Although all this came naturally, and his military training had a lot to do with it, even Vlad was surprised by his abilities. At first, he thought leveling up gave him power, but now he understood it was more than that. His ability to react and his speed of thought were surprisingly high, much more than the other Level 1 Gifted he saw firing their weapon.
That was the only explanation Vlad could come up with. Sadly, there was no explanation for the Gift’s ability in the human interface, and Samsara Typhoon was not exactly self-explanatory.
Vlad did not have time to ponder it as a bear monster appeared and lunged toward him. He had just taken care of a rat demon and could not dodge, so he focused. The next second, his Force exploded, growing two times stronger.
Thanks to the increased Force, Vlad could strike back the bear monster’s claw, pushing the creature before burying his knife into its head.
That increase in Force output surprised the Gifted, yet it shocked the Angels, especially Asmael, whose eyes glowed with even more envy than when he heard about Orland’s Silver Skin.
Vlad couldn’t help but frown as he saw the way those angels were looking at him. Increasing the output of Force was nothing impressive in his eyes, yet it seemed that was not the case. However, he did not have time to distract himself as he kept fighting the abyssal monsters.
Greed began to appear in Asmael’s eyes as he glanced at Vlad, but the next second, his eyes widened as he turned to the crack from where all the abyssal demons were coming out.
Vlad also turned toward it as his instincts began to scream. The next second, he saw what could only be described as a demonic entity nearly three meters tall with the form of a humanoid mantis wielding two imposing metallic scythes. Its aura was exponentially stronger than any other demon’s, and it exuded a brutality and bloodlust that terrified all who looked at it.
"ALL OF YOU; AIM AT THAT THING AND FIRE!"
Asmael shouted with an expression of dread, no longer displaying the calm valor of before. Shocked, the Gifted did as they were told, turned their weapons toward the mantis demon, and fired.
A sharp light appeared in the mantis demon, and unlike all the abyssal demons they had faced before, they saw a glimpse of wisdom this time.
Under the shocked gaze of all present, the mantis demon unleashed a blast of dark Force, bursting with immense power, before focusing it on the front of its body and marching forward at full speed.
The dark Force acted as a force field, protecting the demonic mantis from the beam of Holy Energy. Although the Gifted’s barrage was potent, before they could reduce even half of the demonic mantis’ Force, the creature had already reached the frontlines.
The demonic mantis jumped over five meters and fell on top of one of the angels, cutting this one in half with one of the metallic scythes!
There was utter shock in the hearts of the people as they saw one of the angels, the supposed warrior of God, being cut down like a piece of paper.
Asmael was just as shocked as the rest, but he did not have time to lose as the demonic mantis’ eyes turned toward him, full of killing intent.
"Keep firing at the monster. Forget everything else!"
The man who called the Voice of God yelled with evident panic as he made his blue Force explode, defending against the massive scythes coming at him.
Although the people were shocked to see such a powerful monster and the panic in Asmael, they understood the existential threat of the demonic mantis. They began to fire with their weapons, diminishing the amount of dark Force around the monster more and more.
The demon mantis was agile and did its best to dodge most of the beams of energy, but they were coming from everywhere, so there was only so much it could do. Yet, its eyes did not move from Asmael, attacking with ferocity and pure killing intent.
Asmael fought with everything he had, displaying pretty impressive sword skills as he defended from the abyssal monster’s scythes. Of course, if the man could, he would have run away, but the beast had its eyes set on him, and fleeing was not an option.
Flying was also out of the question. While Asmael’s wings seemed impressive and could allow them to hover in the sky and glide as he fell, they were very slow when it came to actual flying and could not raise their bodies too high. That was actually the reason why they descended to the ground, not to stand next to the other people as they made it seem at the beginning.