He was battered and bruised, to be honest, he was having the time of his life. Fighting those Tier 4 ants was fun and all, don’t get him wrong. But it was a little annoying being swarmed by so many monsters. It wasn’t really a good fight. This, however, was a wonderful fight.

How could there be anything more enjoyable than getting his teeth punched in by a massive ant?

Furthermore, he didn’t know if he was imagining things, but he could have sworn he felt his body get stronger throughout this battle. It was almost as if each time he got injured, his body would strengthen by a small amount.

Then he remembered the description of his body's evolution and realized he was probably not far off. His body was likely getting refined with each passing moment and every injury he suffered.

Was it weird that it only encouraged him more?

He let out a grunt while ducking underneath a vicious blow, letting his arm, which had been torn off moments earlier, regenerate. He was running low on mana, and so was Drasil. It was only thanks to the little guy that Julius was still in the fight. His mana had dropped so low that he wasn’t using [Void Step] in the name of mana conservation.

Though he didn’t know how this goddamn ant wasn’t dead yet. He had hit it thousands of times, but the thing was a tough son of a bitch. It just tanked whatever he threw at it and kept on coming. He hoped not every ant was like this, because despite how much fun he was having, he was getting exhausted.

“Just die already!” he yelled out as he lashed out with another kick, removing another arm. He had already ripped off one, but there were two more. Seeing that he didn’t really have much of a choice, he started to focus on the injured leg.

He’d originally planned to go for the leg, but quickly realized that was a good way to get his skull kicked in. It took him almost getting his head squashed three times for him to focus on other parts of the ant’s body. But now it was a different story. The ant was just as tired as him and he wanted to try again.

He let the ant advance on him; it was so much slower than before, it was barely fueled by its skills. It was almost entirely powered by corruption at this point. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous. He sidestepped a wild swing and bent low. He overloaded his arm with as much power as he could bring forth.

His muscles shook under the strain, and his immense willpower barely held his flesh together. His fist clobbered the ant’s leg; the force was massive, and his entire arm blew apart for the dozenth time in this battle.

However, he let out a victorious cheer because the ant’s leg finally snapped under the pressure. He made sure it couldn’t recover and released all of the ruinflames his crown had gathered. For the first time ever, it almost felt like the crown was tired. He could feel the strain he was putting on it.

He glanced up. “Come on, are you getting tired already?” he taunted the crown in a breathless gasp.

The crown flickered stubbornly and released a large explosion of flames. These flames ate into the ant’s flesh, and the shattered limb melted under the heat. He could feel his own skill burning from this.

His own Ruinous Phoenix Core had begun to spin as well. The ruinflames were weaker than the crowns, but they were different. It was like they were of a higher quality, and the ant didn’t enjoy this. He knew his core was deemed as “imperfect”, but apparently it was growing during his life and death struggle.

He did as much damage to this ant as he could before it slapped him away. It was tired and heavily injured, but it still packed a punch. He felt all the wind go out of his chest, several ribs cracked, and multiple organs were damaged.

He staggered up and started to weave together the last vestiges of his mana. With the ant so tired, its domain was practically non-existent. That meant he could create his constructs without much disruption. Whatever disruption was there, he ignored it.

Over a dozen spikes of highly compressed mana, authority, and kinetic energy formed over his shoulders. They were dark blue, almost violet, and they sparkled with each movement. He felt hot liquid pouring from his face. Blood was gushing from his eyes and nose as the strain to hold these constructs threatened to go out of his control.

But before they could collapse under their own power, he threw them at the ant. The monster didn’t just stand there and let him attack freely. It tried to move out of the way, but Julius had finally used his kinetic immobilization technique for the first time throughout the whole fight. He didn’t really see a reason to use it, but now was a perfect time.

The creature wasn’t expecting this, and his [Field of the Shattered Will] shocked it in place. It didn’t last very long since it was a bona fide Tier 5, but it was more than long enough. The spikes all slammed into the ant with fury. The explosions knocked him away, smashing against a tunnel wall with a dull thump.

As for the ant, it was a mess. Its impressive endurance was finally at an end. Almost all of its limbs were torn off, and its aura was fading fast. His last attack had been powerful, and whatever power was holding it together wasn’t enough anymore.

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He wiped his face, smearing blood everywhere rather than cleaning it. Then he staggered toward the ant, gathering kinetic energy with each step. His mind and soul were so tired that he almost failed to control this simple technique. It went out of his control a few times, and kinetic energy blasted into the ground and nearby walls.

Though the damage barely made a difference. The surrounding area was already a mess from their clash. Every wall and every surface was damaged in some way.

Fortunately, no other ants had come over to check on them. For some reason, he didn’t sense any ants or other creatures during his fight with this Tier 5. The only thing he sensed was a powerful source of corruption deeper in the tower.

When he finally stumbled his way to his downed opponent, he knocked aside its desperate swing at his face. He could hear its labored breathing, as if it were sucking through a broken straw. To be honest, he was just as tired and at his absolute limit.

He stumbled and threw himself on top of the ant. It struggled, but there was no power in its movement anymore. There was nothing it could do as he gripped it by the throat, wrapping his hands around it and squeezing as hard as he could.

Kinetic energy and ruinflames flowed over his arms as he pushed, letting out a tired yell as he wrung out every ounce of his remaining strength. Its remaining limbs and stumps of limbs shredded his body. His organs were torn apart like confetti.

Finally, once his arms were about to give up, he felt the resistance finally collapse. The shell and the throat of the ant were crushed under his hands, and he felt its life fading away.

He sent a weakened spike of mana at its body, just to make sure it was dead. Then slumped to the side and panted heavily. He was out of everything. He didn’t have a single ounce of strength left in him. Even his healing was delayed, Drasil had given him all that he could, but it wasn’t enough.

His hands were a mangled mess, everything around his torso was either shattered or crushed, and his flesh was covered in burns from the poor control of his flames. He had many wounds that he hadn’t healed because they weren’t important enough to waste mana on. Others that he hadn’t because he lacked it.

With the last crumbs of his stamina, he removed several potions from his storage space. The bottles clattered on the hard floor, and he tried his best to open them with his aura, but he was so tired that he failed miserably.

He tried to use his teeth to pry open the bottles, but that didn’t work either. He just struggled like a suffocating worm as he frantically tried to drink some potions. The danger wasn’t that he needed healing.

Well, that was a danger, but it wasn’t the most dangerous. The biggest worry was the corruption still lingering in the air. His aura was so weakened that this corruption was already infecting his wounds and penetrating his flesh.

He attempted to eat the potions whole, but that didn’t work either. The glass was enchanted, and as weak as he was at the moment, he wasn’t able to gather enough force in his broken jaw to crush it.

He was about out of options when he felt his soul stir. Then, with more effort than it had ever taken before, he felt Drasil and Seraphyne appear out of his soul.

Julius’s eyes widened, and he felt immediately guilty upon seeing their conditions. Neither looked very good. Drasil was a pale green, almost translucent. He didn’t even bother to coo or whistle anything to him. Instead, the little guy crawled over to Julius’s prone form and cuddled into his chest, pushing his tiny arms into him. Julius took his mangled hands and gently caressed the little guy. He must have really pushed himself and was tapped out.

Seraphyne didn’t look far off from that, though she had a bit more brilliance to her. Drasil must have drained her life mana, but her water mana was left alone. Thankfully, this gave her enough strength to actually stand on her own feet. She stumbled over to him and, to his great fortune, went over to the potion bottles. She had a little hard time, but her flippers eventually managed to pry open a mana potion.

“You are so stupid. You’re lucky you aren’t dead,” she said with a tired sigh.

He didn’t have the energy to reply; he just lay there in silence, nodding in acceptance.

She didn’t even try to pour it into his mouth; she just shoved the whole thing inside. He choked a little bit, but the potion did its work. Almost immediately his mana channels felt like they were on fire as mana rushed through them, he groaned in pain and did his best to cycle it. He wasn’t going to get a lot of mana from these potions and needed to attribute them for optimal efficiency. It was a painful process since he had no mana to help him, but he gritted his teeth and pushed through it.

During this time, Seraphyne had also shoved an open healing potion into his mouth. It didn’t work nearly as well as his own healing skill, but he got a small burst of energy and stamina from it. The relief was enough for him to activate his aura skill to delay the corruption from doing even more damage than it had already done.

When he finally had enough mana, he didn’t use [Phoenix Renewal]. No. His first priority was Drasil. Carefully and gingerly, he pressed a compressed orb of mana into Drasil’s arms. The adorable spirit once again proved why he was the greatest glutton in this world, and despite being half asleep, he started sucking on the mana. To Julius’s immense relief, the color started to return to Drasil’s form immediately.

Only and only when Drasil began to recover did he allow himself to heal. He let [Phoenix Renewal] trickle into his body, healing the worst damage first. The corruption was annoying, but he swatted it aside with a few liberal blasts of aura.

To his concern, his wounds were healing like they typically did. In the past, his healing skill never left scars. The only scars he kept were the ones he had from before. Like the scars from when he burned his arms.

Yet, he spotted several patches of flesh that were healed, but had an ugly twisting of flesh over them. He frowned but ignored that issue for the time being.

He reminded himself that he was still in enemy territory; he didn’t have time to fuck around. He should be grateful that nothing else had come to kill him. The condition he was in at the end was so bad that a random Tier 2 would have been enough to kill him.

He quickly hid himself in a small alcove, using this time to recover as much mana and stamina as he could. He took as many mana potions as he felt comfortable consuming. He knew that his tolerance was higher with his healing skill. But there was still a point when his mana channels wouldn’t be able to handle the foreign mana.

While he recovered, he looked at the absolute flood of notifications he received.