?


    Jessica quickly unsheathed both of her daggers while the rest brandished their own weapons. Two were mages, one a water mage and the other a healer. The rest were closebat fighters, all brandishing their swords.


    Swords were the mostmon weapon throughout the continent and possibly even beyond it.


    It was normal for the majority of them to use swords. It''s actually really surprising when a closebat fighter didn''t use a long de of sorts.


    Not wanting to waste any more time, Jessica shot forward, disappearing from where she was and appearing right next to one of the wolves.


    She was an assassin; that much was clear from her light clothing and daggers. Though, Ss did question why she wore such exposed clothing when most assassins wore cloaks.


    Jessica swung down at the misthowler with all the power she could muster, decapitating it in an instant...


    Or at least that''s what it looked like.


    The misthowler''s head dropped to the ground before turning into mist, yet a secondter, the mist reformed around the rest of the misthowler''s body and created a new head.


    Misthowlers looked like extremely white wolves, to the point where they became a little transparent in nature.


    Everything about them was white, from the color of their fur to the color of the skin underneath. Even their eyes were as close to white as they could be without blending in with the whites of their eyes.


    However, just like mistwalkers, their bodies were incorporeal, allowing them to pass through objects easily while also blending into the mist around them or even turning their bodies into the mist.


    The difference was that while mistwalkers had solid bodies that had the ability to turn into mist, misthowlers werepletely made up of mist, making their cores the only thing that kept them together.


    Ss stepped back and decided to watch everything unfold. He increased the input of mana into his eyes and looked on with a smile.


    ''Let''s see how you deal with this.'' Ss thought.


    *Swoosh*


    A long gash appeared on Jessica''s arm as a misthowler dashed by her with its ws extended.


    When itnded behind her, it looked back and growled at her figure, making her grit her teeth in anger before tightening her grip around her des and shooting forward once more.


    However, this time her des were covered in a red hue that made Ss narrow his eyes.


    ''It''s those runes...'' he thought to himself while memorizing the pattern of runes on her daggers.


    Her de cleaved through the misthowler in front of her like it was nothing, but this time instead of regenerating immediately, it took a little longer.


    That''s all she needed toplete her final blow.


    Her des danced through the air in a ruthless symphony of shes that cleaved through the misthowler in an instant.


    Before she knew it, she eventually hit the crystal and realized something.


    Her shes changed in direction and ruthlessness, and before she, the wolf could understand what had just happened, it felt its body being cleaved before its core was eventually ripped out of the body, causing the rest of it to copse.


    "Aim for their cores!" Jessica roared; however, after looking back, she understood that the rest of the team wasn''t doing nearly as well as she did.


    Ss stared at the core in her hand for a moment and understood something.


    The howler''s main body wasn''t the core. It was the misty substance around the core that brought it all together.


    Jessica might not have realized it, but the moment she activated the red energy and hit the wolf''s core, she actually hit the main body covering the core.


    When she finally ripped the mana core out, she had already destroyed most of the real body with her daggers. They wouldn''t have died if the core remained in the body, but since it didn''t, it immediately died afterward.


    However, just as Ss was going to continue watching the rest of the fight, he heard a low growling from behind him.


    Looking back, Ss saw arge misthowler looking at him with rage in his eyes.


    "The alpha, I assume?" Ss muttered under his breath, yet before he could get thest syble out, he watched the wolf disappear into the mist.


    ''It''s pretty easy to follow the rest of them since I have mystic eyes, but even with my upgraded version that I got when I broke through to the topaz stage, I still can''t see the alpha.


    It must have made itself so thin that it became no different from the mist around it.'' Ss narrowed his eyes before a smile tugged at the corner of his lips.


    The mist around him was thickening at a fast degree, to the point where even its mana core which had been disguised by the mist around it, became invisible to his eyes.


    Ss waited with his arms folded, but even after waiting for a minute, nothing happened.


    ''Hmm?'' The hair at the back of his neck stood up, and without thinking twice, Ss created a blue magic circle and swung back.<novelsnext></novelsnext>


    Ice formed out of the ground and erupted into the sky, hitting whatever was going to attack and dying the wolf further.


    ''I don''t have time for this...'' Ss pointed his hand into the sky and created another blue magic circle, this one being a tier-3 one.


    Suddenly, the fog began to move and swirl around Ss, but unlike before, he was in control of the situation.


    The mist around him continued to swirl, and before the wolf could understand what was happening, a water sphere began to form above Ss.


    The sphere gotrger andrger by the second.


    The mist was dissipating at the same rate.


    Pointing his hand forward, Ss created a tier-1 fire bullet before closing his eyes and lining it up with the yellowish-orange crystal in the distance.


    ''Gotcha.''


    *Bang*


    The fired bullet shot through the air at tremendous speeds, hitting the crystal and burning away theyer around it in an instant.


    [You have killed a Misthowler]


    [Devouring one life force]


    [You have absorbed the Mist Walker bloodline]


    [Bloodlines:


    Shadow Walker - 1%


    Mist Walker - 3%


    Thundertusk - 23%


    Sonic Bat - 38%]


    ''I didn''t get an ability from it... Really? Also, why does it have a higher percentage if I only killed one misthowler? Technically this one is the same strength as the mistwalker I killed a few years ago...


    But technically, the bloodline is called the Mist Walker bloodline, so what do I know.


    Besides that, I haven''t gotten an ability from any bloodline with 23% or lower. Maybe I get a bloodline every 25%? Or maybe every 33%? Why are some called prime bloodlines while others are called just bloodlines...''


    Ss continued to ask himself these questions until he heard his name being called.


    "Sials!" Jessica''s voice entered his ears and made him realize that he was holding an extremelyrge amount of water above his head.


    There was close to no mist around them except for the ones being exuded by the remaining misthowlers that were still fighting the rest of the team. However, even that mist didn''tst for a second, as it would instantly move toward Ss'' water sphere.


    ''I''m not close enough, but I could probably turn them all into water too, right?'' Ss asked himself before he sighed.


    Ss quickly changed the runes to condense the water above him into a smaller form, but even then, it was really had to do such a thing without making them entire thing explode.


    His control over the mana wasn''t strong enough to condense such arge amount of water, so instead, he snapped his fingers and turned the sphere into ice.


    He then changed the runes around a little more, causing it topress even more and eventually, go from being the size of dia''s town square to being the size of a two-story house.


    Creating three fire bullet spells in front of him, Ss quickly killed the remaining wolves before dropping the enormous and extremely heavy ice sphere onto the ground.


    They all turned around to look at Ss with awe and shock; however, when they did look back, he was already right next to the sphere of ice, cutting out two axes.


    ''Their weight won''t have much distribution, but it''s pretty light for me anyway, and I can keep them cool the entire time so they won''t melt.'' Ss thought while using pressurized water to cut into the sphere.


    After a few minutes, he had two axes ready for him to go, and eventually, they began to move again into the more foggy areas once more.


    "How did you do that?" The girl with the staff asked while looking at Ss.


    Looking at her, Ss raised a brow and thought-


    ''Why do all the mages around here have to be women. I don''t think I''ve met a single male mage yet... Oh wait, I have. I just killed them because they were attacking the town.'' Ss thought,pletely forgetting that Eclipse could also be a mage.