Chapter 343: The Corruption Zones True Horror

Seth let out ragged, misty breaths, his frame hidden behind the tree; he pressed himself close to the bark to reduce the chances of the outline of his frame peeking out from the other side.

The raging defiled four-eyed monkeys rampaged as Seth, who was hiding, could be seen in quite a sorry state. It wasn’t that he wasn’t strong enough to face them; it was that these defiled seemed to have access to unlimited corrupt essence.

Meaning without the ability to one-shot them, killing them was practically impossible, as they seemed to heal with corrupt essence, their bodies almost immortal and unfatigued.

Like they had wells of endless vitality, facing them was practically a despairing situation—the humans were supposed to have the greatest stamina due to their new binding trait.

But before these corrupted defiled, it was practically nothing. To the side, a body identical to his slowly dissipated into darkness, the spear above his shoulder hummed, as his eyes narrowed, ready to spring into action.

The monkeys scaled the area, their forms blending into the scenery with only a faint, almost invisible, transparent outline present.

The monkeys crawled on all fours silently and slowly, their presence as faint as the wind and as fickle as mist; it was almost as though they had vanished from the plain.

Their smell, the faint crunch of the sand as they moved—it all vanished, everything going completely silent.

If Seth didn’t know better, he would be inclined to believe that the beasts might have vanished or teleported out of the area, but Seth was clear on the fact that this was a brand-new upgraded level of stealth.

These beasts seemed to have all their traits tailored towards stealth—no wonder they were so annoying to deal with.

These defiled beasts basically had no flaws, and getting rid of them would be quite difficult; what was worse was that Seth’s guts and intuition told him that there would be far worse enemies ahead.

This time they entered a pretty powerful corrupted zone, and this zone was definitely going to have a ridiculously powerful charm beast or even more than one.

Seth could still recall in great detail the urgency in the oracle’s voice when it warned him about these powerful corrupted lifeforms.

And his last encounter with a charm beast, even though it was an egg, left a long-lasting impression.

He wasn’t so sure how he would fare against one now—defiled were always meant to be this strong.

And the reason why he could defeat one at all even as a shackled-rank evolver was because the corruption zone was incomplete.

They were extremely lucky to come across a charm beast at that stage, and because of how powerful charm beasts were, even as newborns they would be at the awakened rank.

Meaning none could have been fully born before the planetary upgrade to tier 2.

And now they could be born and harness their true powers—corruption zones out in the seas were given enough time to grow and fully form.

Hence why this zone felt so terrifying. Seth let out an audible sigh as a glow swallowed his frame whole, the glare of grey flashing for barely a second before fading, revealing Seth’s fully armoured frame.

"Nice to wield you again, old friend." Seth whispered to the executioner’s legendary set. Even though this set, along with the sword, were all in the Royal grade, with Seth’s maxed-out strength he should be able to output enough power to one-shot these defiled, hopefully.

A towering monkey nearby sensed the brief flicker in essence the moment the armour was equipped, and the Absolute Weapon Resonance gene skill passively began to take effect.

Buffing the legendary set’s ability to a whole other level, Force Embodiment taking action and reforming his essence.

His veins squirmed as the flow turned inky black; a cold flow of death essence ran beneath the gothic obsidian cold plates.

Seth’s grip over the great sword tightened, his essence fueling the set’s abilities to a whole new level due to affinity resonance, "Death Sentence!"

A burst of colorless grey swallowed the entire plain as an ancient blood-soaked pillory clamped shut around all three defiled.

All four eyes of the three beasts widened, the essence flowing behind the skill overpowering their ability to resist the effects, as the guaranteed hit to the neck was enacted, and the 50% chance of instant death was enforced.

His frame swerved out of hiding, his blade streaking right behind him, as the pupils of the defiled rolled in defiance.

But their bodies remained locked in place; as long as their essence couldn’t overpower Seth’s, escaping the weapon’s effects was practically impossible.

A trail of white drawn behind him as his footwork, elusive and graceful, allowed him access to a blurring level of speed.

The first victim’s four pupils constricted to pinholes, realizing the blade was already kissing his neck before he could blink. ℯℯ𝘭.

The monkey’s brain could barely even process the transition in pace, merely registering it as teleportation.

The monkey couldn’t think any further, the lights on all four of its eyes began to go dim, as a head spun right out of its neck, a bloody trail arcing from the sword trailing right past it.

There wasn’t even any resistance: the sword cut through two necks as clean and easy as a hot blade through butter.

The terrifying effect of the instant-death percentage took charge, allowing his blade to dismiss the defense of the defiled.

In one fluid motion, his frame blurred out and reappeared by the neck of the second victim.

This time the pillory rattled visibly, as the monkey struggled to resist the effect of the sure strike.

But alas it simply couldn’t shake off the hold of Seth’s overwhelming flow of death essence.

Despite its near-infinite corrupted essence supply, it was overwhelmed by quality, and as the blade flowed past its neck, all four of the monkey’s eyes faded to dark.

The body remained standing while the head rolled into the distance, blood trailing.

The last victim did not suffer for long as with a flash of white and red in the sea of grey, the monkey’s vision went dark.

Seth deactivated the set ability, letting out heavy huffs of breath, as sweat trickled down his forehead.

Just that brief action of wrestling with the defiled’s infinite pool of corrupted essence did not come without a cost.

In order to keep up with the flow, he was forced to expend exorbitant units of essence.

Seth’s ears twitched as he registered more movement in the distance.

"You just don’t stop coming, do you..." Seth muttered as he got into a stance.