Scarlet

Without wasting a second, I rush straight at the knight before slamming my fist right in its armored face, sending it crashing to the ground a few meters away thanks to the level gap of forty levels between us. I then land on the ground myself and immediately jump again, bringing both my fists down on the creature’s chest, making it cough out a massive amount of blood before dying.

[Blood Thirst Effect applied. Stack is now 1]

I stand up again while grinning, only to turn to the others to find them looking rather amused. Well, except Arthur who looks kind of shocked.

“Well, I’ll be heading out then,” I say with a wave at them before running off just seconds later in the direction of the center of the mall, where I suspect the core is at.

Because this time I’m going core hunting.

“And you’re sure about this?” Tar asks as I run through the wide open malls, slaughtering any demons I find in my path with ease and saving the civilians they’re attacking without stopping to accept their thanks.

Yes. I am.

It’s been an entire month since the Class II Fracture, but throughout all that time, with all those Fractures we fought in, I only leveled up a grand total of five times. Which is absolutely disgusting compared to my previous leveling speed.

And to make matters worse? I haven’t gotten a single Skill Point outside of when I hit the ‘kill 1000 total demons’ achievement and got a free thirty from it.

“Well, it makes sense considering that you’re level 90, and there are generally only three or four demons at most at that level or above in a Class I Fracture,” Tar explains as I continue running, having shifted my arm into that of a beast at some point and split my blood shadow off of me, letting blood regeneration take care of the blood I lose from it.

I understand that. But it’s still frustrating.

So I’m going to take this mall as a chance to finally go after a core for the first time.

“If you’re sure,” Tar says, and I nod my head at that while rushing by a level forty spawn and ripping its heart out before throwing it away without even giving it the chance to react or stopping my run in the process.

Besides. The strongest demon in a Class I Fracture is only level 100, and I’ve fought and killed a level 126 demon on my own before, along with several others above level one hundred.

“You may be right about that, but a demon captain is far smarter than a demon acolyte is. Just about as smart as a human is, and you should know that,” Tar says, warning me as I get closer and closer to the center of the mall. So on that note, I begin to slow down a little bit before jumping up onto the wall and climbing to the second floor bridge I find where I then continue heading towards the center of the mall. Which happens to be a skating rink of ice, just like the mall we were at the first time the team and I ever worked together in a Fracture.

But this time I’m a much higher level.

Actually, come to think of it, a lot of the malls we’ve fought at during Fractures – malls being a rather common place for Fractures to appear thanks to the large number of people there – have the ice skating rink at the center of the building. Or at least at the main open area.

“It makes sense when you think about it,” Tar comments as I search around the main area for the core, which doesn’t take long to find as it’s just sitting next to a fountain with the captain standing next to it alongside about five knights and dozens of spawn who are currently spreading out throughout the area. “The place holding the court of ice needs to be rather large, meaning them being in…”

Tar trails off as he realizes I’m focusing on checking out the demons numbers and not his estimate on why malls are designed the way they are.

The captain shouldn’t be much of a problem outside of his directing the other demons. After all, even if he’s level 100, he’s still just Class I, unlike the Class IIs I’ve killed before. Meaning he only has a Class I multiplier from his capabilities and not a Class II multiplier, which should be a few hundredths of a point higher than the Class I multipliers used when calculating your mana, physical strength, and other things like that. So my main issue here is dealing with their numbers.

Looks like most of the people in the main area of the hall have already gathered into several areas and are being protected by Guardians. Although I can’t help but notice that there aren’t any Class II Guardians here. Which, if I had to guess, is likely due to this being a smaller and lower scale mall than the other ones I’ve been to.

And it doesn’t have a VIP area, which is a big must have for more famous Guardians who don’t like just walking around in public as they go about their daily lives.

The Guardians who are here appear to be mostly between level fifty to level eighty or so in terms of mana level, and while some of them are clearly struggling, most are able to at least defend the civilians while they push their way back to bunkers.

I narrow my eyes at the demons before an idea comes to me and I raise my hand into the air, summoning seven different daggers made of blood.

None of these demons are terribly powerful, meaning I can probably kill a lot of them simply from here using my ranged skills.

So with that thought in mind, I immediately begin sending daggers of blood flying downwards at the demons while also using blood boil and life drain on each and every one nearby. And my level ten blood boil skill has the level forty to level sixty or so demons practically writhing on the ground in agony, the skill allowing me to use it on up to fifteen or so targets at once now.

My actions quickly draw a lot of attention towards me – both from demons, civilians, and Guardians alike.

Including the captain.

Looks like it’s time to take on my first fully intelligent demon.