Heavy.
Snarls, barks and growls came from all directions.
The heavy scent of ammonia, and the smell of dirt combined attacks the nostrils.
Hot breaths, plus the saliva that pours down from their mouths.
They are hungry.
For revenge.
And for food.
But, that's what they see.
That's what they want to see.
Because they are trembling.
The air froze, their breaths stilled.
No one can explain what is happening.
And no one was willing to if they know.
Because what they're seeing now, is sending a message to their brains.
'RUN!'
Their fight-or-flight is telling them to go away from the monster that is flying in the air.
But their bodies are not listening.
The crystals are overriding their instincts, kicking all their fears away.
Now, they are just targets for Zypher.
He, who is in the air.
His vision is not blurry, but his senses, dull.
The colors of everything around him is achromatic, and even the targets are blending in the color of the background, so he doesn't see them that fine.
This is the reason he was hit so many times that he lost three minutes of his time.
But, it has come to an end.
"Dagger Dance."
Suddenly, red and blue lines appeared in the whole place.
Some are curvy, some are just straight.
And they stop from time to time, but they are continuous.
The final thing that can be seen is the violet point directly below him.
Zypher felt a very deep sense of nostalgia.
This is not something he sees everyday, but every time he does this, he is filled with overwhelming emotions.
So, he did the dance.
Using his right hand, holding Fero, he traced the red lines.
And using his left hand, holding Nitor, traced the blue lines.
BANG!
A rune appeared behind him: Burst.
It pushed him down the floor, but that was not the goal.
[Warning: Transcension has 1 minute remaining.]
He smiled, and did not care.
Because he knows, that in 60 seconds, he will wipe it all out.
Holding the dagger, he slashed it down, then he suddenly changed direction to make a Z cut and the other hand swirled in attack.
With two hands working together, and the lines he is following, he barely missed anything.
And the finer thing is, if he missed, there will be another line that will be made, and it will create a new branching path which will send Zypher to the next lines to follow.
And that was not his skill, nor a bug, but an inherent ability of the two daggers.
[Fero's Ability: Biotic Charge]
- charge the dagger by percentage based on the Life Signal of the enemy. When full, create a "Kill Line" where every enemy hit will be damaged, and if missed, create a new line.
[Nitor's Ability: Sudden Kill]
- charge the dagger by percentage based on the Life Signal of the enemy. When full, everything hit by the user will be killed instantly.
And these two, complimented each other.
One gives way to where it will go, and the other just gives out pure destruction.
Aim and destroy.
This was the theme he had in mind when he created Fero and Nitor.
They were solely created for killing too many enemies, and for long fights.
As he brandished the daggers, he also used runes to take control.
Dash, Burst, and even his self-created Rune: Forward.
It was a rune he did, harnessing the power of time to make him go forwards into it, while also using the power of space to fold it and make it easier to access.
He uses this rune to fold the straight line into a small dot, which, in one move, he can cut all of them in pieces, just by passing by.
[00:50.]
Within the first ten seconds, he finished all the canines in the air. Each and every one of them were like balloons: popping as they splattered blood all over the place.
As the countdown fell, his ferocity and madness just ignited more.
One swind of the blade fells a hundred, and even in the places where he has to maneuver to take their lives, he still kills almost fifty in one take.
[00:40]
Ten seconds had passed, and he chose a place to clear first. Like a cleaner, he chose the place where the lines are much sparser compared to the rest.
And with his Forward Rune, cleaning things up became easier. The only challenge he met was that he missed too many lines and it kept on reappearing.
Although he knows in his mind that he can finish these, he is still doubting it because everything he does seems slow.
Well, that's one downside of the Zen Mode. You do not know the time, unless you check it, but everytime you check the time, it slows you down.
[00:30]
Final thirty seconds.
He cleared one place, and he needs to move.
His stamina is getting low, and also his mana.
These runes are taking up too much of his resources, and he is not liking it.
But, he has to move forward. Even though he is still pessimistic about it, he has to do it.
With no one by his side, he stepped forward.
[00:20]
He cleared another side, and was preparing to clear another when his head suddenly got heavy.
Another downside of Zen Mode: he was so detached from the world that his body started adapting, but his mind knows this is not the world, so it wants its colors back.
Despite that, he still went on.
The headache is just mild, so he needs to go on still.
He needs to.
He has a goal to reach, and not just an ordinary goal.
His goal was to make Caelestia the top guild.
And this is just one of the hurdles he has to breakthrough.
Last 20 seconds.
He told himself that he won't miss any lines again.
He gripped his daggers tightly.