Cosmic Peak

*SWOOOOOH....*

Suddenly, a flowing beam shot towards Jin from one of the flying beasts that looked like a turtle with wings.

Jin grinned as he opened his mouth and blew outwards strongly, causing a pink balloon-like thing to conjure in front of him that deflected the laser right back at the turtle before pointing both of his Khaos flags towards the turtle monsters.

Aren also received an attack from a flying wolf with three heads as some of the monsters at Supreme and Exceed rank were deliberately allowed to go behind the lines by those big shots at the front line since they focused on big preys and held them back.

Aren manipulated his [Hexhisra] shield to block the attack before manipulating his hammer to one-shot the wolf with his usual buffed attack.

This time, he had gained some comprehensive idea on how much energies to use to kill a beast in one shot with his hammer without wasting valuable energies like Soul, Armalist force, and Mutant Magic as they take time to recover, unlike Spirit energy which he can recover through Spirit stones and absorb from the atmosphere to recover it faster.

*BOOOOM...*

[-63,700]

"Close," Aren muttered. The wolf's health was 60,000, and he had adjusted the energy according to its defenses, but he still wasted a bit since he dealt 3,700 damage more than necessary.

"Hahaha, that's some powerful attack," Jin spoke with a laugh as he also shredded the turtle beast into uneven pieces as if it was blasted from inside out.

"Your attack was more powerful," Aren said with a grin as he saw the turtle's stats and saw the damage, "however, it seems that you are behind me in the competition."

-------------------

[Aren]

-27,580

[Jin]

-21,910

-------------------

"Jin, this guy's hammer is no joke. You were focused on your battle, but a minute ago, I saw his hammer releasing an even more powerful attack at that Exceed rank beast in the front line and gave a finishing blow to it."

"It looks like I have to focus more, hahaha," Jin said with a laugh.

Aren was focusing as he occasionally waved his hands to release skills while manipulating his gears the entire time to attack continuously.

He only used fire primal conjuring attacks from the rings for the highest power, such as fire and water or fire and lightning.

Since he could see his target's health, he also gave finishing blows even though the exp. he would get would be less since the experience was distributed through contribution, unlike that emergency quest in the beginner village where he didn't get experience by killing the wolves.

Aren focused the rings and the chain whip on attacking the stronger monster to get more contribution. He focused on their eyes and legs most of the time so that other powerhouses could have an easier time dealing with them.

As for the [Destructo] hammer, he focused it on both parts since some monsters would also attack him in the sky, and he had to attack them or trap them so that they could be finished off.

He used <Demonic Grasp> from [Slinger] gear for trapping because he could only affect Supreme-rank monsters with it. At the frontlines, it was not effective at all against those Exceed and higher lifeforms.

Time passed as seconds turned into minutes and minutes into hours...

The beast tide was almost over by now. After five minutes, all of the beasts were cleared up.

------------------

[Aren]

-217,450

[Jin]

-249,485

-------------------

"Geez, you really shocked me there," Jin spoke with a wry smile, "You were struggling with Spirit energy recovery as your attacks had decreased halfway."

Konish nodded, "he only had one force-level spirit stone, unlike us."

"You should be able to buy some force-level spirit stone after earning from quests in the Guild; they cost like 20,000 gold coins for common-grade," said Jin before grinning, "honestly, I would have lost if you were not struggling with Spirit energy."

"Well, I could get one more force level 2 spirit stone from a chest, but I had to prepare something before using it," Aren said with a wry smile, "anyway, your penguins were really ferocious, and those flags...I saw their effects, very powerful."

Jin nodded before glancing at Konish, 'let's invite him to the tournament.'

Konish nodded before he smiled at Aren and said, "since you are an otherworlder, you must be in a hurry to get stronger, right?"

"Yep," Aren nodded, "I also would like to get information on how to initiate demonic affinity and how to form a fire affinity core. Also, I will have to form demonic affinity core as well after initiating it."

"Initiating? You mean you have 0% understanding of the Demonic element and want to awaken that dormant affinity, right?"

"Yeah," Aren smiled wryly as he just used the term in his way since he didn't have information about such things.

"But from your question, you seem to have awakened the fire affinity, so why don't you awaken your demonic affinity as well unless..."

"Well, I gained both affinities in different ways. Got demonic affinity from a Demonic temple by successfully passing the trial and got fire affinity through the bloodline transfusion."

"Wait, wait, wait...," Jin spoke hurridly with a slight shock on his face, "Demonic trial? how did you get a quota for that? They are super fucking hard to get since each of those Demonic temples can start their demonic trial only using certain items that are hard to get or after a certain period of time when their mystical pools can recover."

"You got your affinity by staying in a strange pool, right?"

Aren nodded before he showed the Mark of Yakum, "got this Mark of Yakum, and by using it, I was allowed to take the trial."

"Holy shit!"

"Damn!"

Jin and Konish were dumbfounded seeing the black card with golden patterns before looking at Aren with respect, "this thing, you can only get it with your hard work, talent, and wits; there's no shortcut to it. Bro, I am sure you will rise high if you don't die midway."

"Man, you should awaken your demonic affinity as soon as possible. You also must have gained some powerful ability along with this, right? Damn, I'm a bit envious," Jin spoke enviously with a wry smile.

"But I don't know how to," Aren said with a speechless expression.

"Oh yeah, you asked us about it. Anyway, we will give you your question's answers and the opportunity to do it on the way," Konish said with a smile.

"On the way?" Aren raised his eyebrows, 'are they gonna invite me somewhere?'

"Yep," Konish nodded, "we are going for a tournament in the Nether region in this Underworld. It's for Supreme lifeforms only, and on top of becoming stronger during the tournament due to various events, the final reward is simply awesome."

"What is the final reward?" Aren asked with curiosity.