There was a field thick with the stench of corrupted mana and ruptured earth.
Countless centipede monsters were sprouting from below, their long armored bodies tearing through stone as they screeched and lunged.
But before a single one of them could fully surface, a man in a hood descended like a falling star.
Azel struck the ground, aura flaring under his boots, and with a single sweeping arc of his Bone Blade, eight centipedes were carved apart.
Their bodies collapsed in neat, precise sections as if someone had dissected them mid-lunge.
He removed the hood from his head, silver hair spilling free as he flicked the blood from his blade with a tired exhale.
"And that's like the forty-fifth monster I killed in the last ten minutes," Azel muttered while planting one hand on his waist.
His lungs burned from sprinting across the terrain, but in a good way. "Actually feels like I'm getting my edge back."
