Chapter 77
Subjugation
And so, the subjugation of the fire spirit ca to an end, but there was still one more spirit colony left.
This one took the form of wolf-like mammalian beasts. Each of them had the kind of combat power worthy of the na “spirit.”
...And.
Right now, there were humans completely obliterating such creatures.
-!!!
A spirit shaped like a wolf shattered into pieces from Noel’s punch.
Aiden had already seen her take down dozens. Spirits weren’t the kind of beings that ordinary spears or swords could even pierce properly, let alone injure.
And yet that human was crushing them with her bare hands as if popping balloons.
Even Katya looked on with a helpless expression. In just a few minutes, the number of spirits sent to the afterlife had already surpassed twenty.
Of course, Katya herself wasn’t in an ordinary state either.
“Hmph.”
With a short exhale, flas surged up around her.
Flas radiating an intense heat almost invisible to the eye engulfed the surroundings in an instant. The fire swept through the air and imdiately swallowed the nearby spirits.
It was a light movent, but every spirit caught in the trajectory had already turned to ashes.
If Noel’s fighting style was bold and reckless, crushing anything she could get her hands on, then Katya’s was a display of combat precision so ticulous it could be likened to a machine.
At this point, calling it a “subjugation” didn’t even make sense. It was more like pulling weeds—an extermination process where anything in sight got rcilessly torn apart.
‘...So those two are the main characters of the scenario...’
Once again.
He realized the caliber of the won he was usually entangled with.
And just how massive in scale the main scenario must be, for such won to be treated as re “components.”
“...”
Aiden let out a deep sigh inwardly.
Well, it was the path he’d chosen, so in the end, he had to see it through.
Still, when he thought about how soone like him got caught up in all of this sowhere along the way, he couldn’t help but sigh.
Especially since there was no way to run anymore.
But even so, he couldn’t just stand around sighing at the sight forever.
So.
While those terrifying humans, so monstrous they sent chills down his spine just by standing still, were waging war—
What was he doing?
“Oh, hey, this one’s not dead yet.”
He was picking up the spirits that had been knocked nearby.
They were on the brink of death, but still breathing—barely.
“……”
It looked downright pathetic, honestly. But this was all necessary work, so he kept at it.
Just like the fire spirit earlier, a spirit on the verge of death would eject its core. Even if they weren’t the leader-type spirits ruling over a colony, collecting these could still co in handy one day.
So while he humd to himself, gathering spirit cores, the commotion around him suddenly stopped.
There was soone—or sothing—powerful enough that even Noel and Katya, who had been rrily mowing down spirits, paused and frowned.
“...That one looks like a pain just by looking at it.”
Katya muttered as she spotted a massive wolf with grotesque protrusions jutting from its body.
Judging by its size, it was a mid-grade spirit. Probably the boss that ruled this area.
Even these humans, who had taken down the other spirits with one strike, weren’t rushing to attack this one carelessly.
Anyone could tell at a glance that, fitting of a colony’s leader, the creature was packed with all kinds of special abilities.
‘From its color, it’s overflowing with them.’
A bitter smile crept onto his face.
Spirits with “special abilities” could usually be identified by their body color and this one was red.
Among its class, that was the danger signal. It likely possessed the maximum of three special abilities.
“...[Adaptive Skin], [Refraction], and [Super Regeneration]. What a headache.”
Noel let out a sigh and agreed.
Adaptive Skin: a mutation that granted extre resistance to any weapon it had previously co into contact with.
Refraction: a power that reflected any damage it received back onto the attacker.
And Super Regeneration: as the na suggested, it constantly regenerated any injuries.
In short.
They needed to land a single, devastating blow strong enough to kill it instantly but the person who landed that blow would suffer all the damage in return.
Any one of those traits would’ve been a pain, and this thing had all three stacked together.
There was a reason it stood there so smugly while all the other spirits had been wiped out.
“There is a simple solution,” Katya said with a grin.
“...There is?”
“Just beat it until it dies.”
“...And the reflected damage?”
“Grit your teeth and tough it out.”
“……”
“Whoever dies first loses, right? I’ve never lost before.”
...Yeah, that might be true for you, you crazy woman.
While Noel stared daggers at Katya, thinking just that, Aiden stepped forward.
“...I’ll do it. You’ve both done enough already.”
As he let out a deep sigh and moved ahead, every mber of the subjugation squad stared at him with wide eyes.
“You will? How?”
“Handle it yourself, then. You’ve been coasting until now, so it’s ti to earn your keep.”
As he ward up his body while saying that, Katya let out a short, amused laugh and spoke.
“...If you’re set on taking on the hard job, I won’t stop you. But are you sure? Don’t get all reckless—just ask us for help.”
Beside her, Noel’s cold gaze pierced into him.
A look that clearly said, ‘So you’re planning to get hurt again, huh?’
“……”
He sent back a look that said, Don’t worry.
No, this ti he really wouldn’t get hurt.
Waving his hand as if to reassure them—Relax, I got this—Aiden stepped forward.
“...Even so, it’s going to be hard to handle alone. We should also—”
“Da Noel.”
Aiden grinned confidently as he cut her off.
“Please stand back.”
And with that, he launched himself toward the massive wolf.
At the sa ti, the beast registered him as a threat.
A deafening roar followed as its front paw ca crashing forward.
Blinding speed.
‘Yeah, it’s definitely strong!’
Even without the special abilities, mid-grade spirits were physically dangerous enough to be a real threat.
Especially ones like this, mutated with multiple abilities—they were usually far stronger than average.
But Aiden had a way to artificially boost his basic stats using supernatural power.
- System ssage
▶ Activating ‘Skill: Beastification’.
▶ Activating ‘Skill: Primal Power’.
With skills like these, he could at least react in ti.
He layered Beastification, a skill from Princess Liza, with Primal Power he’d taken from Reaver. In that mont, a ferocious strength surged into Aiden’s ordinary human body.
Before, he would’ve been crushed the mont he faced sothing like this but not anymore.
With his massively enhanced strength, he deflected the attack. For the first ti, the spirit showed a hint of confusion on its face.
“Hup.”
He followed up by intercepting the spirit’s swinging paw with his sword.
Clang! The paw was deflected, and at the sa ti, a blue energy rose from the beast’s body, spreading like cracks along Aiden’s sword.
The deflection even shaved off a bit of the paw but such a wound was imdiately healed by its [Super Regeneration].
He couldn’t read a beast’s facial expression, but the wolf definitely looked smug.
- System ssage
▶ Contact made with the spirit’s [Adaptive Skin]!
▶ The weapon’s effectiveness against the target spirit has been reduced by 90%!
‘So that’s how it works.’
Talk about selfish.
Just blocking an attack rendered the weapon almost useless? Even for a rare mutation, this felt excessive.
“You idiot! You can’t use a weapon like that against it! That sword’s useless now!”
Katya shouted in frustration from behind.
“Get out of there! Fighting any longer is just a waste of ti—!”
Katya was about to shout that when she abruptly shut her mouth.
Before she could even finish the sentence, Aiden was already charging at the spirit again.
He wasn’t just saying he’d be fine alone—he ant it. Not because he thought he could defeat it with brute force.
This was, in short, a ploy to make it drop its guard.
-……?
The spirit looked visibly confused. A human who’d already lost his weapon coming at it barehanded? Of course it was confused.
But then, a sneer flickered in its eyes. It raised its front paw again, clearly intent on ending Aiden with a single strike. It swung with full power, not even bothering to defend itself.
After all, it probably assud Aiden had no ans of attacking.
But.
There was always one ability you could rely on against creatures like this.
The foundation was mana arts. And on top of that—holy fla.
- System ssage
▶ Activating ‘Skill: The Purifier’.
Then—
From the wolf’s body, the red hue began to wash away.
-……!
Its eyes widened. It instinctively sensed sothing had changed—sothing fatally dangerous had occurred.
All of its protective abilities were suddenly gone.
But it was already too late.
The Blade of Dawn shone for an instant.
It pierced through the spirit’s thick hide, slashing deep into its chest—deep enough to expose its internal organs.
And into that gaping wound—
He wedged in a shield ford from pure white qi. The barrier forced the slightly opened flesh to tear wide open.
The shield didn’t have any offensive capabilities, but it was solid. And this was one of the ways to use it.
And before the spirit could even scream from the unbearable pain, Aiden drove the final blow into its exposed heart.
A blade forged from the Guardian’s Fla buried itself deep. It was the spiral-type variant used during Blade of Dawn: Hollow Point.
-……!
-…….
And with that alone—
The spirit’s eyes lost their light. It staggered, then collapsed onto the ground.
“……”
“……”
Everyone stood with their mouths agape as they watched the spirit’s massive body crumble.
Until that heavy body slamd into the ground with a dull thud, no one said a word.
“...Did that even take five seconds?”
“Four point seven seconds,” Noel replied, dazed.
She and Katya exchanged the words with voices that were slightly spaced out.
Noel, in particular, stared at Aiden with an expression that said you’ve got to be kidding .
‘This man…’
He still seed to constantly underestimate his own combat power.
But in so ways, he was already more of a wild card than Noel herself.
It wasn’t just one or two unique strengths—he had dozens of them, the kind of traits no other supernatural had. Noel, who had seen her fair share of battlefields, had never encountered anyone like him.
And on top of that, his explosive growth showed no signs of slowing. He was evolving at a terrifying pace.
‘Back when I first t him, I wondered where the hell this guy ca from…’
She had been curious about where this anomaly had popped out from.
That curiosity still lingered but now, she had another question.
This man—
Just how far would he grow?
‘…At this rate, it won’t be long before…’
He might even surpass Noel herself and Katya too.
That was the thought that crossed Noel’s mind as she looked at Aiden.
‘…Holy crap. Crap. Total crap.’
…anwhile, Aiden didn’t seem to care in the slightest. He was just staring at the fallen spirit.
Because there was still plenty to scavenge.
Not just “plenty”—it looked like a goldmine.
‘Just looking at it, it’s a treasure trove of materials.’
A spirit’s body was valuable enough on its own as top-tier equipnt material. And if it was a rare mutant like this, even more so.
As he gleefully approached the fallen spirit’s corpse, he overheard Noel and Katya talking nearby.
“…But why is it that he never bats an eye when it cos to corpse looting?”
“I keep telling you, his mindset is just plain dangerous.”
“……”
…Shut up, would you.
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