[You have slain an Abyssal Jackal!]
Michael stared at his fist as he couldn’t believe the power behind it.
"Is this a side effect from gaining the first Origin?"
"Behind you!" The girl’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and he turned around immediately as two Abyssal Jackals charged at him.
"If I can level up just from stabbing these furry D-tier bastards, then bring it on."
Michael slowly tightened his grip on the sword once more, his muscles tensing as he stepped forward. In one swift motion, he struck. His sword slammed into the first Jackal’s stomach, the impact deep and heavy, rupturing it’s insides and forcing out it’s organs from the back of it’s wound.
Without stopping, he pivoted his foot and turned around before driving another stab into the second Jackal’s head.
The force behind all his attacks was overwhelming. Both jackals were blown apart like a bomb had just detonated inside their bodies, and their organs and blood hit the ground immediately.
Each strike carried an unrestrained aggression, fueled by the drive to get back at the bastards who sentenced him to death in the worst way possible.
And the only way he could do that was to grow stronger.
"..." The rest of them were speechless, they couldn’t purely tell if this was his Nature Art or his own physical strength.
"Hmph, we can’t let an outsider shine, come on guys!" The excitement was pure and genuine, not just because their survival against the Abyssal Jackals was a bit guaranteed, but because they felt challenged.
Like the gears of a machine, the moment the first boy charged forward, the rest of his team followed behind him.
"Earth Nature Art!" His body turned like a rotating cutter, both stone swords cutting wide arcs through the air. The blades passed cleanly through the stomachs of multiple Jackals that stood in his path.
The rest of the team did not relent, the second boy trapped multiple wolves in his spatial prison, then compressed it into a tiny, circular cubicle, crushing them at once.
The first girl channeled her energy into her hands, then released a massive violent torrent of wind energy that sent the Jackals flying a long distance.
Then the last girl in the team stayed a few feet away from them, tending to the injuries they sustained.
[You have slain an Abyssal Jackal!]
[You have Slain an Abyssal Jackal!]
[You have Slain an Abyssal Jackal!]
The notifications kept flooding in, and after thirty minutes, they all received the same notification.
[You have leveled up!]
[Your strength has increased by 1!]
[Your agility has increased by 1!]
[Your stamina has increased by 1!]
Staring at the numerous notification panels that kept pouring in one after another, Michael felt a great sense of ease settling in his chest. Despite the odds, things were actually going better than expected.
"Well, I’ll be." The first girl panted a bit as she sheathed her sword, trying to catch her breath after practically compressing all the oxygen around her to use her Nature Art.
"You’re strong." Her and her squad stepped forward in front of Michael. "I haven’t seen you in Class B before, and given your strength, you must be from Class A?"
"C, my name is Michael." Michael replied in one word as he sheathed his sword.
"C!?" Their eyes twitched slightly in disbelief. The girl exchanged a quick glance with her teammates before looking back at Michael.
"You’re from Class C and possess this level of strength? You expect us to believe that?"
"You guys really do look down on other classes? Well it doesn’t matter, not while we’re in here."
"Wait." One of the boys stepped forward. "Michael from Class C? You mean the new kid that has the whole school talking after Mr Jin brought you in?" Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
"That’s me."
"Hm." The first girl stared at him curiously, but after seeing his capabilities first hand, there was no doubt about it. "I see, now it’s a bit understandable why Mr Jin decided to bring you to the academy despite just being weeks away from raiding the Abyss."
"I’m Alexia, these are my teammates Eric, Ronan and Natalie." Alexia said plainly.
"I don’t know if you know this, but in the Abyss it’s virtually impossible to survive all on your own, unless of course, you are Mr Jin. The strong attracts the strong, and the weak attracts the weak, and worse, that is why none of the three classes associates with each other."
Michael’s eyes narrowed as he lost himself in his thoughts. Alexia’s words reminded him of the first thing Silva had told him, in the end, no matter where you were, this world existed on the principle of domination.
Power attracts power.
The strong attracts the strong, while the weak just attracts predators.
In the Abyss, the slanders against Class C transformed from mere insults to reality.
"To put it simply, why don’t you raid with us? At least just for the first level, now that you’ve proven not to be a burden or dead weight, our chances of surviving will increase."
"Join your team?" He looked at them for a second, forming a team was the most ideal and surefire way to survive in the abyss like Alexia was trying to say in her own demeaning way, but also one of the easiest ways to die.
He wasn’t sure if they had any ulterior motive, but until he knew what his Nature Art could do, it was one of his safest options.
"Alright, but just this one time."
Alexia wore a smile, from what they witnessed, the addition of Michael to their team will increase the success rate of their hunts by at least 25%.
’With him on our team...’
She adjusted her arm plating, then said. "Let’s continue."
As they moved forward, they became more aware of their surroundings. The forest had grown darker and quieter, and the ground beneath their feet slowly turned wet and muddy as they had entered a murky, swamp-like part of the forest.
"So Micheal, what Origin did you activate?"
The rest of the team looked at Michael with anticipation. If that truly was his Nature Art, then his Origin had to be something capable of supporting power types.
"Yeah." Ronan said with his arms crossed. "With the level of power you displayed without even using any of your abilities, there’s no way you should have been put in Class C, especially since you’re a Tanker Evolver."
Michael parted his lips to speak, but before a single word could escape, a massive blast of purple flames suddenly tore through the air, hurtling straight toward Alexia’s back.
"Behind you!" Michael’s eyes widened, and without hesitation, his hand snapped toward his sword. His fingers tightened firmly around the hilt as he surged forward.
In the blink of an eye, Michael stood behind Alexia and swung his blade through the air.
The sword cleaved through the incoming attack, slicing the destructive flames apart before they could reach Alexia.
They all glanced ahead, and their expressions gradually became tense as several pairs of glowing eyes appeared in the darkness.
One by one, the creatures emerged from the shadows.
[Ding! You have encountered several B-tier abyssal beasts!]
[Serpent Warriors.]
Their bodies were covered in blue scales, blending seamlessly with their deep-blue skin. Each possessed a humanoid form with two muscular arms and their body ending in a large tail like a snake, while a row of fin-like scales protruded from the top of their heads and continued down the length of their backs.
Their fingers ended in long, razor-sharp claws, glinting ominously in the dim light.
Each serpent warrior gripped a long spear in one hand, its pointed tip gleaming as they silently advanced toward Michael and his team. This chapter is updated first at novelping.com.
There were dozens of them, so many of them that they couldn’t accurately measure their numbers.
"B-tier beasts..." Eric muttered under his breath.
"And so many of them..."
The team was made up of several B-rank Evolvers and only one A-rank Evolver. Then there was Michael who had no idea what level he was.
By standards, a B-rank Evolver could go toe-to-toe with a B-tier beast. However, whether an Evolver was actually stronger than a beast of the same tier could only be determined in battle.
But the situation before them was far from normal.
There were dozens of beasts standing ahead of them, and most of them were B-tier at best.
Alexia’s expression became serious.
Facing a single B-tier beast was one thing. Facing dozens of them at once was an entirely different matter.
The situation had suddenly become far more difficult and complicated than they had expected.
"What are we going to do Alexia?" Eric asked, taking a slight gulp. He was usually a battle-possessed Evolver who never backed down from a fight, but even he was slightly tensed this time around.
He had fought numerous battles during the one to two months he spent in the first abyss after joining up with Alexia, yet he had never experienced anything quite like this before.
Alexia stared at the serpent warriors ahead, and her worries became visible.
Unlike the rest of her team, she was an A-rank Evolver. She was confident that she could take on at least ten B-tier serpent warriors by herself.
But she wasn’t so sure about her teammates.
Even with several B-rank Evolvers among them, she couldn’t tell whether they could handle even up to five of the serpent warriors, especially with so many of them gathered before them.
For the first time, even Alexia was uncertain about how this battle would unfold.
"W—What the hell..." Michael chuckled softly as he took one step backwards, he thought he would have gotten over the fears he had when he came in contact with the Abyssal Tyrant a month ago.
But this was proof that he hadn’t, not while his legs instinctively moved backwards by itself.
Michael tried to steady his breathing, taking slow, controlled breaths. Little by little, his breathing became calmer. After a few seconds, he finally relaxed, closed his eyes, and gritted his teeth. "Tsk."
"For crying out loud." His voice drew his teammates attention to him as he stepped forward, slowly unsheathing his sword.
"I won’t you bastards intervene in my plans!" With a single grunt, Michael launched his sword forward in a powerful throw, the blade cut through the air before striking a serpent warrior directly in the chest.
The force behind the blade sent it flying backward. It’s body crashed into three other serpent warriors behind her, the sword piercing through them as they were dragged along by the impact.
Then, all four creatures collapsed to the ground moments later, lifeless.
[You have slain a serpent warrior!]
[You have slain a serpent warrior!]
[You have slain a serpent warrior!]
[You have slain a serpent warrior!]
[You have gained 4 Evolution points!]
As his teammates stared in shock, Micheal appeared in the middle of the Serpent Warriors where the ones he’d slain lay dead, then he drew his sword out of it’s chest and raised it to them as he said.
"Come, I’ll slaughter you all."