Chapter 165 – Gorilla

After messing with Iris a bit Dream backed away and looked around him. There were tens of thousands of demons itching to sink their teeth into him, but by simply letting out his influence, he was able to hold them back.

"Anyway. I came here to let out some energy. I can't completely control this heart yet, and until I do, I'm not going in public."

"It's nice that you're out here with us either way." (Luna)

"Mm. Hey Scarlet!"

"What?!"

"Wanna compete? Let's see who can kill more, me or you sisters."

"You're on! Hahh!"

Smiling, Iris transformed into her fox form and flared up, bellowing out bloody fire. Luna also grinned as she summoned out dozens of bullet-sized ice lances.

Seeing that, Dream's helmet reformed over his head. His awesome suit glowed red with power, and the heart kept on pouring energy into his body.

"Hehe... Raaahhhh!!"

With a howl, Dream jumped into the air straight towards a huge crowd of demons. He then slammed down on the ground, releasing waves of force with his body and magic. All demons in a 70 meter radius were instantly killed, and Dream could see a long kill feed suddenly stream down his vision.

Iris wasn't one to be beat though, so after Dream slammed down like a gorilla, she dashed into the nearest horde and released flames without restraint. Any demons at the class 2 level or below were instantly turned into a crisp and disintegrated into nothing, turning into energy for her. Even class 3's were severely injured, and it only took a single lance from luna or a bite from Iris to kill them.

Like that, the three went around, between, and over hills ensuing carnage wherever they went. This was especially true for Luna and Iris who had abundant experience doing this kind of thing.

While they went around bellowing hungry fire and lances, Dream was throwing out very simple but effective magic. Sometimes he would produce spikes from the ground or control the air to form air bullets, all hitting their targets with absolute accuracy. And while he was keeping up, he wasn't satisfied with his performance.

'My magic without my weapons is rather basic. I can control it without wastage, but it's not up to par with my skill level. Oh, why don't we try that magic that the elf used, make some magic golems or something.'

[That magic is pretty wasteful itself. You may as well use mana bullets or blades that constantly attack your enemy.]

'Hmm, mana bullets. Maybe mana needles? I send them to the enemy with an enchantment and it'll attack the enemy, either disturbing their mana or killing them.'

[We've never enchanted pure mana before.]

'It'll be a good time to learn then. So we form the needle, give it an enchantment, one that attacks the soul. That would be good. Then... Oh! I got it!'

Suddenly thinking of something, Dream gave Sophia the details and she quickly formed the enchantment.

[...That's devious.]

'It'll be super effective though, especially for large hordes like this. Although it would only work against everything up to weak class 3's, that's enough to utterly devastate an army.'

[Very true. Alright, launch some whenever you're ready.]

Smiling, Dream stopped attacking the demons around him and stood still. All the demons looked at him warily for a bit while screeching before launching ranged attacks. None of the attacks could do anything to Dream though as they were either redirected into the floor or forcefully dispersed. 

As he stood, clusters of mana began forming around his body. Those clusters formed into thin lines and took on ultra-sharp points. They were mana needles, and there were 200 that formed around his body. 

Once they were completed, Dream looked around before pointing toward some class 2 demons.

*Zip!*

All 200 needles flew at ultrasonic speed before disappearing into the bodies of the demons. Immediately after, bloodcurdling screams were let out by the targeted demons.

*Screech!*

"Huh. Looks like it's working."

Dream smiled as the demons fought against the needles. But as he knew very well, that's exactly what would bring about their demise.

Soon, the demons shivered and fell to the floor lifeless. After they died, two needles came out of each body and shot out towards another target, doubling the amount of needles and therefore victims.

From the time they were attacked to their death, barely 2 seconds passed. It was the same for every other demon that was subsequently targeted, and like that, hundreds and thousands of needles were created, all of which found a target and quickly killed it.

Luna and Iris had been watching Dream. When he threw out the needles, they weren't very surprised. But only a couple seconds later, those needles doubled. They doubled again after finding new targets, and they kept doubling indefinitely. It wasn't even a minute before Dream's rate of killing surpassed theirs. 

<[Arcana] has leveled up!>

"Oh, nice."

"Dream? What are those?"

Luna came walking over as he stood there lazily. He smiled to her. 

"Those are a new magic I thought of."

"How do they work exactly?"

"I've enchanted each needle to attack the soul of their targets. When the target fights back, they inadvertently fuel the needle with their Will and mana, thereby strengthening it. Upon the death of the target, the needle will split in two should it have enough energy. Then it'll find another target, repeating the process."

"...So you use their strength against them?"

"More like their weakness. It's not powerful enough to do that with strong enemies as my cognitive manipulation which forms the basis of the enchantment won't confuse beings with too much power. They can easily see through the attempted confusion."

"What happens if the target doesn't fight against the needle?"

"Then the needle will destroy their soul. Although it wouldn't gain as much energy, it wouldn't prevent the needle from finding another target."

"Huh. Very interesting."

"Isn't it? I'm rather proud of myself."

"But isn't the whole point of you being here to release energy? The needles are an efficient way to kill, but you're not looking for efficiency."

"That... is very true. Hey Scarlet!"

"Yea?!"

"Eat up!"

Saying that, Dream deactivated the needles and sent them hurtling towards Iris. Seeing them, Iris shot out a pillar of fire that engulfed the needles, eating them in their entirety and gaining the bit of energy they had collected.

"Mmm... Thanks!"

"Yup! Anyway, I'm gonna get back to jumping around."

"Of course, of course."

Chuckling, Luna watched as Dream jumped back through the air, leaving a small crater behind.

..........

For the next several hours, Dream jumped and slammed around the hordes of demons with surging power.

Each time he landed in a horde he would release massive shockwaves of mana and energy. It was unleashed indiscriminately as Dream didn't bother to aim his attacks. He had plenty of energy to release anyway.

Not only would he slam around, but he would run through hordes while throwing out punches. Each one of those punches would release a long wave of destruction that wiped out a column of demons 5 kilometers long. It was a supremely powerful attack, and Dream could launch it out however many times he wanted.

The reason that Dream often got tired while using his magic was because he often handled materials on a microscopic scale. It requires lots of concentration and energy to work so precisely, and he would usually handle materials on a nano-scale to build things on a large scale, like Aegis. That's why despite having a small mana pool, his soul was strong enough to handle amounts of mana several times bigger than his pool, even going so far as to allow him to control solid mana.

But when he was fighting as he was, it didn't take microscopic precision. He didn't need to precisely control his Will. He was just releasing energy like mad. It was so much easier to direct energy vaguely than to provide ultra-precise directions. This was also the reason Sophia said that Dream underestimated his macro-scale abilities. And until now, he really did. 

But now that he was going wild, he was getting a true handle on the things he could do over a wide range. For one, he could spread his mana and retain control over it for nearly 300 kilometers! 

When he had tested this, Dream was baffled. Being able to do what he did meant that he could cast magic anywhere within that 300 kilometer radius. Although he had done something similar in the Mercenary Empire during the siege, that wasn't nearly as large scale as this. It was to the point where he could easily encompass the entire 5 million strong demon army.

This showed him how truly devastating class 4's could be. They could kill anyone below them in a huge radius with but a thought. He was no longer surprised at how the Grand demons were able to kill so many people during the siege. He was actually wondering how they didn't kill more instead.

Either way, Dream now knew that his large-scale abilities were terrifying. And while it would take a significant expenditure to cast magic over his entire domain of mana, he wasn't exactly lacking in terms of energy.

However, even though he had fun felling demons by the thousand, he didn't forget his original goal. He needed to work on his enchantments.

Luckily, his enchantments were acting as he figured they would. With so much energy coursing through them, the enchantments would usually destabilize and eventually break down. But Dream maintained pressure on them, forcing them to handle the energy. That combined with Sophia who worked on optimizing the enchantments made it so that they were improving at a steady rate.

Unfortunately, the 5 million demons were totally obliterated by the end of the day. Dream and the girls' killing speed was too much for them to handle. Luckily, Dream was able to level up 6 times, bringing his level to 248, so it wasn't a waste. The girls also leveled up, both being level 273. They had definitely been killing far more demons than he had.

After the destruction of the army, Dream had nowhere to vent his energy. Although he could just let it radiate, he would feel better when putting it to good use. The girls were also feeling good, so after some deliberation, they quickly found another demon army. This one though had nearly 12 million demons.

At first, Riddick was hesitant about going to an army that big. Sure he could handle 2 or maybe even 3 Grand demons, but any more than that and things would get troublesome. And this army would definitely have more than two. However, Dream was confident in being able to tussle with one or two class 4's, so he was able to convince the man to go.

With that, the family moved on to the next army. Although night had already fallen, none of them were tired nor did they have any problems seeing. Only weaklings would have their combat power reduced during the night. 

When they arrived, the first thing that Dream and Riddick did was perform a scan of the entire army. And sure enough, in this army there were 4 Grand demons clustered together. 

Dream immediately began launching attacks at the 4, prompting them to react violently. Riddick also followed and attacked, and after they got into the groove, they split the 4 in half, taking two each. 

The girls also dove into the horde. But as they fought, Iris actually spoke telepathically to Dream, asking something of him. 

When he heard what her request was, Dream nodded thinking it was a good idea. He then focused back on fighting his two class 4's.

The very first thing that Dream noticed while fighting these two Grand demons was that their hits were surprisingly weak. Although it was probably his armor that was too strong. Even Dream didn't know the extent to which Aegis had grown, so as he battled he made sure to take plenty of hits and figure out how strong Aegis was.

While Aegis could get injured by some powerful attacks from the class 4's, it was never enough to chop off limbs. At most he received slash wounds a few inches deep that would just quickly heal as if nothing happened. And this was from full powered attacks. The weaker attacks could barely scratch him.

Not only was Aegis much tougher, but he was able to supplement Dream's strength. Although Dream had already received a huge boost in strength from his muscle restructuring, Aegis's power boosted it even more. He wasn't even sure numerically how strong he was. All he knew is that he could easily match up to and surpass these Grand demons. 

Plus, when he thought about how his enchantments would be stronger after he got the heart under control, he grinned.

In addition to a strength and magic boost, Aegis was able to boost Dream's speed as well. This boost came passively from the heart as well as the fact that Dream's enchantments were coursing with seemingly unlimited power. This also allowed him to surpass even the Grand demons he was facing.

The two Grand demons that Dream faced had a sword and an axe respectively. Both were formidable, and as per their unique demonic trait, they were able to work together flawlessly. Despite this though, both were extremely frustrated. 

Even after having hit their opponent several times, they were never able to injure him. Although they had gotten through his armor once and drew blood, the bodily wound healed just as quickly as the armor did. It sparked not only helplessness, but fear in their hearts. 

Luckily for them, their opponent didn't hardly do any damage to them. For the most part he just blocked and occasionally delivered solid blows. They were also able to keep pace with him. This gave them a bit of hope and courage, especially considering that they hadn't done any surprise blitzes with the other two demons a small distance away.

Unfortunately for them though, Dream was taking it easy on them. He purposefully kept pace while delivering attacks that wasted huge amounts of energy. While he was able to have a good fight, he definitely wasn't going all out. They were merely tools he used so he could work on his enchantments that ever so slowly strengthened.

'Hmm, these enchantments are taking a while to strengthen. At this rate, how long will it be?'

Dream spoke to Sophia as he fought, his brow a little furrowed.

[As we're going right now, around a week.]

'A week?! That's surprisingly long.'

[Yes and no. The amount of power we need to be able to control is vast, and you need to be able to control it without expending any energy. It'll take some time to build your enchantments to that level naturally.]

'What about artificially?'

[I'm already optimizing them. But although we've become more proficient in using the Arcana skill, it's not enough to totally revamp your systems. That one week estimate also accounts for my optimizations.]

'...Very well. One day at a time I guess. Though I doubt I'll be fighting demons that whole time. Find some things we can use this energy for over the next week. I hate letting so much energy go to waste.'

[Sure. You just keep restricting the flow to the enchantments and I'll take care of the other stuff. With that we'll have jumped in power yet again. I can only imagine how all the other class 4's would react.]

'I'll be keeping it very hidden, so hopefully they won't react. Anyway, let's see if I can deliver on Scarlet's request. And should I catch them off guard, maybe I'll be able to get more out of this demon than just experience.'

Sp4de

I hate homework. Here I am at two in the morning dodging my responsibilities by writing. I have a speech that I need to record tomorrow too. Plus I gotta start working out even more as track season might be starting soon. And I just finished my book, so I'm probably gonna spend another few days finding another to read, which will give me even more excuses to procrastinate. 

I envy authors that are able to write full time. I wonder if I'll ever able to get to that point, or if I should even shoot for such an outcome. Maybe I should read books that I normally don't. Maybe I could finish the harry potter series, maybe read some Stephen King, or even George Orwell. It could possibly help me improve. If I create my own style out of other works, maybe it would be good enough. Just maybe...