NOVEL NEXT B2 | Chapter 40 - Hunting
Cassandra
Year 820 | Month 5 | Day 11
Surprisingly enough, the first Tier 4 monster I find myself battling up here isn’t one of the avian ones. It’s a large monkey that I find after landing on one of the islands. A monkey with black hair and glowing red eyes. Not to mention some strange snaking lines of glowing crimson Wrath energy going across its body.
And when I identify the creature?
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Name: N/A
Species: Ape of Rage
Level: 31
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It has a very friendly sounding name.
The moment it sees me it begins to attack while screaming bloody murder.
I start the battle off by using Wrath Infusion to absorb the Wrath energy of the ape of rage, only to end up absorbing Wrath energy from the plants and the air around us as well. Rapidly increasing my own physical strength in the process. Not to mention that the ape itself has a massive amount of Wrath energy. Enough that when I rush forwards and slam my fist into the ape’s own fist, I actually snap the bones in the ape’s arm and send it flying backwards.
A few seconds pass as I stare blankly at the flying ape, all the way till it crashes into several trees, snapping them as it goes. Then I snap out of it and raise both of my arms to send bolts of Wrath lightning straight at the ape, shocking both it and the trees it is on. Turning parts of the ape to ash, including the thing’s arms that were directly hit by my Wrath lightning and the hairs and skin on the parts of its body that my lightning traveled to.
It also turns some of the trees to ash.
The ape goes on and on roaring its anger. Loud enough that more apes begin to arrive thanks to the commotion.
I go ahead and begin absorbing the Wrath energy from the other apes as well, only to find them with just as much Wrath energy as the first ape. So much so that my physical strength ends up being enough to literally grab one of the apes by the throat before crushing said throat with my clawed grip. Digging my claws into its throat a little bit in the process.
After killing the thing, I toss it at the other apes, knocking them all over in the process. Then I look down at my own hand that’s still covered in the ape’s crimson and black blood.
Huh.
I look up at the apes.
This place… is a perfect place for me to hunt in.
Absolutely everything here seems to be filled to the brim with Wrath energy. To the point that it’s incredibly easy to absorb through my skills and has far more potency than anything else I’ve seen on Midgard.
Probably because everything here is a monster made purely of the Wrath Sin energy. In a place filled with that very Sin energy.
Regardless, I love this place.
A smile stretches across my face as I go ahead and begin slaughtering the other apes with my bare hands and claws. Collecting their EXP at a rapid pace in the process.
Unfortunately it costs me 11,859,210 EXP just to level up to level 34. Which is a lot.
Meanwhile I’m getting about 248 EXP for each of these apes that I’m killing.
So…
My thoughts pause as I kill more apes while trying to do the math in my head.
It would take me killing almost forty-eight thousand of these apes just to get a single level.
Which is something I am absolutely not going to do. I don’t hate these apes enough to go massacring them after all. Even if they are very angry apes that are attacking me on sight.
So with that in mind, I go ahead and fly into the air again on another cloud of Wrath lightning. Then I just ditch the apes and move inwards to the next island in search of stronger prey.
The higher level monsters won’t give me too much more EXP, but getting 280 EXP per level 35 monster killed rather than 248 EXP killed per level 31 monster killed is a big help either way.
My smile stretches wider and wider as I move further into the Tier 4 territory. Only occasionally stopping to identify some monsters in the area. Just to see what level they are. Not to mention occasionally frying some birds.
Because I might as well kill the monsters I pass by to the next islands. Since I need the EXP anyways.
While I fly though, I begin to wonder if I should spend all of my EXP on leveling up myself or if I should focus some on leveling up my skills.
My skills still need some leveling up, and I just leveled up three times after a very long period of not leveling up at all. So I might want to put in some EXP for my skills instead.
But at the same time, I kind of want to level up myself more as well…
Such an annoying conundrum.
My thoughts come to a halt when I sense some powerful sources of Wrath energy enter the Tier 4 section of the Borderlands from the Tier 3 section. And without even looking back at them, I immediately know who they are.
A bunch of high demons that are no doubt searching for me. Considering the large numbers they’re here in.
So without any hesitation, I begin flying from one island to another while occasionally killing monsters. And making sure to dump their corpses off of the islands so as to not leave a trail.
Right. I’ll just split it half and half.
Half of my EXP will go to leveling myself up and half of it will be used for my skills.
Sounds like a good plan.
Besides. It’s not like the monsters here are much trouble for me yet.
I can take things leisurely.
As long as I’m not caught by those demons, that is.