Chapter 48: High on Power

He grabbed the knight’s arm and swung it.

The creature smashed into four others.

Eden released it.

"Next."

Five attacked.

Eden’s blade moved.

Shing!

Five bodies collapsed.

Eight more.

His fist moved.

Three were sent flying.

His leg swept around.

Two more lost their legs.

He grabbed another by the throat.

He slammed it into the ground.

Then another.

Then another.

The dungeon became a slaughterhouse.

Walls collapsed.

Pillars broke.

The floor cracked apart beneath the constant impacts.

Entire sections of the fortress were being annihilated.

A corridor that had existed for who knew how many years simply ceased to exist.

Eden tore through the destruction like he belonged there.

And the more he fought, the more exhilarated he became.

He had spent his entire first life cursing his own weakness.

He remembered being stuck at a mete D-Rank as a thirty-five years old.

Stuck as a porter, good for nothing but looting corpses and watching the talented people fight.

He always knew that if something truly powerful appeared, he would be utterly useless.

He remembered the humiliation.

The helplessness.

The feeling of watching others fight while he desperately tried to survive.

Then he regressed.

Everything was supposed to change.

And it did.

But not immediately.

He had still struggled against Luvian.

Even after everything he’d done, he’d barely managed to win.

Then the mercenary came.

Eden’s fists clenched.

He had been powerless.

Completely powerless.

He’d needed Lucy.

Sonne.

Kael.

Everyone.

Then there was the centipede.

Eden’s expression briefly darkened.

That thing had thrown him through trees like he weighed nothing.

His attacks hadn’t worked.

His body hadn’t been enough.

Even Devour had barely been enough to slow it down.

He had survived because of circumstances.

Because Ryuhei appeared.

Because he got lucky.

And truly, Eden would have rather died than to survive thanks to sheer luck.

He hated being powerless more than anything else.

He hated it more than pain.

More than fear.

More than death.

But now...

He looked around.

Hundreds of Abyss Creatures.

Hundreds of monsters.

And they were all his equals.

Or at least they were supposed to be.

"Are you guys sure you’re C-Rank?"

A dozen Essence Knights charged him.

Eden opened his arms.

"Then come on."

They came.

Eden vanished.

A massive explosion of stone and purple Essence erupted through the corridor.

Dozens of knights were thrown through a wall.

Another four were split apart.

Eden emerged from the dust.

Blood ran down his cheek.

His shirt was torn.

His breathing was heavy.

But he was smiling.

A wild, unrestrained smile stretched across his face, the flush making it look almost euphoric.

He felt incredible.

For once, he didn’t have to struggle to survive.

No, this time he was the monster everyone else had to survive.

"Ah..."

Eden looked at his hands.

They were shaking, from equal parts of ecstasy and exhaustion.

"I really can’t get enough of this..."

Another knight approached.

Eden looked at it.

Then at the hundreds behind it.

His grin returned.

"Being strong."

"It’s just the fucking best."

He charged again.

This time, he didn’t even bother using Aura Blade immediately.

He punched the first knight.

It flew backward.

He kicked the second.

He caught the third’s sword between his palms.

He headbutted the fourth.

He grabbed the fifth and threw it into the sixth.

Then Aura Blade flashed.

Seven more were destroyed.

Eden spun.

His purple blade carved through the air.

A massive section of the dungeon wall was cut apart along with the knights behind it.

The entire wall collapsed.

The ceiling began to fall.

Eden looked up.

"Oh."

Hundreds of tons of stone came crashing down.

He laughed.

"I’m getting clumsy."

He raised his hand.

Essence surged through his body.

Eden punched upward.

The falling rubble exploded apart.

Stone fragments rained around him.

He walked through the dust.

Like nothing in the dungeon could possibly hurt him.

His laughter echoed through the ruined halls.

The remaining Essence Knights hesitated.

It almost looked as though the monsters themselves were afraid for the briefest moment.

Eden noticed.

His grin widened.

"Oh?"

He tilted his head.

"Don’t tell me you’re scared."

He pointed his blade toward them.

"You were all so confident a second ago."

The knights charged.

"That’s more like it!"

He rushed forward.

And the dungeon disappeared beneath the violence.

Every exchange destroyed something.

Every swing killed multiple opponents.

Every impact sent cracks racing through the ancient structure.

Eden’s Aura Blade carved through groups instead of individuals.

His fists shattered stone bodies.

His legs kicked knights through walls.

He used one enemy as a weapon against five others.

He leapt onto one knight’s shoulder, drove Aura Blade through its skull, then kicked off its collapsing body and landed among another dozen.

The floor cratered.

Eden rose from it.

His eyes were glowing with exhaustion and exhilaration.

He didn’t know how long he’d been fighting anymore.

Ten minutes?

Thirty?

An hour?

It didn’t matter.

There was only the battle.

The destruction.

The sensation of overwhelming creatures that were supposed to be his equals.

And somewhere beneath the exhaustion, beneath the pain, beneath the rational part of his mind that was begging him to stop.

Eden felt something he’d never been allowed to feel in his first life.

Freedom.

The freedom to be violent.

The freedom to stop holding himself back.

The freedom to be the monster on the other side of the fight.

The side of himself that had always existed somewhere deep inside him, buried beneath years of weakness, fear, and helplessness.

In his first life, he never had the strength to let that side out.

Now he did.

And Eden was discovering that he liked it.

A lot.

He stood atop a mountain of shattered Essence Knights, surrounded by ruins.

His Aura Blade flickered weakly in his hand.

His entire body was covered in blood and dust.

Hundreds of destroyed stone bodies littered the battlefield.

The dungeon around him had been almost completely annihilated.

Eden looked at the destruction.

Then he laughed softly.

"Heh..."

He looked ahead.

There were still Essence Knights standing.

A exhausted smile slowly returned onto his face.

"You guys asking for seconds?"

He raised his blade.

His body screamed.

His vision blurred.

His lungs burned.

He could barely feel his fingers.

Yet his smile only grew.

"Then I guess..."

He stepped forward.

"...we’re not done yet."

And Eden charged back into the horde.