Blood

He punched another spiked alligator in the face, crushing its face into the ground and killing it in one punch. They threw it onto the growing stack of corpses as the other five stared at the heap in shock.

'Who the heck? Wait, Zenith… Zeeth? Could he be?' Avery thought back to her stepmother who told her about a great young man, Zeeth, who traveled with her on the ride to Birmalu Kingdom. The young man talked to her like a friend, he was the first person she could talk casually to. And he was impressively strong, taking care of a baby tentacon like it was nothing, and later she even heard stories of him saving Jarlon from a massive tentacon and scared a dragon away. 'Could he be that person? No, it's far too large a world, he's probably some other person. Besides, who would come up with such a simple alias, ha!'

'I feel like I was just insulted for some reason.' Zeeth told Black.

'I do as well. Oh, just letting you know, the other boy feels immensely jealous and it's getting more aggressive at each turn.'

above ground, members of the three eyes cult collected in the bar he was just at, dressed like normal people, listening to the people talk about them. papers were published with their cult on the front pages, people were heard all over muttering, "the largest crime organization in a long time."

"aka, Gil, do you hear this? Were becoming famous!" one tall man said.

"yeah, but this is bad. we shouldn't be too well known as a bad group, just slowly spread our name amongst those who want to join." his friend answered.

"would ya calm down? this will lead to that, we can use the infamy to find those who want to join."

someone else ran up to the group and told them, "boss is calling us. they think they found another immortal thing."

"already?" Gil asked.

"yeah, they used the information they learned from the skeleton to create something that can locate similar patterns. come on, we're apparently using magic bombs, this is gonna be fun."

the group left the bar, unfurling their robes in their pockets.

"Are you sure you're ranked C4? These beasts aren't usually taken care of so easily." Diane asked.

"Yeah, I am ranked C4. You saw my badge." They took a turn and Zeeth noticed something glowing purple in the ground. "What's that purple thing in the ground?"

Avery rushed ahead, dropping to the ground to carefully inspect it. Zeeth rushed beside her in case a monster was nearby and looked at it.

"It's… but how? It's a mana gem but how is one all the way over here? This dungeon has already been explored pretty well, how is there a gem still here? It must've formed a day ago, teams come here pretty often."

"Maybe they all dropped out before getting here, we were about to."

"There's a chance, but it's rare for someone to get all the way over here and just miss a glowing gem in a cave or to just leave it. Let's try to dig it up." Avery and Diane tried to dig at the rocks around the gem, Diane digging incredibly fervently, but somehow the rocks simply didn't budge. Zeeth tried filling it with water and trying to slip the gem out, they all used their own magic, but nothing changed. The rocks around the gem were immune to all change, no rock or transformation magic could alter it. Russel came up and shoved his sword into the edges of the gem and almost snapped his sword in two.

"I guess that's why it's been here so long. Let's just move on then, maybe we can get it out when we leave." Avery pushed herself up. But just as she got up, the rocks around the gem crumbled and caved in. The rocks kept crumbling and Zeeth jumped away, everyone else backed up as well. Zeeth walked over to the hole and saw a massive room full of purple gems, the one they had been digging at fell through the hole and hit similar gems. Reya stood behind him, looking down and the rest crowded the hole. All but Russel. He noticed it just a second too late, but Russel was standing behind Reya and Zeeth and he came charging at them, pushing Reya and Zeeth into the hole, to everyone else's surprise. Zeeth grabbed onto a chunk of crumbling rock and tried to throw Reya back up but something round that he wasn't able to see hit him in the head, causing him to loosen his grip and fall down the hole with Reya in his arms.

He hit a pile of gems, the water surrounding his back to break his fall.

'What was that?' he rubbed his head, the feeling of warmth and pain spreading there. 'Why do I feel pain if I'm part robot? Why didn't they change that?'

Reya was unconscious so he laid her down. Ahead of him were a white crack and a scar-covered demon in front of him. Its hands were a sickly pink, getting redder near the fingertips. Every other part of the body was normal other than the brown and wrinkled scars. The demon looked at Zeeth, made a massive grin, and swung its hand.

'Zeeth, it wants to kill you. You need to fight alone for a moment, I need to collect mana for someone so strong.'

He couldn't see it, but he could feel some orb coming at him faster than anything he had ever experienced. He jumped just in time to move his head away but it hit him in the shoulder and swung him away. He smashed into the gems-covered walls, pieces of them falling off. He fired a few jets of water that were deflected by the invisible orb.

It swung the orb down at his face and he tried to block it with his shield. It was demolished in a single attack, splinters of wood and metal flying all over the place. It slowed the orb enough to allow him to escape and throw rocks at the demon. He threw them with so much strength that it wasn't able to block all the shards and they punctured its skin.

'He's defenseless but his attacks are insane.'

The orb struck another batch of gems behind the demon as he clutched the wounds, far away from either of them. Somehow, he was leaning back nearly all the way and was still standing. Zeeth ran in with his sword, made it shake, and tried to stab it into his legs. The demon swung his other hand and an invisible orb blocked the blade and knocked it aside while shooting upwards and taking Zeeth with it. He was crushed into the gems and the demon tried to push the orb deeper into his stomach. He grabbed a gem and threw it at the demon, channeling wind and magic behind it to add further speed. The demon swung itself to the side, allowing the gem to hit the foot of the demon. For some reason, the gem hit the foot and created a massive whirlwind, ripping the demon's foot apart.

As it fell, so did the orb from Zeeths stomach and the other orb in the wall that seemed to be holding it up fell aside as well, dust rising from the walls. He grabbed his sword, the intact circles from his shield, and added them to the hilt of his sword. He tried to shove it into the demon's heart but it swung a pink hand and an orb hit it away. He activated the expansion circle and had the sword split in half the long way, one piece of the sword flying away with the orb and the other one charging into the demon's heart. It missed its heart but hit its shoulder and a spike protruded from the sword. It dragged him closer, using material from the end of the sword, but a jet of high-powered blood erupted from the wall. Zeeth moved his hand away just in time to avoid it and the blood cut off the demon's damaged arm. It was now missing its left arm and right foot.

'What was that?' he thought but he couldn't think about it too much, two invisible orbs now hit him in the arm at the same time, blasting him away, blood trickling down his arm. He had no weapon or shield, he had to hope for the shield from Afir's robe to protect him while he killed the demon.

He ran in, put in some mana into the robe, and generated a blue shield. He took a few purple gems and spiky rocks into his hand, the demon swung its hand against him from the side and hit the shield which guarded against the orb, but the force from the orbs still pushed him back while also pushing the demon. He came in with one last punch, full of all his strength and even putting mana into his muscles to make them better, and charged down at its head.

"Spare…me!" the demon muttered. Zeeth diverted the punch, unable to stop it at such speed, and punched the demon's other arm off.

"What did you say?"

'Don't trust him. He still wants to kill you.' Black said and Zeeth went back into a cautious stance, but he didn't attack immediately. Demons could speak the same language as him?

"You… understand me? I-I don't know where I am, please don't kill me."

"You speak the same language?"

"Yeah, Zelian, right? That's because we came from this land. Cursed souls meant to forever suffer in hell." Zeeth couldn't see it but the demon's detached hands were twitching. "Do you want to know why?! Hahaha!"

With a flick of its wrist, orbs came at his back again. Zeeth almost dodged them but the demon used its unnaturally hot foot and kicked him against the orb, holding him in place. "I poisoned a king and served him the meat of his own child!! That fatso deserved it and even cursed me in my death!"

God's Shield activated the moment the demon's kick came at his stomach to crush him between the orbs, saving him from a life-threatening attack, and Zeeth took this opportunity to throw a bundle of rocks at the demon's face, blasting it like a shotgun. It nearly dodged them all but the gems always struck the floor with a small whirlwind and tore off bits of the demon's face each time. A final attack blasted its head open, the white cracks healed themselves. He looked behind him and saw a head poking out of the white cracks, a starved, weakly old man with receding grey hair and sunken cheeks, so thin that he could see all of his bones. The head ducked back into the crack as it repaired and vanished from the air.

He used God's Eye on the gems which read, [Mana Gems: Gems made from condensing mana underground. Can take normal attacks, store them and release them stronger. If brought through the process of refining, it can be placed in other items and enchant them like magic circles.]

He used it on the demon's corpse, [Bunlus (Dead and Converting) Demon cursed to suffer in hell, feeling constant and having extremely weak skin from the scars he got in real life, ripping apart at any large motion. Having been chained and trapped for fifty years in solitary confinement where he slowly went insane by two heavy metal balls, he is also haunted by his only attack skill, to be able to swing around two invisible and indestructible orbs controlled by his hands to constantly remind him of the worst time of his life.]

He looked over at the torn-off hands and eyed them as well. [Hands still containing the skill Wreckage. Wreckage: Allows you to swing an indestructible, invisible orb that you can control using this hand. Only those with the thought of pure destruction may wield this orb.]

Both of the hands had the same description but he was unable to activate them, he didn't have thought of pure destruction now that the demon was gone.

'This stuff is so OP but what classifies as pure destruction?'

'Think about how Russel just pushed you and Reya into this hole. How much do you want to crush his face in?'

"A lot," he said out loud, thinking about what he could best do to make him suffer. Suddenly, two orbs were created in the palms of the demon hands he was holding. He was able to move them farther and closer using mana and swinging the hands swung the orbs like they were attached to the palms by unbendable sticks that could grow longer or shorter. He planted the orbs in the ground, put Reya on his shoulders, all while thinking about how much he wanted to demolish Russel, extended the sticks, and shot them up. Zeeth rose with Reya on his shoulders, flying upwards with invisible orbs holding them up. The corpse of the demon was being carried up by his hands.

Russel had his back facing him and was facing the rest of his teammates, trying to escape them, an argument clearly having just happened. The rest of the team saw Zeeth first, gaping at his rising body, seemingly flying in the air. Russel followed their eyes and saw a furiously glaring Zeeth, bloody and carrying two other bodies, rising behind him. Fear etched into his heart as sweat poured down his face, Zeeth could tell he was panicking even under the full body armor.

He crushed through the armor and smushed Russel's arm, causing blood to gush out and his arm to fall. He pulled in the orbs, which were invisible to everyone but him, and brought it down on Russel. The ball hit him like a massive hammer, he could see where it was but it was invisible to others. The balls were a lot lighter than he thought, almost like air, but it hit like a truck. Russel was on the floor, screaming and both arms crippled.

"Were you trying to kill us, Russel? Russel, stop screaming." he punched him in the face, denting the helmet and breaking his nose.

A jet of blood burst from the rocks again, shaving off Russel's hand. The blood bounced off the ceiling and sliced chunks of gems cleanly open.

'We best leave now, that's not something we can handle.' Black told him.

'What was that?'

'An attack from the immortal thing I told you about. It's stronger than I anticipated, we can't stay long. Thankfully, I just collected a ton of mana from preparing for the demon, we can escape.'

"Guys, we need to leave, now!" he yelled but a wall of blood burst from the ground, narrowly avoiding Zeeth but slicing Russel into two, killing him instantly.