#104
Escape from the Mountain Range (2)
His muscles bulged, veins twitching.
Kuwung!
Thick, log-like legs struck the ground powerfully, propelling his massive body into the air.
In an instant, a gentle haze rose from his entire body, illuminating the “Kalcos Combat Engravings” inscribed all over him in a mysterious glow.
And then.
Shiiak— Puhwak!
Enveloped in the crimson light of “Biotic Aura,” the axe head soared in a large arc and cleanly severed the head of a 4-meter-tall monster from its body.
“Hahaha—! Being this big makes it fun to slice!”
Harley, soaked in the troll’s blood, let out a mad laugh.
But his attack didn’t end there.
Immediately after beheading the creature, he drove the axe into the troll’s chest, shattering its ribcage, and then shoved one hand in to extract the magic stone.
As a finishing touch, he jumped from the giant corpse, landing gracefully on the ground—
Kwajik!
…At the same time, he split the massive head lying on the floor in two with his axe.
Kuwung—!
Despite his head and heart being destroyed, the troll’s body thrashed for a while before finally collapsing to the ground.
‘The regeneration power of the troll is already strong, but with the infection of madness, its vitality is abominably high.’
Harley grimaced as he gnawed on the troll’s magic stone in his hand.
Being used to hunting giant monsters and possessing overwhelming physical abilities, he could deal with it easily, but for others, it would have been a far tougher battle.
Just like those catching their breath after the fight with the trolls.
“Hoo…”
“Hah, ah… Damn, trolls in a place like this. We’re supposed to be leaving the mountain range, but it feels like we’re going deeper than before.”
As monsters began their descent, the creatures that had lived deeper in began to be pushed outward.
A war was already raging between the monsters and humans on the outskirts.
“…Let’s move immediately. The longer we wait, the worse the situation will get.”
The effect of the magical equipment that suppressed the presences of the upper-tier monsters that had begun to appear sporadically wasn’t as significant as expected.
They weren’t that strong to begin with, but their heightened instincts due to madness had amplified their sensing abilities.
Though the party was far from weak, the current situation offered little room for maneuver for a small group.
The exhaustion from several days of continuous fighting compounded their fatigue, and even upper-tier monsters would pop up whenever they got bored…
“Look at Harley, the one who moved the most, still looking sprightly. Is it thanks to that vision spell? I’m jealous…”
“Still, it’s because of that we’ve made it this far. Plus, if we push for just one more day, we could escape the mountain range. Let’s hang in there until then.”
The guide, Marcus, offered hopeful words while leading the exhausted party at the front.
But.
The situation was worsening even more than they’d anticipated.
*
During his wandering in the Northern Mountain Range, Harley was able to observe the behavior of monsters tainted by madness in more detail.
Outsider intel gathered through other avatars suggested that those monsters cooperated rather than fought among themselves, but that was only partially true.
Since they were living beings, they needed prey to function, and the food chain among monsters was a part of that ecosystem.
It wasn’t rare to witness strong monsters devouring weaker ones in this mountain range.
‘Weaker ones charging blindly at stronger ones might be even more rampant than before.’
The result was that even strong monsters sometimes ended up being hunted.
Even among the same group, a conflict could easily escalate into a life-or-death battle, showing extreme aggression toward one another.
‘When one of them eats another, the survivor’s madness concentration intensifies accordingly.’
The defeated became food in death while the victors grew stronger from the accumulated madness.
Just this aspect alone was highly threatening…
However, the moment they sensed other intelligent beings, including humans, they became united and rushed madly to annihilate that existence.
Just like right now.
*
The first casualty was Bordo, one of the rangers isolated with the dwarf, Zhao-nick.
Unlike his injured comrade Hans, Bordo was relatively unscathed, assigned to draw the monsters’ attention while others dealt with them.
“Kuup!”
Out of nowhere, a hobgoblin fired a poisonous dart, hitting him squarely.
“Bordo!”
“No!”
Support fire poured in too late, as Bordo was already rendered immobile in front of the monster.
An orc, consumed by madness and unable to feel pain, came crashing down on him, arrows embedded in its vital points.
After the creature breathed its last, Bordo was killed on the spot, and even as he pierced the hobgoblin that shot the dart, it was…
Bordo was already dead.
‘Using a weapon? Instead of just swinging it like before?’
Harley glanced over while swinging his axe at the monsters, his brow knitted in concern.
Normally, they would have been more cautious, but it seemed they’d let their guard down since they had never seen a creature using such weapons while in madness.
‘Was it particularly intelligent? Or less affected by the madness?’
Whatever the cause, this fact would only increase the party’s burden.
As if the tough situation wasn’t enough, they now had to contend with ranged attacks.
Indeed, that caused the rear support fire to dwindle.
Mikel, continuously pulling bolts from his spatial dimension magical equipment to shoot with his crossbow while maintaining vigilance, became far more cautious with each shot.
‘This isn’t good. If it keeps going like this, we’ll be wiped out. … But not me.’
No matter how strong he was, there was a limit to facing multiple foes alone.
Not to mention, these were monsters with grotesquely enhanced vitality.
‘I’ve invested too much time in this, and I don’t want to break my 100% mission success record… but it can’t be helped.’
He had to use everything he had at his disposal.
‘Right, let’s properly gauge Harley’s power. Just how far can he go?’
While still mercilessly slaughtering the enemies, he steadied his mind and summoned his strength.
With “Physical Transformation,” his already large frame began to grow even more.
The energy he had been accumulating for a long time was ignited all at once, causing his “Biotic Aura” to blaze fiercely.
His “Wildness” sharpened, allowing him to instinctively grasp the flow around him, and “Regeneration” optimized his condition.
Following that, the “Kalcos Combat Engravings” inscribed all over his body glowed even brighter.
The ‘fire’ on his chest, the ‘storm’ near his eyes, the ‘beast’ and ‘axe’ on both arms, and even the ‘galloping horse’ and ‘bird’s wings’ that were hidden beneath his pants.
“Hoo—.”
A light exhale released a puff of white breath.
No, not only that, energy ignited rapidly, releasing heat and steam from every pore of his body.
His senses sharpened, and his hand wielding the axe felt as light as a feather.
But that wasn’t all…
Harley gradually stirred the “Madness” he had been suppressing.
The madness, just by existing in him, heightened his physical abilities, but controlling it effectively was something else entirely.
Thud—
He felt something flowing through his veins, as if his heart was driving it.
It pervaded his muscles, bones, organs, and deep into his brain—
-That’s right! Let’s tear everything blocking our way apart! All of them! Ka-kaka!
With the whisper of madness surging once again.
Shiiiik—
His enhanced body turned a bright, fiery red, radiating heat, while his previously black right eye glowed red, transforming into a flame-like glare.
At that moment, when Harley completely awakened his madness and kept it under control…
《The individual achieves conditions for growth. The skill “Wildness” evolves into the special skill “Raging Beast.”》
He now had a means to handle madness more effectively.
“Khuh… khuhahuhuh—!”
An explosive energy surged from within him, and an involuntary wild laugh erupted out.
A laugh that was even crazier than usual.
‘Ah… just when I thought things had calmed down lately.’
However, there was no helping it this time.
At least once he deactivated this fully unleashed battle state, he’d likely return to his prior level of madness.
…Probably.
‘Well then, shall we really get started?’
Given the urgency, Harley powered up while still remaining center stage on the battlefield.
He extended his right hand back and pulled the other axe he had been holding in reserve.
With the situation escalating, he had kept one hand free to extract the magic stone, but now that he was going all out, this also had its use.
Gripping axes in both hands, he took a deep breath—
“Urgh!”
Shiiak—! Puhak!
One axe shot like a missile, embedding itself in an orc’s head.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
Unlike his fiery right eye, his left eye, which had been quiet until now, began to radiate a deep green light.
「Gem Mind: Telekinesis」
The axe lodged in the orc’s head was enveloped in a soft green glow and floated into the air.
And then—
Shiiick— Paf! Paf!
Freely soaring through the air, it began splitting the heads of the enemies targeting his allies one by one.
He didn’t even need to see or control it directly.
His senses, sharpened by “Raging Beast,” had already assessed the entire battlefield in real-time.
‘Having the telekinesis of the axe substituting for the aura’s power means that the attack itself isn’t an issue. The only problem is that sending energy remotely is a terrible waste…’
But that, too, didn’t concern him much.
At least when fighting multiple monsters like right now.
Kwajik— Agjak!
While still empty-handed, Harley ripped out the monsters’ hearts, stuffing them in his mouth in yet another instance of “Horrific Eating.”
The metabolic rate of the energy dissipating within him slowed down gradually.
‘I can’t fully recover even this way.’
This indicated just how severely energy consumption was affected by the linking of abilities he was currently utilizing.
Kwaaaang—!
“Krakhaha! Die!”
Of course, the effectiveness was overwhelming to match.
His extreme physical enhancement, each time he kicked the ground, accompanied by a loud sound, and the axe swept through the air wrapped in red aura, had long surpassed the speed of sound.
Even mere body slams at this point could smash monsters to bits.
So much so that he felt light compared to the power he wielded, forcing him to increase energy expenditure for better stability.
He widened the surface area of his feet, transforming his toes into hooks, pouring considerable aura to enhance his grip on the ground.
Even then, the ground beneath him couldn’t fully withstand his might, exploding with each step, but he was now able to project his power more comfortably than before.
‘But this energy consumption is terrifying. Without “Horrific Eating,” I wouldn’t have been able to maintain it for long.’
Using his explosive movements, he dashed through the monsters, the graceful axe hacking them to pieces while his empty hands diligently harvested their hearts.
Meanwhile, the axe wrapped in green light flew about, raining destruction on the enemies’ heads…
Kwajik—!
Thanks to his efforts, the fight gradually entered a lull.
The ongoing reinforcements of monsters had come to a stop, as the makeshift barrier hastily set up by the dwarf Zhao-nick absorbed the combat noise sufficiently so it didn’t travel too far.
‘Since it was rapidly installed with magical tools, it couldn’t stop the creatures nearby from converging, but this was a success in holding them back.’
Otherwise, they would’ve had no choice but to fight until utterly exhausted.
“Hoo—.”
Just as Harley breathed out a sigh, releasing a puff of white vapor, intending to deactivate his current combat mode…
‘Huh?’
With his senses sharpened to the extreme, he detected something approaching fiercely.
Thud thud thud…
Even from a distance, he could feel ground-shaking vibrations, an aura that excited his instincts from “Raging Beast,” and the overwhelming amount of ‘madness’ enveloping its body.
‘Oh, we’re in trouble.’
The creature was, precisely, racing towards this location.
