Edward stood above the corpse of a Manticore, retrieving his blade after absorbing the beast’s essence. How many has it been? He realized he had lost count. After drawing up a plan with Ignis and Adotinus he had left to deal with Nephelin’s army of monsters by himself. The progress was slower than he would have liked, he couldn’t just barge in and kill all of the monsters by himself, he hadn’t reached that level of strength yet. Right now, he couldn’t deal safely with more than three Manticores at once. This meant that while he could wipe out small aggregations of monsters, for the bigger ones, he had to separate the monsters beforehand.

And each time he eliminated a group of monsters, it alerted others, in no small part due to the network of flying eyes. He had searched for their main body which he had seen through his clone previously but he hadn’t been able to locate it and he didn’t dare to project his aura over the whole city to find it.

Already, although he had refrained from further damaging the rune network floating in the sky, Nephelin had stopped his repairs, hunting him down. It seems that Edward’s last attempt to disrupt and damage the runes had infuriated Nephelin more than he had estimated. Edward had preemptively left Pescara as soon as he saw the runes dimmed, he had nothing to gain by battling Nephelin right now. But since the latter had chased him even without further provocation, he had decided that he had nothing to lose by infuriating him even more.

He had warned Ignis and Adotinus in advance, and just before leaving the capital, he had disseminated five clones through the city. Each of the clones had separated, and the decreased number of monsters through the city due to Edward’s killing spree had facilitated their advance. Once the clones had been far enough from each other they had dived straight toward the rune system that was again mostly repaired thanks to Nephelin’s hard work. The clones hadn’t self-detonated but instead, they had used the new skill that Edward had developed, forming aura fragmentation grenades that had exploded sending a storm of aura blades cutting in all directions.

Sadly, all of the clones hadn’t managed their objective, one had gotten caught by a giant snail. Edward had prioritized dealing with the Manticores for now, and the relative numbers of giant snails had increased in consequence. And another one had gotten destroyed by Nephelin himself when he realized Edawrd’s intention. But three clones using all of their aura to damage the rune system had already been enough, and even from outside the capital Edward had been able to hear Nephelin’s roar of rage.

It had taken one full day for Nephelin to calm down after that stunt. Ignis and Adotinus had complained about it, the tremors as he unleashed his fury had reached them all the way to their hideout, and dust had fallen from the ceiling to the point they had started questioning the integrity of their base. When Edward had come back to the city, even the ramparts had been reduced to rumble, it seemed that Nephelin had vented his anger how he could, and the ramparts had been basically the only thing left standing in the capital.

Now Edward was more determined than ever to vanquish Nephelin, he had enough of hiding and fleeing away. All of Pescara’s inhabitants had been murdered, from guards to helpless citizens, even children had not been spared. It was time for those monsters to pay the price of their actions.

Each monster that he slaughtered incrementally increased his strength and yet his base value was so high that the increase wasn’t game-changing, he still had no visibility of an eventual next level after the Patriarch stage.

Edward left the fallen monsters behind him, dried from their essence, and moved in search of another group to slaughter. There are still some Manticores left to take care of. He raised his eyes looking at the sky. However, the number of flying eyes has not changed in the slightest. I am more and more convinced they are parts of the same body. Each time I go on an offensive I kill them by the dozen, there is no way their number is still the same if there are not more of them getting created one way or the other.

Edward took a step forward and felt a sharp disturbance in the air behind him, the next instant he appeared in the sky. He had teleported before trying to understand what was going on. He saw a large flash of something black moving at high speed. A six-legged panther! “Rèng khwāmrĕw”, he used his acceleration immediately, this was not an opponent he could go easy on.

Time seemed to slow down, and the blurred form of the panther became clear. It had already changed its trajectory after missing him and it had bounced from the ground, currently coming right at him. No time to avoid it. Edward teleported again behind the beast before his cooldown could recharge, his domain was just large enough for him to manage the feat.

The monster twisted on itself, seemingly able to sense his exact position, Edward formed an aura step and jump upward, creating some distance and avoiding a paw that whooshed past him. As the monster fell back down Edward created two clones beside him, and all three of them dashed toward the beast like birds of prey.

Edward and his clones kept blades at only one meter in length. Given the monster’s toughness, the blades wouldn’t be able to cut through its flesh all the way in, one meter was more than enough for glancing blows. Longer blades would be able to inflict decisive blows and higher damage, but for that, Edward would have to charge his aura first to penetrate the beast’s hide, something the panther was very much not inclined to do.

Edward and his clones weaved around the monster, lacerating it with cuts. As soon as it put one paw to the ground the panther retaliated, it twisted on itself with its usual alacrity and one of Edward’s clones was too slow and got hit by a paw, dissipating in a cloud of aura particles. Without my acceleration, my clones are not able to keep up.

Edward opened the distance again, the monster was covered by a faint network of shallow cuts, but the damage wasn’t even high enough to hinder it. As expected. The monster didn’t give him any time to recollect his thoughts and leaped straight at him. Edward teleported again but not before leaving an aura frag grenade behind him. It exploded right into the monster’s face, some of the blades hitting the inside of its mouth as its maw was wide open. This time the damage was consequent and the panther started to bleed profusely.

Too bad, no blades managed to destroy its eyes.

The beast was furious and renewed its efforts to murder Edward, but it had already lost the advantage of surprise. Edward added a new clone to replace the lost one, and the fight continued. They added more cuts to the beast’s hide, spreading a crisscross of lacerations upon it. Every so often Edward had to summon another clone that had gotten destroyed. However, slowly, but surely, the fight was turning in his favor.

That’s when troubles began. The fight wasn’t exactly discreet, and it was spotted by the flying eyes. Of course, this had to happen, Edward grumbled internally. Now that they have spotted me other monsters will arrive before long. I have already thinned the number of Manticores around so that should buy me a tad more time. The snails are too slow to reach me before I finish the panther and the centipedes are weak enough not to make much difference. However, if Nephelin comes, I will have no choice but to flee. Which sucks, because I doubt the panther will dare to ambush me again without backup. And I don’t want it roaming around while invisible to my aura, acting as an unknown variable, ambushing me when I’m at my most vulnerable.

While battling the panther Edward formed another clone to deal with the flying eyes. It wouldn’t make much difference, the information was already shared within their network, and he was spotted no matter if he killed them or not. But at least they wouldn’t be able to pepper and distract him with their attacks.

I have to pick up the pace. After destroying the flying eyes with a few clouds of aura needles his clone came back into the fray. Edward continued to summon more clones until the beast was surrounded by six of him and didn’t know which enemy it should focus on. It bit onto a clone only for the latter to dissipate as a mirage, Edward had barely put any of his aura into it, the clone was but a decoy. Meanwhile, the panther’s flank was wide open and another clone with much more aura at his disposal was able to charge an attack and inflict much more damage.

Edward himself was in the battle and he barely stopped to form additional clones. His head was drenched in sweat as he had to focus on six perspectives in real-time. He was settings traps for the monster, avoiding its attacks, and using the openings to deal a maximum of damage all at once.

It wasn’t an easy task but the results were there and the rate at which the beast was suffering injuries only increased. The injuries themselves couldn’t be neglected anymore and the monster’s agility reduced because of it, only accelerating its demise.

Unable to tolerate it any longer it roared, sending a wave of energy that blasted the clones away and eliminated the weaker ones acting as decoys.

It’s reaching its limits. Edward remembered how the last panther they fought attempted to flee away. I can’t let it escape. Just like Ignis did before, Edward formed chains to restrict the beast’s movements, except this time the chains were made with his aura rather than fire, and the clones had to the anchoring themselves. It was more energy intensive but just as effective.

Edward teleported high in the sky with his main body, using his two seconds delay teleportation. He dashed downward like a shooting star, gaining speed and accumulating energy with each step that he took.

The panther tried to shake the clones away with moderate success, it would have managed to escape after a little bit more time. However, it didn’t have it, the panther sensed Edward gathering more and more energy and progressing on a colliding trajectory with itself. It panicked and used its roar ability a second time in a row, blasting the clones and chains away, but it was already too late, Edward had amassed too much speed and there was no avoiding him now.

Edward crashed onto the monster like, a meteor, the shock resulted in a shockwave that would have blasted his clones away had they been still standing. This ended up being too much for the monster and Edward stood up groggily, the beast’s skull crushed under him.