I stepped sideways and let the man bump on empty air. He stumbled and almost fell on the ground. It seemed that he had put quite a bit of force in this bump….

I looked at him and said. "This is my place on the line, and if you want a place, you can go find your own at the end of it."

The fierce man looked at me with rage in his eyes. I sighed and shook my head. Trouble was coming my way.

"You piece of shit! YOU DARE TO DEFY ME! I will show you how it's like to suffer." After saying this, Ki began to surround his body. He stepped forward while throwing a punch.

I looked at him with attention. This was the first time that I was fighting against a Ki cultivator. But… The punch seemed so slow… I evaded the blow and gave one of my own.

"Pah."

The fierce man was thrown a few meters and skidded on the ground. He was holding his belly and making a face as if his world fell apart. The aura around him began to change in color and gain a copper coloration.

"STOP."

A few guards approached and pointed their sword at us. The fierce man and his companions looked at me with hate and stopped in place.

"What the hell is happening here? It's forbidden to fight in this hall!" The guard looked fiercely at us and said. "The next time I see something like this happening, both of you will be banished from here!"

The fierce man gave me a hateful looked and went away with his companions. I dismissed the man and focused on the previous words of the guard. He made his point that, while it was forbidden to fight in this hall, you could fight inside the underworld. I absorbed this information and prepared my mind for another encounter with the man and his group.

The group in front of me finished the process and entered the gate.

"Next!" Said the clerk.

I stepped forward and said. "I want to enter the underworld."

"If not, you wouldn't be here." He gave me a disdainful look. He grabbed a few papers and said. "This is the contract of responsibility. You have to sign it for the case of your death, the power behind you knows that you were aware of the danger involved in entering the underworld."

I grabbed the paper and saw that the contract was in short, saying that if I died, they wouldn't be responsible for it. There was nothing strange about the contract, so I signed it and gave it back.

"Good. Now that you have signed it, there is some information that you need to know." He grabbed some papers and gave them to me. "There is some information here that could interest you, in case you want to break a record or earn some money. This paper here is where the prizes are stated for each abyssal." He said while pointing to one of the papers in my hand. "The other one shows the raking and is magically updated in case someone beats one of the records."

"This last one, there is the list of things you can exchange for the abyssal's that you hunt in there." He looked at my backpack and said. "It looks like you don't have a space bag…. After you kill some abyssal's, you can exchange for one. Now, NEXT." He said while waving his hand.

"Thanks for the information." After saying this, I stepped toward the gate, and the guards let me pass.

After entering going through it, I could already feel the abyssal energy everywhere. It was corrosive and evil energy. The books described that the abyss was uninhabitable for humans because of the properties of the abyssal energy, and that only some powerhouses could survive in there for long.

The group that entered before couldn't be seen. I looked at the various ways that I could choose from and entered a random one.

The cavern was pretty big, in my opinion. The shortest way I saw was at least 10 meters tall and 20 meters wide. The rocks on both the floor and walls were so strong that I couldn't even manipulate it with my soul force. After getting ahold of my surrounds, I entered deeper.

I admit that I am a little bit nervous… this was the first time that I am going to fight an abyssal. During my years of training with Althaea, I had only trained long or medium range combat. Althaea was not a big fan of close-quarters fighting.

I looked ahead and saw that there was a creature lurking in the darkness. It was 2,5 meters tall, had a dark and though hide, and spikes were coming out of some places in its body. The creature looked menacing, and this was the first level! Supposedly, the monsters in here would only be comparable to a first-tier fighter or mage.

Looking at it, I felt oppression that was much higher than a first-tier could handle alone.

So, that is why they always entered in teams.

The creature realized that someone was looking at it and turned its head in my direction. Its eyes were completely black. The abyssal grinned and ran in my direction as if I would die in the first hit.

I took a stand and grabbed my greatsword from my back. I made a stance and waited for it to come closer.

The sword was not in top condition after being used once to defend against Althaea in training, but at least I could use some soul force to strengthen it.

The tension in the air was thick. The adrenaline flowing in my veins made me concentrate even more. I used soul power to reinforce the sword and created an air blade around its edge.

When the abyssal was seven meters away from me, it lunged. I flexed my knees and jumped. Letting it pass under me and slashing at its back with all I had.

"Splaash."

The sound of the blood hitting the floor was a beautiful sound to my ears. I smiled after seeing the massive gash in the creature's back. The smile quickly disappeared from my face.

The abyssal was slowly getting up, and the wound on its back was quickly closing, while the purple blood stopped gushing from it.

It turned in my direction and was even more enraged. Instead of lunging at me, this time, it began to circle me.

I readied my sword again and calmed my state of mind. Seeing the abyssal getting back on its feet after having such a great wound was shocking. Getting my thoughts in line, I didn't wait for it to recover entirely and attacked it instead.

I put strength on my legs and stepped forward. The abyssal slashed at me with its long claws as if waiting for this moment. I ducked and slashed, severing the right arm. Instead of screaming or show pain, it merely attacked me with its other arm. I saw the attack coming, but my feet were not touching the ground, as I had put too much strength to cut its arm.

"Pah"

"Bang"

The only thing that I could do was form protection from soul force, but because the time was not enough to create a more powerful shield.

I was brutally hurled at the wall. My mind felt a little bit dizzy because of the impact, but my body was not hurt. It seemed that my defenses were enough, at least.

After throwing me at the wall, the abyssal didn't waste time and lunged at me again. I focused my soul force in my body. I felt a rage coming from inside of me, but instead of a burning anger that made me lose control of my mind, it was a cold rage that made me focus and become a cold-blooded killer.

I dropped my greatsword and focused the soul force in my hand. I looked at the creature and dashed to its encounter. The abyssal attacked me with its left arm, and I stepped to the side and thrust my hand toward its chest.

The abyssal looked down at me with fear in its eyes. I grinned and pulled the heart out, making the hole in the chest gush blood. The blood-covered me from head to toe and the abyssal fell back, dead.

The rage receded from my mind. I looked at my hand, that was holding a beating heart, and at my body, that was washed by purple blood. At the moment I killed the abyssal, It felt amazing. It was as if the power that I seek during my whole life appeared in front of me. I was in total control of my body and what I did. I only followed my instincts in the most efficient way to kill the creature.

I dropped the heart on the ground and used soul force to clean my body and belongs from the blood. I picked the piece of paper from the bag and looked at what was the most pricy part of the creature's body.

***

Althaea felt a chill running through her back. She was watching everything that was happening on the first floor of the underworld, and she saw the fight between Ullach and the abyssal.

At the moment that he ripped the heart out of the abyssal chest, she saw a cold fury in his eyes. She knew that he was in control of his own body by reading his soul, but even then, it was worrying.

"Let's not rush to conclusions. Let me observe him." She thought to herself.

***

Bryan looked at the magic paper in his hand and saw that the most valuable part of the abyssal was indeed its heart, the nucleus of its abyss energy.

He separated a compartment in his backpack and placed the heart there.

Looking at the exchange list, he saw that he would need at least 5 of these hearts to buy a space bag of a decent size.

"Let's keep going."

He picked the greatsword from the ground and continued down the cave.

After walking for a while, he encountered another abyssal. This one was a bit different from the first one that he met. Instead of being big and bulky, this one was lean and looked to be fast.

He placed his sword in a horizontal position in front of him and enhanced his body using soul power and his sword as well. It required more concentration to enhance both of them, but he could finish the battle faster.

The abyssal slowly approached me. Making eye contact and trying to find a weakness. Instead of waiting for an attack, I lunged forward and attacked it. The creature tried to evade my attack, but this time I was going 100% from the beginning. The beast was helpless in avoiding the attack, and I quickly beheaded it.

I breathed deeply and put my hand on my knees to rest a bit. I exerted too much force in trying to kill this creature quickly and overdid it. Although I earned a little bit of experience in fighting against Althaea, I needed to learn how to control my strength to conserve my power for longer.

The abyssal's were undoubtedly powerful, but I was stronger than the ones on the first floor. I could not kill them quickly because I couldn't control my strength correctly. Right now, my bodily strength was estimated to be in the third tier, and my soul power in the fourth tier. I was fighting against a first-tier abyssal and having trouble because I couldn't control my power correctly. Sparing with Althaea couldn't even compare to struggling with an abyssal. The gap between my strength and hers was too big, I couldn't exert 100% of power properly, and couldn't use less than it as well.

Fighting here would teach me how to be a proper fighter.

***

The days quickly passed. It has already been two days since I arrived in the first layer. I learned to fight against first-tier abyssal's properly, and could now quickly kill them. I had collected quite a few materials, and my bag was full. It was time to return to the surface to exchange for a few things.

I went back after struggling a bit to remember the way. Fortunately, I had a good memory and could recognize the caves.

After running for three hours, I returned to the underworld hall. There were numerous adventurers in there, seeking riches in these caves. But I knew that going down there was not so glamorous.

In these last two days, I saw many people being devoured and killed by abyssal's. Just like the races fought in the underworld to earn riches and experience, the abyssal's still came through the gate to kill and devour souls.

Just like humans and the other races, abyssal's could cultivate using the energy from the abyss. But the souls of the races that cultivated using pure energy from this dimension could accelerate their cultivation by hundreds of times if they had enough souls to eat that is.

Just like the races wanted to kill the abyssal's, they tried to kill us. That is why they kept coming to the underworld despite a lot of them dying in here. The ones that survived could quickly become much, much more powerful.

Power is the only thing that moves everything in this world, and others….