Bloom didn't answer, as since he entered this layer he felt like two eyes were glaring at him. He kept his hand from spending off his dark points. "The time will come for me to spend them all," he muttered as he believed he was eyed already by the Grator.
But after another half an hour he couldn't stand by and did nothing. The pets almost died and his dolls had less than two hundred.
"Tsk, you're quite a patient one," Bloom took his bow and checked his points. They escalated to reach one million figure, yet he had the belief this wasn't enough.
He released the arrows and spent two hundred thousand points to turn two hundred monsters to be his pets. "At least they won't consume the daily points at the end of the day," he tried to console himself by this big hole leaking out his points and consuming them non-stop.
The sudden rise of his pets turned the tide and during the next three hours he kept moving steadily forward. "Damn! When are you planning to appear?" Bloom cursed out loud all of sudden when he noticed the nearby end of this layer.
"What are you talking about?" the NPC asked like a moron, and Bloom was about to speak when he noticed a shadow on the far distance moving between the thick veil of trees and sea of monsters.
"It's there," he muttered, "was he waiting in the safe zone all this time?"
Bloom didn't know if that monster was trying to mock him or what, but he knew that Grator chose that spot so he would make all this effort of crossing the ninth layer be blown in the wind.
"We need to run," the NPC finally noticed the grand appearance of Grator on the distance, "it's waiting for us at the safe zone, we need to run away now," he shouted and Bloom just ignored him.
For Bloom he wanted to try his scroll over that monster. "Stay here," he simply said before adding, "keep the girls with you."
"What are you doing?" the NPC screamed while Bloom passed through the distance remaining before reaching the end of the forest.
The fight was still going on everywhere, but the remaining monsters were low in numbers; he could easily avoid them by taking some detours.
When he reached the edge of the safe zone, he saw the giant monster waiting for him with a smirk look on his face.
It was just as the NPC described, panther body and giant head full of horns. It was standing on two legs now while showing a smart expression of mockery over his face.
"You are such a sly monster, y'know," Bloom smirked before passing towards the safe zone while taking the bow back and holding the scroll in his hand.
"Roar!" the next moment the monster roared while two huge ore clubs appeared in two hands.
"Moment of truth," Bloom muttered before adding, "Activate the purgatory fire scroll."
"System alert: Player has used the purgatory fire scroll. All hostile enemies in one mile around the player will be affected. Fifty thousand dark points are deducted from the player account."
The next moment the monster was already upon Bloom waving its two clubs towards him, yet the fire started to rage from the scroll outward; like ferocious ocean waves in the middle of a mighty storm.
"Boom!"
The moment the fire appeared, wave upon wave hit the monster repeatedly without any pause, sending its giant body flying backward while a series of explosions appeared one after another.
Bloom watched in anticipation and the next moment the monster started to take damage.
"50k" "50k" "50k" "50k" "50k" "50k" "50k" "50k" "50k" "50k"
Ten rows of massive damage appeared in the next ten seconds, each related to one wave hitting the monster. Bloom just stood stupefied with these great numbers, while his mind had some guesses already.
"So using the scroll by a dark player created all this difference? Or what?" he muttered while watching the long HP bar of that monster be depleted by ten percent.
"phew, I only need ten of these attacks then," he muttered before adding: "Activate the purgatory fire scroll."
"System alert: the player just used the scroll and he needs to wait for ten more seconds to be able to use it again."
"What the hell?!!" This wasn't in Bloom's calculations at all. He hurriedly opened the details of the scroll and he didn't find anything referring to such cooldown time!
"Damn you, developers," he cursed before his mind spinned to find a solution. "Ten seconds with me facing this monster in the open, tsk, this isn't a good thing," he muttered before he started to run.
The ninth layer was just behind him, and he didn't dare to go there. He was sure the rest of the monsters there were all killed by his single attack right now. So he ran towards the tenth layer.
The safe zones weren't such big places, yet he needed almost a minute to cross it if he ran madly like this. The attack just tossed the monster away from him, yet he didn't feel that confident about crossing the layer successfully on his own.
"Roar!"
"Damn," Bloom cursed the moment that monster got freed from the effect of his scroll, "I need to keep it busy," he hurried to add, "shade doppelganger festival."
Fifteen dark clones appeared instantly and he hurried to shout: "Seven go and stop that maniac and the rest come with me."
Just as he finished, the clones did what he asked them for. They moved in two different directions and Bloom didn't need to turn to see the result of those seven who went to stop the monster.
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
Just two hits from the monster's clubs and he realized all his clones back there were finished for. Just as he was getting closer to the forest, the shockwave of these clubs' attacks just landed on his body, carrying him further to the front.
"-10000"