The skill Demon's Snare leveled up. You received 1000 experience points.

  The skill Demon's Bane leveled up. You received 1000 experience points

  You have learned a new skill in the Demon Hunter css.

  You have learned a new skill in the Demon Hunter css.

  Ward of Light: Summon a protective barrier of light that blocks incoming demonic attacks for 10 seconds. The ward also damages demons that come into contact with it, scaling with your health and level. Cost: 100 Mana.

  Blinding Radiance: Emit a burst of divine light that stuns nearby demons for 5 seconds and reduces their accuracy for 10 seconds. Allies within the area are granted increased resistance to demonic attacks. Cost: 120 Mana.

  After using Demon’s Snare and Demon’s Bane a few dozen times, I received those notifications… Those skills would be useful, the only problem was the fact that soon enough, the number of Wraiths would vanish and the ice drakes weren’t exactly demonic or undead creatures, so those skills were essentially useless.

  “How many of these did we defeat?”

  “I don’t know a few more than one hundred?”

  Roswald held his chin while thinking he was worried about something for a change. I could more or less imagine why. We were forced to fight while retreating and we still didn’t find the boss wraith. Something was off about this whole situation.

  “Well, I guess we can’t keep running away forever.”

  That wasn’t one hundred percent true, but I said it anyway. I changed the enchantments on my arrows and also summoned several fire walls to block the path of the monsters and make things warmer. Soon enough, they used their ice breath to dispel the fire walls, but soon they were hit by my arrows. When they tried again, their ice breath was a lot weaker than before… since my arrows weakened their magic.

  “How about a barbecue of ice drakes, Gcien?”

  “Awoo! Awoo!”

  “I suspected as much.”

  I used Great Fireball and the projectile gained a lot of power thanks to the fire walls and the possessed ice drakes began to burn. When the fire walls dispersed, Roswald went to finish off the monsters with his usual insane speed.

  “Grab the materials that can be collected fast before the next wave of monsters come.”

  “What? You sve driver… working with you is very efficient, but too tiresome. There are essentially no breaks.”

  Roswald grabbed some scales of the ice drakes. I could make some decent defensive gear if I had time, but since that wasn’t the case… I could only be patient and slowly craft something like a scale armor. I already had the skills to do that. Even though it has been a while since I used them… but then I changed my mind.

  ‘Instead of making defensive equipment… I should make something that will increase his damage output. I know what I can make that will also be useful for me ter.’

  I had some bracers a while ago to test how I could turn them into amulets as well, but I didn’t have the chance to finish the job. The process wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do for now. After collecting the ice drake scales, I quickly set to work modifying the bracers. The scales weren’t naturally pliable, so I had to melt the surface slightly of the bracers to attach them securely. It took a bit of trial and error, but I managed to yer the scales neatly, creating a lightweight but sturdy covering.

  To give the bracers an offensive edge, I added curved bdes to their sides. They weren’t just decorative, they were sharpened and angled to allow for sshing movements during close combat. Now, Roswald could attack and defend simultaneously. Whether it was parrying a blow or striking an enemy mid-dodge, the bracers would augment his speed and precision.

  ‘I should add some enchantments that decrease the movement speed and defenses of the target… All right. This will do.’

  The final result was a bit bad, but since it was a prototype, it couldn’t be helped. I probably could make something better with this as a basis. It also would help me a fair bit with my dual wielding fighting style.

  “Equip this for now. If you use your head right, you can use Shadow Step faster than before. The enchantments will also help with that… I need to make some skills reach level fifty to be able to make them turn into enchantments as well.”

  “This is a type of gear that I had never seen before…”

  Roswald was confused thanks to that and because, in the middle of my expnation, I began to think out loud about the next steps of upgrading the item. In any case, he swung the weapon a few times, and he got the hang of it.

  “I don’t like to use items with cursed enchantments, but I guess it can’t be helped given this situation.”

  The next wave of ice drakes was still possessed by the remains of the Frost Wraiths, so they came using their ice breath from the beginning once again. Still, after I made some Fire Walls appear behind them, their focus waned for a moment.

  When their focus split up, I bombarded them with explosive arrows. This time around, Roswald didn’t wait for the heat of the attacks to weaken, he just dashed around with Shadow Step… I could see his shadow almost materializing in front of some enemies, but before that could happen, he would soon move, but despite that, the monsters had their throats sliced.

  After seeing that someone was so close to them and moving at insane speeds, the ice drakes tried to block his path with ice walls, but Roswald just moved up and down from the ceiling to the floor and kept slicing up the throat of the monsters. Besides, I was able to melt the ice walls with my fire walls in a matter of moments.

  ‘I guess this will do, but this isn’t that satisfying…’

  As I watched Roswald carve through the ice drakes with ruthless efficiency, a familiar feeling stirred in the back of my mind. The itch to unleash my own power in a way that was as thrilling as it was reckless. I wanted to use that crazy combination of buffs again, the one that pushed my body to its limits, the one that made my arm bleed uncontrolbly.

  Despite the pain and the very real risk, I couldn’t deny how satisfying it was to defeat enemies like that. There was a primal excitement in pushing beyond what should have been possible, in feeling the sheer force of my attacks obliterating everything in my path.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if this craving was another effect of my vampiric blood awakening. It wasn’t just the thrill of battle, it was something deeper, more insidious. Vampires were creatures of pride, after all. Their existence revolved around superiority, dominance, and the satisfaction of overcoming anything that dared to challenge them.

  Perhaps this newfound desire to fight on the edge of destruction was an extension of that pride, manifesting in me. It wasn’t enough to simply defeat my enemies; I wanted to crush them in a way that left no doubt of my superiority. The more desperate the fight, the more satisfying the victory.

  Still, I knew better than to let it control me entirely. There was a fine line between harnessing that pride and letting it consume me. For now, I would keep it in check, waiting for the right moment to unleash it again—when the satisfaction of victory outweighed the cost of pain.

  “Phew, it is over.”

  “Bring the scales after giving me the bracers for repairs.”

  “What are you pnning to use them for?”

  “Just bring them. You can do that much as payment for this much help, right?”

  “You think that I am that ungrateful?”

  “I don’t think. I am certain of it.”

  “How rude. I was pnning to share with you some tips and tricks as well about fighting. Like how to control Shadow Step.”

  I focused on the repairs while Roswald expined that to me. Even after watching him doing that a bunch of times, I had no idea how he pulled off. According to him, he said that one just had to control the right amount of mana instinctively. I tried to control mana before without using the system, but it never worked. In this world, trying to use mana without the system was trying to fight gravity with bare hands.

  “Anyone is able to weaken their skills if they want to. It just requires some focus and training.”

  “This is very counterintuitive since few people would have any logical reason to control their skills to make them weaker. Aside from trying to make themselves look weaker to surprise the enemies, I can’t think of another. Maybe to save energy and just use the right amount of power to get rid of something or someone?”

  “Those are the main reasons. After some point, a person just becomes too strong and to get stronger, they need to use their energy reserves widely to avoid waste.”

  In this world where a person could still get stronger with training and fighting, that didn’t seem very probable, but after years of doing that, I could imagine that doing this kind of training could make them stronger faster by means of simple efficiency.

  “This doesn’t look like something someone of your age would need. You aren’t that strong.”

  “You really don’t hold back, huh? Well, I can’t be inside a dungeon all the time to get stronger, so I did this kind of training after a certain someone gave me the idea, too. The downside is the fact that one needs to get used to doing this with all of their skills and it might take some time to find the right feeling for them.”

  “A certain someone?”

  “A traveling elf. Later, I discovered who he really was. The former leader of the Silver bows.”

  WritingMachineGun