Chapter 398: Who Is He?

While the monster was Tier 4, he wasn’t worried. Compared to Savath, this thing seemed positively frail. Standing on four long legs and a massive jaw that could swallow each of them whole, it may have looked scary, but its aura told a different story. This beast was a relatively new Tier 4.

He felt the others were prepared to engage it, but he held up his arm. “Don’t waste your mana. Keep saving as much as you can. I have plenty,” he assured them and dashed toward the monster before they could argue with him.

A blast of mana came from its massive maw, but Julius had already sensed it building up a charge and deflected it upward so that the others weren’t hit. As he dashed toward it, he sent the needle he had hovering over his shoulder screaming through the air.

The monster noticed the attack, and he saw a film of mana appear, protecting its fur. It still didn’t completely stop the needle. It pierced the defensive skill and entered its hide. The beast screamed in pain and looked toward Julius with wild anger.

He had already crossed the distance and was in front of the beast’s face. The giant gaping maw lunged at him with surprising speed, but he used a small [Void Step] to appear beside it. Since the distance was short, the cost was very low.

His additional levels made the skill cheaper to use as well, so he wasn’t too concerned with using the movement skill, especially when it gave him openings like the one in front of him. The beast had overextended with the lunge, and he punished it.

A fist surrounded with kinetic energy and his aura ripped through the beast’s body. He sent it stumbling backward, and he didn’t let it recover. He kept on swarming it relentlessly. It didn’t have time to retreat.

The monster was forced to use some kind of technique to blast him away and swiftly got back up, bearing its huge fangs at him. There was blood dripping from the corner of its mouth from the attacks Julius had subjected it to.

It was suddenly much more cautious than before and didn’t reveal any openings for him to attack.

That was why he created his own opening. He took control of the needle that was still impaled in the beast and exploded it into many shards of sharpened mana. This was obviously painful, and the monster screamed in pain as it writhed on the ground.

He made sure to take advantage of this and dashed forward. He slammed his heel onto the monster’s face before it could protect itself. It attempted to bite onto his foot, but the pain it was experiencing was too much, and Julius was able to avoid the sharp teeth pretty easily.

He then pinned it to the ground, using his kinetic energy to aid him. It desperately tried to snap at him with its jaws, but he didn’t care. He used his hands, which were covered in aura-woven mana, to pry the mouth open. His strength was not enough to completely rip it open, so he used some additional kinetic energy and mana to aid him.

Once he got it open, he shoved a condensed orb of mana down its throat.

He snapped its jaw shut and watched impassively as the orb detonated in the monster’s throat. The explosion ripped open the Tier 4’s neck and face, killing it instantly.

Blood and gore went everywhere. He distractedly wiped all of the mess from his face and created another needle that shot toward a monster who was about to attack his friends while he was busy. The beast was dead before it knew what hit it.

He sprinted back to the others, who were staring at him like he had grown two heads. “What?” He asked, confused by their reaction. It wasn’t like this was the first time they had seen him fight. They had sparred with him on many occasions.

“Damn,” Aubrey said with wide eyes.

“What? You’ve seen me fight before. Why are you surprised?” He pointed out.

“Yeah, but that was still a Tier 4 monster. You took care of it like one would do with a weak goblin,” Aubrey stated with pursed lips.

“Yeah, that was brutal,” Lily said.

Julius shook his head. They shouldn’t be focusing on that right now. “I think we should try to get some distance between us and this group. I have a feeling that these monsters were only the beginning,” he told them.

“So you don’t think this is random either, right?” Lily asked him.

He shook his head. “I haven’t sensed anyone who might be behind all of this, but the timing is weird, and I don’t want to stay around if things get ugly with some of the stronger monsters.” As if to prove his point, a loud explosion of gold lightning rang through the forest. The Tier 5 guild member and the Tier 5 monster were fighting aggressively, and he spotted several people getting caught by a stray lightning bolt. However, just this stray was enough to have them scream in pain and thrash around on the ground, paralyzed.

The others didn’t need much convincing after seeing that and nodded their heads as they made their way toward the edge of the forest.

However, as they were making their way, he spotted the ship they had ridden to the rift suddenly explode with mana. He looked over, worried that their ride had exploded, but let out a sigh of relief when he saw that it wasn’t the case.

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The enchantments he sensed when he was flying on it had activated, and the entire battlefield was blasted by the mana cannons placed on the ship.

The cannons were shockingly precise. They didn’t harm any humans and were only targeting the monsters. These cannons helped reduce the number of monsters significantly and alleviated the pressure on some of the teams that were struggling.

They made it to the edge of the battlefield and spotted several other teams who had similar ideas. He even saw the team they had talked to before entering the rift alongside them.

“Are you guys alright?” The girl, named Eris, yelled out when she saw them approach.

“Yeah, what about you guys?” Lily asked back, looking relieved that she was alright.

“A little tired, but staying alive for the time being,” Eris answered. While she and her team had taken care of themselves well, Julius noticed that they looked somewhat worried. They were nervously fidgeting as they stared at the ongoing conflict.