Undying Warlord

[The second trial <Monster Hunt> has been initiated. Hunt as many monsters as possible in the next 180 Minutes. Three extra lives have been granted!]

"What is the meaning of extra lives? Are we in a game where we can simply resurrect, or what?" Kathrine grumbled because she didn't understand what was going on.

However, it was not as if the others understood the meaning of the message's last part either.

"We are not here to die, so let's not worry about finding the answers to it," Dilan merely answered before he unsheathed the Cursed Dagger once again.

Holding Xealtron tightly in his hand, he looked around the steppe they had been teleported with [Power Appraisal] fully unleashed. He could see the power level of all monsters up to Platinum Tier-3.

That being said, it shouldn't be much of a problem to figure out what monsters they would have to avoid fighting and which monsters would be no problem for them to fight.

"You're not planning on searching for Tier-4 monsters here, right?" Yvonne asked suddenly as she recalled the body parts of the Tier-4 monsters Dilan had given to Old Jeff.

Dilan froze in his steps and he looked back at her with a faint smile on his lips.

"Would that be bad?" He asked in an innocent voice but Yvonne saw right through his act.

"The mission says as MANY monsters as possible, not many powerful monsters…" Yvonne glared at him threateningly as she explained the rules of the second trial.

It was not as if Dilan didn't understand the situation but he had wanted to search for Tier-4 monsters nonetheless. However, given that he had three women by his side, Dilan could only sigh deeply as he agreed with Yvonne.

"Yes, you're right…so let's search…tierless monsters or whatever…" Dilan answered, grumbling a bit while reluctantly acknowledging that she was right.

His behavior made Yvonne wonder if Dilan was really their leader for a moment, just to see him dash forward.

The ground around them burst open and a strong gust splashed on their face as Dilan catapulted himself in the direction of the closest monsters with all his might.

'Whether it's tierless, Tier-1 or Tier-2 monsters, they all look the same to me…' He could only think as he activated [Thunder Step] to enhance his already terrifying Agility even further.

Dilan wanted to let off some steam and test around the [Mantle of Elements] ability. That was more than enough reason for him not to stay behind with the three women and to start fighting with all his might.

With [Thunder Step] activated, Dilan's Agility was above 450 Units. This was more than enough to defeat most Tier-3 monsters in a contest of speed.

Thus, Dilan shot at the closest group of hundred monsters that seemed to be waiting to become lifeless bodies at his hands once he shot past them.

Dilan moved the Cursed Dagger rapidly as he slashed, cut and thrust Xealtron into the vital spots of the monsters of varying sizes yet lethally injuring every single one.

None survived more than one of Dilan's attacks. He was the Reaper of the Steppe and didn't hesitate to eliminate all life.

All monsters that were severely injured or killed in a single blow burst open like a volcano and turned into black particles when Dilan pulled the Cursed Dagger out of their body.

They didn't leave behind anything and dissolved into nothingness, which was a bit sad.

Dilan was quite happy to have found large groups of Tier-2 monsters so soon after advancing to Tier-2 himself. The Essence crystals of hundreds of different monsters would be quite helpful in his progress.

'And here I hoped that I would have a much easier time increasing my stats and leveling up a few times,' Dilan complained inwardly before he continued to kill all the monsters around him.

He activated [Mantle of Elements] to summon a Basic Lightning Spirit, which summoned electric currents around the Cursed Dagger.

This enhanced the weapon's lethality and added a paralyzing function.

It might not be necessary to activate [Mantle of Elements] right now but it was certainly helpful considering that he wanted to upgrade the ability as quickly as possible.

Right now, the ungraded ability was not exactly useful to him. It may be nice to play around with the ability to summon five different types of Spirits but it was certainly not of any use to him at the moment.

Only by upgrading it would the ability reveal its true potential, which would only be possible by increasing the ability's proficiency. And that could be done by summoning and banishing the spirits, by ordering the spirits to do something and much more.

Dilan was currently searching for the fastest way to increase the proficiency of the Mantle of Elements ability. In the meantime, he killed all the monsters around him without paying a lot of attention to them.

There were a bunch of Tier-3 monsters in the surroundings but they were not exactly powerful.

The second trial of the Blood Monarch's Sanctum summoned the Tier-3 monsters to prevent the participants that were on an average at Tier-2 but below level 10 from killing a large number of monsters.

That being said, the Tier-3 monsters were not even programmed to be defeated by the four participants. Rather, it was supposed to be more simple…it meant that the participants would kill the Tier-2 monster groups while avoiding the Tier-3 monsters.

However, Dilan didn't care about anything the Instance dungeon might have planned as he took the lives of all the monsters on the steppe in the following two hours.

He was oblivious to what was going on and continued to test around with the Mantle of Elements ability that he had used consistently for two hours, consuming more than 2000 Units of Mana in the process.

Dilan's Mana regeneration was extremely fast due to his constitution and the set bonus he received from the Hyel Destructo armor set.

Both were quite helpful in this regard and they were also the reason why the Mantle of Elements had been upgraded to Ungraded ★★.

It was just a single upgrade but Dilan was already quite satisfied with that. He had been testing around a lot rather than focusing his time on acquiring proficiency by efficiently summoning Spirits and ordering them around.

"This guy…how is it possible for him to be so powerful immediately after advancing to Tier-2?" Kathrine pouted as she looked at Dilan enviously.

She had hoped that the increase in her strength would shock her sister and Dilan. Kathrine had planned to show-off her power in the Instance dungeon and make them marvel at her but it looked like this wouldn't work.

It was quite obvious but Dilan was stronger than all of them put together. None of them could perceive the extent to which his strength had reached by now and that was a bit scary.

They didn't fear Dilan as a person but more of the fact that sooner or later he would begin to have a nagging feeling that the entire Undying group was holding him back from unlocking his true potential.

The three women understood that Dilan liked fighting powerful enemies, but they were pretty sure that he had other goals as well.

Kathrine could clearly recall the scars all over his body. She could only guess that Dilan was probably thinking about taking revenge on whoever had given him those whip scars.

Now that she thought about it, Kathrine realized that she didn't know anything about Dilan. He was not often with them, and never mentioned his past, whether it was related to what he had been doing before the Primordial Ascension, or if his family had been alive and where they were.

Dilan was a mystery to all the people around him and it didn't look like he was willing to share his experiences of life with anyone else.

And that was what made Kathrine and the others feel even more restless, after all, it didn't look like Dilan was close to anyone.

It was a hurtful thought, especially for everyone, who liked Dilan as a leader, friend, or more, but Dilan would rather fight monsters than talk with others, let alone build up a relationship, whether it was mere friendship, or finding a romantic partner.

"I don't know…and I dislike it, if I were to be honest with myself," Victoria mumbled quietly, and the other two women understood her.

Victoria realized that Dilan was not really interested in her, at least not with having her as a lover until the end of time. She was not sure if that would change in the future but the fact that his strength increased much faster than anyone else's was a major disadvantage.

How could someone, who was much weaker than Dilan, be able to stay by his side and fight next to him for eternity? That may not be obvious if the relationship was with any other Ascender…however, they were talking about Dilan, the biggest battle maniac they had gotten to know until now.

And the three girls didn't think that there was anyone worse than Dilan than he was to himself in this regard, which made it only more difficult to get close to him.

**

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