CHAPTER 21: A BLOODY STRUGGLE

Ray didn’t know much about the birthplace of beast tamers. He just knew it was full of danger and opportunities, and that the first beast tamer came from there.

Shuala!

Suddenly, the vortex rippled like a calm pond disturbed by a rock, and out came a badly injured young man with a lanky figure and a monkey-like face.

"Torvin Ashclaw?" Ray’s eyes flashed with recognition as Torvin was the son of the mine owner he had a beef to settle with.

Torvin was Ashclaw’s most talented child. Last year, he had awakened a rare seal and went to join the Beast Hall.

The minimum criteria one needed to meet to join the strongest guild in the world was to have a rare-rank beast taming seal. Since he had it, he managed to get inside the Beast Hall, becoming a legend of some sort in the backwater White Sparrow Town.

One could say he was the reason why the local authorities, including the master of White Sparrow Town, turned a blind eye to Torvin’s father Ashclaw’s misdeeds.

"Ray?" Torvin also recognized him. How could he not when he had plotted with his father to kill him? "You’re alive? Did the soul-dispersing poison not work for some reason?"

Ray was a mere minor character in his life.

His father wanted to kill him in the most twisted way, so he lent him a hand, procuring a special poison from the birthplace of beast tamers that could disperse one’s soul and ensure they wouldn’t be able to reincarnate, even if what followed after death was reincarnation!

"Well, no matter. Now that you have laid witness to my greatest secret and shame, I will kill you myself. And I will make sure you die this time." Torvin’s eyes flashed with murderous intent as he looked at Ray like he was already dead meat.

"A dog with one foot in the grave wants to kill me? Better luck in your next life!" Ray scoffed.

"Although I am severely injured with no tamed beasts left, I can still decide your life and death in a matter of seconds," Torvin said arrogantly. "A mere commoner. Compared to me, you are nothing but a bug that can be crushed effortlessly."

Torvin didn’t see Ray as a threat, even though the state he was in was pitiful. So what if he was injured and lacking tamed beasts? Beast tamers didn’t only rely on their beasts to fight. They also relied on their seals!

In the Beast Hall, he was known as a rising star. He could kill iron-rank tamers relying only on the abilities his seal provided him. And Ray? He wasn’t even a beast tamer, just a lowborn with nothing special about him. How could Torvin not take care of him with the abilities provided to him by his seal?

"Take this!" Torvin swung his hand through the air.

Whoosh!

A wind blade burst toward Ray.

"With this, it should end."

Torvin thought he would get to see Ray’s head cut off cleanly.

"Huh?"

But his eyes widened in surprise as Ray actually managed to see his attack coming and react to it in time.

Ray ducked low, dodging the wind blade and saving his life.

"Looks like he have some skills." Torvin started to take him more seriously.

"The thing I hate most in life is a bastard who dares to play god!" Ray rushed toward Torvin as he shouted.

"So what if you have a little skill? You are still nothing more than a bug to me!" Torvin said, swinging his hand repeatedly. Each time he swung, a wind blade flew toward Ray. He executed a total of eleven slashes with his hand, sending a volley of wind blades at Ray and exhausting his magic power in the process.

He dared to exhaust his strength because he believed those eleven wind blades were more than enough to deal with Ray.

He could already see them cutting Ray into pieces.

But in the next moment, his jaw nearly fell to the floor, his eyes bulging so wide they looked ready to pop out of his sockets. What happened was the opposite of what he expected.

He stood there like a man watching his life’s savings go up in smoke as instead of Ray being torn apart, shimmering shields bloomed into existence, casually blocking more than half of the eleven wind blades he had shot out.

As for the rest? They didn’t even get the honor of landing on his shield that were near breaking. A violent shockwave erupted from Ray, ripping through the remaining blades like they were scraps of paper before surging towards Torvin without slowing down.

"This... this can’t be real."

Torvin’s brain screamed at him to move, to dodge, to do something, but his body refused, gripped by the intense fear of death as the shockwave struck him hard!

Pfft! Blood sprayed out of Torvin’s mouth as he flew out like a cannonball.

Bam! He slammed into the wall at the end of the cave and fell down. His eyes rolled to the back of his eyes and blood trickled from his mouth as he laid on the cold hard uneven ground, unconscious.

[You have defeated an initial stage bronze rank beast tamer. You have gained 200 EXP points. You have levelled up. You have gained +2 stat points.]

[You have defeated an opponent an entire major realm above you. You have gained a great deal of additional EXP!]

[You have levelled up.]

You have levelled up.]

[You have levelled up.]

[You have levelled up thrice, gaining +6 stat points.]

"Is this the correct way of using the system?"

It was at this moment Ray realized that defeating beings an entire major realm above him granted the most reward from the system. If he could perform such feats repeatedly, he could rise very fast!

"Torvin, you wanted to kill me. So you can’t blame me for being ruthless to you." Ray summoned his seal. It broke through the confines of his mind and materialized into reality.

"Absorb!" he commanded.

The seal unfurled, and a black hole appeared in its middle.

The black hole produced a strong suction force, forcing Torvin’s seal to break out of the confines of his mind and fly into the black hole within Ray’s seal.

Ding**

[Congratulations, Host! You have fed the rare-rank Summoning Wind & Breathing Fire Seal to your Eclipse Devouring Seal. The following abilities have been duplicated by your seal: Beast Taming (Level 1), Fire Dragon Breath, Wind Manipulation!]

Another notification sounded.

[The blacklash from having his seal forcefully stripped away has killed Torvin. You have gained a thousand exp for killing a tamer an entire major realm above you.]