Mad Zone existed for as long as the civilization of natives came into being.
Even their oldest myths mentioned this place. After several resets of many kingdoms, the surviving legends still spoke of this place in great reverence.
There was always a respectful angle to this place in the scriptures. Almost as if it was a divine blessing.
But it was all in the past. A few thousand years ago, they learned the reality of this sacred place.
They realized it was not a divine place or paradise. It was hell.
And hell had its own monsters.
“Shoot!”
Varian roared as he summoned a giant lightning bolt and shot it at the giant undead ape that was running toward them.
The yellow lightning bolt crackled and reached the undead ape in a blink. It then expanded into the size of a bus and was about to pierce the ape’s chest.
The undead ape’s gray eyes moved and flickered and it bent its body at the last moment.
The lightning bolt that should’ve pierced its heart now pierced its right shoulder. The undead ape’s shoulder was mostly rotten flesh and loose skin.
The moment the lightning bolt touched it, the skin was blown away and the flesh was blasted into pieces and charred. Even the bone socket was cracked apart and its right arm was no longer functional.
It should’ve been a terrible pain for any creature. But the undead felt no pain. It ignored its dysfunctional right arm and raised its left arm to attack Varian.
Varian clenched his fists and an invisible telekinetic power took the shape of a spear.
When the spear reached its neck, the undead ape barely managed to dodge, but as a result, its right leg was injured.
When Varian summoned an ice spear, the undead ape realized it wouldn’t be able to dodge this attack.
So, it used up all its strength and reached Varian in an instant. Then, using its only functional arm, it punched out.
Feeling the huge swath of death energy coming from the ape, Varian frowned and teleported behind the ape.
Whenever he came into contact with the death energy, the death energy in his body turned active and created havoc. That’s why he used ranged attacks against the Undead despite liking close combat.
“Die!”
The ape tried to dodge like the previous two times, but due to the injuries in its right arm and right leg, its balance was off mark. The spear successfully decapitated the undead ape.
Varian was about to use lightning to burn the corpse into ashes when something astonishing happened.
The ape’s corpse melted into the soil and all its traces disappeared! This happened so fast that Varian was barely able to catch a glimpse of the process.
“W-What was that?” Varian had an ominous premonition.
“ROAR!”
“Grahahar!”
“Sdar!”
The war cries of the undead rushing toward him reached Varian. Undead reptiles that looked like crocodiles with long legs, undead frogs with metallic skin, and undead humanoids with varying numbers of tails, ears, or eyes.
It wasn’t one or two undead. It was a wave of them.
They encircled Varian’s trio and were quickly closing the distance. Thankfully, they were mostly peak level 8s or low level 9s.
But even then, due to the sheer numbers, Varian was forced to completely focus on fighting them.
Varian couldn’t afford to think about other things anymore and fought with all his powers.
From the clouds, it seemed like a single dot was about to be submerged under waves of black dots.
But the single dot shone with multiple colors and its attacks started to wipe out the black dots. These black dots fell to the ground and melted into nothingness.
From a bird’s view, it was clear that the black dots were falling at an alarming rate. It was as if they were all throwing themselves into a meat grinder and committing suicide.
Even Sarah and Enigma who were fighting the waves directed at them far away were startled by the fluctuations from Varian.
When the attacks first began, they took up the stronger mid level 9 and low level 9 enemies and left Varian with the peak level 8s and weaker low level 9s.
Because his growth was so fast and so recent, Sarah and Enigma subconsciously still treated him as a level 8.
But now, even though they’re a hundred miles away, they could clearly feel the rapid deaths of the Undeads.
Unlike them who were using their superior level to overwhelm the enemies, Varian was using the combination of his powers and achieving something like a combo to achieve a kill rate better than theirs.
For instance, he’d push a group of aggressive beasts into illusion and make them attack other undead. When these undead wanted to defend themselves, he’d use his space powers to slow their movements.
When the two sides clash, both the illusion and space blockade would be broken and the illusioned undead would realize they were fooled.
But there would be a small window of opportunity before they realized this—less than a hundredth of a second.
It’s the perfect chance to attack. But even for Varian, it’s impossible to act in such a short time frame.
So, even though he got this ‘chance’, it’s not really a chance at all and his kill rate should’ve been far less.
But there’s a factor that changed everything.
Time Power.
Varian’s time path reached level 5. To be fair, it’s not strong and won’t even be able to slow down a level 9 enemy even by 10%.
But Varian used it on himself. That one-hundredth of a second stretched itself in front of him and allowed Varian to time his attacks.
As a result, dozens of precisely placed attacks of lightning, telekinetic, ice, and space attacked the illusioned beasts at their most vulnerable moment and reaped their lives.
Since Varian avoided physical clashes, his Body path remained on the verge of reaching level 9. But his other paths continued to improve due to continuous combat. Slowly but steadily, his paths made progress toward level 9.
