Rean was ready to face just about anything. He had his doubts about being able to take it, but he knew he couldn’t settle on those doubts.

The clones I sent ahead will just have to do a lot of the heavy lifting. I’ll follow up and join them soon. I first have to clear what’s right in front.

These monsters? I mean they stopped my advancement to a high level.

They must be operational at an entirely different level than those below. It’s probably insane to even compare.

"Chard" is the only high-level spell I can think of that can take on crowds without depleting my mana output.

Rean smiled. He remembered the monster he had to fight just to get the skill to evolve and Assimilate.

Description: rotational force erupts and can be shaped as mana constructs or just energy from within an opponent. All it needs for activation is touch.

If Rean touched a monster, an internal energy would erupt, killing most monsters with sub high-tier regeneration.

This energy can be shaped by Rean and used to make mana weapons, which he can use even after the monster’s death.

It requires almost no mana on Rean’s path, and the energy expended is completely internal.

"Just a little bit of activation energy and we should be all good," he said.

The moment Rean moved, the floor lost track of him.

One step—

Then acceleration.

The horde ahead barely had time to react before he was already inside it, body slipping between massive frames and lunging claws like flowing water. Monsters turned too slowly, roars overlapping as they tried to collapse inward around him.

Too late.

Rean’s hand brushed against the first creature.

That was all it took.

The monster froze.

For a split second, its body bulged unnaturally from the inside, mana distorting beneath its skin like something forcing its way outward—

Then it erupted.

Blades exploded from within its torso in a violent burst of steel and bone-like constructs, tearing through flesh as they forced their way out. The creature didn’t even get to scream properly before the eruption shredded it apart completely.

And Rean was already moving again.

He grabbed one of the newly formed weapons mid-motion—a jagged spear still slick with frozen blood—and drove it forward without slowing. The weapon punched clean through another monster’s skull, the force carrying Rean upward as he used the embedded spear like a foothold.

He jumped.

Twisted mid-air.

Landed on the shoulder of a hulking beast.

Touch.

The reaction was immediate.

This time it was axes.

Dozens of them burst outward from inside the creature’s chest and back, spinning free in a storm of sharpened metal and shattered flesh. The eruption killed it instantly, but Rean had already taken hold of one of the flying weapons.

He swung.

The axe carved through the neck of a lunging predator in a single brutal arc before he threw it into another approaching monster hard enough to split its upper body open.

More creatures surged toward him.

A wave.

Dense.

Violent.

Rean accelerated.

He moved through them instead of around them, fingertips grazing bodies as he passed. Every touch triggered another eruption.

Swords tore free from ribcages.

Hooks burst through skulls.

Spears punched outward from stomachs and shoulders, impaling nearby monsters as they formed.

The horde collapsed into chaos.

Creatures died before understanding why, their own bodies becoming weapons against everything around them. Blood and steel exploded in every direction as Rean flowed through the center like a storm no one could catch.

A massive beast swung downward—

Rean stepped onto a sword erupting from another monster’s spine.

The blade formed upward beneath his foot at the perfect angle, launching him higher as the attack passed underneath. Mid-air, he caught the hilt of another freshly formed weapon—a curved greatblade forcing itself through a dying creature’s chest—

And brought it down.

The strike split the attacker from shoulder to waist.

He landed lightly.

Didn’t stop.

The floor became a chain reaction behind him.

Monsters bursting apart from within.

Weapons scattering through the battlefield.

Bodies falling faster than the horde could replace them.

Rean never stayed in one place long enough to be surrounded. He used the eruptions themselves as movement—jumping from emerging blades, redirecting off embedded spears, catching newly formed weapons the instant they appeared before discarding them just as quickly.

Efficiency.

Momentum.

Massacre.

The horde tried to close around him one final time, creatures roaring as they surged from all sides—

Rean vanished into the center of them.

Then the entire formation exploded.

Weapons erupted everywhere at once, tearing through the packed mass in a violent bloom of steel and gore. Monsters were impaled by weapons born from other monsters, bodies collapsing into each other as the chain reaction ripped through the horde from the inside out.

And through all of it—

Rean kept running.

By the time the last body hit the ground—

He was already past them.

"They don’t seem so tough," Rean thought.

He immediately got caught off guard by a bug monster who slammed him straight downwards. He was now on floor 69.

He didn’t even see the monster’s silhouette.

"Now that’s just plain rude," he muttered.

He got up and immediately went for contact to activate Chard.

It was a giant unlike anything he had ever seen, clad in weird armor at sections.

Weapons did in fact spawn, but the sizes were nothing capable of slowing down the giant.

"I need to try something else."

The giant didn’t dodge.

It didn’t need to.

Rean blurred forward anyway, weaving past the monster’s sweeping arm before planting his hand against its side.

Activate.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then—

A sword burst outward from inside the giant’s torso.

But compared to the sheer scale of the creature—

It looked tiny.

The blade punched through flesh near its ribs, spraying blood as it emerged, but the wound wasn’t catastrophic. It wasn’t even deep enough to matter. The giant barely reacted, its massive body simply twitching once as the weapon hung from its side like a splinter.

Rean’s eyes narrowed.

Another activation.

This time, spears erupted through the creature’s thigh.

Then hooks through its shoulder.

Axes from its lower abdomen.

Each eruption tore flesh apart from within exactly as intended—

But the giant’s body regenerated faster than the damage accumulated.

Muscle twisted and closed around the wounds almost immediately, steam-like mana pouring from the openings as torn flesh stitched itself back together in seconds. Even when an entire chunk of its arm exploded outward under a cluster of forming blades, new flesh surged over the exposed structure before the severed limb even finished falling.

The arm regrew.

Complete.

Like nothing happened.

The giant finally looked down at him.

Not angry.

Not threatened.

Just aware.

Then it swung.

Rean disappeared backward as the massive fist crashed into the floor, the impact detonating the ground beneath him and sending fractured stone upward in violent waves.

He landed lightly, gaze fixed on the creature.

"...Too small."

That was the issue.

Against normal monsters, the weapons formed large enough relative to their bodies to guarantee fatal damage. Internal eruptions shredded organs, ruptured structures, destroyed them instantly.

But this thing—

Its scale made the weapons insignificant.

A sword inside a wolf was lethal.

A sword inside a giant was an inconvenience.

Rean moved again.

Touch.

This time, dozens of blades formed at once beneath the giant’s chest, erupting outward in a storm of metal and gore. The damage was heavier now—large chunks of flesh blasted free, one side of its torso opening violently under the chain reaction.

The giant stumbled half a step.

Then healed.

The exposed cavity sealed visibly, muscle reweaving itself over protruding weapons before forcing them out entirely. Blades clattered uselessly to the ground as the regeneration completed.

No progress.

The giant roared now, more irritated than injured, and swung again. Rean slipped beneath the attack, sprinting across the collapsing terrain while continuously activating the technique.

Weapons erupted across the giant’s body in endless succession.

Spears.

Swords.

Halberds.

Hooks.

Some burst through its eyes.

Others detonated inside its neck.

One sequence even tore an entire leg apart at the knee—

And still it healed.

The severed limb regenerated in thick strands of flesh and mana, reconnecting before the giant even lost balance completely.

Rean clicked his tongue softly.

"...Fine."

His movements changed.

He stopped rapid triggering.

Stopped scattering activations across the giant’s body.

Instead—

He focused.

A single point.

The giant charged toward him, massive steps shaking the floor as regeneration steam rolled off its body in thick waves.

Rean stepped forward.

Touched its chest.

And waited.

No immediate eruption.

The giant swung—

Rean moved around it.

Still waiting.

Mana continued building internally.

The technique remained active longer than before, deeper than before, compressing more and more weapon mass into a single location instead of releasing it instantly.

The giant noticed.

Its body began reacting unnaturally around the point of contact, flesh bulging outward as if something inside was growing too large too quickly.

Rean’s eyes sharpened.

"...Let’s see you heal this."

It made almost no sense. I mean the giant’s mana is what’s being used to make this weapon, so why isn’t the weapon, like, you know, giant? 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Why can’t the resulting weapon just one-shot this mega mass of a creature?

He noticed the monster was equipped with some sort of plating on its joints.

"Are those limiters?"

Oh.

Oh.

"So you’re one of those."

If the limiters limit the mana flow, then it makes sense why the weapon sizes are relatively pathetic.

"Even during analysis, I still have to be on guard, huh," Rean said as he made contact with a monster that immediately erupted into a giant hammer.

"Ok," Rean said, hammer in hand and all.

"Let’s test the effectiveness without those plates all over you, shall we?"