Strongest Among the Heavens
Chapter 407: Gate 25 START

Chapter 407: Gate 25 START

Lake Shinji, the seventh largest lake in Japan. Kazi followed along the Ohashi River to smoothly reach the shores of Lake Shinji. The wooden docks were peppered with fishermen and boats.

Spears were at the ready. Battle cries echoed.

"Call the samurai! The samurai!"

They knew.

Something was happening. No one was running. They had to fight. Kazi swooped past them all and stopped at the end of a dock. No one noticed or cared for this foreigner. Good.

Some distance in the sky ahead, birds had emerged—or perhaps more accurately, bird-like monsters whose wings spanned a human’s height. Kazi counted two hundred of them. Being the evening, it was difficult to see from such a range, from creatures of such speed. Luckily, Kazi’s eyes let him see everything.

[ Main Objective Found! ]

[ Gate 25 : The Monsters of Matsue

Main Objective: Work with the locals and your fellow players! Find and kill any monsters that dare to attack Matsue!

Prize Pool: 100,000 XP, 100,000 PP

SPECIAL OBJECTIVE: Kill over 1,000 monsters.

SPECIAL PRIZE POOL: Visit to Matsue Castle ]

With that sight, he received a message from the Heavenly Tower. He smiled to himself.

"There it is. Main Objective, here we come."

No Stormedge this time. It was currently being repaired. No, Kazi would have to do this with his hands and feet.

The closer they came, the louder the chatter and noise became. The available fishermen hurled their harpoons at the sky. The harpoons missed. Those that did land shattered upon contact. The fishermen were too human to handle these creatures. Too weak. Kazi was the first player here. The only player. These fishermen were not samurai. They would die unless he interfered.

The first set of birds dived and they were far, far south of him. Seventeen of them, he counted.

Kazi did not look back.

Instead, he pointed a finger over his shoulder. At the tip of his index finger, a magic circle manifested and he fired off seven Fire Darts and the monster birds, before they could strike with their talons, were hurled as a heap of smoke into the docks. Two more groups of birds were swooping down.

He could see the panic in the fishermen’s eyes—they stood no chance against these creatures. He still didn’t turn and his finger fired off Fire Darts. The magic circle remained on the tip of his finger. What was this Circle Spell he was using?

Continuous Fire Darts, a magic circle he memorized from Marta’s textbook. The magic circle automatically filtered fire magic and threw out Fire Darts. The birds did not divert attention. They were focusing on the weak, on killing. Death was all that mattered to the swooping monster birds.

So he jumped and intercepted. He landed his first kick, a full powered Mastered Flow of Mana, and then used that kick to bounce to the next monster bird. Then the next, then the next, like a bright blue ball. Ever since he activated the Gargantua Spark Strike, his aura shifted into a lighter shade of blue. The monster birds let out a screeching wail as their skulls were smashed and they spiraled down into the water with a splash.

Each jump was a step and a kill. Each step was too fast.

He outstretched two hands.

"Aqua Whip!"

Learning both Ultra Aqua Bolt and the normal Aqua Bolt from the System granted understanding—and with Kazi, something more. From his hands surged a massive whip of water that turned and cracked at the birds, catching over twenty of them in a curved blade-like fashion.

With Ultra Aqua Bolt, he understood density. With Aqua Bolt, it was the basics. With Shape Control, everything else came into place. And so, the second Aqua Whip slapped down another twenty birds.

Boom!

The sound barrier was broken from the crack of the whip. Water splashed as the birds crashed.

Aqua Whip, Fire Dart, Aqua Whip...

The fishermen gasped in awe, their eyes wide as they watched Kazi move and fight and create with inhuman speed and power. He was a blur of motion, his crushing kicks and long whips of blue too fast to be tracked. The army of birds that had once seemed invincible now fell like leaves in a storm.

More arrived. More tried to overwhelm him. Perhaps against a normal player, such numbers would. The kill count was quickly growing from two hundred to four hundred. Four hundred to six hundred.

Just how many of these things were there?

Twenty-seven birds screeched and dived toward him, talons extended and sacrificing everything for his head. Kazi didn’t have to look to be ready. He hunted down birds for fun on Earth. The wind and the schlicks as their talons were exposed, he knew it all. He jumped, his body soaring toward the sky with a grace that defied gravity. As he ascended, he created platforms of mana beneath his feet, each one holding him aloft for just a moment before he leaped again.

He zoooomed right past the twenty-seven monster birds as well as the six hundred some following them.

Now, he was above. Now, he was able to see everything. A god delivering judgement.

"Cast! Activation! Stablize! Balance! Realize! Cast! Overdrive!"

He judged the six hundred monsters. Sensing his mana at last, sensing the danger, they turned upward. He judged them to be killed. Now.

Kazi Hossain reigned above as their executioner, for within his hand was a sword of gargantuan might. It grew tall enough to overshadow the port. On the fly, he exchanged length for width. An ugly, electrifying short thing that the birds instinctively flew away from.

The dark clouds split apart.

"Gargantua Super Strike!"

He laid down the skyscraper blade.

He laid out the execution of four hundred birds. The bodies did not fall. All were simply exterminated.

[ Level up! ]

Kazi landed lightly on the dock, his breath steady, the false sword gleaming in his hand until it was done.

For a long moment, there was silence. The fishermen stood frozen, staring at the scene before them—the broken bodies of the monsters scattered across the shore and of the continuous rain of monsters.

It all happened so fast. The whips, the kicks, and the massive blade of terror.

Kazi Hossain had killed all of them.