Chapter 18: Universal Steal Is The Source Of Trouble?

Mathew's hand starts to shine with a bright white light that blinds all of us.

The bright white light covers the whole forest that it even alerts most of the dragons within the vicinity.

The ground starts to shake as the light envelops the neighboring places of the Dragon Mountain.

The ground violently shakes and the magnitude of the man-made earthquake keeps on rising as the light envelops most places near Dragon Mountain which resulted in fissures in the world's crust which causes some of the living beings in or near the Dragon Mountain to either go near the source of it which is Mathew or flee to other places that are not affected by the earthquake.

Countless beings that are considered powerful but not as powerful as our start to surround the Dragon Mountain leaving us without an escape route.

Even though a lot of powerful beings are surrounding us, they remain idle and observe us on what we are going to do next.

I cast [Shadow Barrier] and the whole place is enshrouded with shadows that keep the light at bay but as every minute passes, the force of the light gets stronger and stronger until I can't even contain it which breaks the [Shadow Barrier].

'Mathew's Universal Steal ability is starting to give me a headache. I can't even contain the force it releases using a barrier infused with magic that has a 60 million intelligence stat. This is getting out of my reach.'

Sophie starts to infuse her shadow magic into my [Shadow Barrier] which greatly enforces the barrier since she has a powerful shadow manipulation ability than me.

We start to contain the light but it did not last since the light keeps getting more powerful than before.

Eventually, the [Shadow Barrier] that Sophie and I cast was not powerful enough to withstand the force of the bright white light so it shattered in just 5 minutes.

More powerful beings start to gather and some of them even come from the demon race.

Most of the demons are only at soldier rank while some of them are at leader rank so their strength is not a threat to us but their strength in numbers makes up for their lack of strength.

There are at least 5000 demon soldiers and 100 demon leaders.

I cast multiple [Explosive Fireball] towards the demon soldiers and leaders and they stand still, not planning to dodge or retreat as if they are planning to withstand my attacks.

Multiple black flames forms into balls of fire that launch into the sky and bombards the demons at high speed.

The black fireballs start to burn most of the demon soldiers and some of them even blown the demons into smithereens.

Screams can be heard since some of the demons are being burned alive. Even they can't handle the agonizing pain of being burnt alive using one of my most simple but powerful spells plus boosted by my tremendous amount of Intelligence stat.

There are at least 1391 demon soldiers and 58 demon leaders left.

I raise my hand and cast [Explosive Fireball] and multiple black fireballs are appearing above me.

I wave my hand and direct it towards the demons. The black fireballs follow my command and before I launch it towards the demons, I am stopped by their sudden action.

They hold a ten-meter pole with a square white cloth above it forming a white flag and they wave it around. In other words, they admit defeat.

I'm not a fool to accept that they surrendered without any ulterior motives so I follow what my gut tells me and it says that I need to wipe them out to avoid any potential threat.

Even though they can't harm me for now and are not considered a threat but the future is unknown so what if they will get stronger? I will be put in a disadvantageous situation so I must

'You can never be too careful. I won't take the risk of the demons getting stronger as time passes by!'

I launch the black fireballs towards the demons and the sound of explosion rings throughout the forest.

Screams of agony can be heard. Demons who want to attack us are getting attack by us instead. It is a one-sided battle.

'Calling it a battle is too shameless for the demons. It's called a massacre!'

Some demons have survived my attack.

'How about I use my physical power instead?'

I tighten my fist and launch it towards the remaining demons.

A huge shockwave is formed by my fist and the whole forest where I have launched my fist is destroyed. Not even a single tree left survived.

The impact of my first travels across the whole forest and hits the demons which blow them into pieces until nothing of them can be seen, not even their corpse.

The impact of my fist hits the mountain and it keeps destroying the mountains until it hits the mountain where the dragon king was supposed to be living inside.

Even though it didn't destroy the whole mountain of the dragon king, a crater can be seen with the mold of my fist.

"A 68 million strength stat is nothing to scoff at!", I boast.

My teammates are dumbfounded after they found out that I am and not just in magic but also physical power.

"I forgot to tell you that my cheat ability is that I can use chant-less magic, Omni-affinity, and stat absorption.", I inform my teammates.

"I can absorb the stat of my opponents and permanently use it as my own making my level useless. I can even defeat a level 10,000 despite being level 2000. I can also absorb any affinity of my opponents but it has a condition to be met before I can activate its ability.", I added.

'It's okay to tell them this much, right? As what they say, trust is the foundation of friendship.'

"That's just too overpowered! Forget about defeating the demon lord, you might even ascend into becoming a god!", Zale exclaims.

"I can feel the opportunity of you becoming a God!", Zale added.

'Becoming a God... I never have thought about such a desire. I haven't thought of becoming a god even if it's from my last life. I have the power to overthrow a whole nation from my last life using the power of technology but I never felt the desire to conquer the whole world.'

"I also believe that you have the potential to become a god.", Sophie says.

"Of course my darling has the potential of becoming a God! I have an eye to find talents you know!", Aerin replies to Sophie.

"Becoming a God is too troublesome and I have no desire to become one.", I lazily reply to them.

"There are still beings from other races who are waiting on what will happen to the light cast by Mathew. It's better if we stay on guard or we will be ambushed by the enemies.", I remind my teammates.

They all nodded at me to show that they have understood what I have meant.

The light that Mathew emits from his Universal Steal shines brighter than before until the light shines throughout the whole forest.

The light suddenly forms into a magic staff and after the light disappeared, a magic staff with a rod made of wood, vines, and the vines surrounds a green magic orb that emits magic.

Mathew is holding the magic staff right now.

"That is the elven treasure known as Nature's Magic Staff. It is at deity rank and it can only be used if you have an affinity with nature magic.", Aerin says while pointing at the magic staff.

'System, what is the ranking of an artifact?'

*The ranking of an artifact has the same ranking of a skill. From weakest to strongest; Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Unique, Legendary, Mythical, Saint, Deity, Divine, God and lastly Beyond God.*

'That's a lot of ranking. I don't even know if I can obtain a God rank artifact and I can't even use the God rank skill that I obtained since it needs a lot of mana and my magic proficiency is not that high to have the ability to wield a God rank skill.'

*God rank skills are available at the system shop at level 8.*

'How much is it?'

*The host has limited access to confidential information. The system suggests the host start upgrading the system level to have access to confidential information.*

"Now what should we do with Nature's Magic Staff?", I ask my teammates.

"I should wield it since I'm from the eleven kingdoms and I have an affinity for nature magic.", Aerin replies.

We all agreed and we know that she can use Nature's Magic Staff to its full potential. Aerin might become stronger than before if she uses the magic staff.

"No! Don't steal my precious baby! I stole it fair and square! Go steal other magic staff but don't steal mine!!!", Mathew yells while holding the staff tightly and backing his steps away from us.

"So this is what Mathew means about the side effect of Universal Steal. Should we beat him up to let him know that stealing is bad?", I ask my teammates.

"Aren't we the reason why he stole that?", Sophie asks.

"Right I forgot... I will cast my magic now and hopefully, he will recover.", I reply to Sophie.

"[Restoration]!", I cast while a holy light shines from my hand towards Mathew.