LEVEL 0 IMMORTAL

Elias nearly paused when he noticed that when the ash entered him, it not only fed his scripture, but it also fed his pools.

His Lumina, which had been stagnant since he became a Fury Forge, began to stir. The ash was not just void; it was vitality. Twisted, corrupted, but still vital. And Elias's body, his Elder Talent, his Perfect Foundation, they recognized it, and they took it.

His Lumina pools, the hundred oceans that resembled tiny spots of power inside the vast infinity of his Infinite Oceans, began to slowly expand.

Recall that because his Lumina Oceans were infinite, meaning they did not have walls, his Lumina pool was hovering inside, stretched out like a drop of water on a glass surface.

Meaning that instead of having pools of Lumina, he had something similar to mirrors of Lumina, each one not deeper than an inch but spread out in a vast area, and they were now beginning to expand.

At this time, each of his Lumina Pools measured 600 meters in circumference, and Elias had figured out that the way to track the growth of his Lumina would be to observe the size of his pools.

The growth of his pools was not quick, but the trickle was there. Each spawn added a drop, and each dozen added a cup, and a hundred added a pool.

He was not just killing; he was consuming everything they had to give. He was not just fighting; he was growing.

When everyone seemed to be losing essence in fighting these creatures, he was going stronger instead.

And inside his Lumina Space, something else was happening.

The white sands that stretched between his infinite oceans were not empty.

There were souls of whoever he had killed sitting on them, from the woman in palatial robes and her children to the souls of the cannibals.

When Elias killed these creatures, he had expected to see their souls inside his Lumina Space; instead, he saw small pieces of soul flesh appearing like an eye, a piece of a jaw, a tongue, a heart, a spine, a spleen, a breast, and so forth.

They were not whole, and he realized that the souls of the spawns were incomplete.

It was almost as if they had been shattered into pieces, and each piece was to fit into one body.

Elias frowned as he looked at the flood of abomination moving through the city, and he realized that this trial was going to be anything but simple.

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In the blink of an eye, Elias had killed hundreds, but he had already drawn attention, especially as he reached a point where the flood of creatures could easily notice him since he was alone, heading to the pit.

The massive stream of abomination heading for the central square split in two, but seventy percent were still heading towards the Siphons in the central square, while the rest headed for him.

The column of spawns stretched as far as the eye could see, and as they rushed towards him, they were so many and packed together that they pushed the wind in front of them, causing it to blow past Elias with enough force to pick up a baby.

"The fools, they think they are hungry, and you are meat. Show them the foolishness of their ways."

Elias faced them, bending himself a bit; he raised his shield and braced, and the column hit him like a falling mountain.

Claws scrabbled across the shield's face. Bodies pressed against it, dozens upon dozens of them, their weight pushing him back. His boots slid on the ash-covered cobblestones. He dug in his heels, and the stone beneath him answered.

Stone-Souled was not just for armor. It was for him. His connection to the earth and to the ground beneath his feet, it was not a talent or a technique. It was a trait; this made all the difference, and it was who he was becoming.

"Boom!"

He stopped sliding back and could no longer be moved, even as more of them pushed against his shield, and was crushed into ash.

For a moment, the sound of them pushing and scratching against his body was all that could be heard, and then he roared as he pushed back after exerting all the strength that his arm could endure.

There was a loud cracking sound as his shoulder and all of his left arm developed cracks. Without his Stone Skin, his entire arm would have exploded if he had pushed this sort of power through it, but now, with his physical durability and damage reduction, he only suffered cracks through his arm that were beginning to seal up.

"Fwoosh… Boom!"

His shield swept left, clearing a space and crushing dozens, maybe even hundreds. His right hand, free now, conjured a blade from his Ascendant Swarm.

It was not the blade he had used before in any of his trials. It was longer, wider, heavier… it was a cleaver, and not a sword.

The golden flecks in its edge caught the dim light, and the serrations along its spine gleamed like teeth, and Elias swung in one large sweeping arc.

The blade took three heads in a single arc. The bodies collapsed, turning to ash, and the ash flowed into him.

He swung again. Five heads. Again. Seven. The cleaver was not elegant. It was not precise. It was a tool of butchery, and Elias was a butcher.

The spawns kept coming, and his hands moving as fast as a machine kept killing.

In a short moment, he had killed thousands, and he felt his Lumina Space vibrate with the influx of Lumina into his pools that was slowly expanding them, and now they had grown past 620 meters.

It did not take long before Elias had to give up on using the blade alone, as the spawns were no longer attacking him head-on but were pressed against him from all sides.

His shield could only block one direction. His blade could only cut in one arc, and the spawns found the gaps.

Claws raked his back. Teeth sank into his shoulder. A spawn wrapped its too-long limbs around his leg, trying to pull him down.

It was like a mantis trying to stop a chariot, and Elias did not fall.

Blood-Forged Flesh had always been activated, and the damage he took from the claws, the teeth, and especially the crushing weight was not just absorbed but was converted.

Fifteen percent of the physical damage he suffered became stamina. The more they hurt him, the longer he could fight.

Even with his ridiculous stamina, he would have gotten tired after a while, but with this trait, he could literally fight forever if he could pace himself.

However, Elias did not want to just endure. He wanted to destroy.