The sky above roared ominously and bolts of lightning descended with fierce crackle, illuminating the area in flashes of blinding light, burning to a crisp anything that did not have sufficient physical defense.
"The effect of this lightning scroll is not bad at all." Liam gazed at the fading scroll in his hand, its arcane symbols dimming as it disintegrated into ash, its magic expended.
The bolts of lightning had struck with lethal precision, scorching the earth and rendering the few elves incapacitated or stunned with heavy damage. Their once-proud formation was now a chaotic jumble of wounded elves struggling to regain their senses.
Liam used a fire slash to end the misery of the elves.
Roaring flames cloaked the blade and blazing arcs of fire swept over the wounded elves. Their bodies were consumed by the fiery wave, leaving behind only charred carcasses scattered across the scorched earth.
Not paying attention to the smell of burnt flesh that filled the air, he summoned a few soul blood beasts to collect the loot.
This was the seventh group he had slaughtered today. Surprisingly, their skill levels were all almost the same. Their possessions were also nothing shocking.
This told Liam two things. The different empires were only sending out weaker squads to the forbidden territory at the moment.
The second thing was that these elves all remained outside a certain boundary. They did not step into the territory beyond that perimeter.
This told Liam that the danger in this area could be potentially much higher than what he had encountered so far.
He was half hoping that he might come across some sort of unique technique or artifact from the elves that he might have to watch out for but until now, there were no surprises.
In all honesty, these elves were not weak. They should have survived easily inside the forest, maybe as long as they stuck to this border.
But it was their misfortune that there was an unexpected predator even on this side of the boundary.
Liam sifted through the loot and placed everything in the spatial artifact. He then zoned in on the minions again.
Another one of his minions had run into an elven squad but this time Liam decided not to pursue it.
By now the elves might have signaled the other members of their party about him in one way or the other. He was not naive enough to think that this could not have happened.
This was a B-Ranked world. They might even have some sort of method to keep track of everyone's whereabouts. So before backup arrived, Liam decided to stop his random looting and instead head further inward.
But just as he planned to teleport to the minion who was walking forward on his behalf, he caught the glimpse of another minion that had encountered an elven squad.
This time it had actually run into a squad of solarae elves.
Based on the information he had gleaned from the dossier provided by the fairy, Liam understood that these elves were particularly skilled in harnessing the power of the light element.
Liam paused. He was suddenly curious to take a look at the spatial rings of these elves. His gut feeling was telling him that they might contain some potential method to heal his body or his soul.
More importantly, when he focused on the minion, he saw these elves diving into some kind of pond. This further piqued his curiosity.
Without hesitation he immediately teleported to the spot, replacing the minion.
The next second, he approached the group using double [Blink] and sent out two consecutive arcane frost slash at the group of elves, summoning his full strength, intending to finish off the battle without giving any chance to the other side.
Considering that the other party might have some life-saving skills to protect themselves, he did expect this to be executed perfectly but to his surprise, the sword skill was better than perfect.
The chilling arcs of the arcane frost slashes danced through the air, cutting with surgical precision across the elves who were caught completely off-guard.
The frost slashes wove a symphony of icy destruction that ended as abruptly as it began, leaving the solarae elves frozen in shock and disbelief. Their radiant light had been dimmed, overwhelmed by the implacable ice.
It only took Liam a second to notice that this was because of the small pond in the vicinity from which an icy aura emanated.
Clearly, this was not just a simple pond; it had amplified the ice magic he had unleashed. The aura of ice elemental surrounding the pond was palpable.
When he looked around, there were also some ice elves' corpses next to the pond. It looked like the solarae elves had hunted down some ice elves before he got here.
Considering the enhancement it had given to his arcane frost slashes, Liam felt convinced that the pond had properties worth exploring.
He walked closer to examine it further but there was nothing else exceptional about its appearance. The pond looked almost mundane—except for that powerful icy aura.
"Do I have to go in blind?" Liam did not like it but this seemed to be an opportunity that he couldn't afford to miss.
Besides, he was not going to lose anything with a single try. If there was something powerful residing under it, then he either would have to face it or flee.
He paused for a moment before plunging right into the freezing cold water body. The icy aura that had enveloped the pond now wrapped around him like a second skin. It stung him like a thousand needles.
Liam's body tensed as he sank deeper into the freezing pond, each drop of water prickling against his flesh like shards of ice. The deeper Liam went in the more the freezing chill permeated his body.
However, he was hardly normal at the moment.
He was no longer a mere mortal. His body had been tested by countless trials. He had mana running in parts of his body and nether running in the other parts. He was able to withstand the cold easily.