Chương 428: Limitless Path Chapter Four Hundred Fifty-Two

Blood really did need the whole day to rest, though it wasn't because of being stressed or anything, she just needed that whole time to adjust to her new power. While Sera was just at the point of starting to develop runes on her body in her human form, thanks in part to Blood, Blood had progressed even further. That not only meant more stats per level, it meant a greater power at all times, as humanization was the sapient beast version of Presences.

Being in human form gave Blood and Sera a constant increase in their power, like a small multiplier that was always active, compared to the bigger but shorter term multiplier of a Presence. Blood's multiplier, however, wasn't so small anymore.

"What's it like when you're fully transformed," Beth asked her that night.

"Dunno," said Blood.

"Well, do it, dummy," Beth huffed.

"Fine," Blood growled. The lupine woman started transforming, not that she wasn't already in her human form, but her wolf ears disappeared, her claws became regular nails, and the tail was gone between one blink and the next. The changes were rapid, her fur disappearing in but a few seconds, and then the runes appeared, starting with the circle around her collar bones, up over her shoulders, and then around her upper back.

From there, a tracery of runes appeared in her flesh, down her spine first, then a set of thin lines down each arm, stopping at each elbow. Not only did she have a changed appearance, but she was much stronger; Beth could feel it, the power that the not-so-lupine woman now radiated. It wasn't as much as Beth could achieve with her Presence activated, but it was a very significant level of power, and something that Blood could achieve constantly in human form.

Beth was feeling the full weight of it now because Blood had fully shifted, but in her partial lupine form she would have that power but could still conceal it.

"How do you feel?" Beth asked her.

"Fine," Blood said with a shrug.

"Come on, give us more than that," Sera said then.

"It feels alright," Blood grunted.

"I feel like it's increasing my strength and speed by about fifteen percent. Maybe even twenty. I think I'll be able to use skills even faster, too. Not really sure, gotta test it."

"That's…a lot," Sera said quietly.

"I only had six or seven percent overall increase in my human form right now. Even after this last rebirth, I'm maybe at eight percent or a little more, though not more than nine. To have a fifteen-plus percent increase all the time from humanization is a lot. If you're already at twenty percent, or close, then you're extremely powerful." Blood just shrugged lazily, saying, "It feels fine, but nothing to get excited about."

"Sometimes, you two are far too casual about this stuff," Sera said with a sigh, shaking her head as she glanced between Beth and Blood.

"As long as she feels fine," Beth replied with a shrug, Blood not even bothering with words and just grunting. Now that they were rested and refreshed and mostly in control of themselves, it was time to get some actual work done, much to Blood's grumbled protests. Despite her complaints, she still went along with the others, joining them in Beth's gate as she opened it up with it set to level one hundred as the starting level.

The three spent half a day killing in the gate, which was only a little over an hour of objective time, before they had to exit to reset the enemy levels. It was the same old problem of having to move farther and farther out as they leveled, compounded by how quickly they leveled in the early stages after a rebirth. With the gate reset, now at over level one hundred fifty, they dove back in again and continued their leveling session.

They spent close to two days on it this time, which totaled out to about six hours in objective time, and had hit a little over level one hundred twenty by the end. That was more than enough for Beth, considering they were all getting at least forty-two stat points per level, which was Sera's number, all the way up to Blood, who was still ahead of Beth, though just barely at sixty-four stat points per level, though Beth was a bit envious of the more flexible nature of Blood's points.

That already put them at over four thousand points per hundred levels for Sera and over six thousand for both Beth and Blood, which was a staggering amount of stats. If they could continue to push True Perfect Rebirths the whole way to rebirth ten, they would have a genuinely insane amount of stat points even at level one as official Enlightened.

At that point, Beth was a little lost as to what to do; they had rebirthed, they were at loose ends, hosted by a very powerful individual, and didn't really have anything planned. Sera insisted they should take advantage of the willingness of their hosts to teach and train and, barring anything better suddenly popping up out of nowhere, Beth agreed that was likely their best course. They exited their suite, looking for someone, anyone really, to try to see what was going on.

Beth felt it a bit strange to be in someone's house and call them on the phone, or communicator, as it were, and was prepared to do just that when Zane appeared. And she meant that quite literally, as from one second to the next the empty hallway just suddenly had him standing in front of them.

"The hell'd you come from?" Beth immediately snapped, surprised.

"My parents, mainly," he replied drolly, gesturing for them to follow him. Zane led them down a long series of corridors, not a way that Beth recognized, but she wasn't even sure it was the same section of ship or even same ship. It was possible the corridors could move, or their room could have been teleported somewhere, and they wouldn't have known it. Mortaine could do the like quite easily, and without alerting them at all, and he was supposedly much weaker and less skilled than Zane and Fallon.

They didn't see the gryphon as they walked, or at their destination, and he didn't pop in as Zane gestured them into a large room and shut the door behind them. Beth recognized, from long years of use at this point, what the room was; a training room much like a CRA one, but larger and better equipped. Better furnished, too, considering the very plush chairs around the space, several of them surrounding two dark wood tables that likely cost an arm and a leg.

"A training room?" she felt compelled to ask as they entered.

"I figured you might like to stretch your muscles a little," he said with a small smirk.

"And get used to that new level of power, especially considering your two companions have become a good bit stronger."

"I'm always down to fight," Beth said with a shrug.

"Whether the other two are up for it, however…"

"I can go back to the room?" Blood asked, turning for the door before Sera grabbed her and spun her fully around to face back how she had been. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"No," said the dragon girl firmly.

"Aw, but-" Blood protested.

"No, you are not giving up the chance to spar with the most powerful and most skilled person in the entire galaxy to take a nap," Sera said, Beth finding it rather funny that it was coming from the dragon girl and not her.

"Well, I appreciate the respect, but I doubt I'm the most skilled," he said.

"Not the most skilled, but not denying the most powerful?" Beth asked with a small grin.

"No," he replied stoically. Seeing her grin turn into a slight frown, he continued, "I am a Manumitted, and a powerful one, at that. The only other one I know of within this galaxy, and I have an extensive network and connections to many others with their own extensive networks, is Fallon, and he is not as strong as I am.

I do not say I am the most skilled because there can and will always be someone more skilled; whether we are talking about weaponskills or 'regular' skills, there are those with one or more that are higher. However, the sum total of my skills, stats, Presence, Ideal, and other powers is greater than any other individual in the galaxy. It also rather helps that I have many thousands of years of combat experience, against both non-sapient and sapient beings, and few others can boast anything close."

"That's a pretty impressive resume," Beth said.

"You have any interesting titles from all that?""

Lord Slayer, King Slayer, Emperor Slayer, Nation Breaker, World Breaker, Star Breaker, Lord of the Unheard, Battle King, Monster Slayer, Monster Slaughterer, Monster Exterminator, Beast Slayer, Beast Slaughterer, Beast Exterminator, Beast Annihilator, Lord of the Singularity, King Beyond the Asymptote, Emperor of the Unknown Void, Lord of Death, King of Death, He Who Granted Them Life, The Fate Sunderer, All Who Know Lament, The World-" he listed off, seemingly not having any intention of stopping any time soon.

"Okay, okay, we get it," Beth said, holding up her hands to forestall the flow of titles.

"You've done some stuff."

"Sure, some stuff," he replied sarcastically.

"Well, anyway, let's get training," Beth said, glancing over to see Blood disinterested and Sera with her jaw practically on the floor.

"You alright, Ser?"

"Yes, fine! Perfectly! Great!" Sera immediately belted out rapidly.

"Oka---y," Beth said, holding the syllable.

"You wanna talk about it."

"Nope. No. Nuh-uh. Let's just fight," Sera said quickly, shaking her head vigorously.

"I'm just gonna assume one or more of the things he said was really damn impressive," Beth said.

"Even for a Manumitted, some of just the ones he listed are…extreme," Sera replied, glancing between Beth and Zane.

"Oh? Am I really that impressive?" Zane asked, clasping his hands behind his back while sticking his chest out and thrusting his chin up.

"Do go on."

"Don't get too full of yourself," Beth replied to him, deflating him a bit.

"Just because you are uncultured doesn't mean everyone is," he grumbled back at her a bit crossly.

"They're very impressive," Sera said, taking back control of the conversation.

"He has…done a lot of fighting. The beast titles are just one of the things that's rather…monumental, just from what he said."

"I mean, they just mean he's killed a lot of beasts, right?" Beth asked, glancing between the two. Even Blood perked up a bit, curious about the answer.

"So, Beth, let me ask you this, my dear, my love, my one-and-only," Sera said, turning to Beth and gently grabbing her hands while her tail partially wound around her.

"Yes, Ser, my love, my light, my life," Beth replied, struggling to keep a straight face as she returned the other girl's teasing.

"How many beasts do you think you've killed so far?" Sera asked calmly, rubbing Beth's hands within the grip of her own larger and much longer hands.

"Oh, I don't know, it's at least a few million, at this point. Probably into the low tens of millions?" Beth replied, frowning a little as she stared into the middle distance and considered it, enjoying the rubbing Sera was doing.

"And how many of the beast slaying titles do you have?" Sera asked.

"Well, I mean, none?" Beth replied, a little puzzled.

"So, that should suggest something, yes?" Sera asked.

"That I just don't have enough kills?" Beth returned.

"Now you're getting it," Sera said.

"So, how many kills is Beast Slayer?" Beth asked, turning her head to look at Zane.

"It's at least a billion for the lowest level," he replied.

"There are some circumstances that can change it, but you need at least a billion just on numbers alone."

"That seems like…a lot," Beth said quietly.

"It's not that much," he said with a shrug.

"It's much better than the higher tiers."

"Such as?" Beth asked.

"Well, Beast Slaughterer is a trillion, which is an awful lot, especially since that one requires you to kill at least level five hundred beasts. No going somewhere and killing ten billion level ten beasts with a wave of the hand to cheat that one," he said with a slight shake of his head.

"Well then, that is pretty impressive," Beth said with a nod.

"And not the most impressive thing, even," Sera muttered quietly, though Beth still heard it.

"Enough about that," Zane, also apparently having heard it, said with a wave of his hand.

"Let's get some training in." He gestured to the training platform before moving to the side and setting things up on a display that he tapped lightly with a finger to configure. After the platform came alive with a little buzz and was properly set, he leapt onto it, making the jump look like he but took a simple step, stopping across from them. He mimed stretching for a moment, swinging his arms in moderate circles and twisting his back.

"So, who first?" he asked.

"Or do you all want to try as a group?"

"I'll go," Beth answered eagerly, limbering up herself before squaring up with the powerful Manumitted. The first session went just about as she expected, though Zane did not immediately wipe the floor with her. Instead, he let her attack him with abandon, though she started slow, with probing strikes, before working up to anything more serious.

She did, eventually, get around to using her Presence, the deployment of which, or its shape, or perhaps some other element, surprised Zane a bit, if the slight widening of his eyes and his body language was anything to go by. Still, it wasn't like she got any advantage over him with it, whether from the surprise or just the added power.

In fact, despite running hot, with all her buffs at maximum and her Presence burning her stamina and chewing through a small bit of mana itself, she wasn't able to make a dent, and not for lack of trying. Not only that, she wasn't getting tossed around or just swiping air. It was maybe a bit like fighting against Baelvyr, but Zane wasn't using any finesse, though she also didn't think he was activating any skills.

When she punched him, he either just took it, particularly if it was a body shot, or he returned the punch, meeting her fist in midair with his own. He didn't hit her back hard enough to break anything, at least, not at first, but she wasn't able to make any kind of headway. Even her most powerful blows, using one or more of her attacking skills, failed to even make his body sway back, and it felt like she was punching either a steel plate or a ball of wool, depending on where and how she hit and he responded.

It was both frustrating and enlightening, as she was very carefully observing what he was doing and how he was doing it and she was sure he was doing everything without any skill use at all. It was all down to the power of his body and his skill in combat. Even with the speed she punched at and the strength of her fists, for example, he could still take a straight punch to the stomach and sway his body, along with bending and twisting, enough that it nullified a great deal of the force.

She hadn't noticed at first, but he was slowly ramping up as he let her go to town, his counters starting to hurt as they came in before they started to do some damage. They also started missing her guard or tracking her through her dodges, landing more often and on more sensitive spots than just her knuckles. She held up quite well, in her own opinion, and it seemed he agreed, as he looked increasingly surprised and, dare she say, pleased, happy with her ability to hold out under his growing onslaught.

The more they fought, as well, the more she had a good idea of some of the biggest gaps in her current fighting style, trying to engage him with both blade and body, finding new ways to try to score some hits on him by getting better angles and timings. The difference in their power, however, couldn't be overcome that easily. She was glad, then, that it was just a training session and not a real, true fight, as she was starting to get beaten pretty damn one-sidedly.

After they had been going about ten minutes, she was certainly on the losing end, and she was getting pummeled pretty badly. She held on for a time longer, her grit and determination keeping her standing as she suffered quite a lot of broken bones, contusions, strains, sprains, tendon damage, and internal tearing and bleeding.

Zane never once went all-out or ramped up the pressure to the extreme, just slowly turning up the heat over time, hitting harder and faster and with more skill, taking her apart little by little until there wasn't much left to deconstruct. She eventually tapped out, gasping and panting and trying to clear her airway of blood as the training stage quickly returned her to full health.

Even the mana and much of the stamina she had used was instantly restored, though even with all that, she still felt like a normal human that had gone ten rounds with an angry freight train and not won any of those rounds. Zane, on the other hand, didn't even have a stitch of clothing out of place or look in any way discomfited, lightly brushing at some invisible dust on his chest before clasping his hands behind his back and giving her a thoughtful look.