Chương 123

The heavy bone staff blurred in a wide, horizontal arc. Rudra didn't stop moving. He didn't even need to look. His body reacted on pure instinct, adjusting his stance to hide his ribs just as a True Blood Vampire lunged forward.

"Now, Lord Rudra!" Mumud rasped. The silver-haired mage stood a few yards back, pointing a pale finger. A dense, purple [Mana Compression] rune flared over the final group of vampires, violently crushing them into the cobblestones and dropping their health to a tiny sliver. Rudra immediately dropped his hips and brought the Staff of the Fire Lord over his shoulder.

"[Avalanche]," he grunted. CRACK! The stacking weight of the combo completely pulverized the remaining armor of the lead vampire. The heavy bone smashed through, and the entire pack turned into a massive cloud of grey ash. [You have defeated a True Blood Vampire!] [Experience has been acquired.] Rudra rested the staff on his shoulder, letting out a long, exhausted sigh as the dust settled over the empty streets of the 15th Vampire City.

"That's the last of them. The district is clear."

"I am not eating any more wolf!" a squeaky voice yelled from behind a broken pillar. Kratos marched out, his half-gold, half-black tail twitching in pure annoyance. The dog-sized divine beast glared up at Rudra.

"I know your cooking is amazing, but we've been eating the exact same vampire wolf stew for an entire month! The flavors are great, but I'm sick of the exact same texture! I want fish! I want wild boar!"

"Look, buddy, we haven't been able to restock," Rudra said, wiping soot off his face with a towel.

"It was either wolf meat or bat wings. But we're done here. I promise I'll make you a massive double-bacon burger when we get back to the surface."

"With extra cheese?" Kratos negotiated, his ears perking up.

"Two slices," Rudra promised. Kratos happily sat down, licking his paws. Mumud walked over, offering a crisp bow.

"The extermination is complete, My Lord. Your endurance is truly terrifying."

"Thanks," Rudra smiled. He swiped his hand in the air.

"System. Status Window." [Name: Rudra] [Level: 204] [Class: Staff Saint] [Title: [Unreasonable Challenger] + 18] [Health: 78, 450 / 78, 450 | Mana: 28, 400 / 28, 400 Staff Energy: 3, 000 / 3, 000 | Divine Energy: 14, 430 / 14, 430] [Strength: 1, 980 | Stamina: 1, 950 Agility: 1, 970 | Intelligence: 1, 600] [Persistence: 1, 567 | Dexterity: 1, 706 Courage: 1, 209 | Charm: 2, 504] [Dignity: 1, 895 | Insight: 1, 219 Divine Power: 1, 443 | Regeneration: 133 Composure: 111 | Indomitable: 251 Super Sensitivity: 2. 4] [Stat Points: 0] Rudra stared at the blue panel, grinning widely. His core stats were hovering near the 2, 000 mark. If he had simply speed-run the cities by letting Mumud blast everything, he easily could have hit a much higher level. But he intentionally didn't. He dragged the fights out, focusing on extreme, exhausting physical exertion. Because his Legendary class had removed the frustrating "training wall," his brutal physical labor was finally paying out permanent raw stats again.

He prioritized building a monstrous physical foundation over just chasing levels. Add in the 15 stat points he got per level and the huge pile of stats carried over from his old meals, and he was an absolute tank. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. He glanced at his title list, reminiscing about a specific notification he had received a few weeks ago.

By aggressively sweeping mobs that were constantly over two hundred levels higher than him, the system had awarded him a completely broken title. [Unreasonable Challenger] [You have hunted enemies completely out of your league. - Every 100 levels difference between you and the enemy, damage increases by 10%. - All stats +50.] He scrolled down to his hidden stats. He scoffed when he saw Indomitable sitting at 251.

According to the description, it gave him a probability to invalidate incoming damage when his health was low.

"Garbage," Rudra muttered. Over the entire month of relentless, dangerous grinding, the stat had triggered less than ten times. Relying on a random dice roll when he was about to die was a terrible strategy. He resolved to completely ignore it and just keep out-healing his damage using the vampire ring and his skills. But Super Sensitivity was a completely different story. At 2. 4, it had drastically increased his reflexes, making his wild brawling style incredibly deadly.

Even better, it had started functioning as a literal warning system. Right before an enemy targeted his weak points, the system would actually flash a prompt in his vision, allowing him to react instantly. There was just one massive hurdle. Because Rudra's fighting style relied on high-speed, non-stop spinning and continuous momentum, trying to read and track flashing text boxes in the middle of a violent hurricane of motion was incredibly disorienting.

"The day I can actually read those notifications effortlessly at full speed is the day I'll be completely untouchable," Rudra told himself, closing the stat window. He opened his skill tab next. Legendary skills were notoriously difficult to level up, but a month of non-stop usage had finally pushed them forward. [Abyssal Step] had hit Level 7, significantly reducing his mid-air stamina drain. Then he checked his core combat arsenal. [Atlas's Rebound (Lv. 2)] [An ancient technique once practiced by the forgotten Titan Race. It channels the titan who holds the sky to absorb the heavy weight of any attack and heave it back. - You can catch any attack. As long as you keep swinging your weapon, you can absorb the damage of any incoming attack and store it in your weapon. - You can unleash this stored power all at once in a single massive strike, or spread it out over multiple attacks. Each redirected strike deals your normal damage plus the stored damage. - The maximum amount of damage you can store at one time is your (Level x Strength). - If you stop swinging your weapon before all the accumulated power is redirected, the remaining power will explode inside you, causing catastrophic damage. Resource Consumption: 450 Mana and 45 Staff Energy per second while active. Skill Cooldown: 10 Minutes.] [Typhoon (Lv. 2)] [Active] [A legendary staff technique created by a new Staff Saint. Spin the staff to create a vacuum, pulling nearby enemies inward. The extreme wind pressure cancels enemy spells. Stopping the spin releases the trapped air in a massive outward shockwave. - Deals 600% of your physical attack power within 100 meters. - For every second maintained, damage increases by 60% and suction radius widens by 20% (Max: 5 seconds). - Enemies hit are Stunned or Knocked Down for 2 seconds. Resource Consumption: 100 Staff Energy to start, +15 Staff Energy per second. Skill Cooldown: 10 minutes.] [Avalanche (Lv. 2)] [Active] [A legendary staff technique created by a new Staff Saint. A nonstop combo designed to flatten a target. Uses the recoil of the previous hit to accelerate the next. It starts fast and grows heavier until the target is crushed. - Successful hits increase your staff's swing speed and attack weight by 60% (Stacks up to 10 times). - Shreds armor durability on block. - If dodged narrowly, compressed air deals 85% of the attack's damage as internal damage. Resource Consumption: 80 Staff Energy to start, +10 Staff Energy per swing. Skill Cooldown: 5 minutes.] [Mana Heart (Lv. 3)] [Rating: Legendary] [An ancient, forbidden technique developed by a forgotten tribe of Barbarians. Realizing their human bodies could never match the mythical Titans who once fought the Gods without being at a disadvantage, they created an artificial method to force their own mana to act as a secondary circulatory system, constantly reinforcing their bones and muscle fibers from the inside out. - Passive Effect: [Titan's Constitution] - Your physical density is fundamentally altered. Maximum Health and Stamina permanently increase by 30%. When clashing with overwhelmingly strong physical attacks, the recoil and shock damage are absorbed by your mana pool instead of your physical body.] - Active Effect: [Targeted Manifestation] - You can actively direct the immense, surging flow of the Mana Heart into a specific body part for a 250% localized enhancement. - Resource Consumption: 1% of Max Mana per second.] Rudra swiped the blue windows away, completely satisfied. His resource costs had dropped slightly, while his damage multipliers had spiked.

He was a powerhouse. He reached into his inventory and pulled out a simple cloth rag, wiping the thick layer of grey ash off his black trench coat.

"Alright," Rudra said, slinging his heavy bone staff over his shoulder. He looked at Mumud and the drooling cub.

"We're done sitting in the dark. Let's head back to Reidan. We need to go see Piaro."