The moment lightning reached him, his body entered his own shadow, and following the path set by his vines, he reached the shadow of the tree.
Through that, he came out on the other side of the tree.
But of course, the bird hadn't stopped using its lightning bolts. They were quite powerful, and on top of that, they could control those lightning bolts.
The level of control it showed over its lightning bolt was quite astounding.
But something felt off.
'If their attacks are always so controlled, why is there always news about monsters causing destruction?'
'Something doesn't stick here. If their control was so great, they wouldn't have been a threat to humanity.'
'Diva once mentioned that humans have reached a strange agreement with Continent-Level monsters, to keep their powers in check'
'He also mentioned that if humanity pushes them too far, they can destroy our whole continent in a single day.'
'This is an Eighth Rank hunter's words. Their destruction is uncontrollable, so why is it able to control that lightning so well?'
Unfortunately, the bird didn't give him time to think. It immediately spotted his presence and started raining down more lightning bolts.
'Damn it! In this situation, I can only run around. I need to find a way to counterattack.'
He thought to himself and raised his head. Gathering a lot of Aura into his throat, he spat out a huge wave of fire towards the bird.
[Totem Creation]
[First Skill- Fire Dragon Roar]
Several lightning bolts tried to destroy it, but the fire was like a tsunami, unstoppable.
Facing a fire like that, the bird had no choice but to dodge it. Good thing it could fly high.
And that's exactly where Tyler's problem arose.
He did have the skill to kill it, but he couldn't get it close.
'Idea!'
Just when he thought he couldn't do anything, a bell rang in his head. He quickly released his shadow, and from his shadow, emerged a huge knight.
[Shadow Manipulation]
[First Skill- Shadow Knight]
Soon, the knight held him in his palm. The knight was much taller than him, and he could easily stand on his palm.
Holding his legs, the knight stretched out his arm and threw Tyler towards the bird.
When the bird saw its prey rushing towards it, the first thought that came to its mind was to swallow it whole.
But then it realized the only advantage it had over Tyler was its flight; it suddenly had an urge to run away.
Unfortunately, monsters didn't have words run away in their dictionary.
Because they didn't have a dictionary.
So, it simply conjured as many clouds as it could and rained down lightning bolts towards Tyler.
Because it could perfectly control the lightning bolts, as long as clouds released them, they would instantly strike him.
Lightning was fast, process of producing lightning wasn't.
The moment it realized what it needed to do, Tyler was already closing the gap.
It tried flying higher, but it didn't cross a certain height. Instead, it kept manipulating clouds to release lightning bolts faster.
[Shadow Manipulation]
[Second Skill- Shadow Vines]
Although he was in the air, he still had the ability to release and control his shadow.
While it wouldn't be as effective as on the ground, it was still enough to catch the bird's leg.
Without much hesitation, he used the vine to pull himself closer to the bird as the lightning bolt rained down.
Bang!
He dodged the lightning bolt by a few inches, forcefully pulling the bird towards him.
As soon as he got closer, he quickly released another skill.
[Totem Creation]
[Second Skill- Enhanced Strength]
As he activated the skill, he caught the leg of the bird and pulled it down. He pulled it so hard that while the bird went down, he went up.
Even with the bird's wings mercilessly flapping to rise, the bird wasn't able to fly high.
Instead, Tyler fell towards the bird from above and clenched his fist.
At this moment, the bird was so frightened that it didn't even focus on lightning bolts, rather kept flapping its wings to fly away.
Pow!
Unfortunately, it didn't succeed. Tyler reached above its head and punched down with all of his strength.
[Earth Shattering Impact]
At this moment, Tyler felt like naming his move, so he screamed with all of his might.
Bang! Thud!
The bird felt its head splitting as it fell towards the ground at an incredible speed, breaking apart the ground and creating a crater on it.
Tyler also fell, but he landed on his feet next to the bird. Of course, he wasn't going to let this bird fly away.
So, he kept hammering it as much as he could.
The more he punched, the more it screamed until he finally stabbed the bird with a dagger.
As the bird died, Tyler felt relieved.
And the next moment, he was hit by a headache and physical pain.
During the battle, he was constantly using Rapid Regeneration. Before using that skill, his body would've been destroyed.
And, during the process of regeneration, his body would feel intense pain.
He casually forgot about the pain due to the heat of battle, but that pain didn't just disappear.
It accumulated until his mind finally relaxed, where all of that pain was released at once.
Of course, he overcame a large part of the pain, but not all of it.
More importantly, constant use of his skills puts a lot of pressure on his mind, making him mentally tired.
He almost collapsed on the spot.
As he fell on the ground, he couldn't help but close his eyes.
But he forcefully kept his eyes open.
Until he saw his team arriving, he finally passed out.
....
"Liam, put the monsters in these scrolls!"
Rose threw the scrolls at Liam and rushed towards Tyler.
She immediately raised him and put him on her back. Although she felt heavy, she didn't hesitate to leave the forest.
They weren't exactly inside the forest.
So, it didn't her long to reach outside those trees. She also took a road further away from the wind mark left on the ground.
Liam and others followed after her, but because she was using her full speed, they were left behind.
Only after a while, they caught up and found Tyler lying on her lap.
"That was quite a disturbing battle. Not to mention help, if we had stayed there, we would have needed to be saved."
John hoarsely spoke.
For a long time, he was quite dependent on Tyler. Not just him, others also felt the same.
Because of this, when they saw that catastrophic battle, for a moment, they felt like losing all hope.
They couldn't even see the battle. Rose could barely keep track of Tyler's movements.
Although they trusted him, they still couldn't help but feel anxious.
"Yeah, we need to get stronger."
Liam said as he walked to the side and sat down. He closed his eyes and entered the state of meditation.
Although he couldn't reach Second Rank immediately, he could start his preparation.
Besides, he recently got a few ideas for his new skills.
Seeing this, others quickly followed him.
John shook his head and let them practice.
Unlike them, he had already created two skills.
Including his previous three skills, he was only one skill away from entering Second Rank.
But there was one problem. To create a skill, he needed creativity and Natural Energy.
A lot of Natural Energy needed to be filled within his Ability Crystal to produce a skill.
And, without Natural Fruit, he could only absorb a small portion of the Natural Energy through breathing and meditation.
More importantly, if he made a mistake during the creation of the skill, all of that Natural Energy would be wasted.
This problem was huge.
Most of the skills were needed to fulfill certain conditions.
They needed to be tied to the ability. While imagination could give them anything, the skill was needed to explore a certain attribute of the ability.
Just like Tyler's Totem Creation. Every skill he could create needed to be connected to his totems.
So, creating totems wasn't a skill; it was an ability.
Creating blood wasn't Rose's skill; using blood to achieve something was the skill.
There was another condition. While creating a skill, the skill shouldn't be too powerful.
At least, one couldn't start with an extremely powerful skill.
Even if someone wanted to do that, they would either completely lose their chance and Natural Energy, failing to create the skill.
Or, they would need to put a kind of weakness to offset its strength.
He couldn't use Shadow Replacement to dodge most of the lightning bolts, even if he wanted to.
He didn't have a prior connection with others' shadows. So, he had to create a new connection to the tree's shadow.
By dissolving himself into his shadow, he moved directly to the tree's shadow.
But if lightning had landed on his shadow, his skill would've been forcefully interrupted.
That was the weakness of his Heroic Level Skill.