Chapter 6: One-man Army
"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!
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone