitting the creature at all.

However, it was time for the grand attack as Aren led the creature in a such way that the hammer would linearly hit its head.

*zoooooooooom....*

As the hammer zoomed towards the creature from behind it, the creature also loudly screeched as the patterns on its body glowed.

*Screeeeeeeeee....*

Aren had a bad feeling seeing this and hurriedly absorbed spirit energy from a spirit stone by taking it out from the inventory in his hand in a second with thought and infused spirit energies in [Hexhira] to activate the Crystal barrier.

{-Crystal Barrier: Infuse 1500 spirit energy and 100 Armalist Force into the shield to conjure a barrier with 4000 durability within a 5-meter radius around the shield. Barrier's defense values are half of the shield's value. [5 min cooldown].-}

Since Aren was flying backward all the time while facing the creature to observe its attacks, these strange glowing patterns felt bad news to him. The hammer was just one second away from hitting its head as well when Aren finished activating two barriers. Crystal Barrier and Wolven Sun Barrier. There was also an energy barrier around him that he triggered by attacking ten times consecutively.

*SHROOOOOOOOOOOOO....*

The creature released several dark wing tornadoes that continuously released dark-wind blades in all directions, along with a large dark green orb from its mouth towards Aren.

These attacks were utterly undodgeable by Aren, and right after the creature released those attacks, the hammer also hit its head.

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.....*

Aren braced for the impacts with his [Hexhira] shield that was in front of him.

*Pop...Pop...Booom..*

The three barriers were utterly broken one by one; the first two barriers were broken by the dark-wind tornadoes that released dark-wind blades in all directions, while the last barrier was hit by the large incoming orb filled with potent energy as a large blast occurred.

An overwhelming energy with intense wind pressure released from the orb as it blasted the barrier into oblivion before the potent energy blast hit [Heshira] gear and Aren.

*BOOOOOOOOOM.....*

Along with [Hexhira], Aren was flung back like a bullet; some slash marks appeared on his [Weimbus] armor and the shield while he spewed out blood trails before hitting the wall of the cave and coughed blood.

The strange dark energy in the blast entered inside him through his eyes, nose, and ears as they started damaging his internals.

[Ancient creature, Lorn, killed. 18,000 Exp gained.]

Amidst his dizzy mind and painful body, Aren heard the notification. However, he was in no shape to pay attention to it.

His mind was a mess right now, with intense headaches, and he was bleeding all over and internally.

His life was literally hanging by a few threads right now because if he didn't do anything to stop the energy inside his body from wreaking havoc, he would die within 30 seconds.

His body twitched continuously as he tried to move but failed.

'Level up...' Aren feebly thought as he couldn't find any other way to get out of this predicament.

[Unable to level due to your current status. Remove the umbra wind energy from your body before leveling up. If you level up right now, the essence entering inside you to level you up will fuel the umbra wind and make it stronger, resulting in instant death.]

'Wtf?'