Doomsday Pillars

Splaat!!

 Thud!

 Sounds of blood hitting the cave's walls accompanied by the noise of bodies hitting the ground could be heard inside the antechamber as Alex made his way deeper into the chamber, slashing every creature he came across.

Every few steps he took was followed by the arrival of more hellhounds that would pounce at him, trying to kill this intruder. Just now, one or two hellhounds could be seen attacking him among the packs of critters, but as Alex kept going further and further inside the chamber, he was confronted by groups of hellhounds every hundred yards.

Naturally, Alex would try to dodge and look for another direction to go if he came across a pack of a dozen or more hellhounds. And if it comes to fighting more than that, Alex will immediately turn around and decide to get the hell away as fast as possible. Alex wanted to train and increase his power, not seeking death.. 

Unfortunately, after walking for several hours, it looked like Alex had run out of luck as he was besieged by dozens of hellhounds at once, despite his attempt to be cautious.

Alex grumbled when he saw the dire situation he was in, "Ahhh! The result will be the same whether I choose the right side or left side as there are too many. Screw this! I just need to quickly kill them all before more show up." he resolutely said.

Alex immediately uses his technique to quickly deal with the situation in hand.

[Hexagram technique - stage 4]

[Increases speed]

[Increases strength]

At his current location in the cave, there was almost no chance he would encounter any more critters, with the hellhounds starting to become the standard.

Alex wouldn't be able to choose his opponent anymore and was only able to dash forward while slashing the hellhounds that jumped on him, tremendously decreasing his chances of outmaneuvering and using any tricks.

But Alex still had a truly magical formation movement technique that really suited his situation right now, especially against monsters that are mindlessly attacking its enemy like these hellhounds. 

These hellhounds continued to chase their prey and didn't notice they were constantly circling in a mysterious formation, unable to touch a single cloth of their prey. The movement technique keeps Alex from being cornered and giving him the opportunity to continue killing unscathed.

However, this technique will be useless when facing enemies that are much faster than the user. Therefore, this technique will only have the most impact when used against a bunch of weaker enemies where it will keep its user from being surrounded by moving and taking a position inside the formation.

Unfortunately, the effort that must be made to master this technique is not small. Not only one needs a hardworking nature, they also need high intelligence and near-eidetic memory in order to memorize and effectively use the formation. It took years for Alex to memorize it, and only now will he reap the rewards.

As Alex continued to go deeper, he encountered more and more hellhounds, from units to dozens, forcing him to be even more creative against them in order to survive.

[Bright Shield]

Every time this skill is used, Alex is able to block and separate a group of hellhounds by charging and using his body as an obstacle while he finishes off the other group. And if he was pressured by them, he would immediately use the old trick [Blind] and use the opening to move to an advantageous position, far from being cornered.

He even uses [Light Missile] and shoots it at the ceiling of the cave, making the stalactites fall and killing the hellhounds as well as forming obstacles for those who want to attack.

There was almost no chance for Alex to relax as the monsters kept coming at him in waves. After several hours of fighting, Alex gets a notification which reminds him how long he's been fighting.

[Protective Vest]

[Energy Shield 0/100]

The energy shield was finally depleted after taking who knows how many hits, making him wonder how it had been activated until now.

Naturally, it would take Alex time and spirit stones to replenish it. However. The most critical thing right now is Alex needs to run away, far from his current location.

There were two life-saving skills that he could use at the moment. The first was to use [Haste], a skill inside the silver dagger that would increase his speed.

While the second was to use the skill of his next artifact.

[Cloak of Light - Tier 3 Artifact]

[Weight : 2 kilograms]

[Special Effect - Enhanced durability]

[Special Skill - Transparent]

Gives the user the ability to be invisible for 5 minutes, and can be used twice a day. 

After using this skill, Alex's body slowly became transparent until he disappeared from the hellhound's sight. He then retreated as fast as he could. Even though the hellhounds have a good sense of smell, they can't catch up to Alex with their nose alone.

He found this very special artifact with its skill from one of the artifact's locations shown by the pillars. Alex would not have carried out this crazy plan without this artifact that allows him to escape a dire situation. This was Alex's full preparation to seek maximum benefits in his journey on exploring this Abyss pit.

Although it had not been 12 hours yet, with his invisibility this time around, Alex was forced to rest and decided to hide in one of the holes in the cave's wall.

Again, Alex prepares his [Defensive Formation] even though every time he uses it requires spirit stones, but today Alex has killed nearly three hundred which give him 22 yellow spirit stones. The amount that made today's struggles and pains disappeared in an instant.

Alex then started his cultivation again by consuming a spirit stone every hour for maximum efficiency.

[Your sky realm level increased by 1]

Previously Alex only needed 10 yellow spirit stones to increase his realm level by one. But this time, he needed 20 yellow spirit stones, two times the previous amount to raise it to the next level.

[Sky Realm Level 6 - Initial Stage]

[Spirit Energy - Light - Initial Stage]

Alex was quite happy to see the number 6 in his status. This makes him more motivated to train even harder. When Alex was about to sleep, he noticed there were noises outside the cave.

"What could it be?" He thought.

Alex had been very careful about choosing his hiding place, where it was quite hidden. It would be very unlucky of him if by chance a creatures found his hideout.

However, he still needed to check the origin of the noise. He then slowly came out of the hole and walked towards the direction of the sound.

The noises were heard not far from where he was. Alex stepped very carefully and slowly approached the source. He then realized that the sound he heard was fighting sound

Alex found an area filled with dozens of scattered hellhound corpses.

He glanced over the area while his mind was raced, pondering every possibility he could think of.

It has never been known that the creatures inside the abyss kill each other before. And Alex was sure there couldn't be anyone else except him in this place.

Could there be any unknown creature roaming here?

Before getting closer to the source, to be careful, Alex first looked at the condition of the corpses of the dead hellhounds.

"This is a cut caused by a sharp object." Alex was stunned.

Judging from the cut, it wasn't caused by the sharp edge of a monster, but by a high tier blade. Alex is getting more and more confused. Without wasting any more time, he immediately rushed to the sound of the battle.

From far he could see hundreds of hellhounds already gathered, attacking what looked like a shinym, round object. A giant block of ice.

Hundreds of hellhounds bit and clawed at the block of ice until it cracked but then suddenly the block of ice broke into pieces and scattered in all directions, attacking and injuring dozens of hellhounds surrounding it.

As soon as the ice block shattered, Alex saw the back figure of a woman inside the block of ice. The woman staggered and almost fell. Without thinking, Alex immediately decided to jump and help the woman before being hit by a hellhound.

[Haste] 

Alex immediately ran fast, slashing all the hellhounds that were standing between him and the woman. The woman fell into Alex's arms.

When he saw her face, Alex was shocked.

"Aria!!"

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Author Note

Dear reader, Thank you for the support. This month again i will try to do the win win challenge. that's daily chapter for the whole month. Honestly I am not sure if i can complete the challenge, but i plan to use the challenge to can push myself to give more time for the novel. Hope for your help and continuous support for Doomsday Pillars. I am hoping if possible that you my reader would give me some comment or review. thank you very much. Avans