Third Trial [2]

In front of me was a headless, 12 feet tall monstrosity covered in a layer of thick toxic waste. With arms larger than its legs and a face on its round belly, the monster let out grunting heavily as time went on. I steadied myself and took out Hailstorm from the crest on my hand. I hesitated as I looked at the greenish brown goo that was dripping down its stubby legs. Raising my head, my sharp gaze met his ugly eyes that were seemingly telling me to give up. My grip on Hailstorm tightened as I slowly approached the monster that was still standing in place.

Slash. Slash. Crackle.

Almost instantaneously, two ice-blue slashes appeared out of thin air. With the slashes still lingering in the air, a crackle sound echoed in the chamber as the area surrounding the cuts on the monster's face were frozen solid.

Letting out a low groan, the monster steadily lowered its repulsive body onto the ground. With a shocking explosion, the monster's hideous features were displayed right in front of me. Taking a step back, I was just in time to dodge a right hook coming from the monster's direction. Instinctively, I lowered my body and sent my legs sweeping towards the dwarfish legs in front of me.

To my surprise, instead of the rock-solid surface that I had expected to sweep, I had instead come into contact with a slimy, yet rough texture. As if I were kicking into a thick puddle of mud, my right leg went straight through the monster's body.

Noticing the incoming downward strike, I rolled off to the side and instantly grabbed a couple of arrows from my inventory. Skillfully flicking them towards the monster's eyes, a smile emerged from my lips as I watched the arrows quickly approach the monster. Without enough time to react, the monster was definitely going to be pierced by those flying arrows.

However, the monster, with an unexpected high-pitched screech, turned itself into slime as its body splat itself onto the ground. Taken aback by this, I failed to notice the disappearance of the pile of slime. It wasn't until I heard the wind splitting from the back of head did I realize that the monster had sneaked up behind me.

Bang.

I was sent flying into a nearby cobblestone wall. I felt myself dipping in and out of the state of consciousness multiple times while my body still stung with pain. Moments later, I had found myself covered in a pile of unmovable debris that was crushing every bone inside my body. Clenching my teeth, I attempted to wiggle my arms out from the fallen material. After holding back the immense pain, I had successfully freed my arms. With cold sweat dripping down my face, I turned my head and saw a hideous face staring right back at me. Raising its huge, burly arms, it grabbed the top of my head and forced my miniscule structure out of the pile of debris. Though, feeling its grip tighten, I couldn't help but curse at my luck.

'Why did I choose the [Hard] difficulty?!'

Every single monster I've faced so far were of around this caliber. This monster in particular was indeed more powerful than the previous, but all of them would be considered monstrosities in my opinion. I initially thought that if I had utilized Hailstorm correctly and surprised the opponent from the beginning, I would be able to win all of my battles without getting too many injuries. However, I was completely proven wrong as the monster in front of me was the real deal. It had many tricks and hidden abilities up its sleeve, making it extremely hard for me to deal with it.

'Hah… You thought that choosing the [Hard] difficulty would be fun and exciting, hunh? You dumbass…' I thought to myself.

Feeling myself getting slammed back on to the ground, the pain I was experiencing was slowly starting to become numb. My eyesight was becoming blurry, and I seemed to have started to hallucinate.

It wasn't a hallucination.

It was an object that had puzzled me multiple times before. Floating majestically in front of me was the old, ancient book that I had found in the first trial. Though, if not for the Indigo colored stripe on the spine of the book, I couldn't have determined that it was the same book. It was now an ethereal object that gave off a sense of peace and warmth. In comparison to the old and discolored book from before, the difference was like heaven and earth.

Its pages, flipping madly by itself, were now filled with completely legible sentences and phrases. Unbeknownst to myself, my eyes were now golden in color and were covered in a bright glimmer of light. Almost like I was being controlled, my eyes, by itself, were scanning through the book and processing the information into my mind.

Somewhere in between, though, I had completely lost contact with the outside world and I was now residing in the middle of the void once more. As my eyes dimmed down in hue, the book floating in front of me slowly started to merge within my soul. A feeling of dominance rained over my body as the light around me completely died out.

"Fuuuu…" A deep breath escaped from my mouth as I closed my eyes and witnessed the warmth slowly escape my body.

Opening my eyes once more, I had found myself back inside the grasp of the monster. Realizing that all my injuries had been healed, a plan quickly started to formulate in my mind.

Soon, though, my body was going to be crushed under the massive force of the monster once more as I saw the ground below me nearing. Quickly summoning Hailstorm into the grasp of my teeth, I swung down as hard as I could using the power of my neck.

Crackle. Crackle.

Separating the monster's hand from the rest of its body, a crackling noise sounded as ice froze up the wound that was created as a result. With a surprised expression on its disgusting face, the monster stumbled backwards into the cobblestone wall. After landing on the ground, I propelled myself forwards using the momentum and rushed towards the monster at high speeds.

The monster was still in shock as it raised its arm and no longer saw its hand there. It cried in anger and looked back towards me. However, I was already within range of the monster. Grabbing the greatsword from out of my inventory, I arched my arms backwards and threw the weapon towards the monster with full force.

The monster had two choices: to stop the greatsword attack, or the attack from Hailstorm.

With both hands on Hailstorm, I slashed downwards with full force, creating a vertical line that seemingly split the space into two parts. The entire world was drowned in light-blue hue as the entire chamber split into two. I stumbled onto the ground and felt my body become weaker and weaker as time progressed. Slowly opening my drowsy eyes, I scanned my surroundings and what I saw shocked me. The entire chamber was frozen solid and there was a massive fissure in the middle of the room that split the room in half. I tried to look for the monster corpse, but it was nowhere to be found; it had been completely wiped from existence. Though, instead I found a green marble laying on the ground. I picked it up and the same thing that had occurred after my fight with the berserker bear happened. Hailstorm started to flicker violently and the green marble in my hands started to float towards it.

"Stop eating things without my permission!" I yelled as I quickly sucked Hailstorm back into the crest on my hand.

As the space around my hand distorted, Hailstorm had completely disappeared, and the green marble immediately dropped onto the ice-cold floor. I bent down on my knees and went to pick it up. Upon further examination using my watch, I had found out that the marble-like objects were monster souls that rarely drop after death. They could also be absorbed by humans in order to strengthen their soul, thus increasing their strength. These [Monster Soul Cores] are indeed precious and I was glad that I had made the right choice in putting Hailstorm away before it could absorb the soul.

Satisfied with the rewards, I saw a gate slowly started to form at the end of the room. I lifted myself off the ground and made my way towards the gate. Still shocked by the immense power that I had displayed in that final move, I decided to name that technique: [Glacial Split]