42 The Reigning Champion
The group of three giant Minotaurs was keeping a guard on the city streets and taking a stroll to keep an eye out.
Kahn was crawling on top of a building roof, trying to avoid their piercing gazes. He was currently thinking of a plan to take out these minotaurs one by one. Every single one of these creatures was great in size and had highly capable defensive abilities that made it even harder to kill.
Soon, he noticed a pattern between these minotaurs... one would check the end of the street while the other two took turns in checking the other end. Kahn was waiting for an opportunity to take out the one who would be alone in the middle of their guard post, so he could distract it when the others were away.
A few minutes later, when the one minotaur was alone while the other two went to check the ends of the street as part of their routine, Kahn jumped down and hid behind a large, sturdy stone wall.
PHEWHEW!
Kahn whistled and the minotaur on guard finally abruptly turned its attention to where the noise came from. As Kahn had expected, it followed the noise.
Kahn had merged himself within the shadow behind the wall using Shadow Walk so the giant monster didn't notice him. As soon as its back turned towards Kahn, he jumped out of the shadow and along with three more figures jumped out the next second from his very own shadow.
Unlike before, Kahn no longer needed to verbally command his subordinates to come out of his shadow. Thanks to the Hive Mind ability he got from Synthesis... he could telepathically command them and they'd react as per his will without needing a verbal order.
The three figures were none other than Omega, Blackwall & Ceril. Just as their footsteps made contact with the surface, the lone minotaur looked their way and was alerted of the enemy's presence.
It roared loudly and stomped its leg on the ground, trying to alert the fellow guards, but it noticed that even after its roar and heavy stomp, there was no sound coming out from its mouth or a single vibration from the ground.
Just then, it noticed Ceril who had a black mage staff in his hand and a faint blue barrier surrounding their location.
Silence Barrier.
It was a Mage exclusive skill that could only be performed by an Intermediate Rank mage.
Ceril, who was created from the bodies of a Mage & Summoner class, had inherited this skill. The moment they jumped out of the shadow, he had cast the silence barrier and removed any sound from their surrounding.
The minotaur roared again, albeit producing no noise in its futile attempt. Omega and Blackwall charged at this lone minotaur and clashed with it using their bodies. Blackwall used his Knight's Taunt and Templar's Will to enrage the giant bull creature and banged his sword on the big shield he was holding in his left hand.
The minotaur was instantly enraged and focused its attention. Omega attacked with his sharp claws on its legs, trying to make it fall to the ground.
The minotaur quickly swung the giant wooden club it had to guard against the attack.
Blackwall used the Knight's Charge and hit its back and throwing it out of balance. Omega on the other hand used this opportunity and used Shredder Claws on its head to disorient it and blur its vision. The minotaur lost its balance and fell onto the wall on its right-hand side. Thanks to the silence barrier, not a single sound was heard.
The giant body of the minotaur was now under the rubble of large and heavy stones from the wall and was trying to get out of it.
At this very moment, a small figure of a man jumped on its chest and a jet stream of greenish liquid was thrown in the eyes of the minotaur. Instantly melting it away as the poison went inside its brain and only the lifeless body of the minotaur was left lying under the rubble.
[Phew! Barely made it in time.] Kahn spoke to himself and mentally ordered his subordinates to hide in his shadow again. Because this was the best strategy he could come up with given his current situation. Taking out the enemy one by one without being noticed was his best approach. Due to the size of the group, the minotaurs were hard to deal with.
Kahn other the other hand found this method viable because there wasn't any way he would be able to kill these monsters without causing a commotion and alerting its nearby allies.
Because from what he had read, in the entire history of this floor, hundreds of teams failed because of the same reason. Just one minotaur was strong enough to take on 5 to 6 people by itself and they'd always create loud roars and noises during a fight. And as more minotaurs joined the fight, the more difficult it would be to kill them. Even an Intermediate Master Rank Swordsman like Kahn would have a hard time killing a single one of these creatures in a one-on-one fight.
Thus, Kahn used the numbers and his strong fighters to catch it off guard and deal damage while using the Silence Barrier to prohibit any sound from leaking out, so no enemy would be alerted.
He too could cast the Silence Barrier, but it needed the caster to stay at the same position and put all of their focus on keeping the barrier functioning. Hence, he used Ceril for this job while he dealt the finishing blow with his Poison Acid which can quickly take out a fallen enemy in a matter of seconds.
The Grandmaster Rank Poison Acid ability he had gained after absorbing the legendary Somir's body indeed lived up to its reputation.
Kahn soon noticed that the other Minotaur was coming back from its stroll and now he didn't have any more time to absorb the body and abilities of this dead minotaur in front of him.
Kahn repeated the same process for the remaining minotaurs on guard and caught them off guard just like this one. Soon he had 3 dead minotaurs in front of him. He started using Ability Absorption divine ability on these bodies and absorbed their abilities & skills.
"System, show me the abilities & skills." commanded Kahn to check the new skills.
[The host has acquired the following abilities & skills :
Magic Resistance (D Rank) (Passive) :
Allows the host a physical resistance to magical attacks and damage.
Health Recovery (C Rank) (Passive) :
Enables the host to recover the health at a small rate.
Minotaur Might (D Rank) (Active) :
Greatly increases the host's physical strength for 20 seconds.
The host has acquired the Minotaur bloodline.
Current Bloodline purity: 8%]
"Huh... I guess the small fries are small fries in the end." said Kahn as he put his hands on the remaining two dead bodies of the minotaurs.
"Merge!" Kahn ordered and started the Synthesis.
In just 3 minutes, he welcomed a new ally who was a meter taller & twice stronger than its predecessors.
"You're now part of the Legion." said Kahn and the new subordinate bowed in front of Kahn and entered inside his shadow.
For the next 5 hours, Kahn covertly repeated the same process on the small groups of minotaurs he found and killed them one by one. Whittling down the enemy numbers.
He now had 30 minotaur subordinates in his legion. All of them were Elite Rank monsters.
He didn't use them to create another bigger or higher species version because he simply had no interest in spending his cores on small fries. He wanted to catch a big fish and then use these fodders.
As per the old records, there were nearly 80 Minotaurs on this floor and Kahn had killed more than 60 of them. He was completely focused and committed, while his sheer will didn't let him become overconfident and make any mistakes.
Kahn now hid amongst the fallen buildings in the city and looked at the end of a big colosseum... no different than how ancient Rome had those Gladiator fight arenas.
At the end of it, there was a giant throne made of fur and bones of the fallen minotaurs.
Currently, some sort of competition was being held amongst these monsters and they were killing each other with their weapons and bare hands... even using their giant horns to pierce through the hearts of their opponent.
Kahn realized one thing that these monsters were fighting to decide who was the strongest amongst themselves.
At the end of the competition stood a red minotaur who had a metal club that had multiple spikes as its weapon. It roared and shook the entire arena with its mighty scream in victory.
The next second, however, it pointed the weapon at the giant minotaur who had a giant Battleaxe lying next to its legs. The minotaur in the arena was now openly challenging the one sitting on the throne as if trying to contend for the position of the king.
The giant minotaur sitting on the throne snorted in anger and grabbed its Battleaxe and a giant shield, then straight-up jumped inside the arena grounds.
BOOM!
A big cloud of dust was released and the entire arena shook from the ripples of waves as soon as the reigning king of the arena jumped inside the battlegrounds and stared at the challenger with eyes full of rage and contempt.
Kahn could feel the pressure even from a mile away. Based on his experience of fighting and facing monsters and people, Kahn quickly understood the level of this yellow minotaur.
"It's a Lord Rank Floor Boss!"
