Leveling Up Alone

[What the hell?]

The jackal warriors panicked as their strongest leader died without even firing a single attack and left no corpse behind. However, their panic was short-lived.

Tayarana was still moving forward, and she had only swung her sword once.

Whoosh! Pow! Pow!

[A-Aghhh!]

[W-What a monster!]

With each swing of her sword, a jackal warrior exploded.

The scene of carnage was horrific. In the face of such overwhelming force, the jackals were filled with terror.

They were warriors too, but unlike the Light Faction, which upheld the glory and honor of warriors, the Bastrolings of the Dark Faction were more concerned with practicality. In other words, they wanted to survive, even if it meant demeaning themselves, rather than fighting and dying with honor. However, they didn’t even have the opportunity to do so.

Slash! Slash!

The jackal warriors' flesh flew in the air.

[R-Run!]

[Aaaaah!]

They wanted to flee, but they were on a vast plain without a single tree in sight.

Chak!

Golden wings spread out wide. From this moment on, the eagle's hunt for the mice began in earnest. In front of the Lord of the Sky, all the little beasts could do was run away as fast as possible.

At the same time...

“Hoo, hoo, slurp.”

While Tayarana was in charge of the jackal race warriors, Tia moved to deal with a seemingly remarkable elite contaminant.

“Krrrr.”

“Grrrr!”

The elite contaminants were a little different than ordinary contaminants. Whereas normal contaminants could infect a corpse or living creature with the contamination attribute and instantly turn them into an obedient puppet, elite contaminants could be thought of as having enhanced that puppet through experimentation and additional spells. Therefore, elite contaminants were far stronger than ordinary contaminants in every way.

“Hoo, hoo, shall I start to have some real fun?”

In front of hundreds of such elite contaminants, Tia remained calm. She did not seem nervous at all.

‘Giantify.’

Shuuk!

Giantify was a skill she had developed after she became the Queen, and her height, which was already a bit taller than the average human female, grew to three meters when she used it.

“Come at me.”

“Koooo!”

Thump, thump, thump!

Hundreds of elite contaminants charged toward Tia at the same time.

Even though Tia had grown to three meters, many elite contaminants were still larger than her, so she didn’t stand out much. However, Tia did not care.

Whoosh!

An entire swarm of contaminants raised their sharp, contaminated nails and tried to stab her.

Even for Tia, it was extremely dangerous for her to have her blood tainted by the contamination attribute.

“Ha.”

Nonetheless, the corners of Tia’s mouth were still turned up and she continued to look relaxed.

Kwang!

“Grrrr!”

Tia grabbed the elite contaminant’s arm to block the attack, then swung her other hand to blow the elite contaminant's head off.

Thud.

With its head cut off, the elite contaminant could not move anymore, and collapsed. Tia still had its arm.

“Hmm, how about swinging its arm like this?”

Whoosh. Boom!

Tia efficiently recycled the body of the elite contaminant she had caught.

She began swinging the decapitated elite contaminant like a blunt instrument.

Kwagagang!

“Grrrrrr!”

“Khaaaa!”

The clueless elite contaminants dodged the corpse of their fellow elite contaminant and tried to attack Tia, only to be struck by the swinging corpse and be sent sprawling.

“Hoo hoo, this is pretty fun.”

The sight of the corpse swinging was grotesque, but Tia didn't mind at all. On the contrary, she began slaughtering the elite contaminants even more brutally.

Crush! Pop!

Tia ripped the head off of one of the elite contaminants.

Elite contaminants were quite powerful, but in front of Tia, they were as helpless as a mouse before a tiger, dying even before they could try anything. Tia wasn’t even using a hundred percent of her powers.

The elite contaminants were obedient puppets, devoid of any reason and emotions, and only did what the hyena sorcerers told them to do. Therefore, they didn't run away disgracefully like the jackal warriors, but that didn't change the outcome.

Thud!

Han-Yeol came down and started facing the intermediate sorcerers. Originally, the jackal warriors and the elite contaminants were supposed to stop him, but with Tayarana and Tia already in charge, there was no need for Han-Yeol to step forward.

[U-Ughhh!]

[So you’re human!]

The intermediate sorcerers tried to hide their emotions as much as possible, but they were overwhelmed by the powerful aura emanating from Han-Yeol. They couldn't help but voice their emotions like an open book.

[You’ll never be able to pass through, you damned human!]

[Yes, we may not be able to kill you, but we’ll die together!]

Bzzz!

Black electricity flowed from their arms.

The intermediate sorcerers were only slightly weaker than the senior sorcerers. They knew that running away would only lead to a horrible death, so they chose to fight and die for the safety of their families. The family of a runaway sorcerer would be executed, but the family of a heroic sorcerer who died fighting, would be rewarded. They considered this to be a reasonable system, but in reality, their families were just being held hostage in the headquarters to prevent the sorcerers from running away.

“Hmm, die together?”

[Yes, we will kill you even if it means sacrificing our own lives!]

The intermediate sorcerers were determined.

“Then beat them first.”

[W-What?]

The intermediate sorcerers looked puzzled for a moment at Han-Yeol’s comment.

[For the light!]

[Ahhhh!]

Tap, tap!

Light Faction warriors, led by Yuri, a sheep race Bastro Warrior, jumped out from behind Han-Yeol.

[W-What!]

They were already overwhelmed by Han-Yeol alone, but the sight of hundreds of Light Faction warriors jumping out from behind him was enough to make even an intermediate sorcerer with the strongest mentality tremble in fear.

Crush!

“Khaaa!”

The contaminants were still fearlessly fending off the Light Faction warriors, but the ordinary contaminants, not even the elite contaminants, were no match for an ordinary Bastroling.

[Haaaaa!]

Pow!

An axe wielded by a gorilla race Bastroling split open the head of a monster contaminant.

Despite the gorilla Bastroling’s size, he was not an official warrior, but his job consisted of using an axe to gather wood from forests and mountains. Although he had not completed all of the basic warrior training so he was not an official warrior, he was as powerful as a real warrior.

When he encountered monsters in forests and mountains, he would fight them off instead of running away.

Slice!

The attack from the gorilla Bastroling, as well as the rest of Light Faction Bastrolings who had been trapped in the Tree of Beginnings region until now began to vomit out all of their anger, making their attacks incredibly fierce.

Grrrr!

[Damn it, if only the Light Faction Bastrolings were here, we wouldn’t be in this situation!]

[This mess is because of that human!]

Although there were no senior sorcerers, a number of elite contaminants had been created by them.

For Han-Yeol, intermediate sorcerers were like a piece of cake, but to the ordinary Bastrolings, intermediate sorcerers were quite a threat. It would’ve been difficult to handle these sorcerers on their own as they were not professional warriors. But with Han-Yeol and his group in charge of the toughest opponents, the Light Faction Bastrolings were able to hunt down the remaining contaminants with high morale.

Chuck.

“Now, shall we have some fun?”

Han-Yeol thrust his Sword of Annihilation forward, threatening the intermediate sorcerers.

“Krrrr!”

The intermediate sorcerers tried to intimidate Han-Yeol by growling.

“Haha, how cute. You guys are acting like frightened little dogs.”

Han-Yeol was confident that he could fight and defeat the intermediate sorcerers and all of the contaminants without anyone’s help. Therefore, he had no reason to be bothered by the growl of the intermediate sorcerers. If anything, he could only laugh at their frightened demeanor.

[Don’t look down on us, human!]

The intermediate sorcerers instinctively thought that running away was impossible. If escaping was impossible, then in their opinion, self-destruction was the best course of action.

‘We can’t die alone!’

Just when they were about to have some peace and quiet, some weird guy showed up and interrupted them. If they couldn’t die together, they wouldn’t be able to die in peace because they felt this wasn’t fair.

Grrr!

The intermediate sorcerers gritted their teeth and strengthened their resolve.

‘We’ll definitely die together!’

Unlike their usual practice of releasing their contamination mana in small doses because they had to deal with a lot of contaminants, they released it all at once this time.

Shaaa!

‘Oh wow, you guys are really trying hard, huh?’

It was a disaster for them, but Han-Yeol could immediately see their intentions the moment he saw them. However, he found their intentions ridiculous.

‘You guys can’t even stand up to the senior sorcerers, yet you guys are going to try and kill me? Being stupid is definitely a trait of the hyena race.’

Han-Yeol had long ignored the hyenas as he believed the hyenas weren’t going to change, which proved to be true.

“Just die.”

Shhhhh!

Han-Yeol disappeared.

[He’s coming!]

[With all our power, kill…!]

Slice. Gush!

The intermediate hyena sorcerers tried their best to die together with Han-Yeol just as they had planned. However, Han-Yeol moved so fast that they couldn’t see him, and he was already behind them.

[C-Cough!]

[Argh!]

[H-How can he be s-so fast…]

The fact that Han-Yeol was behind them meant that he had already slashed them with his sword.

The hyena race’s ability to detect mana was the best of the best in the Bastro Dimension. However, the intermediate sorcerers, the best of the best among the hyenas, had been taken by surprise in vain without even sensing Han-Yeol’s mana.