CHAPTER 37: DECIMATING A HORDE

Strength—real, raw strength—rushed through my body like lightning.

My muscles tightened, my senses sharpened. From my vision and hearing to my reaction speed, everything received a tremendous boost.

I clenched my fist experimentally. The air whistled softly as my fingers curled, the sound sharp and crisp.

"So this is what leveling up feels like..." I murmured under my breath. It felt like holding twice the power I had a minute ago—like someone had suddenly swapped my frail, ordinary body for an athlete’s.

It was intoxicating. The kind of rush people back on Earth would describe after a perfect workout, multiplied hundredfold.

There was no pain, no strain, only comfort, pleasure and gain!

I smiled faintly.

"If this is what one core can do... then I’ll take every single one I can find."

"Let’s see. How many cores doI need to level up again?"

Name: Raj

Potential: ∞ (Infinite)

Soul Rank: Black Gold

Power Level: Level 1 Warrior

Item Required to Level Up: Ten Level 1 Monster Core

Stats:

Strength: 10

Agility: 10

Stamina: Infinite

Mana Capacity: 100 units

Remaining Mana: 0 (Find a willing woman and perform Khushi with her to generate mana! Absorb the Generated Mana to recover your Mana!)

Skills:

1) Basic Sword Mastery (Evolvable)

2) Omniscient Eye

3) Weapon Creation

4) Inventory

5) Infinite Stamina

6) Full Body Control

Bliss Points: 5 Million

"According to the original owner’s memories, every rank-9 monster drops a level 1 core upon their death. That means I just need to kill 10 more goblins to level up again. This is... going to be easy."

With the Magic Sword in hand, I immediately set out in search of more goblins to kill.

This time I came across two of them. Both of them armed with regular melee weapons.

The two goblins snarled as soon as they saw me. One had a dagger, the other a chipped axe. They barked to one another in their foul tongue before rushing me at once.

The dagger goblin struck first. Its arm shot forward, the blade aimed directly at my gut. If that attack landed, I would be skewered. But my sword moved faster. *Clang!* My edge met its, deflecting the strike wide. I shoved its weapon aside, opening its chest.

My sword snapped forward like lightning. Steel pierced through its ribs.

It screamed, blood spilling from its mouth, collapsing lifelessly at my feet. It died then and there.

Seeing what had just happened, the axe-wielder howled in anger, swinging down its weapon in a vicious arc. I brought my sword up with both hands.

Clang!

The two blades collided, sparks flying.

Gukih!

The goblin pressed down with all its strength, screeching mad, but I was stronger, easily holding my own against its madness.

I stepped to the side. Its axe bit into the stone floor, lodging there for half a breath. That was enough to sign its death certificate.

Whoosh!

My sword swept across its throat in one smooth motion. The skin split, blood spraying in a hot red arc. The goblin’s eyes widened, its hands clawing desperately at the wound as it collapsed, choking on its own blood.

I collected the cores from their bodies and with a thought stored them in my inventory.

Eight more cores left. Once I have them, a level up would follow, making me stronger.

The corridor led to a chamber lit faintly by torches burning in crude brackets hammered into the stone.

The corridor was filled with goblins.

Dozens of them.

Some crouched low, gripping daggers. Others carried crude swords or axes. A few wore scraps of rusted armor scavenged from fallen adventurers. Their snarls echoed in the air as soon as I appeared there. Dozens of yellow eyes radiating intense malice locked onto me.

I was outnumbered badly. In this open space, if they rushed me together, I’d be swallowed whole by the tide. I would be torn apart piece by piece.

So I turned around and rushed back into the narrow corridor.

The goblins screeched tauntingly, weapons raised, and the entire horde surged forward. They didn’t know I wasn’t being a coward. I was being strategic.

And that this was exactly what I wanted.

The corridor was narrow, barely wide enough for two goblins to walk side by side. Here, their numbers meant nothing. No matter how many came, only two could face me at a time. The rest would be trapped behind their own kind, forced to watch as I cut them down!

I turned around, planted my feet in the middle of the corridor, sword raised, and waited.

The first pair lunged into the passage, daggers aimed for my chest. Their blades flashed as they thrust forward together.

I swung my sword. Their daggers met mine, deflected aside in a shower of sparks. The silver light of my counter cut across their necks in the same motion.

Two heads flew into the air. Their bodies collapsed, blood spilling across the stone.

The next pair trampled their corpses, screeching as they attacked. One swung wide, the other stabbed low. My sword swept out. Sparks erupted as I batted their weapons away. Then I slashed forward again, steel flashing.

Both throats opened, spraying red against the wall.

They collapsed, twitching in pools of blood.

The next two rushed me, shrieking. I moved before they could even strike. My blade cut in a single wide arc, the silver light flashing past their necks. Both heads rolled across the floor before their bodies knew they were dead.

On and on they came.

Two at a time.

Their screams filled the corridor. My sword never stopped. Each clash of steel ended the same way—my blade cutting cleanly, their bodies falling lifeless at my feet. Blood slicked the floor, corpses piled higher and higher, but I kept moving.

The horde that had filled the chamber moments ago was being carved down into nothing more than flesh and gore.

No matter how many came, only two could reach me. And two would never be enough. And because I had unlimited stamina thanks to my infinite stamina skill, I could keep swinging the sword without any rest or hesitation.

Seconds turned to minutes and minutes turned to half an hour before our battle finally came to an end.

The entire hoard laid dead around me.

I ransacked their corpses for monsters cores, gaining a few dozens of them. Combined with the two I got earlier, I now had 42 cores.

I wonder how many levels up that would bring me.

[You have absorbed ten Level 1 Monster Cores.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have become a Level 2 Warrior.]

[Your Strength and Agility stats have received a boost of 10 points each!]

[Your maximum Mana Capacity has increased by 10 points.]

I exhaled slowly, feeling the familiar warmth surge through my body again. It was similiar to the rush I have experienced the first time I levelled up, but I still got excited because it was such a wonderful feeling to grow stronger rapidly.

"Last time I leveled up, my mana capacity didn’t increase," I murmured, frowning slightly. "Maybe it only increases every two level-ups in the Warrior realm."

That sounded logical enough.

I opened my status window again.

To level up again, I needed twenty Level 1 Monster Cores.

I had over 30 such cores!

A grin tugged at my lips. "Looks like another level-up is due."

[You have consumed 20 Level 1 Monster Cores.]

[You have levelled up!]

[You have become a Level 3 Warrior.]

[Your Strength and Agility stats have received a boost of 5 points each!]

I could feel it the moment the notification faded—my body tightening again, veins pulsing with vitality.

My Strength and Agility had now reached 15 points each.

"Now I’m three times as strong as when I first transmigrated. Good. This is truly good."

I couldn’t help but beam.

I stored the remaining level 1 cores into my inventory before returning to the chamber to search for treasure.

My search led me to a prison cell.

The prison cell was dark and dank, with only a faint glimmer of light filtering in through a small window high up on the wall and shining on the two blonde elven women huddled together at the corner of the prison cell.

Their lithe bodies were pressed close for warmth and they were chained to the wall.

They looked at me with intense fear in their eyes as I approached them with a soft and gentle smile on my face.

"Don’t worry. I don’t mean you harm."

Upon hearing their, their fear lessened, but a trace of apprehension still flickered in their gaze. It vanished too when I broke the chains restricting their movements, setting them free.

"T-Thank you, Kind Sir." The younger of the two beautiful blonde said to me. Her voice was soft and melodic. I honestly found it quite pleasant to hear.

"No problem," I said.

The older blonde elven woman joined in on the conversation, "The horde, did you sneak past it or did you..."

"I killed them all," I confirmed her suspicions.

"You must be really strong," she seized me up with a gaze I have grown familiar with since arriving to this paradise. It was a gaze several women have already looked at me before I fucked their brains out.