Capítulo 22: A-Rank Monster, You Will Die

[Ding! You have learned the S-Rank Skill |Devour (Lvl 1)|]

"Wha!?" Romulus's eyes opened wide in astonishment. Never would he have expected to receive an S-Rank Skill just because he thought it to be a waste to discard the monster corpses. Yet, now that it was here, he might as well see what it could do…

|S-Rank Devour|

This Skill activation caused black energy to erupt from his right arm and surround it. It then expanded and spazzed, with it quickly taking on the form of a large, toothy mouth. The mouth had a couple rows of serrated teeth, a long, slimy red tongue in its center, and a pair of thinned demonic eyes. Moreover, all these various parts moved in steady motion, bobbing up and down with a voracious way about it. After obtaining a brief understanding of this skill through its description, Romulus imagined it shooting forward and gobbling up a Grimwatcher's corpse, which it followed to a T.

CHOMP!

In one effortless expanding chomp, the Lvl 38 Grimwatcher had its entire body devoured and speedily compressed. Then, with one final gulp, no trace of the Grimwatcher was still left in the world, with even its blood having been consumed by the S-Rank Devour Skill.

[Ding! You devoured a Lvl 38 Grimwatcher and received 2 Stat Points in Agility, 2 in Strength, 1 in Intelligence, and 1 in Defense!]

OOOM!

Romulus felt a wave of power rush over him, which then made him pull up his system interface and see that his stats had increased by the amount that the pop-up stated. A hint of shock spread through his expression. After all, this, in addition to the BP he obtained through being hit, would truly make him too OP.

However, he would quickly realize that not everything was so easy…

After a few seconds of consuming every single corpse in the sea of corpses that surrounded him, Romulus immediately came to the conclusion that stat gains were proportional to the strength of the thing being absorbed. Moreover, those gains would be further reduced if he had devoured too many of the same kind of species. Still, what he obtained was beyond exceptional and sent him up a few notches in power.

[Ding! You devoured 287 monsters of varying races, ranging from Lvl 25 to Lvl 40. The reward is 38 Stat Points in Strength, 41 in Agility, 36 in Defense, and 32 in Intelligence!]

After feeling various aspects of his existence tremendously improve, Romulus pulled up just the stat section of his system interface.

|Strength: 134 (670) | Defense: 120 (1200)|

|Intelligence: 110 (550) | Agility: 140 (700)|

He felt that, with his current stats, he could kill hundreds of his previous self, and he could do so with ease. Moreover, he also felt his affinity with his various elements improve, likely because of the increases to the Intelligence stat. Wishing to test out this theory a little more, he made the sacrifice and dumped 20 BP into his Intelligence Stat.

Whooosh!

The air was tossed around in a hurricane-like manner, then with an even dispersion, Romulus's Intelligence Stat increased to 650 after the 500% boost was taken into consideration. And for better or worse, this resulted in an immediate elemental affinity improvement across the board.

"Now that all the testing is done with, I better get a move on," he said calmly, his gaze focused on the massive shadows moving around deeper into the fog. "I don't know what time it is due to the fog obscuring the sky, but I have a feeling that night is approaching."

When night comes around, the true terrors of the dark come out to play. And these ones are not like the Grimwatchers; their sizes make them look like bugs in comparison. Moreover, they roam the Ghost Town's Center Circle like the absolute overlords of the massive area.

These are what Romulus will face next — the A-Rank Monsters!

—------------------

After a couple minutes of venturing deeper into the mist, Romulus came across a rather unusual sight. A few dozen meters away from him sat what looked like a little girl. She repeatedly said the two words 'Help Me,' and she did so without moving a single inch from her spot.

Romulus's brows furrowed. "This human," he said. "Something is off about it." His eyes narrowed in suspicion. With his five elements zapping and crackling beside him, he slowly approached the girl, but made sure to keep his guard up the entire time. When he finally made it in front of the girl, he waved his hand. "What are you doing out here—?"

SHING!

"!!!"

A shadowy object cut through the air and reached Romulus within an instant. Even with his high base stats, he was just barely able to save his life, with a large bloody cut sliced through his left side. Shooting his gaze back to the girl, he saw a sharp claw-like vine sticking through the girl's stomach. This was what hit him, and it was what belonged to an A-Rank Monster. Slowly turning his eyes up, he saw the vine connect to something bigger, which then turned out to be connected to something even bigger. Over a hundred feet above him was the massive, fishy head of a genuinely terrifying monstrosity.

"ROOOAARGGHH!!!" It bellowed out, opening its terrifying mouth to an absurd degree. The dangly light bulb feeler on the front of its head jiggled all over the place, causing the dimly lit area to flash with occasional spurs of light, which revealed more and more of its nightmarish face.

Using the S-Rank Magic Eye Skill, Romulus saw:

[Grimlit Lurker (Lvl 51) - Threat Tier: Red]

When a monster passes Lvl 50, they successfully breach over into the A-Rank, which stretches from Lvl 51 to Lvl 100. Although the Grimlit Lurker was only at the very bottom of the A-Rank, it was still powerful enough to kill dozens of Lvl 50 organisms within an instant. That was just the difference between the higher ranks, and to overcome this difference was nigh impossible.

Yet…

"We will fight, and you will die," Romulus declared coldly, his eyes flashing with a multitude of elements. This time, contrary to the last time he faced a tough opponent, he was speaking not from a false sense of pride but from the truth. He would not die. He refused to die. And as such, this massive behemoth had to die.

It was as simple as that.

….