Jake was aware of that, but he didn't have any of those things, so his pride was the most important thing that he had… the pride that he had in accomplishing this much on his own. The pride of enduring the adversities without asking for help, never complaining, and only moving forward. With that in mind, he didn't know if he should pity or admire Vare for his choices. If anything, he felt annoyed, so perhaps that was how the others felt while looking at him.
"Well, since you are going to be like that, I won't waste my time with you," Jake said and then equipped his greatsword.
In the next moment, Jake also made his dark flames envelop his blade and then he charged toward the enemy. Vare fired some Frozen Claws toward Jake, but he repelled those with his sword. He wasn't even pushed backward or felt much cold like he did it before. Vare showed an annoyed expression and then opened his mouth to use Cold Hoar, but then Jake used Flash and then swung his sword when he appeared instantly in front of him.
Vare was forced to stop and used his claws to stop the attack and while that worked, Jake was slowly overpowering him with brute strength alone and the claws of his hands were also melting. Jake had gotten stronger, that was a fact, but Vare still was supposed to be two times stronger… Before Vare could do or think of anything, Jake raised his sword and began to bombard him with simple downward swings.
Vare had to give his all to block and withstand those, but Jake was only showed a bored expression… as if he was telling that he could win by only doing that. That was really humiliating for someone like Vare… so he planned to use Cold Hoar again, but Jake kicked his stomach and made him lose the air in his lungs. Before he could recover, he used again his downward swings and kept going.
Things didn't last for long after that. Vare said that there were more important things than his pride, but then he got too frustrated and tried to block one of the swings with one of his claws while he attacked with the other. Jake had imagined that something like that would happen, so he used Full Swing alongside Fissure. The attack shattered the claw that Vare used to defend himself and made the blade pierce his hand deeply.
The damage made Vare flinch, and stopped his attack. Before long, that part of his body was severed and Jake quickly began to move to the final strike. That certainly ended a lot faster than he had expected…
"Little by little… You show your true colors…" Vare said.
Jake frowned and stopped for a moment, he had no idea why Vare suddenly said something so random. Unless he was referring to the dreams that Jake had and that ruthless and inhuman figure that he sees. It seemed that Vare knew a lot more than he let it see, but he wasn't going to tell any of it… This time, Jake swung his sword downward with all his might while planning to destroy the enemy's head completely. He was annoying enough to ignore all the respect that he had for Vare. Still, at the last moment, he changed the direction of his sword and then cut the left side of Vare's body. That was more painful than a quick death with a powerful strike on the head, but at least it was more respectable.
In the end, Jake didn't get any reward for killing Vare from the system. He didn't accept the quest of clearing the dungeon again so that it couldn't be helped. Still, thanks to that, he wasn't teleported away from the dungeon either and now he finally could do something about the crystal.
"Well, now… What should I do?" Jake asked as he watched Vare's body disappear.
It seemed like a good chance to understand how the purple crystal worked, but Jake had to be careful, or he might cause a dungeon break. While he was thinking about what to do. Some grizzlies spawned and he confirmed that their levels had increased as well… Speaking of which, he didn't have that weird sensation that something was bothering him anymore.
"I guess my senses were altering the power up of the monsters… In any case, what caused that?" Jake thought.
Since Jake didn't use Appraisal on those monsters after the first day he defeated them, he couldn't say if it had been a gradual or sudden change. In any case, Jake decided to touch the crystal and see what happens, he didn't expect that he would be Teleported to another world just like that…
"Oh, boy… It is even colder than that world," Jake thought. "My health is already decreasing, so this place must be the Vare home planet."
A massive and powerful snowstorm was falling and Jake could barely see things ten meters away from him. Attacking his planet to get some answers seemed like the best option, but Jake wasn't strong enough for the weather alone in that place. Unfortunately, he had no idea how to return to the previous world and he couldn't see w crystal behind him either. However, there was a small space there where the snow wasn't that high. When Jake approached, he was teleported back to the dungeon.
"Hmm, so it is like that…" Jake thought. "We can access the worlds where the monsters came from as long as we don't use the system to help directly."
The only downside of that was the fact that the system wasn't going to reward Jake's actions… He also would be in the middle of a world where everyone would treat him like an enemy. In any case, there were other easier worlds that Jake probably could go to now with weaker monsters… Maybe that was why no one found the base of the criminals yet.
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