Chapter 260 260: Part 1: The Glade Wars V

Cole was all about doing his own thing and not having to answer to people, but people have to answer to him. It was mainly due to the fact that, trusting authority has pretty much fucked him up, left him with a trauma that he was still trying to deal with, and it cost him his brothers….or at least one of them. So it was understandable that Cole did not respond to the Darkling Core, Instead he sped up, his surroundings blurring as he smashed the flat of his blade and the side of his spear into Arachne spider darkling woman thing.

*BOOM!*

She was blasted back before she could even say anything else. Cole spun and hit a back elbow on a gorilla like darkling, it was shorter than Cole surprisingly, so when Cole spun, his elbow found its throat, and it's head was removed from the rest of it's body. Cole was surprised, but at the same time he knew he had to try and get used to his new stats. He raised his sword to block the claw slash from rather large bird darkling, he retaliated by planting his spear deep in it's belly, then jumping back and crossing both weapons just in time for the Core's assault.

A small shockwave was released as Cole was pushed back, his body smashing through a few trees, but his legs never left the ground as another set of deep furrows were left in his wake. He moved his head to the side and shrugged, blood dripping down the side of his head, but the wound closing itself up soon after. Darklings poured out and gathered around him from all sides, he smiled, a flashback of him once being in such a similar situation, what was it he did back then? Oh that's right, he remembers.

[Sin Eater]

It was as if a storm had gone off, Cole's entire body seemed to develop a suction force as energy began to pour out of the darklings. Wispy streams of light blue lights and fog, poured into his body from every corner. His eyes, mouth and ears along with his nose drew them in the droves. His body shook, but unlike the last time, he was in control, but being filled with energy to the point of bursting as feeling your stats increasing by the second was an intoxicating feeling.

Cole wanted to give in, but he knew better. The last time he had lost a lot of the excess stats he absorbed because his body was not yet strong enough to handle it. He'd rather avoid having a repeat of that event as it had been extremely painful, though it was what had led him to the soul realm. Till now he has still not figured out how to return to that place, it could be an ace in the hole for him if he could understand how to get there and how exactly it works. But that was neither here nor there and this wasn't the time to be thinking about it.

Cole rolled to the side, as the Arachne leapt at him, he quickly got back up and then leant backwards, just in time to escape having his head cut off. He grunted and used [Spectral Rover] to rush forwards, utilize a shoulder tackle that was Powerful enough to blast the Arachne into a tree. Cole heard it screech out in pain, but his spear had been raised into the air and brought down hard, as Cole called out.

"Root Cascade!"

The entire forest seemed to come alive at that point. The earth began to shake for the first five seconds as the darklings all paused, probably because of their leader or hive queen who was also supposed by the situation. Then those five seconds were up and the earth exploded in fury.

*DU! DU! DU! DU!*

Roots shot out of the ground by the dozens, stabbing into darklings, trapping them, and constricting some until all that was left of them was dust. Cole gasped, feeling the influx of energy as the roots fed them back to the spear and back into him. And as the energy flowed through Cole it also flowed out, as plants grew greener and faster, and the sir was filled with the scent of spring and sweet smelling flowers, this was the power of life that the spear had, a very different kind of tool to Cole's [Malakai].

The moment passed, and he was back to the battle at hand as he rushed after the darkling core, that was attempting to run away from his chasing roots. Cole followed, not willing to slow down or stop feeding energy into the spear as the roots kept 9n traveling in search of enemies, indiscriminately killing them all, Aspirant and Darkling alike, until finally they got to the Glade proper.

The darkling core went past the pillar, before the roots slammed into it, a translucent barrier popping up over the and in between the pillars as a system prompt showed up in front of him.

[Territory Contests Are Sacred Rights Of Defense And Attack. No Skills Of Any Sort Are Allowed, You Face Your Opponent Only With The Strength Of Your Stats And The Mastery Of Your Own Body And Energy.]

When Cole saw that he growled in annoyance as he looked through the barrier, stowing all of his weapons into his inventory as he looked at the conflict in front of him. Most of the aspirants were clustered within the Glade itself, as it seems to afford them a measure of protection, but one of them is now fighting the Arachne darkling. So that's probably for the territory, then suddenly there was another person, a woman, all of them fighting each other. Cole looked back at Neral and said.

"I see no reason why I shouldn't join them, come, let not miss the party!"

And with that said Cole jumped through the barrier, and made a beeline for the darkling. It turned and saw Cole, took one long hard look at him, then quickly turned in the other direction to run. The act baffled everyone present including Cole, but regardless, there's no way he's letting his prey run away.

[Spectral Rover]

Occasionally missing content, please report errors in time.