Ryan looked up and wondered why the leafstalkers were taking so long. He had expected them to keep hounding him deep into the depths, hoping to push him into a hole and keep it locked down so he couldn’t come back up.

  It would be what he would do.

  Yet when he looked up, all he saw were the leaders of the Leafstalkers taking their sweet time to get to him. Only Crescent, the First Leaf had kept up pace with him. At this rate, Ryan could easily lose them and they’d never be able to tell which hole he crawled into.

  As if responding to his thoughts, Crescent fired an array of arrows, all moving faster than the speed of sound.

  Ryan lazily punched all of them out of the air. He had learned that he didn’t need to use his aura blade to deal with those. His fist was more efficient at keeping his aura from leaking anyway.

  Crescent kept his distance, waiting for the other Leafs to arrive.

  A broken golem whirred into action. Likely reactivated again from the loud explosives. The [Translation] skill working on its weird broken language.

  “INTRUDERS IN THE SANCTUM–”

  Ryan punched it in the face. The stone construct shattered under his fists and went flying backwards, crashing into the wall of the ravine, the sound echoing out all around them.

  “Whoops, guess I used a little too much aura.”

  Another golem broke out from the ground. Reaching for his ankles. Two arrows flew from his left and right–and Ryan [Instant Dodged], diagonally backwards towards the annoying archer.

  His aura formed into a hand with [Aura Command] and stretched outwards. Reaching out to grab the elf that was hovering in the air.

  Crescent disappeared from his grasp. Ryan cursed.

  “Fuck a blink archer.”

  That made things a little scarier.

  –

  Crescent was sweating under his garb. He relayed grave information back through their comms, hiding in a small crevice, keeping an eye on Artigan.

  “Specs are all beyond expectations. Realm seven adventurer on average. Bursts of realm eight.”

  Artigan had casually shattered a Sentry golem that most squads of fourthers would have to flee from. Crescent had almost died when the elf suddenly exploded backwards.

  The First Leaf of the leafstalkers was realm seven in terms of physical ability. While he was not as strong as the average seventh realm adventurer, he did understand their physical ability.

  They had calculated a fifth realm or a sixth realm at An average seventh realm adventurer hadn’t been considered and things weren’t looking good. Had Artigan skipped multiple realms on his own already?

  Or had he picked up more Epics that he hadn’t shown yet.

  There was a curse in his ear.

  “If that’s true then we need to push him down one of those pits and throw all the explosives we’ve got. Blast it, he’s not going to fall for it.”

  Crescent didn’t take too much time to think. They still had to follow the plan. There were things down here that could kill Artigan, they just had to be willing to sacrifice it all to make sure it happened.

  “Everyone at the fourth and higher are to stop rappelling and start leaping down without ropes. Everyone in the third realm is to hold positions above. Provide intel if they see him or any other major hostiles.”

  Perhaps the correct answer was to include the third realms and bear the cost. Find opportunity in the bodies they threw at him. Crescent couldn’t do it.

  Besides, it was likely that third realms wouldn’t be able to keep up the speeds necessary to hit Artigan. Crescent thought of all of this and accepted that they might lose every single one of their fourth realms doing this.

  If it came down to it, he himself would continue to hound Artigan in the abyss. No matter how far he delved, he would hound Artigan. Waiting for that moment when Artigan came across something challenging from the abyss.

  Speaking of…

  Crescent looked around. He wondered why the Cataclysm Abyss was so quiet.

  –

  The Cataclysm Abyss was a place that was best delved in silence. The quieter the delve, the less likely it was that an ancient defense would be aggravated. The more cautious you were, the less likely you would attract monsters that despised the light.

  Yet despite the cacophony of explosions above, the Abyss did not stir.

  Because something that didn’t belong wandered into its midst. Something that was not prey or food or even something they could despise. There was just too much for the monsters to dare despise it.

  The Bullipedes shivered in their nests. The aura told them that it had slain one of their greater elders and would kill them with ease.

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  The intelligent Skin Shamblers shied away in their caves. A distinct sense of arrogant superiority reminding them that they should not be envious but to be ashamed of themselves.

  The shadow hands that knew no fear, moved away from the burning flame. Instinctively they knew they would burn up if they touched the everliving aura of this ruler from a distant land.

  The top two miles of the Cataclysm Abyss were silent.

  However, when the strange feeling of fear passed down below them, the top section of the Abyss began to stir, as if shaking itself off from this old feeling. It reminded them that things could always get worse, that something could always come down and bring ruin to even the nothing they had.

  And the creatures… began to reach. Desperate for what might be their last meal.

  Reaching out to take what it could.

  Shadowy hands grabbed at the Leafstalkers’ feets. The more intelligent skin shamblers saw their cousins in their perfect forms and could not handle it.

  The change had passed. They reached out.

  –

  Ryan looked around, a little disappointed by the famed abyss. That was, until screams and shouts came from above. Explosives and guns firing. Ryan couldn’t see exactly what was happening. His view slightly covered by various ledges.

  Though he did see a giant stretched out humanoid get blasted by multiple rounds of explosives.

  He frowned as the leafstalkers closer to him ignored the fighting above, they continued to drop towards him at speed. Jumping from ledge to ledge. Uncaring that their fellow allies were getting attacked.

  Ryan couldn’t see the expressions through their helmets, but he did understand one thing from their slightly uneven movements.

  They were straining themselves to keep up.

  Fifth and sixth realm leafstalkers were struggling to keep up with him. Ryan knew they weren’t quite as good as their adventurer counterparts but for there to be this much of a difference…

  He had concluded that his earlier analysis was wrong. Ryan had believed that the only choices he had were to flee or kill the leafstalkers coming after him. He had thought that the difference in strength between him and the upper echelons of leafstalkers hadn’t been that different.

  He couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Ryan probably could have taken out the entire front squad without having to kill them.

  It had to have been the effects of the Apex title. He just hadn’t understood just how much of a boost it gave him until now.

  And the Passive Tyrant and the Chieftain Tyrant probably had Legendary Titles.

  The mistake in his assessment wasn’t his fault. There was no context for quasi-legendary titles on realmnet. The few that had been shared were by dragonslayers or pre-dragonslayers. At which point there were too much variation in classes, skills that it was hard to say what was from a title and what wasn’t

  It wasn’t like his physical body had changed. Ryan was still firmly in realm four. It just… felt like the world was to move in. Like every movement had some sort of with it. Similar to concepts, but different in that it wasn’t intentional.

  And it wasn’t just physical bonuses either.

  An arrow came from the side and only triggered his [Lesser Dangersense].. He smacked the arrow with a contemptuous aura tendril.

  The elf looked surprised Ryan had even reacted to it. Crescent had blinked in and shot from a blindspot, the arrow painted in black.

  Was this really the leader of the famed Leafstalkers? He looked younger on the side of middle aged. Which meant the elf could be anywhere between sixty and two hundred years old. Ryan just shook his head.

  “Are you really the leader of the Leafstalkers?”

  Crescent did not reply nor shoot. That was fine to Ryan. He had plenty of experience riling up huffed up elves on realmnet. He shrugged, dismissing the First Leaf.

  “No offense, but you’re just too . If I knew how weak you all were I would have stayed up there and beaten you all up.”

  Still complete silence. This leader was apparently not the same as all the elves that got dragged into online debates.

  Though Ryan wasn’t giving up. “You understand too, right? The opportunity for you little leaflegends to be able to kill me has long passed. Give it up, Crescent. Look up, your people are dying up there. Go save them.”

  There was still gunfire and movement up above. Screaming from monsters that clawed back at the bullets. Ryan glared at one that looked like it was about to slash down on something on the ground. It shuddered and met his eye, then fled for its life.

  “I see.”

  The dwarven artificer slammed down on a ledge. Huffing and puffing under her helmet. She slammed down her battleaxe onto the ground and leaned slightly against it.

  “We are willing to give up our lives to put you down. All of us are. We are more than prepared to give our lives for this. More than you, Destined Trialist with a safety life.”

  A distinct human scream echoed out from above.

  Ryan was starting to see the picture. He would have been stuck with two options if he hadn’t been strong enough. If he didn’t get the apex title and was stuck with a curse on his soul.

  It would have been the Leafstalkers or him.

  This smelled like the Witch Tyrant trying to prove a point. Ryan curled his nose in disgust.

  “Yeah, maybe you are. But I’m not.”

  “What are you–”

  And Ryan jumped upwards. He dodged the mana wave from the surprised artificer and threw two rocks encased in his aura at the two sixth realms that had just caught up. They dodged in surprise–only to realize that it was just a distraction.

  The skin shamblers fled as he climbed. The shadows crept away. Terrified of the fire that was burning brighter.

  Ryan surprised a leafstalker that was providing covering fire to his allies. He grabbed more rocks along the way and imbued his aura into them–then threw. The rock imbued with aura touched the fleeing shadows and they hissed as they burned alive.

  “He’s here!”

  Three other leafstalkers took aim at him as he jumped away, taking care so that another leafstalker wasn’t in the way. They were camping like rats and Ryan didn’t know where they were.

  Ryan had to strain to hear that. From their movements, it seemed like they always had perfect awareness of where each other were. It probably wouldn’t stop them from firing at him if they were in the crossfire, they were too fanatic and willing to sacrifice themselves. A hostage wouldn’t work. Nor would fear, they were nothing like Milo and Clara when he did the urban combat simulation…

  Ryan smacked away three arrows coming for his back. Crescent was still there. Just once again, completely unable to stop him from doing as he pleased. Ryan jumped up to a Leafstalker and hit them in the solar plexus. Their kevlar over enchanted chainmail doing nothing to stop his fist from sinking in and taking the wind out of them.

  He snagged their helmet and put it on.

  Three seconds was how long it took before his helmet was taken out of connection. More than enough time for him to memorize where they had all been camped.

  All neatly shown with a green outline.

  Squads of three and four camped in over thirty different places. In a sparse formation.

  They started firing.

  Ryan threw the Realmer he had just knocked out at Leafstalker leader. Making sure to throw the body in an arc in case the First Leaf decided to shoot at him instead. The leader hesitated then grabbed the body instead.

  Ryan nodded at him as he picked up more rocks.

  All of it, useless. He didn’t even need [Lesser Dangersense]. He knew exactly where they were and the angles they could fire from. He bounced around the walls, his feet barely touching the surface before he leaped away at full speed.

  A blur, even to the fourth realms.

  And he kept throwing rocks laced with his aura at crevices. He found out quickly that imbuing aura internally would make it burn slower. He felt the pull of his aura generating from one of the bigger crevices and threw a line of aura imbued rocks in front. Ryan threw it at the retreating shadows, sometimes hitting them, sometimes herding them into another crevice and dropping another rock by the entrance.

  All the meanwhile he dodged everything, dancing along the explosions and smoke, leaving a cacophony of bright lights and smoke behind him.

  “His aura’s going down, keep firing!”

  Ryan laughed at that. Indeed, his aura was going down. Some part of his class was rejecting what he was doing, but that wasn’t that hard to overcome either.

  And for a moment something else began to beat. His original aura. The one that had always been too small compared to his Epic.

  For once, it was almost as loud as his Epic.

  [Aura of Self-Momentum]

  He was still too fast for them to shoot down. By the time the dwarven Artificer had managed to get back, he was already finished. The rocks imbued with his aura surrounding the leafstalkers. Warding them from the abyss.

  When Ryan was finished his aura had visibly diminished but he hadn’t gotten any slower. His smile was brighter than before, less sinister as he bowed to the leafstalkers and their leader.

  “See ya.”

  Then he dove back down again.

  The out of breath artificer cursed.

  As always is

  24 chapters ahead!