The First King of Beasts

One downside to the bloodlust skill is that it is a passive skill, that sole reason is something that makes the skill itself unpredictable, even for the holder of the skill. Someone like Dustin that has a cold blooded nature will find it hard to utilize this skill as he won't always show killing intent when he kills. He just swings his sword because he has to or because there's a reason to, and not because he harbours a deep feeling to kill. This in turn also means that it's a perfect skill for his type of person since he has some level of control over it.

Either way, such a skill can be trained and mastered to the extent that the holder of the skill holds a high decision on when they want to release the skill, making it a strong weapon in some cases.

(A/N: I use blade to refer to sword-like weapons that are not swords, e.g sabres).

Dustin grabbed hold of his blade this time and rushed towards the night crawler. After increasing his stats, he had become instantly stronger, and thankfully things like strength and agility showed immediate effects. This time around, he was able to land a heavy enough swing on the monster, and though it did dodge the swing, it was deeply injured this time unlike last time. Giving it no time to recollect itself, Dustin leaped forward and landed the killing blow.

'That was an unnecessarily hard battle.' Dustin said in this mind.

Right now, the question he had in mind was whether the rank of these monsters had increased. He knew it was going to happen, but not this drastically. "Their hunger is really something, huh? This is no joke." Dustin said while thinking of it.

Even with his greed, wanting to get as much exp as possible, he knew when to quit, and right now his body and mind were telling that the time had come, but it was too late, the bait which he set up had caught quite the fishes.

As the body of the last night crawler collapsed to the ground, Dustin noticed at least 20 more of these monsters approaching, and they were fast, escaping was absolutely not an option.

"Is it me, or are those guys looking bigger than normal?.. And, is that, a wing?" Dustin asked himself.

It seemed for sure that these monsters had evolved in the presence of constant hunger and had become quite the formidable foe. Dustin quickly prepared himself to face them, and with the blade in his hand, he wasn't sure of wining the fight as this blade which he had been using ever since he arrived in this place had become blunt.

"No wonder it was harder than normal to cut those guys."

As the monsters got close, Dustin charged at them, and as the monsters noticed him approaching, the one with wings leaped into the air, and then dove downward towards Dustin, beating the others to their prey. As it closed in, Dustin let go of his blade, and in its place the grate axe appeared.

SWOOW

Dustin swung the axe towards the monster's neck from his left to his right while bending his back and facing the monster's that just went over him, but because both of them were heading towards the opposite direction, and because of the axe's weight, Dustin didn't get a perfect swing and instead of cutting its neck, the axe went towards the monster's chest and chopped it into two parts, like a dead cow.

The weight of the axe was dragged towards one side because of the hard swing, causing Dustin to naturally spin towards that angle to his right. Continuing with the motion, Dustin's body spun around its axis while still moving forward like some sort of projectile, crashing feet first into another monster's head.

The whole motion disorientated him, so when he stood up, he couldn't immediately get his bearings, causing him to suffer a hit from one of the monsters. Lucky enough, the monster didn't use its claws as it had already passed him and the one he kicked, so with the only thing within the range of attack being its tail, the monster swung hard sideways and knocked the disorientated Dustin to the side and into another tree.

Dustin's body felt like it had just collided against hard rock, and for a second there he was unable to draw in breath. Knowing the situation, Dustin picked himself up and was now on one knee while doing a quick check on his body, luckily, nothing was broken or dislocated, he was good to go.

This was completely different from when he was fighting against the beast cattle. This fight was more fast paced, and for the seconds he was in it, he could tell that he would be the one going down if he continued with that strategy.

'I need to think of something fast, or...' Dustin thought in his mind.

He never had the time to think about his next move when he fought, not like he could, since he was always getting beat on by bigger people, so it was mostly just instincts. The problem now was that his instincts were for blocking and protecting his vital parts, not for throwing his own punches and striking back.

'It doesn't matter, I have to do it somehow.' Dustin thought, as his eyes met with one of the night crawlers that had actually stopped to focus on him. 'This guy...'

He had abandoned his blade which had been with him since he arrived in this place, but before he left for the second trial, he made sure to take a good number of spare blades to use in case something like this happened.

"Alright, let's go big guy."

Maybe it was to get an extra boost, Dustin placed one leg on the trunk of the tree as he planted it on the ground getting a good footing, and then the next moment, he shot forward like a speeding arrow towards the night crawler. The night crawler too wasn't just having some eye contest with the strange mammal before it, it was zeroing in on its prey.

Both of them clashed, and just like Dustin always knew, a good weapon was better than 10 bad ones. The monster swung forward its right arm, bearing to rip Dustin's body apart with its unnaturally long claws. Seeing this, Dustin blocked the attack with his blade, but under the force of the strike, the blade broke, and he was almost torn apart by the claws. Just in the nick of time as the blade broke, Dustin's body unconsciously bent, causing him to squat all the way.

'That was close! Now!'

Dustin popped out another blade from his inventory and buried it in the monster's arm, somewhere close to its elbow. After that, instead of jumping back and breaking the attack for a while, Dustin rushed the monster and tackled its other front leg, crippling its two front legs.

The monster couldn't help but wail in pain, just before two blades were buried into its throat, then all that came out were sounds that had gaps in between.

It didn't take long, but this fight was something that worked Dustin. Not everything he did was precondition, and he just moved based on his what his body felt. It was a weird feeling, but it felt great, for some reason.

'Is this the feeling crazy couples get when they want to commit double suicide? Why do I feel happy in the face of danger?' Dustin questioned himself, and shit you not, the moment he thought of this, he could guess exactly what his brother would say, and the thought played clearly in his head, 'Because you are a psychopath.'

"Forget about that bitch for now, the other guys, where are..."

When he turned to check the other night crawlers, he was surprised at what he saw. He knew that they had headed for the burning tree, but he didn't know these big guys would actually use their own bodies to try to stop the fire. Actually, it wasn't that surprising, seeing as the others that came first also did the same.

In the end, they only added to the fire as fuel and magnified it.

"These dummies, they really thought using their bodies will quench the fire, huh?" Dustin said, with a certain look on his face. But then, he remembered that earlier he also drove them off the top of the tree so they wouldn't off the fire.

"..."

"Whatever, the most important part of this remains to deal with the hoard that's approaching, this is going to be a challenge." Towards the side where Dustin came from, even in the night, he could make out figures that covered a certain section of the land coming towards his position.

Normally, the fire should be a little blinding, at least for the first moments since these creatures had not been exposed to any form of light for god knows how long, but it didn't seem like fire was the instrument for that.