10%
15%
20%
One hour into the battle, through last-hitting each and every kill of Udann, the progress of my Mortal Pathway has increased to 20%. Compared to the 8% which I got during two 6-hour Absorption Sessions, stealing someone's kill in this Dimensional Space resulted in this quick progression.
And all those times, Udann was clueless that I was benefitting with minimal effort on my part. There were even occasions where he couldn't dodge in time. That's because during the one hour, I would occasionally deactivate the buffs on him to keep up the lie I told him about not being able to maintain my buffs for a long time.
Because he was amazed by how much it was enhancing his strength, Udann followed the logic that it must be an energy-draining skill. He would switch to defensive stance while I acted as if I was recovering my used-up energy when in fact I was sneakily picking up some of the baseball-sized stones by pulling them into my range and straight to my Necklace.
Once I'm back to a Mortal World, the tanks filled with Dark Energy and these stones will be enough for my Companions to progress in their Mortal Pathway and hopefully complete it.
When I'm done refilling my Energy and sweeping my surrounding clean of stones, only then would the clueless Udann go back to an offensive stance. Ignoring his wounds as he agilely waded across numerous statues and damaging them enough for me to take the last hit again.
Of course, because I was contentedly benefiting from him, sometimes I would hit the statue lighter and send it back in his direction for him to take the last hit.
And that resulted in the ratio of the gathered energy we're getting from these statues changing from 10:0 to 9:1. He's still happy when he feels his Transcendent Pathway gradually progressing anyway.
"Finally! Its right leg has been broken! Attack and finish it!"
While we were about to move forward to take the aggro of a new group of statues, the voice of the impromptu leader rang out from where they're fighting the giant statue that's as strong as an experienced Rank 2 Transcendent.
Although some of the freed Transcendents tried to come in our direction earlier, when they saw how easily we thinned the herd of these regular-sized statues, they gave up and went back to that giant statue to contribute in taking it down.
"Should we help them?" A bit guilty that we ignored helping those from the Dafirae Tribe, Udann worriedly asked me. His eyes darting between in front of him where we could pull more regular-sized statues and at the back where the group of Rank 1 Transcendents was now crazily charging towards the unstable giant statue.
Even though the statue was now half-kneeling on the ground, its arm and its weapon were still deadly threats to anyone near it. In the span of time between that shout and Udann's question, two Rank 1 Transcendents were sent flying to the wall of the fortress by the desperate retaliation of the giant statue.
Upon seeing that, I acted to be conflicted for a while before giving him an approving nod.
That's a realm higher than these regular-sized statues after all. I wouldn't want to miss the chance to steal their kill. With their numbers that have been reduced from more than 20 to more than 10, it's fairly easy to gauge the difference between the two. What more, the energy that will be gathered from it will surely be exponentially larger or denser than what we're getting from these lesser mobs.
Elated at my answer, Udann immediately turned back and pointed his glaive to the giant statue whose back was turned towards us. With a buzzing sound while leaving behind afterimages, he rushed in and attacked the continuously weakening giant statue.
CRACK!
A loud cracking sound reverberated when Udann's Spearforce-covered glaive hit the giant statue at its back. From the point of impact of his attack, spiderweb-like cracks instantly run along the giant statue's surface. It's more significant damage than the combined attacks of the remaining Rank 1 Transcendent around him.
After one hour of battling with him, I already got a good grasp of this guy's abilities.
He has a Transformation Skill that could turn his whole body to the same rusty-metal color as what's happening to his arm. He called that skill as Rusting. Although it's giving some kind of an odd look, whenever he would transform to that, his agility would rise, his glaive that's supposedly heavier than it looks would almost become lightweight, and most especially, the durability of his body would increase exponentially. Any kind of physical attack will have a hard time hurting him. To save some energy, he would only transform a part of his body most of the time.
His Domain enhances his Transformation while debuffing the enemies which turned a part of them to the same rusty color. Whenever he would hit that part, his damage would be amplified.
However, due to the restriction of the Dimensional Space, his Domain and Transformation felt weak in my eyes.
To time my kill-stealing, I dragged my feet a bit slower while following behind Udann. While the Transcendents were rejoicing from the damage he caused, I generated a Purple Sword on my left hand and merged another with the Swordforce-covered Willful Sword.
By utilizing my Energy Control, I cast Vanishing Steps and silently approached the crazed giant statue that had just finished doing a wide swing, sweeping the space around him.
Before they could react to my sudden appearance, my arms already moved and consecutively hit the spots where they made cracks on its surface.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Utilizing the Energy Explosions inherent to the Purple Swords, the cracks grew as holes started appearing upon the giant statue's surface. The leak of its Energy has started to affect it which could be observed when it sluggishly swung its weapon on me. Even without using a movement skill, I easily dodged it by ducking. And through that, its other foot finally crumbled when I aimed at it before rolling out from there.
"Now! Destroy it!" The previously speechless impromptu leader shouted as soon as the giant statue fell on the ground. Although the look on his face appeared to have the desire to lash at our sudden meddling, he tucked it in as he joined the others to end the giant statue.
Starting from its arm, the giant statue slowly crumbled from their unrelenting attacks. Udann also joined in with them.
Seeing how eager they are, I couldn't help but smirk. I'm observing the giant statue closely, when I judged that it's about to die, I leapt and sent down a Purple Lightning Dragon, right in the gaps between their heads.
As soon as it landed at the already battered giant statue, a huge explosion ensued, blasting the surrounding Transcendents away.
Right afterwards, invisible to their eyes, a dense cloud of energy was extracted from the giant statue which gathered on top of my head as drops of pure Level 2 Energy trickled down on me.
21%
In a span of a few seconds until I landed back on the ground, the progress of my Mortal Pathway moved once more.
Instead of looking at me who dealt the last blow, the impromptu leader charged forward and picked up a basketball-sized stone from the rubbles of the giant statue.
It's a shame but… I'll let them have that.
"What's that stone?" One of the freed Transcendent asked.
Not just him, everyone's eyes were drawn on that stone, be it the Dafirae Tribe or the free Transcendents. They all suddenly forgot their injuries and exhaustion as they looked at the leader who held it in his hands.
"This is the property of the tribe. We will compensate you for the help once we leave this Dimensional Space." He answered before opening his black pouch and stuffing it in there before anyone could raise a complaint.
"What the hell? Some of us also made a sacrifice! You can't be thinking of monopolizing that."
"I told you. We will compensate you outside." He glared at the complaining guy before continuing. "They also needed help in taking that down. Sandie and the group under you, tend to the wounded. The rest, follow me."
After saying that, the Transcendents from the Dafirae Tribe could only follow his orders while the freed Transcendents could only grit their teeth as they followed behind them.
"I don't think they're that greedy." Udann commented.
"Don't mind it, I remembered that some of the statues we destroyed dropped those albeit smaller, let's pick them up before joining them."
"Really? Then let's go!"
With that, none of them really noticed that another portion of the reward from killing the giant statue went solely to me. And this clueless guy will now think that the statues dropped the stones by chance.
Well, they'll find out about it later anyway so there's no point hiding it. I already got my harvest while they're still unaware.
I'm more than happy to see the numbers go up on my Mortal Pathway.
By the time we finished picking up the stray baseball-sized stones that I failed to pick up earlier, around 1/4 of the gathered energy from the giant statue had already been absorbed by me.
From 23% it's now sitting at 46% and it's still rising at the moment. I will surely be able to breakthrough to the next stage with a spare from this gathered energy.
And… there's still more of these statues I could killsteal from them.
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