"Been awhile since I've been here."

It was the same place he undertook his first trial to get Reo. But there was something different about this place, instead of white as far as the eye can see, he was surrounded by monsters of varying colors and types.

"Still a lot of monsters."

Kai unwrapped the cloth from his blade and brandished his thin sword.

"Still, to think that spirits had access to this place without gathering all those troublesome ingredients... The nightshade berries were particularly difficult to find."

Kai leisurely muttered as he swung his sword multiple times to get a feel of it.

"Suddenly fighting a member of the council after doing nothing but blacksmithing and image training for a month was really difficult. A normal person would've probably pulled a muscle. This will be a good warm-up for later."

Kai stretched and after a few exercises, he stood straight and looked at the monsters that had all surrounded him.

"Come!"

With his words, every monster in the area leaped forward.

Kai spun at an insane speed and then crouched, his sword being held on his other hand. But his sword was different, the blade had disappeared and only left a tiny part just above the hilt.

"Enchanted Gear: Snake Blade Deceit."

All of a sudden, a huge amount of blood sprayed around the area as Kai's blade sliced apart over twenty beasts in a single swing. It was a whip sword, the blade of the sword was split into multiple parts and were held with a tough string that could be used to retract and extend the sword with the push of a button on the sword's handle. It took him quite awhile to get it right but with magic, it was a lot easier. That meant that the sword was unusable for those who didn't have magic or were exhausted of their mana.

A scythe was useful for reaping heads, a sword was useful for many things, a shield was useful for protection, a bow was used to attack those you can't reach, but a whip sword was used to reach enemies you won't reach with a sword. In the hands of Kai though, it was many times more dangerous. A single swing of his extended whip sword danced liked a serpent attacking its prey and sliced apart everything in its path. The closer the enemy was to the hilt, the more dangerous it was because the retracting blades would hit it multiple times.

The monsters who saw this weren't discouraged at all, they kept chargling like mindless beasts.

The blade retracted while spinning around, slicing another ten of the enemy numbers. It was quite an unbelievable sight. Then, it turned back into a normal sword without much noise.

Kai looked around. The beasts that were so wild before had only been a few. Now, they were all scrutinizing him.

"Goblins, huh?"

Deceit vanished from Kai's hands and was replaced with his scythe.

"HAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Kai gathered his power and created a small shockwave which alerted the goblins and forced them to leap forward.

"Off with your heads."

Another spinning motion and heads flew. The goblin's heads were detached from their body like a hot knife cutting through butter. It was so smooth that you would think the goblins weren't real but the blood proved otherwise. The eyes of the beheaded goblins were wide open and blankly staring, as if they didn't know they had been killed. Kai created a shockwave to avoid the bodies heading towards him and then ran towards a direction where the wave of monsters looked thinner.

It was then that he held his scythe with both hands and began spinning so fast that you couldn't see him anymore. You could only see him as a black spinning top. Each monster that came into contact with him was sliced apart and blown away. He was moving and spinning so fast that the seemingly endless wave of monsters began thinning down.

But soon after, he met with some resistance. The monsters were gradually becoming stronger.

"Then... [Empyrean Flames]!"

The black spinning top turned golden and each of the enemies that were hit were burned and melted. The little resistance that their bodies provided soon disappeared and once more, Kai cut them apart.

He did that until all of the beasts disappeared. All that was left around him were the corpses of the beasts he had just slain. Now that he looked around, there were all sorts of animals like gorillas, tigers, panthers, monkeys, goblins, and hedgehogs. That was all that Kai could identify as the rest of them were burned apart, too unrecognizable.

"Is that all?!"

Kai yelled at seemingly no one. After his words faded, howls and roars from all over him took his attention back. At some point, they had all appeared. The white space changed and now, it took in a shade of pale blue.

Kai changed his weapon, from a scythe to a bow and gauntlets.

"[Ice Fortress]!"

It was the move he used to fight the entities that the gods had produced. But instead of a house-like fortress, this one was on the level of a small fortress. But that wasn't all, Kai wasn't alone. There, dozens upon dozens of ice marionettes in soldier uniforms held weapons. Some were manning the cannons and some were aiming above the wall. Inside the fortress, there were knights waiting for enemies to pierce through.

"[Mana Arms]."

Two more arms formed on his back. The fingertips had strings wrapped around them. Seeing the fortress, the Wolfen hesitated no further. Hundreds of magic attacks, although a single one wasn't a threat, hundreds upon hundreds of the same weak attack would prove a greater threat than a single strong spell.

Kai's hands moved. His real hands used the bow and a single arrow split into two, then four, until there were so many that it matched a rain of arrows done by an army. But he wasn't done there, the mana hands on his back moved and manipulated the marionettes like puppets in a puppet show. The fingers moved skillfully and the ice figures all began to shoot arrows in rapid fire. Without being limited by ammunition or stamina, they continuously fired arrows so accurately that soon, the amount of arrows matched the amount of magic attacks being fired their way. Explosions occurred all over the place but not a single arrow or magic attack was passing through.

But that wouldn't last forever. Wolfen had a huge weakness, and that was their limited amount of shots before resting.

Kai continuously fired arrows that split into multiple ones and then one arrow passed through, then two, then four, the amount of arrows that passed through and thinned the enemy numbers were uncountable. The beasts who had tried to charge forward were all killed and the beasts who were firing from afar were lessening.

But the arrows couldn't stop everyone, soon after, many beasts approached the fortress, the drawbridge-like gates on both sides opened and accompanying the sounds of the monsters getting crushed was the sound of ice banging against ice. Dozens upon dozens of ice marionettes holding varying weapons charged out from the gates and began slicing apart the beasts that had dared get close. None of the flying beasts were even noticed as they couldn't get close because they were either ripped apart by arrows or were involved in the explosion of arrows making the magic attacks explode.

Blood dyed the fortress, Kai, and the marionettes read but no matter how much blood rained, the floor was still clean. The blood looked like it wasn't touching the floor at all. But with each kill that Kai made, the white space began disappearing. Now, a single look would suffice to be able to determine that this place was in the clouds. The white turned into sky blue and patches of white formed the clouds themselves.

But the amount of beasts weren't decreasing at all, they were increasing even more now. More and more variants appeared, there was even a dragon mixed among them. For that, Kai had to stop shooting arrows and focused on firing magic at the dragon. Of course, the dragon's large body also covered the arrows and magic attacks, but it did nothing. Only Kai's attacks were showing little effect.

Kai clicked his tongue.

If only I could use a dragon art!

If Kai could use the same breath attack that Angelina had used, this would be many times easier. His breath attack was limited to a small place and only a breath attack on the scale of a dragon's would have an effect on the sheer amount of monsters.

The dragon, seemingly annoyed raised its head up and swallowed a huge breath.

Kai equipped a huge shield in his hand and jumped upwards. The magic hand behind him was still manipulating strings.

"[Reflect]!"

Kai was blown away but it wasn't for naught, the breath attack that had hit the shield reflected like a laser and burnt an entire part of the swarm of beasts. It was a surreal sight, flames being reflected. A fireball was different from a flamethrower. But the flames weren't done there, Kai used [Flight] and stayed in the air and reflected the dragon's breath and aimed it towards the Wolfen and many other beasts that were shooting from afar.

Kai then threw the shield forward along with a tiny needle and flew towards it before canceling flight.

"[Group]."

He landed on top of the shield which had stayed in mid-air along with a needle.

"I may not be able to use my own Dragon Slayer Art, but I can use techniques enough to slay a giant winged lizard such as yourself."

As if the dragon could understand his words, it roared and did a nosedive towards Kai.

"[Flame Boosters]!"

Kai's feet were wrapped in flames and exploded, launching him forward. In mid-air, he placed his arms on his sides and then ignited starting from the head.

"[Phoenix Spear]!"