The plates are gone. Its mana should circulate better now.

Strikes came in. Rean dodged them all.

"Not yet."

Down swing.

Rean dodged.

Another came from the left. Rean didn’t hesitate to use the Chard.

Immediately the beast came down.

Not the giant though.

This was just some ruffian who came between the core battle at hand.

"This is getting boring," Rean said.

Dodging, and dodging and just dodging.

"Yeah, this isn’t ideal."

"Not yet."

"No."

"Not yet."

These were the comments he made as he had multiple opportunities to strike the giant.

He had a reason.

He seemed to have been waiting on something before activating the Chard. What exactly? We are about to find out.

A glare came straight out of his eye, full-on visual spectacle.

"Now."

He initiated contact and activated the Chard.

Rean pressed his palm against the giant’s chest again.

This time—

"Chard."

The technique activated differently.

Not rapid.

Not scattered.

Focused entirely into the monster’s core.

The giant swung downward instantly, sensing the danger now, but Rean had already moved, sliding beneath the blow as mana compressed deeper and deeper inside the creature’s massive frame.

The flesh around its chest began to distort.

Expand.

Then—

It erupted.

A giant sword burst outward from the center of the creature’s torso, tearing through layers of flesh and bone in a violent explosion of blood and shattered muscle. The blade forced its way out through the giant’s back, massive enough to split its upper body open as it emerged.

The giant stopped.

Its roar broke midway.

For a second—

Rean thought that was it.

The sword remained lodged through the creature’s core, embedded like a monument of steel driven through its body. Blood poured around the wound, thick and heavy, steaming against the floor.

Then—

The regeneration started.

Flesh twisted around the blade, rapidly sealing itself despite the enormous damage. Torn muscle rewove itself around the weapon instead of removing it, layers forming over the ruptured cavity as the giant’s body desperately tried to stabilize.

Rean’s eyes narrowed.

"...Still not enough?"

The giant’s mana suddenly spiked.

Violently.

The pressure exploded outward without warning, dense enough to make the air feel heavy. The giant’s hollowed chest glowed faintly around the embedded sword as raw mana surged through its body in unstable waves.

Rean froze for half a second.

That much mana after taking a hit like that—

"...No."

For the first time in the fight—

He felt fear.

The giant roared again, louder now, more distorted than before as its body forced itself forward. It charged.

The embedded sword remained sticking from its chest as it barreled toward Rean like a collapsing mountain, every step shaking the floor hard enough to fracture the ground beneath it.

Fast.

Too fast for something that size.

Rean shifted his footing—

Then the giant jerked suddenly.

Spears erupted from its heels.

Long, brutal spikes tore outward from the backs of its feet and ankles, piercing through tendon and muscle before drilling into the floor beneath it. The sudden eruption disrupted its momentum immediately, forcing the giant into an uneven stumble.

It roared in fury.

Rean stepped back further, eyes locked on the creature as it fought through the damage.

And then—

It healed again.

The ruptured flesh around the heels sealed rapidly, regeneration tearing the spears free from the giant’s own body as it recovered. The only thing it couldn’t fully remove—

Was the giant sword.

That remained lodged in its chest, embedded deep through its core like a permanent wound.

The giant breathed heavily now, mana surging violently around the blade.

Then it charged again.

Straight at Rean.

No hesitation.

No slowing.

Its massive hand reached forward, enough force behind the movement to crush him and half the floor with him—

And just before contact—

A shield erupted from inside its core.

The giant’s body bulged outward unnaturally.

Then exploded.

A massive shield tore through its chest from within, bursting outward beneath the embedded sword. The force staggered the giant mid-charge, but it didn’t stop there.

More weapons followed.

Axes exploded from its ribs.

Spears erupted through its spine.

Hooks tore free from its shoulders.

Halberds burst through its abdomen.

Dozens.

Then hundreds.

The giant’s body convulsed violently as weapon after weapon forced itself outward in every direction, flesh and bone rupturing faster than regeneration could rebuild it. Entire sections of its body detonated under the pressure, limbs tearing apart as more steel emerged from within.

The regeneration tried. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Desperately.

Muscle rewove itself only to split again instantly under another eruption. Flesh formed over blades only for more weapons to punch through from deeper inside.

The giant slowed.

Then staggered.

Then screamed.

A horrible, broken sound as the sheer amount of internal force overwhelmed its healing entirely.

The body couldn’t keep up anymore.

Couldn’t stabilize.

Couldn’t survive.

One final eruption tore through its upper torso completely, a storm of weapons bursting outward at once and ripping the giant apart from the inside.

The charge stopped.

The massive body stood there for half a second longer—

Then collapsed.

Dead.

The embedded sword remained visible even as the corpse hit the ground.

Rean paused to catch his breath.

He looked around. He was still surrounded by a bunch of rather tough-looking monsters, but compared to the giant, they didn’t seem to be all that.

He coiled back, prepped to charge, and then initiated what could only be described as a slaughter fest.

In less than 10 minutes, he had the other monsters put down.

He fell on his butt.

"I might need to catch my breath, man that was insane," he exclaimed.

"That was a close one, the whole thing with the giant."

In its absence, the other monsters were definitely not as tough.

"Why didn’t it work at first though?" Rean thought.

"I can’t think of anything now."

"I pretty much waited for the monster’s mana to circulate properly before I even initiated the Chard."

"I’ve got to keep going. I’ll fall back on all this thinking when I get off this tower and revisit my battles."

Rean was right. The Chard should have been a one and done. I mean the mana was already properly circulating, except the weapons were in fact being formed. They were just not strong enough to breach the monster’s exterior. Its insides were laced with all forms of mana constructs the instant Rean’s technique took effect.

It just took the giant charging up even more mana to power some weapons up and breach its own stronghold.

It’s twisted, but hunters will hunt.

Rean got around the corner. It was the stairway, and he was about to ascend it.

No noise, no clattering of swords or steel.

"It seems my clones are already ahead of this floor," he smiled.

He picked up his pace and in no time he was on the 71st floor.

"Is that...."

"What’s going on...."

Rean was on the seventy-first floor alright, but so were his clones.

The only difference between Rean and them was that he was actually still alive.

A bunch of monsters were all dead on the floor, brutalized not unlike his clones.

"I don’t get it."

"If they could take down this many, then what could have done them in?"

Rean walked onward. He knew he had to be sharp. There was definitely still something on this floor.

"Are these bodies stacked?"

His gaze immediately followed the path up and it seemed like a figure was up above.

Thud!

A loud one.

It was now on the ground.

"You’re the one who did this," Rean said.

"’Come’," summoning his mana skin and extension for the first time in the tower.

"It doesn’t seem to be all that affected from its march against my clones. I don’t get what’s up with that."

No scratches, bruises, or even anything minor.

"It’s probably a healing type—"

Right into the wall.

"How did...."

He was on the opposite side of another wall. Right across the room.

Rean was being slammed around faster than he could think.

He got up.

"There’s no way my clones could have stood a chance."

"Wait. This thing’s not fighting me with raw strength. It’s some kind of brutality technique."

"Don’t tell me, this thing killed all the other monsters as well?"

"I can’t get a clean look at it ".

Rean almost missed it.

It stood atop a broken slab of stone a short distance away, thin frame slightly hunched, unmoving while the remains of the giant still settled around it.

Blue.

Not vibrant.

A deep, cold shade, beneath shadow.

Its skin looked stretched too tightly across its body, thin enough in places that the movement of muscle underneath became visible whenever it shifted.

The goblin barely reached Rean’s chest in height, its limbs wiry rather than muscular, shoulders narrow, body almost underdeveloped compared to the monsters on this floor.

But nothing about it felt weak.

Its arms hung strangely low, fingers long enough to nearly reach its knees. The claws weren’t large, but unnaturally clean—thin, sharp, polished like carved obsidian. They flexed slowly against the stone beneath it, leaving shallow grooves without effort.

Rean’s eyes lifted to its face.

And paused.

The goblin’s features were wrong in subtle way.

It’s features, the eyes-

They weren’t animalistic.

They were focused.

Watching him with an intelligence that immediately put Rean on edge. Not the raw aggression most monsters carried—not instinct, not hunger.

Calculation.

The goblin tilted its head slightly, studying him.

Its ears twitched once.

Then Rean noticed the floor around it.

Not intact.

Broken.

monsters scattered across the area in twisted conditions that didn’t match simple killing blows. Limbs bent backward. Armor crumpled inward like it had been struck repeatedly with overwhelming force. One corpse had deep dents driven into its chestplate, not sliced or pierced—but crushed inward in uneven patterns.

Brutalized.

Rean’s gaze narrowed.

The goblin hadn’t overpowered them physically.

It had technique.

A dangerous one.

The way it stood confirmed it too—light on its feet, posture relaxed but balanced perfectly. No wasted tension. No reckless aggression. Its body looked built for sudden movement, explosive acceleration.

Then it smiled wider.

And the pressure changed.

Not heavier.

Sharper.

The air around the goblin began to twitch subtly, tiny distortions forming around its limbs like compressed impacts waiting to happen. The stone beneath its feet cracked in tiny bursts despite it not moving at all.

Rean felt it immediately.

If that thing got close—

It wouldn’t just attack.

It would dismantle him.

Violently.

The goblin took one small step forward.

And somehow—

Rean was able to dodge.

That felt more dangerous than the giant charging at him ever did.

"I guess the brutality technique,is meant to compensate for something, huh?"

"Pull up my stats bar"

The notification followed.