"Why are you fuckers so slow?" Liam asked in a calm voice as he took a small step forward.
With the grace of a hunter, he thrust the steel pierce forward while narrowly avoiding the fireballs and blades that would have hit him otherwise.
With the least possible movement, Liam avoided all incoming attacks while piercing the head of the closest Sheim.
His eyes were glowing brightly, with much more intensity than before as Arcane Power was slowly consumed to maintain the active effect of the Devil's Eyes.
Liam's iris was still purple, but everything else had changed about his eyes. His irises were speckled with bright white dots that resembled stars, while the pupils, and the dark center of his eyes, looked like swirling vortexes of darkness, almost as if his eyes sealed away the abyss. The white of his eyes was shrouded with a hazy shade of purple and black, like the diffuse glow of a galaxy.
It was almost as if his eyes were the skies itself, housing several celestial objects, the vessels of galaxies…
And those celestial objects allowed him to see much better and devour the most important pieces of information to deduce the trajectory and movement sequences of the projectiles and beings within his range of view.
Liam felt as if his eyes took in all information before they filtered out the unnecessary data while only the most important and relevant details were sent to his brain.
This exceptional feature and the fact that his brain seemed to have finally recognized the limitations of Liam's current strength were more than what he needed to eliminate the foes that had amassed in front of him.
Thus, it was no surprise that the Shedim in front of him died in the blink of an eye.
[Ordinary Shedim has been slayed]
[+0.25 Arcanium]
Liam noted that he received only a quarter of the Arcanium he had obtained compared to earlier when defeating Ordinary Shedim before he obtained his Soultrait, but that was something he had already expected.
Arcanium could be used to buy almost anything. It could be procured by killing other beings just like Liam had already done before, by completing missions, or by selling goods to other people.
However, it was not easy to gather wealth by killing itself. The Arcane System's equation was pretty simple. The rank of the opponent multiplied by their actual combat prowess would be divided by Liam's rank which was also multiplied by his actual combat prowess.
By attaining his Soultrait, Liam's combat prowess increased drastically even if his stats were still far below the stats of the Shedim, resulting in the 0.25 Arcanium he obtained in the end.
He could use his remaining 31.25 Arcanium to increase his stats to stand on equal footing with the Shedim but Liam didn't even think of doing that.
Increasing his stats would decrease the amount of Arcanium he received from every Shedim he killed even further…and he no longer needed higher stats!
Liam moved to the side and evaded a handful of attacks before in a quick move he pierced the heart of the next Shedim. At the same time, he freed the Shedim's steel longsword from its grasp by twisting its claws before he spun around his own axis.
[+0.25 Arcanium]
The steel spear was smoothly retracted in his spin, and Liam had gotten his hand on a new weapon, a well-balanced longsword that seemed to be smiling at him.
It could be used for hacking and cutting which was not something he could do with the steel spear he held. The spear's blade was not made to crudely slash through his opponents but just stab and gut them.
The longsword's blade was sharpened to a fine edge, and it was perfectly balanced for his purpose, which turned it into a versatile and effective murder weapon!
Liam didn't spend precious time marveling at the craftsmanship of the longsword. Instead, he spun the steel spear in his left hand before he threw it in the most crowded place with terrific precision that caused goosebumps to appear all over his body when three notifications popped up in the corner of his eyes.
[+0.25 Arcanium]
[+0.25 Arcanium]
[+0.25 Arcanium]
The corners of Liam's mouth curled upward upon seeing the notification that showed the result of his spear throw. It had killed three Shedim at the same time, piercing through the most rotten areas of their hearts.
'Am I a walking cheat code now?' He wondered for a moment as he diverted the trajectory of a spear thrust just to take a step forward and behead the Shedim that had attacked him.
Afterward, he turned into a whirlwind, evading all incoming attacks with graceful but accurate movements that didn't drain his stamina as fast as before. He countered the attacks every now and then, killing more than ten Shedim in the following two minutes.
His Arcane Power should have been drained by now, but he had still more than half left to use. Others might be surprised by this but not Liam. It was not his 'fortune' that he had still a few more minutes left to use his Arcane Power before it would be fully drained.
Rather than luck, the reason why he had so much Arcane Power left and why it was drained so slowly was thanks to the energy that had entered his body to awaken his Soul artificially.
Its remnants were still in his body and it allowed him to maintain the Devil's Eyes trait's active effect.
Liam was a little bit confused why he awoke the Soultrait that was different from the Soultrait he had before. It was not as if his Soul had been exchanged all of a sudden!
The Name also suggested that the Soultrait was only related to his mother's side of the bloodline. He should have awoken a Soultrait of the mixed blood he was, or two different Soultraits… not only one that was related to his mother…logically speaking.
But no matter how much Liam wanted to think about it, the change in his primary Soultrait didn't affect the fact that it was most important to be able to make use of his Soultrait in the fight against the Shedim. It was fine to possess a different Soultrait even though he didn't expect the outcome when he betted his life on the Soul Awakening.
His eyes could see much more than ever before, after all!
With that conviction in mind, Liam continued to fight. He exploited his Soultrait to its limits.
The Halfling faced the small army of Shedim all by himself. He fought with all his might and turned it into a One-man-army!
[The Host slayed 50 Lesser Demons within the first hour of the Arcane Apocalypse. Achievement『Demon Slayer』has been attained.
[+25 Arcanum has been rewarded!]
Placing his hands on his knees, Liam took a moment to catch his breath and survey his surroundings to assess if there were more Shedim to kill.
Fortunately, that was not the case. His Arcane Power had been drained and the active effect of his Soultrait had worn off as well. Liam's eyes changed back to the bright purple hue and it didn't look like he had a galaxy sealed in his eyes anymore. The hazy hue around his eyes had also dispersed, leaving behind a dead-tired Halfling.
Liam could barely hold the two longswords that he had used to increase his kill count against the small army of Shedim.
Their corpses were littered all over the cliff and they created a trail down to the basalt underground tower. Its massive and ancient gates were still wide open, and Liam entered without any hesitation.
The gloomy atmosphere within the tower was enough to make the hair stand on the back of his neck but Liam was too exhausted to bother about any of that. He took a good look around the ground floor of the underground tower and frowned lightly.
"I didn't expect much…but there is literally nothing of value inside…" He cursed while taking a quick glance at his status screen.
[Arcanium: 73.75]
The achievement rewarded him a considerable amount of Arcanium which was almost as much as he had obtained from the number of Shedims he killed.
Unfortunately, none of that was comparable to the fortune he could obtain from the Shedims' bodies and their steel weapons. Other races would love to pay a small fortune to get their hands on the corpses of Lesser Demons. They would research them, and dissect their bodies in order to find out the most efficient and brutal ways to kill them and what body parts were useful to create Artifacts, potions, and other useful goods.
"If only I had a shop…" Liam grumbled as he had no way to carry the Shedim corpses around. He couldn't even carry a multitude of weapons around because the Arcane Apocalypse had just started and his movements had to be smooth and unrestricted. Carrying a dozen weapons around, no matter how precious or useful, would just kill him instead of saving his life!
That was why he required a Storage Artifact, or a means to sell his war spoils immediately. The former was not cost-efficient right now while the latter was not easy to achieve.
After all, permanent shops were extremely expensive. Even small shops were not easy to build, which Liam clearly realized upon looking at the price for Shop Certificates.
[Temporary Shop Certificate(Lowest-5 Days) – 1000 Arcanium]
"Arcane Shop, can I get another loan?" Liam asked in-between two heavy breaths, not expecting to hear a pleasant answer. Unexpectedly, he received a slap on his face as the Arcane System answered only moments later.
[Analysis completed…Active Loan Contract detected…secondary loan interest rate has been calculated.]
[The Host's secondary loan interest rate has been finalized at a compound interest rate of 50% a day. Tip: Pay back your debt to obtain a better interest rate!]
"...Just tell me if you don't want to give me another loan…" Liam spat vengefully at the Arcane system, but then fell silent. It was not as if he excepted a miracle from the Arcane System.
'It guessed what I want to do and levied such a high-interest rate so as to not get abused…well, that's only logical, I guess.'
He didn't curse the system anymore and instead chose to take a look at the first underground floor of the tower. Liam didn't feel comfortable not knowing what kind of opponents might be walking up the staircase by now.
And, just a short peek showed him a few Lesser Demons that caused his confidence to shatter immediately.
The biggest problem he saw after craning his neck further down below was a larger Shedim. It was a bulky Shedim without too many rotten spots. Its head look like the head of a snake and it had a long neck as well.
'A Mutated Elite Shedim? Well…that's definitely too much for me to handle with those ridiculous stats…' Liam muttered. He was prideful but not delusional, not yet at least.
The Mutated Elite Shedim might not have been at the 1st Circle but its stats were certainly higher than Liam's. That was not exactly hard, considering that the average human was supposed to have average stats between [E] and [F]. As for unranked Devils, even Lesser Devils would have stats at [B], and there was not even the need to start talking about the strength of his Mother and siblings.
Right from the moment they were born, their power was already incomparably higher than the average Lesser Devil, let alone humans.
They couldn't even enter Haltan before the landmass of the planet had been reinforced drastically to sustain their might simply because they were too strong.
That was a good thing because it would take quite a while until the Arcane Power would slowly seep into Haltan and reawaken it completely. Liam was happy about it. He would finally receive the much-needed freedom from his family, those annoying folks who didn't even feel like killing him because they were too disgusted with his powers…
Liam shook his head and focused on resting. He accessed the Arcane Shop and searched for a bunch of things.
For a moment, he reconsidered increasing his Vitality and Stamina stat by using some Arcanium but that thought was quickly ignored. It was necessary for him to be ready to fight or run at any moment but it was not as if he was in immediate danger.
The sounds from the first underground floor were amplified as they bounced off the basalt walls used to construct the underground tower.
Liam considered that someone from the outside might attack them but it didn't really matter. In the worst-case scenario, he could use his Arcanium to tweak his stats and adjust to the opponents that might attack once they got wind of him.
He was more focused on the Arcane Shop where he got his hands on two items of which one was considered a limited edition.
One of the two items he purchased was a potion called [Fortune's Liquor], and it was a limited edition item with only 100 potions in the Arcane System's stock. As for the other item, it was a [Detoxification Bandaid], which was a bandaid that extracts toxins within the body to a certain extent.
The Bandaid was nothing special and it couldn't remove 1st Circle toxins, however, that was not necessary. He was glad that he could buy the Detoxification Bandaid for five Arcanium, which was a lot cheaper than the Fortune's Liquor which was priced at 25 Arcanium.
Liam's fortune was drastically reduced to 43.75 Arcanium but he was perfectly fine with that. In fact, he was overjoyed with the purchase he made because it would elevate his chances of victory drastically.
[『Fortune's Liquor』–Circleless Unique Potion–
Description: The Fortune's Liquor is a special liquor with 89% Arcane alcohol, Dragnal Flower Syrup, Blackwidow Bee Nectar, and 521 more ingredients. One droplet of the Fortune's Liquor is enough to increase a random stat by one sub-rank with the limit being [D+].
Remark: The effect of the Fortune's Liquor decreases subsequently after the first droplet until there won't be an effect anymore!]
The Vial of the Fortune's Liquor was not very large. However, there were more than 30 droplets of viscous liquid inside. That was pretty neat and definitely worth the 25 Arcanium he paid for the potion.
Increasing all of his stats from [G-] to [G] would have cost 3 Arcanium, which was not too expensive but it was only one rank nonetheless! The second increment from [G] to [G+] would cost 6 Arcanium and it would become even more expensive to artificially increase his stats afterward.
It was possible to increase his stats with hard work but that was not something Liam had time for right now. Thus, he unstoppered the vial and closed his eyes as he downed the viscous Fortune's Liquor down his throat.
The moment the liquid made its way down his throat, Liam had to clamp his mouth with his hands as a fierce, burning sensation swept over him. He nearly coughed up and spat out some of the precious liquid that he had swallowed hastily.
Once he was certain that his body wouldn't attempt to vomit everything, Liam carefully put the Detoxification Bandaid on his neck.
Afterward, he just endured and waited for a bunch of notifications to appear right in front of him.
[The Host's Stamina increased.]
[The Host's Will increased.]
[The Host's Vitality increased.]
[The Host's Arcane Power increased.]
[The Host's Agility increased.]
[The Host's Strength increased.]
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