Chapter 254 - Exploring

"Well my name is-" the woman tried to introduce herself since she had made Julius do that however she was shortly interrupted as Julius had heard something.

"Hold on, be quiet for a second," Julius to which the woman looked offended, however she had learned from the last time that she tried to act smart with Julius and how it didn't end well for her so she listened to him. 

Seeing as the area the two of them were in was pretty dark, 4 rabbits which looked more aggressive than the first one that Julius had killed leaped on top of him as they tried to but him however right as the first one bit into Julius, he realised that they were stronger than the first one he had killed so he decided to spring into action as he prepared his blade which he had stolen from the woman and used his to quickly move it around his body while swiftly killing the rabbits that were in his body.

+80 exp

LEVEL UP

A large screen appeared in front of Julius which congratulated him on making it to the next level which he didn't seem to care much for however he was given a gift for levelling up. After the screen faded away, a blade much sharper than the one that the woman had given him appeared in his hand. Seeing that, Julius threw back the blade that he had taken from the woman to her since he didn't need it anymore. 

Julius looked down at his new blade with excitement as now he had more of a reason to level up as he would soon get the opportunity to get even a better blade than the one he had or even something else.

"I guess this place isn't so bad-" Julius began to speak before he was shortly cut off by a giant rabbit which was at least 5 times taller than Julius leaped in front of him with its glowing red eyes as it showed off its bloodlust. 

"Oh fu-," said Julius right before getting smacked to the wall of the tree with the force of a thousand trucks.

"Oh fun. I was going to say that before you cut me off," said Julius as he grabbed a hold of his chest as he tried to get up from the ground, however when he did that, he felt a sharp pain in his chest as he realised that his ribs were broken.

"But how? For a monster that should be at the level of a level 2 player, this is way too strong," said Julius as he used the blade that he had received as a reward for reaching level 2 so that he could get up from the ground as he trembled in fear.

"Run for your life! It's not worth it," said the woman as she yelled at Julius so that he could escape. However, hearing that, Julius simply stood up straight while trembling before laughing.

"When did I get so soft," said Julius as he forced himself to take the first step forward which turned into a jog then a run. Seeing this, the giant rabbit seemed to have smirked as he tried to slash at Julius which leaped back in the very last second before using all the power left in his body to cut at the rabbit's arm and somehow managed to cause a deep cut about half of the rabbit's arm's width.

"I guess it's still not enough," said Julius with a smirk as he continued to run. While dodging the attacks that were being thrown at him. Although he was scared out of his mind, Julius simply focused on the task at hand. That being to attack his enemy and not actually survive. Surviving was never the main goal.

After some time, Julius was finally making some progress as both of the arms of the rabbit were fully sliced off and his right leg was cut to the point that he couldn't stand. Even so, the rabbit tried to bite at Julius which he simply dodged.

"Here it goes. All I need is one final slash! I just have to make contact with its chest," said Julius as he moved in for the final kill. However, of course in that precise moment, Julius' luck had run out.

Right as Julius was about to deliver the finishing blow, the rabbit had caught Julius by surprise as he bit off half of Julius' body and swallowed him with a grin.

"Is this really the end for me? I barely got started and now I'm going to die. My entire body below my waist is outside while the top is going to be digested in this dumb monster. Why! Why couldn't I have been stronger!" Julius began to complain before taking a deep breath.

"Well, I'm going to die, I might as well go out with a bang," said Julius as his forced his body to move even though he was losing blood as insane rate as he plunged his blade into the neck of the rabbit and as he fell further into the rabbit's body, he managed to slice more and more until the rabbit had died before it could absorb Julius completely. 

"Good. I can at least take you to hell with me," said Julius with a smirk as he closed his eyes while believing he would die.

+1500 exp

LEVEL UP

LEVEL UP

LEVEL UP

"Congratulations Julius Henry. You have reached level 5," a voice said in Arthur's head.

"Ability has been acquired. Instant regeneration. This ability can be used to regenerate completely once a week. You are going to die soon. Would you like to use this ability?" A woman's voice asked which was the same one that had spoken to him and invited him to the new heaven's emperor contest.

"Yes," Julius replied without hesitating as he had no reason to object to the question as he was going to die in a couple seconds. However he was lucky in that the ability was real and allowed him to completely regenerate to his peak physical form.

"W-What? How? Ummm are you real?" the woman asked who had just seen what had taken place before her eyes.

"Yes I'm real. Why do you look so surprised? I should be the one being surprised. This is your home, I'm not familiar with this type of magic," said Julius, which caused him to remember something amazing which he had forgotten about and as such decided to reach out to Drake so that he could question him about something that he had on his mind.

"Hey Duke Drake, I just have a quick question. You remember how you said that cultivation of secret arts was a subcategory of magic, right? So if that's true, that would mean that magic belongs to this realm since it's a higher plane of existence and I assume you're also from here right?" Julius asked in a curious tone.

"Yes, as far as I know, that should be the case," said Drake, which brought about a sinister face on Julius' face.

"Magical Spell: Fire Combustion"

Julius had cast this spell with relatively small hopes as even if Duke Drake had said it would work, there was a small chance that he was too weak to use a magical spell. Luckily for him, it did work as a contempt combustion flame appeared in front of him which caused Julius to look at it with a curious face before putting it away by simply snapping his fingers together.

"Why do you look so happy? You just cast a simple spell. It's not something to be proud of unless you mongrels don't have magic on your realm," said the woman as she tried to mock Julius to which he simply looked at her as if she was worthless before turning his attention back into the dungeon as he took more steps forward as he wanted to see if there were more monsters inside of it which there were since he wasn't given any signal that the dungeon was complete.

"Hey! Where do you think you're going?! Were you seriously planning on leaving me to the side so I could die here alone?" the woman asked to which Julius turned around to give her a disapproving face which caused her to take offence however what he said next was the finishing blow.

"You're annoying. Can you leave this dungeon and wait for me to finish so that you can try it on your own? You're getting in my way," said Julius and right as he said those words, a large tree trunk flew at the woman which was distracted as she was too distracted to notice it which caused Julius to spring into action as he pushed her out of the way as at her level, she would have been killed by it.. As such, Julius ended up suffering instead which was a major injury to the back which caused him to lose his breath and pass out for a moment before getting back up as he had a new enemy to face.