There was nothing but chaos, and his mind went blank as he threw himself into the madness. He was slaughtering ants one by one, and there was no end to them. There was something strangely comforting about fighting and focusing on nothing but surviving.

It didn’t matter how much stronger he got now that he had advanced to Tier 4. Sheer numbers were pushing him to the very edge. He found himself struggling against the tide of monsters. His breath was heavy, and every second he was cut by the ants.

He discharged his kinetic energy once again, gasping for air, and drawing on his reserves for every bit of energy. His mana was dropping quickly as he didn’t hold back. His techniques were hungry little things, and he was forced to make concessions.

He needed to save his mana for healing and sustainability. He stopped throwing out spikes of mana; instead, he focused on empowering his body, reinforcing his skin so that he didn’t have to heal as often.

He swung in a broad circle, taking out three ants and taking off the legs of two more. A lot of his focus was taken up by the corruption invading his body. He had no idea how many ants he had killed already, but there were so many dead bodies around him that the corruption of their corpses was creating a thick and heavy haze.

His crown helped a lot; it burned brightly as it warded off the worst of the corruption. Drasil also helped with his injuries as best as he could. But even with their help, Julius found himself struggling to keep up with the sheer numbers the ants threw at him.

He panted and looked around him. There were even more ants flooding into the gorge. He couldn’t see an end to them, and he grunted loudly as he released the gathered kinetic energy. A single pulse of kinetic energy ripped out and shredded the ants in the vicinity. They didn’t stand a chance against this attack, compounded by his concepts and authority.

Julius glanced down at the axe and let out a disgusted laugh. The axe was already looking worse for wear. The metal was cracked, and the blade's edge was chipped in several places. To be fair, it was mostly his own fault. He’d been using the axe pretty roughly. Ruinous aura had been surging through the weapon the entire fight, and it clearly wasn’t meant to sustain such a volatile energy.

Not wanting to risk having the weapon break mid-fight, he decided to put it away and created an axe from his mana. He took his time and wove it carefully, twirling each fiber of mana to its limit, imagining how each compression strengthened it. He infused his aura into it and ran a chord of life mana through it.

Then, with a smirk, he flooded the weapon with his authority. The Seed of Ruinous Phoenix was a powerful authority, and his constructs were clearly not meant to contain so much energy. But he didn’t care about that.

As the construct threatened to fall apart, he held it together with sheer will. His soul strained as he continuously funneled more power into the construct while also holding it from collapsing. [Sage of Savagery] flickered from the effort, almost collapsing under the weight of his own will.

By the time he was done, it didn’t even look like his usual constructs. It didn’t have the translucence of his typical constructs; instead, it looked physical. There was a weight to it that even his mana senses were able to detect. It weighed on his perception, and he admired it for a few moments.

It was dark blue, almost black. Streaks of blue and white light sparked all along the surface. Each spark was a warning of his flagging control. They only existed because he wasn’t able to entirely control the power raging within it.

But it was holding, and that would be enough for the time being.

His respite was over, and the ants collapsed onto his position once again. He got back to work and resumed his slaughter. Each movement was calculated for the sheer purpose of destroying these ants. Each step collected kinetic energy. It didn’t matter how small it was; he didn’t waste a single speck of it.

This was a fight of attrition, and he wasn’t about to be wasteful. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

He got into a rhythm. Slowly whittling down the ants while conserving as much energy as he could. He didn’t care about the small injuries he was gathering. He gladly sacrificed a few scratches if it meant he took out several ants.

However, something changed. He was ripping apart the ant on top of him with his bare hands when he sensed something heading towards him. He didn’t hesitate for a second and quickly deployed a barrier in front of him and sent out a burst of kinetic energy at the object.

The two clashed, causing a huge explosion. The ants close by were killed instantly, and the walls of the gorge shook from the shockwave. Julius looked over in the direction from which the object had come and spotted an ant different from the rest. This one was smaller, but the energy it gave off was of a higher quality.

Julius was immediately on guard, and when a swirling black orb shot out from the ant’s mouth, he sent a burst of kinetic energy at it, intercepting it before it could reach him. However, this orb was different from the first one it had, the orb didn’t so much as shake, instead it absorbed the kinetic energy.

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The orb was still heading towards him, and so he burst to the side, avoiding the swirling orb. However, it switched directions abruptly and tracked him as he moved. Then, if that wasn’t annoying enough, the ants all piled on top of him, blocking his avenue of escape.

He sent a spike of mana at the orb, this one full of his ruinous aura and fire mana. Unlike the burst of kinetic energy, this seemed to have a small effect. The orb shook wildly as the two attacks met, but eventually the orb came out on top and absorbed the spike.

Julius frowned and cut down an ant that tried to tear out his throat. He placed most of his attention on this orb this time around and sent another spike at it. He watched carefully as the two met in the air once more.

It happened quickly, but he was able to decipher a few things. For one, the orb was primarily composed of corruption, which would explain the nasty feeling he got from it. The second thing was that the orb was heavily fueled by the ant’s authority. Unlike the other ants, this one seemed capable of using its authority, and it did so to reinforce its orb.

Julius wasn’t the most experienced when it came to handling authority with any semblance of elegance, but he did have something that had his authority deeply infused in it. He glanced down at his axe and, with a smirk, he slashed it out, clearing away the ants closest to him.

Then watched as the orb made its way toward him. Once he was ready, he stepped forward and slashed the orb with his axe. This time around, the difference was evident. The orb struggled and shook for a bit, but eventually, it fell apart, and his axe sheared it in half.

The explosion knocked him away and tore off a small chunk of his skin, but his healing skill fixed that in no time. Then, before the ant could gather more corruption to send at him, he rushed at it. The number of ants in front of him was annoying to deal with, and he would have teleported, but the mana cost was too high to waste at the moment.

Instead, he weaved in between the ants and annihilated any that he was not able to directly avoid. Only once he got close enough where the mana cost wouldn’t be problematic, did he activate [Void Step]. He vanished from the world and moved through the void.

When he reappeared, the ant hadn’t even noticed him, and he charged his axe with [Void Strike]. He wasn’t going to take any chances and wanted to make sure the ant was taken out immediately. He couldn’t afford to leave it alive, not when he was being pressured by its numerous brethren.

It must have sensed the danger to its life, and a powerful shield appeared around the smaller ant’s body. His axe met the shield with a loud crash; the shield rippled and struggled against his attack. But he had put everything behind his blow, and the addition of [Void Strike] was too much for it. He crushed the shield, and he felt the ant panic.

It attempted to dodge the axe and flee. He observed it activate some kind of skill, but he was close enough that his aura was able to collapse on top of it. His authority was also brought to bear on it. He might not be the most skilled with authority manipulation yet, but he didn’t need any control for this. Just unrelenting pressure.

Then he slammed his axe down onto its exoskeleton. He felt the shell crunch as it was unable to hold up against the axe. The weapon dug in and cleaved apart several of its legs as well as a good chunk of its torso.

The ant let out a screech and began to glow brilliantly with blackish-purple energy. Its cry pierced his ears, and it was so loud that he felt the blood drip from them. Its cry must have been some kind of signal, because he sensed the ants around him change their behavior. He thought they were wild before, but now they were practically manic, glowing with a similar color.

They all swarmed his position, their bodies glowing with the same black corruption and intense heat. Also, flares of fire mana rampaged throughout their bodies despite them not using any fire techniques so far. He was able to get in one last hit on the smaller ant before he had to deal with the enraged swarm. He felt himself get swept away, and before he was able to shove them off him, he felt something surge within their bodies.

His eyes widened when he realized what was happening, but it was a second too late. The ants on top of him exploded, and his body was torn apart. Dozens of ants self-destructed all around him, and he was blasted across the cavern, smashing against the tall stone walls.

He could feel that his ribs were pulverized into bone fragments and that his organs were turned to mush. His skin was practically seared off, and he groaned when he slumped to the ground.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the corruption penetrated his flesh and tried to infect him. His healing skill was already healing the damage, but the corruption was doing its best to disrupt it. He had to use his aura to remove its influence. However, there was so much going on that he found it hard to focus on five different things at once.

He pushed through it, though, and finally removed the corruption in his body, and Drasil helped heal his wounds. He was just in time, too, because the ants were jumping on top of him. The same energy continued to pulse throughout their bodies. However, he knew what to expect now, and so when he felt them charge up another blast, he quickly teleported away.

The resulting explosion still knocked him back, but he wasn’t injured. He flew upwards, trying to find that smaller ant again, but it must have hidden itself in the swarm, and he wasn’t able to find it. He cursed and prayed that he had done enough damage to kill it.

He thought he was safe high above the ground, but he was wrong. Before he knew it, he felt dozens of ants fall from the sky; they were climbing the stone or coming out of holes in the wall. They jumped down on him and tried to grab him with their pincers.

It was impossible to avoid all of them, and some of them managed to slam into him. He tried to kill them right away, but the moment they made contact, they decided to blow themselves up. He did his best to shield himself from the damage, but the explosion was really powerful. He would have teleported away, but there was nowhere to go. Everywhere was surrounded by ants.

He was forced to endure this kamikaze strategy and did his best to avoid the ants while simultaneously killing as many as he could.

It was hard. He found himself accumulating more and more injuries. His clothes were practically threads at this point. And he was covered in their gore, but he kept on moving, slaughtering ants and dodging their explosions.

He didn’t know how long it had gone on like this, but eventually he found himself on his knees, gasping for air, drenched in blood, both his own and the ants.

As for the ants… well, there was not a single thing left breathing within a hundred yards.