Planet Deroxa, Elrod Household.
"Zack, you have come back faster than we thought you would. What is the matter?" His mother asked with a worried expression on her face.
"I'm fine, mom! Anyway, dad. Can you hire some bodyguards for us? We want to enter a dungeon but Lloyd said we are too weak." Zack snarled while the rest of them nodded in relief.
"It's a good thing you have a friend like Lloyd. Truly a voice of reasoning." One of Zack's sisters commented while trying to look for Lloyd, yet after a few seconds of searching, she expanded out her senses, and despite them covering the entire household, she could not feel him nearby.
"Talking about Lloyd, where is he?"
"I don't know. He said he had something to do, but now I am convinced he has a girlfriend that he is hiding from the rest of us!" Zack complained.
"Something is wrong with him today. Sorry about that." Olivia, Lloyd's mother, apologized, but Benjamin only waved her off.
"You should be worried about what's going on with him. It feels like I am watching a man have an endless inner battle."
Listening to Benjamin, Noah looked towards the door and spoke under his breath-
"I didn't think it would affect him this much."
"What would?" Zack's sister asked with a raised brow.
Despite Lloyd's parents not wanting to say anything, Alice did not hold back and told them everything about what happened a few hours ago.
"Zack, do you know anything about this? He tells you everything." Benjamin asked.
"I realized he was acting a little weird today too. He didn't tell me anything though so I didn't think much of it." Zack replied.
"Do you know where Lloyd is right now?" Benjamin turned toward Noah and Olivia, but they shook their heads slowly and looked at the ground.
Benjamin quickly looked at Rubert with a side glance before asking- "Can you find him?"
"Of course, master." Ruber nodded before taking up his wristwatch and beginning to tap on several different buttons that appeared on the hologramic screen.
"Why do I have a bad feeling about this?" Anna said out loud, which caused everyone except Lloyd's little brother and Zack to nod wryly.
***
"Is this what they call the Void Walker's blessing?" Lloyd thought to himself while looking at his hands with squinted eyes.
He slowly clenched his hands into fists and could feel the power behind the muscles. He felt like one hand could crush a boulder into nothing but dust.
"I thought it was just a myth the government created to scare people! To think that it might actually be real..." Lloyd's hands shook with excitement.
Void Walkers were known for many things, but for those who did a little digging on the subject, one ability stood out more than the others.
The Void Walker's blessing was an ability given to all void walkers. It allowed them to become stronger by taking lives.
Everything from humans to beasts could make them stronger, and while there were many theories on how this ability worked, no one could find any concrete evidence that any of the theories suggested are even close to being correct.
However, none of this mattered to Lloyd. The moment he felt the energy course through his body, a semblance of hope shone within his eyes for the first time ever since the nightmare. If one were to look at him right now, they would only be able to describe him in two words.
True Joy.
Clenching his hand into a fist again, he looked up with a grin plastered on his face.
For the next quarter of an hour, Lloyd traversed the forest and tried to find any monsters, and after what felt like an eternity of searching, he finally found what he was looking for...
In fact, it seemed like he found a little more than he bargained for.
"A nest?" He muttered under his breath while standing on a tall tree branch. He wasn't an expert when it came to traversing forests, but after a few minutes of practice, he found himself capable of easily jumping from one branch to another.
"This might be a little irritating... No. This will 100% be very dangerous, but I must do it. For now though, I should try to isolate one of the wasps and kill them with one hit when they least expect it." Lloyd devised before jumping back into the shadows and blending with them.
[Shadow Enhancement]
The shadows around him began to warp and deform before eventually wrapping around Lloyd and making it look like he was made out of shadows. While he was left in awe, he couldn't stay like that for long since he knew time was of the essence.
Power rushed through his body and made him feel like he was invincible. It made him feel like he could take on the world itself all on his own... At the same time, he could not help but feel like the ability was slightly familiar.
His figure blurred through the forest and appeared on a branch in the shadow of a tree in the distance.
A low hum could be heard passing above him. His eyes landed on the monster, and without skipping a beat, shadows concentrated around his hands and created what looked like a claw.
[Shadow Claw]
With an explosive speed that he himself didn't think he possessed, his body blurred, and within an instant, he found himself hovering above the wasp with killing intent seeping out of him in the form of a purple glow.
*SLASH*
His hand swung down, and the wasp was instantly turned into 4 detached pieces while blue blood splattered all over the tree in front of him. The combined power of [Shadow Enhancement] and [Shadow Claw] was truly a force to be reckoned with.
However, the instant before the claws had reached the wasp, it had already let out an ear-piercing screech that echoed in the vast forest and alerted hundreds of monsters simultaneously. It died, but it still made sure that its death was useful.
"Oh no..." Lloyd's expression turned grim.
Landing on the ground, he spun on his heel and began to run in the opposite direction of the wasp nest, yet even he knew it was too late.
Several hummings flew above him before some began to surround him. He could easily find which paths were blocked and which were open for him to use, yet after a single inspection, he knew that the only way out was to fight.
Lloyd swiftly took out his blade and held it firmly in both hands' grasp.
[4-Dimensional Thought]
A small amount of his mana left his body, but the amount too miniscule for him to notice, especially when it came to a situation like this.
*bzzzZZZZ*
Hearing the buzzing come closer, he quickly turned around and swung out in an arch.
The sound of two metals clashing rang out on the battlefield, and as if it was some kind of wake-up call, every wasp in the area dashed at Lloyd with their stingers pointing at him and their eyes overflowing with killing intent.
Images of what happened in the 'Void Walk' flashed in Lloyd's mind, and despite not having fought such a large number of enemies in real life, he could still vividly remember how he fought against the hundreds of wolves that attacked him.
His eyes flashed with a violet light, and the expression on his face had become completely devoid of emotion. His power reached an all time high, and the pressure around him couldd have made an elephant drop.
[Monarch's Aura]
Simultaneously, Lloyd's bloodlust exploded out in every direction and caused many of the wasps to stop moving. Lloyd took advantage of this, and the moment his eyes landed on the monster closest to him, his blade ripped through the air as he swung it out in an arch and decapitated the monster with a single attack.
Lowering his head, he dodged the stinger that aimed to pierce through his neck. Without skipping a beat, his hand shot out as the shadows that once covered the whole body concentrated around the hand, creating large and sharp claws that caught and pierced 5 holes into the wasp's body.
Taking a step back, Lloyd slashed down with his katana, slicing a wasp in half.
Before he could understand what was happening, his body and instincts had already turned him into a killing machine. Blue blood splattered on the ground while the greenery had been replaced by the distinct color of the blue blood.
His dodging had slowly become more and more refined, while his attacks had become swifter and straight to the point. No enemy survived the first slash, and every time Lloyd took a life, the addicting sensation of power running through his veins caused him to smile like a battle maniac. However, more than anything, his mind remained cold and calculating. Morality was thrown out of the window, and the only thing he could think of was the most efficient way of killing the monsters before him.
Lloyd was growing stronger, and before he knew it, there was only one normal wasp for him to kill. He could already see the soldier wasps begin to close the distance between Lloyd and the wasp nest, but rather than feeling anxious, his excitement only rose to new heights.
'I feel slightly drained... This must be what they call mana fatigue. I'll avoid using my mana for now and hope that I can just fight the soldier ants without having to use any of my main abilities.' Lloyd concluded and slashed down the wasp that tried to escape.
He was tired of being the hunted; therefore, today, he would be the hunter.
Killing intent washed over all the soldier wasps, and before they could understand what was happening, a black blur with a pair of violet eyes appeared on one of the trees that branched in front of them.
Lloyd slowly opened his mouth, and a cold voice boomed out in every direction, shocking the wasps into halting their movements.
"Bring me your queen."
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