Undying Warlord

'Kaeldur is in possession of a different type of energy other than mana…that's crazy…I guess,' Dilan thought when he heard that Kaeldur was not only in possession of something called the Essence of Darkness but also 'dark energy'.

Dark energy was basically darkness attributed mana, just more potent, lethal, and with several additional effects. As for the Essence of Darkness, it was something that nourished the power of dark energy.

At the same time, the Essence of Darkness provided Kaeldur's body with the necessary power to become a stronger 'Original' and to advance in the ranks faster than others.

They could advance their ranks faster by scourging for regions that harbored places with natural darkness energy, and places that were closer to 'darkness', 'evil' and 'vile' treasures, beings, and regions.

This was quite interesting but just the tip of the iceberg. There was a lot more Dilan had to learn.

However, even if there was more for him to discover, Dilan was actually not that interested in getting to know more about other 'cultivation' paths because they didn't matter to him.

He knew that the beings who used their mana core to advance in the ranks were called Originals. They used Mana to temper their body and their Mana core until they would reach the limit of their current rank. After breaking through the limit of their rank, they would gain a tremendous boost in strength, which would be similar, if not equivalent to advancing the Tiers of one's Essence Crystal.

Dilan considered both Mana Cores and Essence Crystals as the Vessels of the mortal body. Those Vessels had to be nourished and cultivated in a sense to advance further.

"Let's just fight. This talk is getting nowhere, and we're just wasting the short time you are here with us!" Dilan said, disregarding the fact that Kaledur was already cutting apart thousands of Chaos Monsters with every slash he executed.

Dilan was unfazed by that because he was doing the exact same. He used his comprehension of the Power of Destruction and Green Magic to release Slashes that were powerful enough to kill everyone in his way.

The only beings with the necessary strength to survive what he was doing would be Kaeldur, Rory, and the Chaos Islands.

However, as for the latter, they were harmless and two of them could be forced to maturity as long as Dilan collected all the corpses that were scattered all over the battlefield.

Kaeldur might seem weaker than Rory, but the attacks he unleashed using his dark energy and bits of the Essence of Darkness were fast, and the amount of energy the black Demon used up was insignificant in comparison.

This clearly showed Dilan that the black Demon was not to be taken lightly. Yet, even more interesting was the fact that Kaeldur was proudly talking about the fact that his true strength was still sealed in the Fragment of Darkness, which was the name he gave to the place he had been hibernating in until now.

'This dude is really weird. Well, maybe he was just lonely?' Dilan thought at one point when he realized that the Demon didn't show any signs of stopping with his incessant blabbering.

But to the black Demon's misfortune, talking was one of the last things Dilan was willing to do right now. He was excited to go all out and fight with every bit of strength that resided in his body. Dilan had summoned an Intermediate Lightning Spirit once again, his comprehension and control of Green Magic and the Power of Destruction had increased drastically within the last few minutes and it was time to end the charade about the Hordes of Chaos and Destruction once and for all.

"I want the Islands…now!" Dilan commanded and he shot forward just a moment later. Rory roared at the top of her lungs and released her Dragon breath while Dilan burst through the blazing hot flames that were supposed to burn him alive.

The searing flames didn't hurt him in the slightest and neither did the pained roars that reached his ears from every direction as thousands of Chaos Monsters around him died at once.

Dilan noticed that the number of enemies had begun to dwindle while the casualties on their side were still easy to count. He hadn't witnessed the death of many Ascenders, which was why his mood kept improving to such an extent that his excitement and the adrenaline that pumped through his veins began to overwhelm him.

Millions of Chaos Monsters had been killed by now and Dilan began to collect all the corpses that littered the ground before he separated them from their Essence Crystal, just to end up feeding the remains to the closest Chaos Island.

When feeding the Chaos Islands with the corpses of the Chaos Monsters, Dilan could visibly see their growth. With [Power Appraisal] activated continuously, it was not difficult for him to keep a check on himself and not excitedly feed the Chaos Islands too much.

He was not sure if overfeeding the Chaos Islands would bring in any side effects, which Dilan would wish to avoid but even if there was something good to gain from feeding the Chaos Islands too much, he wouldn't do it at the moment.

Right now, it was important to obliterate the Hordes of Chaos and Destruction in Camsun to make sure that he could finally advance to Tier-3. The advancement mission to the third Tier was very different from the last abyss-difficulty advancement mission, but with Rory, his people, and even Kaeldur by his side, things felt much easier to deal with in comparison to the time he had been all alone.

Knowing that there were powerful allies by his side, Dilan was given the chance to let loose much more than ever before, and that was exactly what he was doing.

He went all out and unleashed all of his strength. Starting with a few experiments using the Power of Destruction was just the beginning. Dilan wanted to make sure that he could replicate the abilities he had bound to his Essence Crystals.

He knew that abilities could be learned through two different means. The first, and easiest, was to bind an ability crystal to the Essence Crystal. By doing so, the knowledge of the ability would be imprinted in the binder's mind and one could activate the ability at will. The bound ability would also increase in strength just by using it more often.

This was very convenient and different from the second art to learn an ability; through a Martial Art technique or a Spellcraft technique! One had to learn those techniques by studying the texts and comprehending the means to practice and exert the technique. Afterward, the higher the comprehension of the technique, the higher one's talent, and the higher one's physical abilities, the stronger the result of the exerted technique would be.

Those techniques were bound to have limitations, which didn't seem to be the case with Essence bound abilities. [Thunder Step] had evolved to [Walk of Thunder] after reaching its limit, and Dilan expected the same or similar scenarios to occur once his other abilities would reach their highest threshold as well.

"Keep evolving until the end of time, and attain whatever you want and whenever you want!"