I was still pondering over how I would beat that little shit into a pulp, when Carmen started clicking her tongue and tapping her feet impatiently while still glaring at me. I tried to ignore her the best I could hoping she would get tired but she didn’t budge for well over 10 minutes! Admiring her resolve and determination, I decided to break the silence.

“Yes, Carmen. What can I do for you?” I asked in my most normal, expressionless voice.

“Ooooh thank you for finally taking notice of me! I feel so honored that you decided to grace me by speaking to me!” She was clearly being sarcastic and was extremely annoyed, but I couldn’t be bothered for a reply so I just raised an eyebrow and continued to stare at her.

The impromptu staring contest lasted for just 30 seconds before Carmen stomped her foot and decided to break the silence. “Urgh! You are so annoying! I wanted to know what it was that burned your arm so badly, because last time I checked the green skinned monsters here can’t burn someone!”

Oh, so that’s it. I should have known. Obviously everyone would want to know this information. I sighed, and decided it would be best to tell everyone at once so that I won’t have to repeat myself constantly. I asked Carmen to gather everyone around and once everyone was present I started to tell them about the events that unfolded on the ground floor.

I changed the story a bit. I didn’t let them know that I controlled the ogres and the abomination through telekinesis, instead I made it sound like I had simply overpowered an ogre and used it to bait the abomination. Hiding presence also became invisibility when I told them the story, as I couldn’t reveal to them that I had absorbed abilities from them while they slept. They asked why I was referring to the monster as an abomination, and I simply told them that I had no other way in which to describe that thing. I described the 16-limbed creature to them, and after my description they all agreed that abomination was as good a name as any…

I then left them all to discuss this new development by themselves and left the ballroom. My left arm still felt a little sore, no matter how much I tried to heal it. So I decided to wait till I was back at 100% before facing the abomination again.

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It took a whole week for my arm to feel 100% again. I had thought long and hard about my fight against the abomination, and a part of me felt like I only got defeated because of my surprise and inability to take action, and if I had gone with a clear mind and my full strength I would have easily won. While another part of my brain was telling me that wasn’t the case and I should be extremely wary facing the abomination again. I came to the conclusion to listen to the cautious side of my brain, and so in this past week I had trained diligently. I mainly trained two aspects: concentrating on how to keep my hiding presence ability active during combat and dodging attacks.

I controlled a bunch of ogres through telekinesis and gathered about a hundred of them in a single hallway to train. First, I kept my hiding presence active and went about running at full speed trying to avoid hitting even a single ogre in the entire hallway. It was difficult, and it took me almost three days before I could keep my hiding presence active and avoid all the ogres at the same time. This was done mainly to train my concentration to keep hiding presence active while moving at full speeds, so that I won’t have to worry about unknowingly deactivating hiding presence again.

Next, I went to the center of the hallway, and deactivated hiding presence while yelling at the top of my lungs. All ogres immediately attacked, but I didn’t fight back. Instead, I tried to dodge all the attacks coming at me from all directions. I got hit multiple times in a single minute at first, but because of my steel-skin it didn’t hurt me at all. I also fought naked, because I didn’t want to ruin more clothes, the clothes in my backpack were quickly running out...

I gradually got better. It started off with me not getting hit for 10 seconds, then it increased to 20 seconds, a minute, 2 minutes… all the way to where I could constantly dodge attacks without getting hit even once for hours! It took me almost 5 days to get to this stage, and it was only thanks to my enhanced speed and perception that I was able to improve so quickly.

The perception ability I got during the second day of training, as my progress was extremely slow and I thought this ability might help. I got the ability by my usual method of sneaking around in the middle of the night…

Blood successfully absorbed. Ability gained: Perception. You will now be more aware of your surroundings and you will be able to perceive your surroundings much better by relying on your senses.

I could only think of myself as a complete idiot for not getting this ability earlier! I had thought of this ability as completely useless, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. With my perception increased, my progress of dodging increased by leaps and bounds and I quickly went from successfully dodging for only a couple minutes to almost an hour immediately after getting the ability! I decided to not ignore abilities in the future just because I think they are useless and to actually think about all possible uses of an ability before deciding on whether to absorb it or not.

After my week of training, I was heading towards the ground floor once again with a couple of ogres in tow. I reached the ground floor and immediately threw both the ogres on the floor without waiting, I had waited for more then a week to get my revenge and I wasn’t about to delay it any further!

I watched as the two ogres hit the tiled floor and immediately the floor split apart as two pairs of hands, one red and one blue, shot out of the ground. I immediately started pulling through telekinesis and saw as the monster emerged once again from the ground.

I shot forward with all my speed and used all my strength to punch its main body. I was expecting the fight to be done then and there, but surprisingly the creature’s skin was much tougher then I expected! If I hadn’t been using steel-skin, I imagine my hand would’ve broken from the impact! Instead, a few cracks appeared in the skin of the monster as it blew back and hit the wall, cracking it in the process. It was a marvel that the wall was still standing!

The monster was in a bit of a daze and I immediately started landing blows on it again. Each blow was done with my full strength and I managed to keep the monster in a daze so it wasn’t able to fight back. It released elemental attacks in all directions in a desperate attempt to hit the invisible foe, but my training paid off and I was able to dodge all attacks successfully.

The toughness of the monster’s skin surprised me, as it took me nearly ten blows at full strength to break through and get a little blood to flow from it! I kept hitting the same spot right above its mouth again and again while dodging its claws, tentacles and elemental attacks.

It took nearly 5 minutes for me to finally kill the abomination! I smiled as I looked at the mutilated corpse lying on the stairs. All my blows had made the creature move on to the stairs leading to the first floor, and it was there that I landed next to it and started drinking it’s blue coloured blood.

The blood was oddly tasteless, which I was very thankful for! I kept drinking and drinking till I couldn’t bear to drink anymore before finally stopping. The monster was huge and thus had a large reserve of blood for me to drink, and despite the large amount of blood I consumed the corpse still continued to bleed. I watched the blue blood trickle down the stairs slowly as I waited for mind-me to do his thing…

Blood successfully absorbed. Ability gained: Elemental control. A step further then elemental manipulation, this ability allows you to take complete control of all four basic elements and make them do what you wish on a much larger scale.

Excellent! This would definitely make my fighting capabilities improve by leaps and bounds! I had relied on my physical attributes mainly for fighting so far because my elemental manipulations were too weak in my eyes, but now I would have an extra weapon in my arsenal!

I wanted to immediately start experimenting with this ability, but before I could I saw the ground at the bottom of the stairs split apart! I immediately lifted off into the air and got on guard, but surprisingly nothing happened…

30 seconds passed by with the hole still present in the ground, but no monster or hand appeared... I observed it closely and realized that the hole was directly in the place where the blood from the monster I had killed was dripping! A bad premonition came over me and I thought of moving the corpse away to stop the blood from dripping any further, but before I could act on this thought the air was rent apart by the most ghastly sound I had ever heard!

The closest thing to the sound I had heard would be a banshee’s scream in a game I had played long ago. But this was on a much more higher level then that game! It felt like my eardrums would explode from the sheer intensity of the ungodly sound! I covered my ears as best I could, but it did little to help. Thankfully, the noise died down a few seconds later…

I breathed a sigh of relief as I took my hands off my ears, which were still ringing. As the ringing gradually decreased, a new sound started to reach my ears. A distant rumbling. It was low at first but it continued to increase with each passing second. It felt like it was coming from deep, deep underground…

Suddenly, the whole floor started shaking! Gently as first, but then the shaking continued to increase in intensity while at the same time the rumbling sound grew louder and louder and seemed to be coming closer to the surface. The shaking got to a point where all the lights started to fall off the ceiling and the tiles continued to fall off the walls! It seemed like a earthquake, but something felt off… It felt unnatural…

The shaking got to a point where I knew it was stupid to continue to stay where I was, so I sped up the stairs into the first floor, entered the first room and broke through the window to head outside. I soared up high into the air and looked around trying to see what was going on…

The sight I saw was completely surreal! The whole city was shaking! All the buildings I could see were shaking violently as glass shattered and ledges broke off and dropped into the ground below! But what happened next was something I never thought would be possible!

The ground below the hotel completely split apart and the whole building started to sink below! But that wasn’t all! All the roads as far as I could see split apart too and from below emerged hundreds, no, thousands of the abominations!

They came out in hoards and soon the roads were filled with the creatures, but still they kept on coming from underground! Our hotel wasn’t the only one sinking now, as a lot of other buildings started sinking as well with no ground below them to provide support!

The monsters then wailed loudly, and then moved as one towards a specific direction: our hotel! I watched with disbelief as thousands and thousands of the monsters started climbing the sides of the sinking hotel and smashed through the windows and entered the hotel!

Did all this happen because of me? Did these creatures have a sort of hive mentality and they came out because I killed one of their own? Were they out for revenge…?

A severe chill ran through my whole body as the realization of why they were all moving towards the hotel hit me! The hotel had sunken into the ground up to the second floor, and the building was completely surrounded by monsters from all sides! They were all going in to kill whoever it was that killed one of their own! But I was up in the air, and the only living things inside the hotel were the ogres and the guys in the ballroom!

This was all done because of my foolish act of revenge, and now I had doomed everyone inside that ballroom! But was it too late for them? I could perhaps rush in and save a couple of them.. maybe I could get the two kids out, or Carmen, or one of the guys I had gotten acquainted with…

But why should I go to save them? I would only be risking my life, and I had only entered the ballroom with the sole intention of getting more abilities from them.. there’s no reason for me to save them… is there…?

I was in two minds as I saw more and more monsters coming from underground and moving towards the hotel from all directions. Their number would be in the hundreds of thousands now! One thing was certain, the longer I stayed here without making a decision the more danger both me and the people in the ballroom would be in! I need to make a decision immediately!

Try and save the others or flee and save my own life….? I quickly weighed the pros and cons and made my decision to….

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Author's note:

A few people were commenting about how stupid the MC was to not get perception, and I didn't reply because this is what I had planned from the start. Everyone makes mistakes, and the MC is no different as he underestimated such a useful ability. I didn't want to create an MC that does everything right and doesn't make any mistakes...

Anyways, thanks for all the support and thank you very much for reading! Let me know what you thought about the chapter... :)