Forest - Horde Pt.2

Reinhardt was surprised as he watched Osirus move with shocking speed, dodging the monkey's attack with relative ease. Compared to the last time he saw him, Osirus was on a completely different level.

Furthermore, his shock did not stop there as he watched a blazing ball of fire form in front of Osirus, its blistering heat causing the air to become wavy around it.

Making sure the {Fire Ball} wasn't too big, lest the whole cave collapses, Osirus launched it with insane speed, the fastest he could manage, towards the leader monkey, not giving it anytime to react.

Shocked, the crimson monkey hurriedly lifted its arms in defence, "Boom!".

Searing flames spread out like an umbrella, covering the monkey entirely in their scorching heat.

The smaller monkeys watched in horror as their leader was engulfed in flames, their ferocity increasing as they threw their lives at the Golems, trying anything they could to bring down the small pudgy killing machines so they could help their leader.

Osirus turned away from the small explosion, ready to finish off the smaller monkeys, however… "Screeee!", a crimson figure swiped away the flames before launching itself towards him with unrivalled ferociousness.

Seeing their leader had survived, the other monkeys cheered, even though their comrades were being massacred around them.

Osirus watched in shock as the leader monkey rapidly approached him with its claws swinging at his head, its fur barely showing any signs of damage in the face of his {Fire Ball}, caught out by the surprise attack, he was forced to clash with the monkey head on.

Acting quickly, he grabbed the monkey's wrists with all his strength, stopping the claws from reaching his face, tensing his arms, he prepared to throw the monkey, however he regretted it immediately, "Sssss.", sizzling erupted from the palms of his hands, followed by a burning pain.

Quickly letting go, he jumped back as he looked at his palms that had now turned pinkish-red, an entire laying of skin had been burnt off from the pure heat emanating from the monkey's fur.

With 2 avenues of fighting taken away, only one was left.

'{Metal Sphere}'

4 dark grey metal balls rapidly formed around him, each growing to the size of a tennis ball, watching the monkey attack once more, he acted quickly as he utilised his Mana, sending the four balls towards the monkey at a high speed.

Not expecting such a weird and sudden attack, it didn't have time to dodge them all with 2 of them still smashing into it, one in the centre of his chest while the other hit its leg.

2 muffled collisions sounded as the monkey was pushed back, a screech erupting from its mouth because of the pain. Recalling the metal spheres, 2 dents were left in its tough body, causing excruciating pain for the monkey.

However it wasn't enough to put it out of the fight, instead its ferocity increased even further, an even more blazing heat emanating from its body.

Staying calm, Osirus unleashed the metal spheres once again, but expecting it this time, the monkey used its incredible agility to narrowly avoid each sphere while closing in at the same time.

Even Osirus was impressed at the seemingly impossible twists and moves the monkey was making, each ball flying barely a centimetre past it, but no matter what he tried, it was always that centimetre off.

Unfortunately, even with the monkey's impressive speed, it wasn't enough, just as it had reached only metres away from him, a muffled boom sounded as its eyes widened before it slowly collapsed forward, revealing the sphere indebted into the back of its skull.

Still, the monkey's durable body wasn't just for show as it survived the attack and tried to back away, unfortunately it would get a chance. With a thought the other 3 metal spheres smashed into its head, crushing its skull and killing it.

Sweat poured from Osirus's head, controlling 4 [Metal Sphere]'s simultaneously and with such speed put a great strain on not only his Mana reserves but also his mind, currently a strong headache muddled his thoughts, weakening what little control he still had over the metal balls.

Unfortunately he wasn't given time to rest as It wasn't long before the other monkeys noticed the death of their leader, which increased their ferocity to the point it seemed they didn't even want to live, they practically threw their lives away as they tried their best to get past the Golems, only to be clubbed to death.

Reinhardt having recovered somewhat, finally made a move after seeing the state Osirus was in, luckily, with the Golems pulverising the majority of the monkeys, only a few had managed to break through.

Stepping in front of Osirus, he faced the first monkey that had managed to slip past the Golems onslaught, a ferocious grin covering its face, however whatever it had thought it had managed by doing so was quickly removed from its simple mind.

Grabbing the swinging arm of the monkey, Reinhardt stopped any chance of retreat as his mighty fist cannoned into its stomach, crushing its organs in an instant.

With its ferocious grin now betrayed with its eyes filled with shock, Reinhardt chucked it to the side without a care, it was obvious that monkey wouldn't live much longer.

Reinhardt continued killing the monkeys, with their only advantage of heat being useless against his abnormally resistant skin.

Before long the last monkey's skull was crushed before it was flung against the cave wall, piling up with its other deceased comrades.

Osirus finally released a sigh of relief, in his current state, he wouldn't have much of a chance if he had to fight another leader monkey, his Mana reserves were extremely low, his Golems had taken considerable damage and his mind had a pulsing headache that restricted any coherent thoughts.

Furthermore, he was still injured from before, and this fight only made the injuries worse, many small cuts that had begun to scab because of his high cultivation, were torn open, letting blood flow down his body.

Suddenly, Reinhardt stood up before walking to the very centre of the massacre, sitting down, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, slowly the crimson aura returned, although much weaker than before, furthermore, the palpable wrath had disappeared.

The crimson aura slowly fell from his body, acting as a fog as it spread across the floor, covering the hot blood that soaked the floor.

As if controlled by the crimson fog, the steaming blood began to move and flow, small streams of the crimson liquid beginning to form, all of them leading to Reinhardt.

Slowly but surely, the streams were guided towards Reinhardts body like violet snakes before they slithered up his body before thinning out, encasing him in a blood cocoon that continuously thickened.

Osirus watched in shock as eventually all the blood in the cave had flowed towards the cocoon, even the corpses were drained of what little blood was left inside, with the steaming blood pulled in one area, the overall heat of the cave decreased, especially with the cold stone floor syphoning it away into the ground.

With the cocoon fully formed, the cave fell silent, only the occasional bird screeches disturbing the quiet.

Osirus could only sit there and wait, but instead of doing nothing, he decided to look at the spoils from the fight, opening his {Status}, a message was revealed to him:

{User Killed 34x Blazing Fire Ape - 83SP Gained}

It was a rather impressive boon of SP that would be very useful, looking at his current {Status}:

His {Status} now stood at:

{Status}

{Name:Osirus}

{Age:16}

{Race:Human}

{SP:147}

{Body Cultivation:Lv.8(63/80SP)}

{Mana Cultivation:Lv.9(34/90SP)}

{Active Skills: {Quick Slice Lv.6 (4/60 Proficiency) - Beginner}, {Guardian Golem Lv.3 (7/30 Proficiency) - Beginner}, {Fire Ball Lv.3 (26/30 Proficiency) - Beginner}, {Metal Sphere Lv.3 (18/30 Proficiency) - Beginner - }}

{Passive Skills: {Threat Detection Lv.6 (25% Proficiency) - Beginner}}

He first decide to level up his {Body Cultivation}, {Body Cultivation:Lv.8~9(0/90SP)}, {SP:147~120}, immediately he felt a comfortable feeling erupt in his body, at the same time, his wounds visibly healed, leaving only scars, after a few seconds, the cool feeling disappeared, replaced by a powerful strength.

Thinking for a while, he decided to not create anymore Skills and instead focus on levelling up the ones he already had.

Thus he instead levelled up his {Mana Cultivation}, {Mana Cultivation:Lv.9~10(0/450SP)}, {SP:120~64}, he felt a dense amount of Mana flood into his body, increasing the solidarity of his Mana core further, he could also tell that it was starting to reach its limit in solidarity, it would probably take only one more level before it was entirely completed, excited for what that would bring, he looked at how much SP he need, expecting it to follow the previous pattern.

"Huh?", Osirus thought he had read wrong as he looked at the SP required to increase his {Mana Cultivation} to the next level, but no matter how many times he checked it was still the same.

He figured it was because of that feeling of completion, furthermore, if it required so much SP, the power increase must by a lot as well, thus he wasn't disparaged but instead excited.

Reinhardt was still inside the blood cocoon, so he decided to relight the fire that had been put out during the fight and cook some of the apes.

In his previous life, he would have never considered eating such a creature, but now, it didn't seem like anything weird, he was hungry, so he would eat, this was the new world order.

With the Blazing Fire Apes average strength being around the 6th or 7th level while the leader was at the 8th, their meat was extremely Mana dense, however it was clear that some of that Mana was stored in the blood that now covered Reinhardt, nonetheless their was still an abundant amount, thus after only the leader a monkey and a few of the smaller monkeys, he was completely full, his belly bulging as he collapsed onto Pluto, using it as a giant cushion.

After laying there for another 20 minutes, pondering of what skill he should make next, there was finally a drastic change in the blood cocoon, the entire time Osirus had noticed it slowly shrinking, and now it was almost entirely gone, instead of a cocoon Renihardt looked more like a crimson statue, and after a final push, the blood was completely absorbed, revealing Reinhardt whose skin carried a healthy glow..

Walking towards him, Osirus felt a natural heat emanating from Reinhartds body. With a look of surprise, Osirus spoke, "Huh, did you actually-", "Yep. I'm not sure how, but by absorbing their blood I was able to heal myself while also increasing my strength and gaining the natural ability of those apes."

It was an extremely shocking ability, being able to gain the natural ability of the Blazing Fire Apes just from absorbing their blood was something that was thought to be unimaginable, Osirus would've thought so too if it wasn't for his own heaven-defying ability, if he truly wanted to, he could create a Passive Skill that would copy Reinhardts own ability, although the SP cost would be just as heaven-defying.

Osirus thought carefully about Reanhiardts new ability when a thought came to him.

"But, how come you didn't drink the blood of those snakes?"

"I'm not really sure, but just by my instinct, I didn't drink it because it wasn't fresh.", not wanting to talk about drinking blood any more, Reinhartd changed the subject.

"Although, it seems it wasn't just me that gained some improvements huh."

"Guess I got lucky."

With Reinhardts sharp senses, it wasn't hard for him to pick up on Osirus improvements, but seeing it as just a lucky breakthrough during battle, he didn't think too much into it.

Looking outside, the duo noticed that the sun had begun to set and decided to stay there for the night, thus Osirus put Atlas and Ares on night duty and used Pluto as a pillow, it wasn't long before the 2 of them entered a deep sleep.