Chapter 40: Chop

Chapter 40: Chop

As he walked away from the camp in the dead of the night he was going over his future path of development. He couldnt just focus on training with the new guidance system all day due to the third class skill requiring large amounts of time battling in the forest.

On the way from the camp he tried using [Axe Mastery] in an actual battle with a barghest. He was disappointed to see that the trajectories wouldnt actually assist him in battle, and completely shut off right before the battle started. It seemed it was purely a training mechanism.

Finally he arrived at a small clearing some distance from the camp. He didnt want to accidentally ruin his home in case the skill had any unexpected effects.

He started with using a small amount of energy and channeled it through his new fractal as he swung the axe. The energy transformed as it ventured out through his hand and into the axe. As he swung down he could see a translucent edge formed by cosmic energy.

It was like the axe head had gotten a bit larger, as the translucent edge ran a few centimeters in front of the actual edge, and its length was roughly 10 centimeters longer compared to the actual steel edge. The edge created from cosmic energy looked like a copy of his axes actual edge, with some faint fractals added along its length.

It wasnt spectacular but he used a minuscule amount of energy in the strike. He tried using the skill once more, but this time he put far more cosmic energy into the skill. The translucent blade grew quite a bit larger, now stretching noticeably outward. The blade was now over one meter long, making his once short-ranged axe have almost as long a range as the great sword he had commandeered. Luckily the edge didnt grow downward along the haft, but rather outward. Otherwise it would be hard for him to swing it without maiming himself.

It was out of Zacs expectation it would grow to this size. As he continued putting in more power into the skill it kept growing, but Zac soon felt that he was starting to lose control over the skill. Suddenly the cosmic energy blade simply dissipated, leaving no trace of ever being there.

It seemed that there was a limit of how large he could grow the blade without it starting to become unstable. After some experimentation he knew that he could keep the blade stable at roughly one meter. Any larger and it would quickly become unstable. The longer he made the blade the shorter duration he could keep it.

It seemed that this was all that there was to the skill. He tried shooting it away like a ranged attack or boomerang, but nothing happened. It was firmly lodged to his axe. Of course, the proficiency was only at early stage, and it might get more functions at higher levels.

Zac was still quite pleased with the skill, even though it wasnt as flashy as the black lightning of the demon leader. It wasnt fancy but he could immediately imagine a few uses for a skill such as this. For one he could surprise an enemy. He or she might have thought that they dodged his strike, but instead they were well within the range of his skill blade.

It was also a brutal instrument when fighting against multiple enemies. If he pushed it past its point of stability he could wield a huge blade and slash at multiple people at one, at least for a short duration before the skill broke. With his monstrous strength he believed that he could create a great deal of carnage in that brief window in time.

Of course, that would be a last resort attack, as cramming that amount of cosmic energy into one skill use would greatly drain him.

Now he was quite close to his camp, and his swing into the stone had made a sound. He soundlessly passed through the layer and entered his illusion array. He could only hope it was a large critter that was lumbering around in the dark.

Zac held his axe at the ready, vigilantly gazing into the woods. His hopes were soon dashed as he saw one of the roving war parties moving close by. The demons conversed in their language with subdued voices, seemingly arguing about something.

The core of the party consisted of 6 demons and an imp. They generally seemed to be average soldiers, with none of them wearing expensive-looking gear. There also were a few gwyllgi and barghest surrounding the party.

Zac didnt dare to move even though he knew that his camp just looked like an empty area with some extra dense bushes. His illusion array was effective on the eyes, but he had no idea whether there were skills that could sense the array. He had tried it with his [Eye of Discernment] without finding anything, but it was also the cheapest skill that the Nexus Node offered.

Suddenly he saw a gwyllgi was slowly coming extremely close, moving some ways from the group. If it kept moving the direction it did, it would enter the bushes he had moved to the edge of his camp, and soon after enter his array.

Zacs fears came true as it trotted forward and entered his camp through the dense bushes. Zac was ready and with lightning speed he grabbed the hounds neck as soon as it was through the array, and with a twist broke it. With his strength he could probably rip its head right off, but he didnt want any blood to spill.

He slowly dragged the corpse into the camp and flung it to the side. Luckily the array also had sound dampening, so no one should have heard anything. He resumed his vigil against the rest of the group, and it seemed no one among them had noticed the missing beast. The gwyllgi often moved some distance from the parties acting as scouts, so it would likely take some while before they noticed their missing beast. Unfortunately, they had stopped just 50 meters away from the camp.

They still seemed to be arguing about something in hushed tones. One of the demons seemed nervous and kept pointing toward where Zac had tested his skill. The others seemed unconvinced and dismissive.

One of the demons rolled his eyes at the nervous one and started to actually walk toward Zacs camp. The nervous demon entreated him, but was just met with a dismissive wave of his hand. He started fiddling with his pants and stopped at a tree just half a meter away from the edge of the illusion array.

The demon was actually relieving himself. He looked around the area while he did so. His eyes stopped a second on the camp. It should look like a normal clearing to him, but the demon slightly furrowed his brows. Soon they smoothed out and he casually looked away again and continued with his business.

But Zacs heart started beating rapidly after scrutinizing the demons face.

Heknew.