Damien had spent three months in the Forest of Twin Disasters and during these three months, he'd gone from being scared to becoming a threat to the creatures living in the forest.
Today was a day of rest for him as Damien had just finished absorbing the essence out of every core within his vicinity which numbered in hundreds.
Within these past three months, Damien had advanced from hunting Grade Seven magic beasts and demons to hunting Grade Six ones.
Just like talents that ranked from E-Rank to SSS-Rank, magic beasts and demons were the same. Going from Grade Seven to Grade Zero in terms of power and deanger level with abilities ranked from E-Rank to SSS-Rank. However, the majority of creatures in this forest were of the lowest ranks—Grade Seven.
After having advanced to Level 25, Damien had discovered that the EXP he gained from killing Grade Seven magic beasts had fallen from three to one. The speedy rise in level was mostly due to his summon, Luton.
The summon, which had originally been a Grade Seven slime—the weakest possible rank—when it first arrived, had advanced a rank higher which had allowed Damien to hunt higher ranked magic beasts.
"Summon's Status." Damien muttered under his breath as he sat on the floor, his back resting against a tree's bark. This was a feature he discovered two months ago.
Endurance: 100 Intelligence: 5
Skills:- Universal Space, Devourer
The slime had two stats which were worlds apart. It possessed two inherent skills as well. Damien had been confused at first when he discovered that there were only two skills. He knew the slime had a restoration skill too but when he didn't see it on the slime's panel, he had questioned the system which revealed it was a sub-skill of Restoration.
With this knowledge, Damien had a rough idea of the slime's strength. Although it didn't possess strength as its most basic form of attacking was simply to devour its opponent whole, its endurance said a lot about it.
The slime could withstand certain physical attacks from more powerful magic beasts or outright devour the attack if it was a magical one.
Damien had made sure to utilise the slime's(Devourer) skill to the best of his knowledge. When they engaged in battles with a magic beast or a demon, Damien made sure to wear out their opponent by having the slime devour everything thrown at them.
Seeing the slime's progress made a wide smile appear on Damien's face and he quickly dismissed the panel. He was satisfied with this level of growth. As they advanced in strength in the forest, Damien also made advancements in his martial prowess.
Whenever they encountered a single magic beast, Damien engaged it himself. He honed his battle skills using the magic beasts and demons as test dummies and only when they were gathered would he utilise Luton, the slime that never left his head.
"You don't expend much magic essence so keeping you around isn't tasking at all. Not the slightest bit." Damien murmured again, his eyes tracing after the slime as its red body bounced around, absorbing the emptied cores around down.
This was its cleanup method. While the emptied cores were basically useless to Damien after absorbing the essence, they were still used to fuel the slime's growth. Devouring the cores themselves provided energy to further the creature's growth.
Damien's eyes wandered off through the gaps in the towering trees lost in thoughts about how he'd gotten here and when he snapped out of it, his eyes were staring at the red sky. The sky that reminded him of the war that was to come between humans and demons.
He quickly damned his surroundings and discovered that it was once again empty. All the emptied essence cores were gone as a result of Luton's cleanup. Speaking of Luton…
"Huh? Where have you wandered off to?" Damien asked himself as he discovered his summon was nowhere to be found.
He stood to his feet and glanced at the tree behind him. The thought of climbing it and calling out the name of his summon felt tempting but he knew his shouts would attract more than just the slime. Besides, the forest was so dense that he wouldn't be able to see through the canopy even if something was approaching him.
Damien looked around for a while and then he decided. He would wait it out. It couldn't have gone far.
Meanwhile, a mere three kilometres right of Damien's location, a magic circle suddenly appeared. It glowed red with a terrifying aura and then another magic circle appeared within it that glowed purple.
As the purple light brightened, space warped gently as though permeating something to pass through.
The light didn't last long as a minute later, it completely vanished, leaving behind six individuals. All clad in shining silver armors.
The group consisted of four men and two ladies. The first man, their leader, had short black hair and eyes that could peer into the souls of others. He wore a full body silver armor with golden inscriptions on it and a red cape. Strapped to his waist was a silver sword with a red crystal just above the handle.
The second and third men bore similar looks with brown hair and red eyes. They were taller than the others in the group and both carried similar silver shields. There was the head of a tiger on one of their shields while the other had the head of a menacing wolf.
The last man also had silver armor but he also wore a dark robe over it that covered most of his features. However, his black eyes told one that was the least excited about being here. His robe however, did little to his the long wooden spear in his hand with a silver head.
The two ladies, one with pink hair and the other with gold, both had red eyes like rubies and lips like peaches. They wore similar armors with scratches on the armour revealing they weren't newbies. While the one with pink hair had a short sword on her waist, the other had two short swords strapped to her back in a crisscross form.
"I guess this is it." Their leader's voice echoed as everything calmed down.