Chapter 18: Investigating the Ruin

After resting for a minute Tony advanced again in his hunt for Beast Rocks and treasure chests. The monsters had a short respawn time, so from time to time, he would attract some of these Beast Rocks. Fortunately, there were some narrow spaces. This resulted in the Beast Rocks blocking each other's path.

Seeing this, Tony had a good idea. He started luring more Beast Rocks, and within a short moment, he had lured over 10 of these monsters. The monsters chased after Tony in a group as if they owed him money, but the narrow pathways in the mountain prevented them from even stretching their bodies. Just a slight movement and they would run into the other Beast Rock. While Tony kept using Lightning strike, double slash, and his other skills to burn off the HP of the Beast Rocks behind him.

He kept doing the same thing over and over again for three straight hours, some might find this not worth it considering the shameful loot the Beast Rocks give, however for Tony it was like he was in heaven especially after coming across another 3 bronze treasure chests, the loot he found there was really amazing. He acquired a few pieces of Level 7 to Level 10 Iron and Bronze Equipments, 3 skill books for different classes, unfortunately none were useful for a swordsman and many useful materials.

Tony believes if he sells everything he would definitely get a couple gold coins, that's how much value the items he has. Not only that but he also created another two skills

[Name: Lightning Barrage]

(Rank: S)

Chop + pierce + sweep + stab + cleave + slash. In rapid succession

No cooldown.

[Name: Rapid Steps]

(Rank: A)

Shifting your footwork in a unique way Increase speed by 100% for 20 seconds

Cooldown: 35 seconds.

While he was madly hunting Tony didn't forget the real reason why he came to Lone Peak Mountain, after investigating for four hours the only suspicious place he found was a rock, although it looked normal from the outside when he examine it using [Hawkeye] the rock became unnatural as if it didn't mean to exist there, so Tony attacked the rock with Lightning strike and as he guessed. The rock became a little blurry when a path appeared so he landed a few more attacks and when the path became clearer Tony activated Wind Rush and ran through the rock without difficulty.

"So it was just an illusion, interesting" Tony was marvelled for a second

"Ding ding ding system notification: you entered a mysterious Ruin"

at that moment he got a notification the previous quest

"Devil hunt quest: C rank: go to the lone pick mountain outside the village and find the ruin entrance"

Changed into a new quest

"Devil hunt quest: S rank: investigate the ruin" seeing that the quest difficulty was three ranks higher than the previous one made Tony cautious, after all just to kill his way through the Beast Rocks and find the ruin entrance took him a great time and efforts so what coming next is only harder, however, this did excite him after all fighting the unknown and challenging oneself is something Tony always wanted to do.

Tony looked at the passage ahead of him, ancient magical runes were carved into the walls on both sides, and even though many years had passed, this hallway was still gleaming with light and mysteriousness.

Tony first picked a rock and tossed it in the hallway, when confirming nothing happened he set foot and started walking knowing he has a lot to walk because he was able to see the entirety of the long, narrow hallway.

While walking and looking around using [Hawkeye] not letting anything might pass him, so after walking for almost an hour he came across his first obstacle

[Demon Warrior]

(Special Elite Rank)

Level 12

HP 2000/2000

Possesses mediocre Defence and a terrifying Attack.

From the description, Tony knew that he must never let the monster land a hit on him or he will die. So he started testing the Demon warrior wearing black armour and holding a blood-red sword that looked terrifying. it started moving with a speed that left Tony shocked if he delayed even a second he would have died.

After exchanging moves for five minutes be it the Demon warrior or Tony none could land a hit on the other, for Tony it was as if he was fighting against a master and not a monster this made him excited as the more he fights the braver he became, going from passive to active he started dominating the Demon warrior giving it no room for breathing and only concentrating on defence.

The Demon warrior exploded with terrifying killing intent as it swing the broad sword with all it might at Tony, it was an attack that could annihilate anyone at this stage of the game whether it was a solo player or a team, Tony was waiting for that exact moment as he used [Reflect] and used Jade Sword to intercept the attack from the Demon warrior. Tony's luck was on full display as the 10% ignoring the opponent's defence was activated coupled with the skill the Demon warrior could only watch as his attack was reflected.

Boom!!

The Demon warrior was sent flying and -914 appeared above its head, Tony was momentarily stunned as he didn't think the attack would be this terrifying however his hands and feet didn't stop as he chased after the monster, this is his chance to end the fight so he'll never let it go.

First using Lightning strike by sending the monster in a 2 seconds fainted state, then using his new combo Lightning Barrage, Chop + pierce + sweep + stab + cleave + slash those simple rapid attacks alone took 460 from the monster HP, coupled with the Lightning strike effect Tony only needed Double Slash for the Demon warrior to drop dead.

"System notification: congratulations for killing Demon warrior, rewards 630 exp"

"Kill 100 Demon warriors to achieve the basic title Demon Slayer".

"This is a good leveling place" Tony was happy with the exp the Demon warrior rewards, after all, the higher the level the harder to pass it. From level 6 to 7 one only need 5500 exp and from 7 to 8 one only need 15000 exp, however when Tony saw the amount needed to go from level 8 to 9 he cursed the system because it said you need 100000 exp to level up and the monsters reward only pitiful exp so for him to level up again he needs to kill monsters for days just to level up again. This alone would have motivated Tony to hunt the Demon warriors let alone the fact that if he kill a 100 he would get a title which motivated him even more since the game guide said that getting a title is the hardest thing in the game even the most basic title will bring the player many benefits let alone a badass title like the Demon Slayer.

At that moment something unusual happened, the Humming Blade started emitting a suction force and a black aura was absorbed from the corps of the Demon Warrior, Tony was startled although he knew that the Humming Blade was not a simple sword still the current situation puzzled him. After the last black aura was absorbed nothing changed in the sword however Tony felt as if the Humming Blade became sharper, he felt that the sharpness of the weapon could even destroy weak level Iron equipment. He checked the Humming Blade state and found new information

[Name: Humming blade]

[Type: unique]

Durability: 130/130 Attack Power: +20 Attack speed: +20

* Deals an additional 35% damage to monsters.

* Increases critical rate by 50% when attacking monsters.

Absorb the life force from dark creatures you killed to awaken the Blade

Dark life force: 3/10000.

The durability, attack, and speed all got a little bit higher.

"Fuck if one dark creature only gives 3 life force I have to kill at least thousands of them for the Humming Blade to awaken" Tony cursed out before he take his anger on the wondering Demon warriors in the ruin.

After 4 hours of fighting, he finally got out of the damn hallway, in the way he met 22 Demon warriors from killing them he got 13200 exp and 38 dark life force, although he was still far away from his goals that amount made wanting to meet more dark creatures.

Beyond the hallway was a big hall, as big as football field and there were 3 big doors, two of them were locked and only one was opened, so Tony after confirming there was nothing made his way to that door while being cautious and even took out the teleportation stone and holding it tightly in any misfortune were to happen he'll just teleport away.

Inside the room, he found many magic arrays, and inside them was a pitch-black Devil with bat-like wings and blood-red eyes. The moment Tony's eyes saw the Devil he only felt one thing.

DEATH

He calmed himself with great difficulty and used Hawkeye on the devil

[Name: ?????] ?????

????????

Lvl ?????

HP ??????

Thus was the first time that Tony saw many question marks, Hawkeye was even able to give the information the legendary elf lady yet couldn't with the devil means either. The first was that the Devil was equipping an advanced item that hid its information. The other was that its strength was simply too overwhelming, preventing the [Hawkeye Eyes] from identifying it. It was very clearly the latter situation taking place in this case.

At that instant Without even delaying a fraction of a second he activated [Absolute Nothingness] and [Camouflage] at the same time. At that same instant the Devil looked at Tony's hiding place, The chilling killing intent in that gaze was so intense that Tony became breathless for a second. Even though it was just a game, Tony's brain gave only one signal to run away, even his hands were filled with sweat as he tightened his grip on the teleportation stone. After a few seconds, the Devil retracted his gaze and said in a voice that sounded as if coming from hell itself

"To think I the great Jurthradaan became paranoid to this point"

"Ding ding ding system notification: congratulations you have known the true name of a Devil".