Time continued to pass.
In the blink of an eye, ten days had gone by.
On this day, in a corner of the forest, Shien, dressed in tattered clothes and wielding a dazzling Holy Sword, was facing down his enemies.
"Awooo!"
"Awooo!"
A group of monsters holding clubs, covered head to toe in fur, with single horns and vicious faces like demons, roared one after another as they charged at Shien.
Every one of them was powerfully built, like a gorilla.
Ferocious ripples emanated from their bodies, just like the Fierce Bird with a human face and snake body he had encountered before.
By now, Shien knew that those ripples were magic power.
The monsters before him possessed magic power as well. By using it, they could not only strengthen their physical force and resilience, but some monsters could even consume magic power to breathe fire and lightning as though casting magic, making them extremely dangerous.
Over the past few days, Shien had encountered monsters capable of petrifying anything they looked at, as well as terrifying creatures that could curse their enemies and corrode their flesh.
It could be said that without max-level skills such as Physical Resistance, Magic Resistance, and Abnormal Status Resistance, along with the Holy Sword's protection, Shien had no idea how many times he would have died against these monsters.
Now, however, Shien no longer felt intimidated by the monsters before him.
Watching the herd of Unicorn Monsters rush toward him, Shien advanced instead of retreating.
"Evolve!"
As he ran, Shien used the Limit Break skill without hesitation.
In that instant, the max-level Limit Break granted Shien an enormous boost, explosively increasing his abilities across the board.
"Whoosh!"
Shien's speed immediately increased by leaps and bounds. Like an afterimage, he shot straight into the horde of monsters.
"Slash!"
The Holy Sword flashed with brilliant sword light, instantly cutting the leading Unicorn Monster in half at the waist and scattering blood across the ground.
"Awooo!"
"Awooo!"
The Unicorn Monsters roared in fury and pounced one after another, swinging their clubs. The howling of wind rang out continuously as the shadows of their clubs, like deadly weapons, rained down crazily upon Shien.
Yet Shien moved as though he had eyes all over his body. Swift as the wind, he kept moving—sometimes charging forward, sometimes retreating sharply, sometimes darting left, sometimes shifting right, sometimes crouching low, sometimes leaping high—perfectly evading every attack that came at him.
With Enemy Perception constantly warning him and relaying every monster's position into his mind, along with the assistance of the Evasion skill, it was impossible for Shien to be hit.
Furthermore, the God of War skill gave Shien instinctive, godlike combat ability and intuition. Before long, his figure had vanished completely. Only a gust of wind could vaguely be seen sweeping back and forth, toying with the monsters and leaving them both shocked and enraged.
At the same time, the brilliant sword light drawn by the Holy Sword flashed without pause, sweeping back and forth.
"Slash!" "Slash!" "Slash!" "Slash!" "Slash!"
As the battle continued, the Unicorn Monsters fell one after another beneath the Holy Sword's slashes, becoming mangled limbs and broken corpses sprawled in pools of blood.
Compared to ten days ago, this level of combat power was like heaven and earth apart.
It was all thanks to the series of skills Shien had learned.
By now, Shien had learned a total of thirteen max-level skills.
Including Heaven's Grace and Supreme God's Blessing, Shien possessed fifteen skills in total. Compared to when he had first arrived in this world ten days ago, he was naturally completely different.
The God of War and Limit Break skills in particular were extraordinary. One made Shien, who had never fought before, seem as though he were possessed by the true God of War, allowing him to display astonishing combat ability as though aided by the gods. The other enhanced and improved Shien in every aspect. Combined with the Holy Sword's power, Shien had practically taken off on the spot, just short of ascending to godhood.
Not to mention that Shien had raised both skills to max level, making their effects vastly different from when they had been at level one.
Even so, Shien still had plenty of Skill Points left.
After ten days of constant fighting, Shien had raised himself to level ten and accumulated a total of one thousand Skill Points. Maxing out thirteen skills had only cost him one hundred and thirty points, leaving eight hundred and seventy Skill Points unused.
Therefore, based on how much he had improved, Shien could say with certainty that compared to his former self, he had undergone a complete transformation.
"Still, having to sleep rough and live off the land every day... I don't even know whether I should be happy about it."
Shien felt conflicted. At some point, he had stopped fighting, and as he shook the blood from the Holy Sword, he sighed emotionally.
All around him, the Unicorn Monsters lay in pools of blood. Corpses covered the ground, and not a single one had survived.
Shien, on the other hand, was completely uninjured, without so much as a drop of blood on him.
Naturally, this was because the psychological trauma from his first day in Another World had made a certain down-and-out Hero utterly afraid of getting near blood. He had therefore consciously avoided both the splattering blood and the pools of blood on the ground.
Whenever he recalled these past days of sleeping rough, being startled awake by monsters attacking in the middle of the night, and having to carve meat from monsters to eat whenever he went hungry, Shien felt the urge to cry.
"When will this life ever end, Goddess?"
Shien sighed, but his hands did not slow down in the slightest. He began cutting up the Unicorn Monsters around him, selecting the edible portions.
Ten days had been enough for Shien to develop some wilderness survival skills, and he no longer resisted eating monster meat at all.
After all, he had the Abnormal Status Resistance skill, along with the Holy Sword's immunity to negative statuses and purification effect, so there was no need to worry about getting sick from eating it.
Of course, whether it tasted good or whether he wanted to eat it was another matter entirely.
"This is forcing me to become Bear Grylls!"
As though venting his frustration, Shien chopped a Unicorn Monster into two halves.
Just then—
"Screee!"
Accompanied by a sharp cry, a black shadow swept across the sky.
The moment Enemy Perception reacted, Shien looked up and spotted a monster.
"That is..."
The instant he saw that monster, Shien froze for a moment before his eyes lit up.
Because Shien had thought of something.
He had thought of a way to leave this forest.
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