It was terrifying because in the one hour they had been wandering around, he had not seen Atheline kill even one monster. The greedmire would have only accounted for fifty points.

The count should have been fifty times higher than he had last checked not this.

Atheline could feel the penetrative stare but he didn’t react.

"There are thousands of monsters of every grade everywhere if you just look long enough. You will notice them at the right places. All of them are divided into different points that you would get if you killed them," Atheline quietly said his gaze slowly looking up.

Poller followed his line of sight looking up high at the tree. There was a small movement then a large bird-like creature fell.

He looked at the holographic screen again.

[Atheline Sunblade, 1661 points, rank 1]

"Wha... What?"

He was left speechless by the sudden jump. Only one monster had been killed and from the looks of it, it was nothing but a mid-grade.

He was only supposed to get ten points. His mind was too jumbled up to even think about it.

"How are you even doing that, your highness?" He questioned running a hand through his hair," It just doesn’t make sense. The death, the points, the rankings, everything is too fast."

Poller extended his hologramic image stone to cement the questioning.

Atheline smiled amused at his confusion. He leaned closer looking at the holographic screen.

"Oh... the points?"

"Yes... Yes, your highness. There is no way and with you doing nothing all the time."

His count had gone up by four hundred in ten minutes. Such a large jump. That had never happened in the competition... wait, a thought trickled in.

He had seen such a jump, it was even more monstrous than what was happening at the moment. Forty years ago, their queen had done the same during the hunting competition.

It had been astronomical, sending shock waves through the kingdom. He had been a young elf at that point but he could remember the buzz.

He could only sigh, in envy inwardly. How had both of them managed to be monsters?

"Am doing it though."

"What..."

Atheline’s voice startled him out of his thoughts.

"I said I am killing the monsters."

"Huh?"

"Look around you."

Poller followed and observed the surroundings until he spotted a small creature lying behind thick bushes unconscious.

He hurriedly walked over only to find it had turned grey, with its ugly lips blue and body cold but there weren’t any wounds on it. But that wasn’t all, a few steps from where he squatted was a large deer-like creature but blood had obscured its features.

A long piece of jagged earth pierces through its stomach, blood dripping down the protruding earth in rivers. The creature was held in the air by its stomach. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

His gaze fully lifted and he found the same scenario. Monsters nearer to them seemed to have suffocated while those further seemed to have been stabbed to death.

"Can anyone even do this?" He asked and turned back to Atheline his horror-filled eyes fully widening.

"It’s not that hard," Atheline nonchalantly said, his smile widening as he looked at his experiments.

His continuous training had finally paid off. He was still in the process of understanding how to use his power and becoming more proficient in the use of his powers.

He raised his hands and slowly gusts of wind spread through the surrounding area. With each gust, more animals fell. Earth rose in sharp tips, piercing through the new monsters that had surged forward, now more visible to him.

They fell in droves.

Once the intense wind died down, Atheline brought his hands down and smiled at Poller.

"I want to win this competition," he calmly said," I wouldn’t play with something as important as this. I must win."

Poller startled at his tone his face becoming paler. Realisation was slowly starting to sink in. The man in front of him had created a sort of wind barrier around the area he had attacked and somehow drained the oxygen in the air.

He had then stabbed the already dying monster to death before it could suffocate. The sadistic nature of this combination scared him a little plus the way he just smiled almost happily through it all.

"It’s not just me trapping it," Atheline said as though reading his mind," wind is air and it can do wonders. I also prevented the air from coming inside, so it’s like a double barrier. The barrier you saw earlier was meant to trap air with us while a larger one outside was laid over to prevent air from coming in between our barrier and the space between us."

"It took a while to at least make it work but it seemed to have worked better than I thought, though at a small scale level. It’s quite easy to understand the concept. "

’Crazy’

"..." Poller stood there speechless with what he had heard.

Having this kind of knowledge and proficiency in Elementals was unmatched. He could already imagine the horror such a large-scale skill could cause.

Draining oxygen from the air itself was basically a death sentence to even the strongest.

Even though he had seen powerful manipulators before he didn’t fear them, quite the opposite actually.... except for this one.

They say having a creative mind is good and all but this was just too far for him. If targeted at one person, most would likely not notice it until they approached the target.

He had been taught a lot while in the military training about power. Those who had a lot of power and couldn’t use it properly were weak. If one is knowledgeable but lacks power they’re still weak.

The man in front of him had it all, especially at such a young age. Power, knowledge, and knew how to use it.

He could already imagine how strong he would be when he increased further in rank. The man was still strong enough that he had racked up all those kills without moving at all.

Poller had just witnessed an extreme play of power and mind.

"Don’t be scared," Atheline said, "I can help you rack up enough points to reach the top ten. "

His words pulled him out of his fear.

"How?" He asked as he looked at the corpses littered around them.

It came to him again that he had been hiding the corpses throughout.

"And... what’s the exchange for?" He added as he pondered over what he would need from someone as lowly as him.

There was just something he couldn’t point out.