With his first life-and-death opponent defeated Floyd wanted to breathe a sigh and could sense the hidden exhaustion rising. With the fatigue of battle slamming into him, he almost fainted but luckily before he was overtaken by the exhaustion his mind was refreshed by the mysterious refreshing sensation that came from killing plants.
This time however the refreshing sensation was ten times as powerful as his mind was instantly refreshed to its peak state. Not only that, memories of his time training with his grandfather resurfaced with renewed clarity.
Every single one of the 21 Sword Style's attacks replayed in his head as the younger him practiced each one with more energy and passion than he did in real life. Without even having to put in much effort, in reality, Floyd knew that he had learned another sword technique in 21 Sword Style, known as Slash Storm.
While his proficiency wasn't the best with this new attack he had gotten a basic understanding and feeling on his to perform it. Alongside his proficiency in the 21 Sword Style: Repeated Hacking improved as well.
"Just as expected, the stronger, larger, and older the plant is, the more of this refreshing sensation gives the person who defeats the plant. That means that Grandfather and the other generals are getting blasted with this refreshing sensation."
"They must be seeing a sharp increase in their fighting abilities or at least becoming more proficient in the martial art techniques that they are using." Floyd thought to himself as he couldn't help but become worried for his Grandfather.
While he knew that this refreshing sensation had some good effects he also could tell with a rough estimate that one could only survive to enjoy the benefits if they took the refreshing sensation in moderation. For the soldiers, this could be done by temporarily retreating from the battlefield to heal their wounds but generals couldn't retreat from the battlefield at all.
The moment they retreated from the battlefields the army would quickly lose the bit of progress that they gained and even might begin to be overwhelmed. Just the fact that there were soldiers like himself who only had to deal with small pieces of plant life or the fact that a small percentage of them could temporarily retreat from the battle to recuperate showed how much effort his Grandfather was putting in.
"With the constant refreshing sensation bombarding his mind, is he going to notice the dangers hidden in the refreshing sensation? What if he mistakes his progress to only be good and pushes his body too far that he goes mad or dies from exhaustion?" Floyd wanted to check in on his Grandfather to see how he was doing but he simply was too far away from the main battlefield to see what was going on.
As the weakest soldier in the army, Floyd knew his place was always going to be in the back line and never to move forward. Since the closer one was to the main battlefield the larger the pieces of the plant became until he would have to deal with complete plant life that was trying to kill every living thing in their vicinity to suck up the nutrition from their body.
If he even attempted to reach his Grandfather the only result that would occur would be that his body would be pierced by hundreds of roots and he would turn into a dried corpse. All he needs to do is survive and hope that his Grandfather and the other generals can think of a solution to this problem.
"I understand! I understand! So this is how to become a Bloodmaster!"
While Floyd was worried about his Grandfather, he suddenly heard a soldier in front of him exclaim something. As he looked at the soldier, he recognized him as Whaly Cold an elite soldier from his Grandfather's army and had been stuck at the Peak of the first-rate martial artist realm for nearly three decades
Many soldiers including himself had thought that he had long reached his potential and couldn't advance further in his entire life. To suddenly hear him about gaining an understanding to break into the Bloodmaster realm instantly attracted Floyd's attention
With his renewed focus on the Whaly, Floyd noticed that Whaly's armor was heavily battered, full of holes, and bent out of shape. His hair was covered in wood dust and there were thousands of wooden chips on the ground around him showing a testament to his strength and his ability to act as a wood grinder.
Even a wood grinder eventually breaks from processing too much wood, so it was obvious to see the exhaustion in Whaly's body but the bright clarity and excitement in his brown eyes showed he wasn't going to stop soon.
"Just a little bit more, I just need to be enlightened a few more times, and I can modify my body cultivation method to become capable of reaching the Bloodmaster realm." After shouting his lungs out, Whaly repeatedly insanely muttered to himself.
"Let me kill that vine for you,"
Suddenly after Whaly muttered to himself, he jumped at the opportunity to finish off a large oak vine that his companion soldier was about to kill. Clenching his six-foot-long hammer that weighed nearly 100 pounds, Whaly jumped ten feet into the air to jump over the soldier and heavily smashed the ten-foot-long and nine inches wide Oak vine into green mush.
"Whaly, thank you for your assistance. I don't think I could have killed that Oak Vine as effectively as you could have, which would have been a pain in my butt." The soldier that had his kill stolen wasn't upset and instead looked at Whaly with gratitude.
He couldn't believe how strong Whaly had become during this war. Even though Whaly was an elite soldier while a soldier like himself could only look up to him.
He never imagined that the gap between them would instead widen further. If he wasn't mistaken he felt that the aura that Whaly was oozing from his body was the strongest he had ever felt from a first-rate martial artist.
While he was being praised by the soldier, Whaly closed his eyes and tightly clenched his hammer as his body twitched in strange ways. After a few seconds, Whaly opened his eyes and shook his head as he ignored the soldier and went to steal another kill.
"Boom! Bang! Crunch!"
It wasn't difficult for Whaly to find some easy prey and quickly killed three more plants. After crushing a five feet wide tree stump into centimeter-long wooden chips, Whaly smiled as he finally figured it out.
He grabbed his hammer with two hands and placed it in front of his chest with the hammer head pointed at his chest. Taking a deep breath Whaly steeled his resolve as he heavily slammed his hammer against his chest.
"Thud!"
The moment his hundred-pound hammer head slammed against his chest, Whaly immediately coughed up blood as he felt his bones nearly fracture. Still, he didn't give up and continued to slam his hammer repeatedly.
"Thud! Thud! Thud!"
Each painful thud made Whaly cough up a mouth full of blood and caused his face to turn paler due to the blood loss yet with his determination he was able to reach his desired effect. The constant thuds soon formed a pattern similar to a heartbeat that helped assist him in forcing his pent-up inner vigor to enter his blood.
One after another strands of brown inner vigor entered his crimson blood allowing him to gain additional control over his blood. Once the last inner vigor strand entered his blood Whaly felt a burst of energy and power flow through his veins.
"I finally did it. I became a Bloodmaster." Whaly let out a crazy smile as he lifted his hammer which was covered in his blood.
The strange feeling of having deified his fate of being stuck as a first-rate martial artist for the rest of his life thrilled Whaly. As he felt an immediate urge to test out his new battle prowess and test his new limits.
Scanning the battlefield for a good enemy, Whaly eventually spotted a ten feet tall Burned Chestnut Tree in the distance trying to implant ten of its thick roots into the cliff wall and grow sideways. With a good target, he forced blood to pour out of his hands to cover his hammer in a thin layer of blood.
Without backing up at all, Whaly simply swung his hammer and shot ten blood bullets the size of small coins at the tree. These blood bullets immediately reached the tree and poked giant holes through its main body.
"Boom!"
Before the Burned Chestnut Tree could react to Whaly's attack it was crushed into dust by hundreds of blood bullets that Whaly shot out of his blood hammer. Seeing how easily he was able to take out an entire tree from a distance with ease, Whaly smiled as he couldn't wait to return home and tell his family.
While Whaly was enjoying his new power from breaking through Floyd along with many other soldiers stared at him with shock in their eyes.
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