Chapter 53 Worry

Bathed in dark-red blood with bits of internal organs, and bone shards sticking to his body at odd places, Dilan was standing high above the corpses that littered the ground around him.

Their guts spilled out of the deep wounds Dilan had inflicted, and he stood like a Grim reaper over the corpses, taking in a few deep breaths.

It took him a while to calm down, but when his desire to slaughter a few more opponents had slowly subsided, a slow smile crept up his face.

If he had felt weak and powerless just a day ago, his mindset right now was the complete opposite.

But even then, he couldn’t help but look at the dozen zombie corpses that lay on the ground, with two gaping holes left behind by just two bolts of lightning.

‘Her active ability is really powerful!’ Dilan thought before he looked at Kathrine.

He felt great to have a powerful partner by his side. Oliver and Ailee were not weak, but they still had a lot of catching up to do.

Thus, he was quite calm when thinking about the fight against the Zombie Centaur.

Without much of a rush, Dilan pilled the Essence crystals out of the zombies he had killed.

It was easy for all Ascenders to gauge which Essence crystals gave them the highest value, which also represented the contribution they had in killing the monsters.

As such, Dilan had it quite easy to find his share as he picked up a total of ten Essence crystals before he absorbed all of them.

[Four <Bronze> and Six <Ordinary> Essences have been absorbed→+1.1 Strength, +0.5 Health, +0.7 Stamina, +1.3 Agility, +0.3 Mana]

[Essence pool has been filled. Host reached level 8! +0.5 Status points can be allocated!]-.

Dilan noticed that his Essence pool was almost filled to the brim for the second time. This astonished him a little bit, but it was certainly great that he was close to reaching level 9!

The number of points he received that boosted his stats didn’t actually astonish him. From a total of 10 corpses, he received around 4.0 Status points.

Considering that each of the zombies had been at level 5 or possibly even higher, this was not further astonishing.

However, Dilan clearly understood something.

‘Right now, status points from each level up are worth quite a lot, but it looks like hunting Essence crystals for status points is more crucial…’

While this was already obvious before, right now it was almost impossible not to perceive this.

As such, the Zombie Centaur’s threat was an unknown variable because nobody could tell how high its stats were.

Kathrine had only stated that its speed was higher than the War Krendel, which was not exactly helpful to Dilan as his own speed was more than 40% faster than the War Krendels right now.

And that was without the use of the [Thunder Step] ability.

“By the way, do you want to keep hunting to level up further? Because I would prefer to take a few zombie bones and manufacture arrows out of them. If possible, I would use the remaining War Krendel’s claws as well…”

Ailee’s voice floated towards him from behind, which led Dilan to turn around to look at her.

She was holding a zombie leg in her hand, and pointed at it, just to see a faint smile on Dilan’s lips.

“I’m close to reaching level 9, so it would be best if I level up once more before we try to fight the Zombie Centaur.”

Dilan wanted to add that they should search for a few Bronze monsters in order to exchange them with Bronze graded treasures.

But after thinking about it for a moment, he realized that Status points were more important for him to be able to fight the Zombie Centaur.

They had already amassed quite a few treasures, and Dilan didn’t want to waste precious Bronze Essence and Status points in exchange for a possibly useful treasure for combat purposes.

“You are already close to level 9? I’m just level 7…” Kathrine suddenly announced, which made Ailee and Oliver exchange weird looks.

“Level 5…” Oliver mumbled, just for Ailee to nod her head, “Same…”

Dilan didn’t say anything further, but he wished to be close to level 10 because he wanted to enter the Permanent Gate to see how it was on the inside.

There must be many powerful monsters that provide lots of Essence, Status points and possibly even treasure or abilities!

As such, he wasn’t satisfied with being level 9, if one were to exclude the energy that coursed through him every single time he absorbed Essence.

“Alright, let’s go outside for a few hours, while Ailee finishes the arrows…” Kathrine added after learning about everyone’s level.

Urgency could be seen in her eyes and voice, but she was still able to conclude that the strength and combat prowess of the Zombie Centaur was even better than Dilan’s.

That was why she urged them to complete their preparations.

Dilan noticed that quite easily and realized the intentions behind her words.

Thus, he nodded his head before approaching the revolving door.

“Let’s go then.”

Ailee was able to fight on her own and look after herself as the entire first floor had been cleared by them.

It might be a little bit rude of him to leave her all alone, but Ailee had to live with this for now.

He gave her the remaining Claws of the War Krendel, and she had to do the rest all by herself because only she would know how to manufacture proper arrows.

That was something she was taught by the memories of her passive ability.

Once they were outside the hospital, Dilan took a few deep breaths. He kept walking and reached the short stairways that led down and towards the other side of the parking lot.

Seeing all the cars, Dilan couldn’t help but throw a weird look.

“I almost forgot that we are still in the same world as before…”

Before the Primordial Ascension, people would have called him crazy or delusional for such a comment, but Kathrine nodded her head.

“It feels weird, right?” She looked back at the hospital, or to be precise at the tower where she wanted to be right now.

A frown appeared on her face, and a moment later Oliver caught up to them.

“Are you guys sure that it’s fine to leave Ailee alone?” His voice sounded uncertain as he flicked his eyes from Dilan to Ailee. A trace of worry was mixed in his expression as well.

Seeing this, Kathrine’s worry dissipated for a moment as she smiled lightly after seeing Oliver’s reaction.

In the beginning, she had been pretty sure that Oliver was more of a coward than others, and that only the mysterious energy of the Essence crystals provided him with enough bravery to start fighting.

As such, it was a slight surprise for her to see that he was openly showing his worry for her.

‘He must like her a lot.’

Dilan thought the same, which made him shake his head.

“If you are worried about her, stay by her side, and help her. Nobody is forcing you to follow us. In fact, in the new Era you should just do whatever you want!”

As an afterthought, he wanted to add that he should do whatever he wanted, with the exception of betraying them, or acting like a lovesick fool, who would do something beyond stupid for someone else.

However, after giving it a second thought, Dilan held back.

He waved his hand, asking Oliver to go, before turning around.

A few seconds later he heard the retreating footsteps of Oliver and Ailee.

“You’re much nicer than I expected!” Kathrin suddenly remarked before pointing at a specific direction in the outskirts of the small city, Rian.

“We can search for and hunt the animals that escaped the Zoo. This would provide us with the most Status points owing to the high variety of mutated animals.”

It didn’t look like Kathrine wanted to talk about her earlier remark on Dilan’s nature.

As such, Dilan only looked at her for a moment before shaking his head.

‘I am nice? What an oddball’

Dilan was pretty sure that he was anything but nice.

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Even his friends faced issues coping with his personality.

As such, he had never expected someone to call him a nice person.

Completely thrown off-guard, Dilan just nodded his head and agreed to go to the zoo instead of the mountainside.

Not only was the mountainside much closer, but the number of opponents they would have to face was bound to be less.

However, that was not something he realized for now.

And even if he were to realize it, Dilan was not the one, who had problems facing numerous opponents at the same time.