The heavy iron portcullis of the Obsidian Citadel ground upward. The massive chains screamed in protest against the sudden use.
Dawn broke across the horizon to paint the bruised churning sky in jagged streaks of violet and ash.
Lucifer walked through the massive archway. The Zephyr's Grace Emblem gleamed on his collar. The Carnage Core pulsed a slow rhythmic red light at his waist.
Elara strode exactly half a pace behind his right shoulder. Her battered silver armor was fully restored. Her gray wings tucked tightly against her back.
The synchronized earth-shaking march of five thousand Cryo-Vanguard Snipers echoed like a continuous drumbeat behind them.
They stepped out onto the ash-covered plains. The Whispering Weald lay directly ahead.
The forest was a towering nightmare of twisted black-barked trees and dense suffocating gray mist.
The Great Integration designated this entire biome as a high-density spawn zone. The Warlord's Trial hovering in Lucifer's interface demanded 500,000 kills. This was where the harvest began.
"The Fog of War is dense," Elara noted. Her starlight eyes pierced the thick gray mist. "It actively dampens magical resonance. Standard scouting will be severely limited."
"We do not need to scout," Lucifer replied smoothly and rolled his shoulders. "We just need to make noise."
Lucifer activated the Zephyr's Grace Emblem.
He did not run. He violently displaced himself. A sonic boom shattered the morning air as Lucifer shot forward and vanished into the thick gray fog.
He moved at speeds that completely broke the physics of his Level 1 mortal frame. The wind friction should have flayed the skin from his bones, but the Mythic emblem completely negated the drag.
He carved a physical tunnel through the heavy mist. He sprinted three miles deep into the Whispering Weald in less than four seconds.
He abruptly stopped. His boots slid across a patch of dead moss. He stood at the edge of a massive naturally formed crater in the center of the forest. The trees here had been violently uprooted to create a sprawling muddy basin.
The basin was literally crawling with heavy metallic bodies.
It was a primary nesting ground for the Iron-Hide Boars. There were easily ten thousand of the massive horse-sized beasts packed into the crater.
They were violently gorging themselves on the carcasses of lesser mutated animals. Their metallic bristles clashed together like grinding gears. Their acidic saliva pooled in the mud.
Lucifer did not hide. He stepped out onto the exposed edge of the crater ridge and drew his cheap steel broadsword. He drove the blade heavily against the nearest black-barked tree.
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
The rhythmic metallic ringing instantly cut through the grunting of the herd. Ten thousand heavy armored heads snapped upward simultaneously.
Ten thousand pairs of glowing bloodshot red eyes locked onto the single unarmored human standing on the ridge.
The unified guttural roar that erupted from the crater shook the leaves from the surrounding trees.
The ground violently trembled as the massive horde charged. A tidal wave of rusted metal, tusk, and acidic foam rushed directly up the slope toward Lucifer.
Lucifer smiled. He turned his back to the charging horde and triggered the emblem. He vanished and left a sonic crack in his wake.
He reappeared at the edge of the treeline exactly where he had left his army three seconds later.
Elara already had the troops deployed. The five thousand Cryo-Vanguards were perfectly arrayed in a massive staggered firing line.
They spanned the width of the open plains just outside the forest edge. They knelt in the ash. Their heavy blue ice-rifles leveled precisely at the thick gray fog.
"Target rich environment approaching," Lucifer stated calmly. He took his position beside Elara at the center of the formation.
The ground beneath their boots began to violently vibrate. The trees at the edge of the Whispering Weald violently snapped and crashed to the ground as the vanguard of the Iron-Hide Boar horde burst through the fog.
They were a terrifying wall of muscle and iron. They charged at full speed and were maddened by the pursuit.
"Hold," Elara commanded. Her voice carried across the entire five-thousand-man firing line without the need to shout.
The boars closed the distance rapidly. Two hundred yards. One hundred yards. The acidic foam flying from their jaws was clearly visible. The smell of wet iron and rotting meat washed over the defensive line.
"Fifty yards," Elara raised her silver gauntlet. "Fire."
Five thousand heavily modified snipers powered by Arcane batteries discharged simultaneously.
There was no sound of gunpowder. It was a unified ear-shattering crack of a glacier breaking apart. Five thousand hyper-compressed beams of absolute zero azure light lanced across the plains.
The beams struck the leading edge of the boar charge.The frontline of the massive beasts simply stopped existing as biological entities.
The sheer terrifying temperature of the multiplied magic flash-froze their heavy metallic hides. It instantly transmuted their blood, organs, and bone into solid brittle ice.
The momentum of the boars charging behind them slammed into the frozen statues.
The frozen boars violently shattered. They exploded into millions of razor-sharp bloody ice shards. These acted like organic shrapnel to shred the second and third lines of the charging horde.
"Cycle and fire!" Elara ordered.
The Vanguards were flawless. They did not break formation. They racked their weapons in perfect unison. The mechanical whine of recharging batteries overlapped with the dying screams of the monsters.
A second volley fired. It was another massive wave of absolute zero death. Thousands more boars froze and shattered.
The open plain was rapidly transforming into a landscape of jagged bloody blue ice and pulverized metal.
There were too many. A few hundred boars managed to violently push through the localized blizzard. Their metal hides were scorched and freezing. Their momentum carried them directly into the elven lines.
Elara did not issue an order to fall back. She stepped forward.
A massive boar easily weighing two tons lunged at her. Its acidic tusks were aimed directly at her chest. Elara did not draw a weapon. She sidestepped the brutal charge with celestial grace. Her hands snapped out like lightning. She grabbed the beast by its thick metallic tusks.
She physically halted the entire momentum of the two-ton monster with a brutal terrifying flex of her shoulders. The muscles in her arms bunched. She viciously twisted her torso.
SNAP.
She physically ripped the massive head of the boar completely sideways. It snapped its reinforced spine like dry kindling.
She tossed the massive corpse aside like a discarded toy and stepped into the fray. Her silver fists blurred as she began punching through the metallic armor of the surviving beasts.
Lucifer did not remain idle. He activated his speed and became a localized blur of kinetic violence. He dashed through the gaps in the firing line.
His cheap steel sword acted merely as a tool for his momentum. He utilized the insane velocity of the Zephyr's Emblem to drive the cheap steel directly through the eye sockets of the charging beasts.
This instantly destroyed their brains before he teleported to the next target.
The item on Lucifer's belt woke up as the slaughter escalated.
The Carnage Core pulsed violently. A deep heavy thrum resonated from the cursed artifact.
Thick luminous red tendrils of pure magical energy whipped out from the black crystal. The tendrils plunged directly into the shattered frozen corpses of the boars scattered across the plains.
The core actively drank the death energy. The massive pools of spilled blood forcefully levitated off the ground. They vaporized into crimson mist that rushed directly into the artifact.
[Ding!]
[Host has slain Iron-Hide Boar (Level 8) x 1,450]
[Host has slain Iron-Hide Boar (Level 9) x 2,100]
[Calculating Soul Energy extraction...]
[Divine Talent: 'Apex Multiplier' triggered on specific category 'Experience / Soul Energy!']
[Multiplying absolute experience values 10,000x!]
A blinding pillar of golden light erupted directly out of Lucifer's chest. It shot straight into the bruising sky.
The raw multiplied soul energy flooded his system with the force of a tidal wave. The physical exhaustion of the battle was instantly incinerated.
His muscles forcibly expanded, tore, and healed to become denser, stronger, and faster in micro-seconds.
[Host has reached Level 2!]
[Host has reached Level 5!]
[Host has reached Level 10!]
[Host has reached Level 15!]
The golden light did not just target Lucifer. The multiplied energy cascaded through his Warlord aura and directly washed over the five thousand Cryo-Vanguards. The Elven snipers glowed brilliantly. Their ice-crystal armor thickened and expanded into heavier intricate plate. Their rifles elongated. The arcane batteries hummed with twice the voltage.
The counter for the Warlord's Trial in the sky rapidly ticked down.
Lucifer stood amidst the field of shattered ice and drained corpses. His sword dripped with gore.
He gripped the pulsing heat-radiating Carnage Core at his waist. His eyes burned with the terrifying intoxicating high of raw unfiltered progression.
"Keep firing," Lucifer laughed. His voice was laced with the heavy echoing distortion of his rapidly ascending level.
"Do not let a single one escape!"