Chapter 44 Excitement

Taking a deep breath, Nial was ready to fight against the large group of petrification rats that had surrounded him.

After they had crawled out of the numerous holes that were in every wall of the entire cave, it was not difficult to overwhelm Nial, but instead of attacking him one after another, their plan had been different.

Waiting for the entire group to emerge from the holes, they had surrounded him from all sides, before slowly closing the distance towards Nial.

This was not difficult to be perceived by Nial, whose mana perception was also released, providing him with intel about the current situation.

Making use of the pieces of information, he quickly realized that there were roughly 50 petrification rats, which caused him to frown deeply.

'Why are there so many already?!'

Under normal circumstances, bigger groups of beasts would only emerge in the deepest parts of a dungeon.

As such, in a plain area like the center of the dungeon, and in the case of the two-element dungeon, they should only show up when he would venture into the deeper parts of the cave.

Unfortunately, they didn't seem to follow the norms right now as the rats, which were all roughly the size of a cat, were ganging up against him.

Despite the dangers of facing 50 opponents at once, Nial realized that blacksmith Arnold's words about the petrification rats' strength were probably correct.

His mana fluctuations were already weak, but the petrification rats could barely be considered dungeon beasts through their mana fluctuations that were barely perceptible.

In the end, the only threat from them was their ability to petrify, and the fact that they harbored numerous diseases.

Thus, Nial would normally try to avoid being scratched or bitten by the petrification rats, but would not bother about it if he were to face a large horde at once.

Instead of focusing on individual rats, he quickly decided to defeat the majority of them at once as he came up with a plan.

Fortunately, the Fang spear had the same ability as the Viper spear.

As such, he inserted some mana into it before releasing the blade on the spear's tip while doing the same to the blade that could be released on the side of the tip.

In fact, there were two blades that could be released at the tip of the spear, and Nial simply chose the blade that seemed to be only a small part of a larger blade.

Using small traces of mana to release the two blades, he saw them be connected to each other and turned the spear into a glaive that had a lengthy blade.

With a glaive, Nial was not able to attack multiple opponents at the same time instead of being forced to thrust or accurately swing the Fang spear.

Accuracy was still important, but even more so was brute force, and velocity while tackling multiple opponents.

The glaive didn't look perfect according to what he had sensed with his mana perception, and Nial realized why the Fang spear was considered to be the prototype of the Viper spear.

Nevertheless, it was more than enough to fight against the large group of petrification rats.

Confident about the razor-sharp weapon he was holding, Nial didn't wait until the rats had closed the distance to him.

Instead, he initiated an attack, shooting forward without any hesitation.

Having learned a little bit about the control of his body on the day he was beaten up by Master Junades, Nial's movements were more fluidic and smoother than ever before.

This allowed him to advance, only to halt the moment the petrification rats were about to initiate their counterattack.

The moment both of his feet touched the ground at the same time again, the entire accumulated mana within the petrification rats was released in their eyes.

Yet, Nial didn't even notice anything as he slashed horizontally at the closest batch of petrification rats, cutting through them as if their hide was as thick as the paper-thin membrane of slimes.

Even though he had expected the rats to be weak, the fact that he had just killed five of them with a single slash of the Fang spear in its glaive form clearly showed that blacksmith Arnold's comparison of a Goblin being able to kill a handful of petrification rats was not exaggerated, at all.

Emboldened by his first of the several kills, Nial was able to continue fighting with ease as he began to advance once again, leaving the encirclement of the petrification rats through the small gap he had created.

When they noticed him slip out, all of them let out a horrid screech while completely ignoring the death of their brethren.

They hadn't expected that Nial would be able to avoid being petrified even with his eyes open, which was something the petrification rats had never encountered before.

Not knowing that Nial was blind, let alone what being blind even meant, they had always thought that someone with open eyes would be easily affected by their ability.

Thus, they had been momentarily distracted, and reassured of their victory, only for Nial to prove them wrong, as he weilded the Fang spear expertly to cut and slash a tenth of their entire group while being completely unaffected by the petrification curse!

After he stepped outside the encirclement, Nial was able to take control of the situation, at least much better than it was the case while being surrounded.

Being able to sense what lay behind him up to more than 10 meters, he could ignore it for the time being even if it was still dangerous as his position was quite… disadvantageous.

In fact, he was in the middle of the open tunnel and beasts could emerge from everywhere at any moment.

As such, every little noise the petrification rats made was lethal for him as it would attract other beasts.

To avoid the occurrence of this risky scenario, they had to be defeated and killed as quickly as possible.

With that in mind, he circulated mana through his body, while smoothly wielding the glaive around his body, and adjusting himself to the slightly altered weight of a large blade, Nial couldn't help but smile lightly.

Right now, he might be at a numerical disadvantage, and his mana reserve was depleting rapidly as he was using it to circulate throughout his body, but that didn't matter as his speed increased subtly.

With a higher speed than the petrification rats, he was strong enough to lunge out at them, killing a single petrification rat before it could do anything as he retreated a step, preventing the other petrification rats from attacking him.

Following that, he changed his tactic from attacking groups, and individual rats one after another, to try out something he painfully recalled from Master Junades' beating.

Having been thrashed by Master Junades was painful and so was the memory. Nevertheless, it had been extremely helpful because his mana perception had allowed him to visualize the movements of a true master for more than half an hour!

If Master Junades had held back, this wouldn't be as useful, but Nial knew that he had given his all, even if that was without the use of mana and a restricted physical strength.

In the end, what mattered to Nial was Master Junades' expertise in the martial art techniques he had showcased.

Recalling what he had visualized, Nial began to smile as he attempted to replicate one of the simple movement sequences he had seen him perform.

As he was fully focused on his task to defeat the petrification rats as quickly as possible, Nial didn't even notice that his entire demeanor had just changed.

Previously, his mana fluctuations had been unstable, but right now, they were extremely calm and smoothly following every single movement he was doing.

Through this, the problems of continuously circulating mana through his body despite sudden movements were fixed before they even occurred.

Thus, he was able to push his feet up from the ground, slash at the closest lot of petrification rats, and use the momentum in order to continue attacking.

The more momentum he attained, the faster his attack became, and by continuing to move ahead without halting in his tracks, only now did he notice that the muscles of his forearm were starting to cramp as they were receivers of the biggest toll of being moved, stretched and twisted to an extent like never before.

Due to the cramps of his forearms, he was forced to slow down by a large margin. It made him realize that his body was not yet trained enough to move every single muscle to the extent he wanted.

Clearly seeing his limitations, Nial could only sigh inwardly, yet, a bright smile emerged on his face because the more flaws he was able to figure out about himself, the more ways to improve were unveiled.

Knowing that he was lacking was the first step, but precisely knowing what exactly he had to improve was the most important because that enabled him to fix the problems one after another!

However, right now, nothing of that mattered, whether it was his combat proficiency, the little amount of mana he possessed, his blindness, or even the fact that he was wielding a completely different weapon than usual while facing dozens of opponents at once.

That was because his heart was wildly throbbing as he was advancing through the rows of opponents, the stench of blood gushing out of the deep cuts he created in the petrification rats reeking the air intermixed with their pained squeals and chittering that made his skin crawl.

Blood splashed on his clothes, face, and organs were spilling out of the body of the deceased, turning the ground more slippery than it already was.

Yet, Nial's feet were firmly planted as he evaded them because his body was instinctively reacting to what the mana perception allowed him to perceive and visualize.

Owing to that, the large group of petrification rats, that had worried Nial a few minutes before, had been eradicated, leaving not a single one of them alive.

In the end, most of them had been cut in half through the Fang spear's glaive form, as well as the fact that Nial's physical strength had allowed him to pierce through their thin skin as if it was not much.

Being in possession of a strong weapon was quite advantageous, and this was even easily noticeable if one found opponents with a great numerical advantage but bad defenses such as the rats.

Nial hadn't even been required to exert lots of physical strength…or so one would normally think.

Unfortunately, this was not the entire truth because one required a trained body to expertly control a glaive, even more so if one wanted to create a lengthy movement sequence that was precisely created in order to defeat masses of opponents.

Right now, his body might have only been trained to do some basic workouts, but he was far from having attained a physique that allowed him to fight, let alone a state in which he could fight for hours and not sustain a physical injury due to overstraining of muscles.

Thus, he had to grit his teeth and take the first healing serum the moment he finished off the first group of petrification rats.

Even though it was not necessary in order to stay unharmed, if another group of beasts was to arrive, he would be unable to fight them with his highest combat prowess.

He might be weak but being practical and using his mind was important to even out his flaws.

With that in mind, he gulped down half of the healing serum before he began to pick up 7 origin crystals that had dropped from the corpses of petrification rats before leaving the battlefield, and entering the depths of the cave.

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