A few hours passed after the attack. Despite everyone being alive now, there was a tension in the air that refused to go away.

Aren didn't bother mixing with the others. He sat down where he had been for a while now, finished eating, then turned to the system to learn all he needed about everything he had gotten so far.

First was the Dark Insect Armor.

[Dark Insect Armor: Unique soul armor that provides a 50% increase to Defense, Strength, Speed, and Constitution in base form. Infuse soul energy into the armor to activate the true form. 10x increase in all four stats for one minute. Cooldown: one day. Special feature: Self-repair.]

As he read through the information, his eyes lit up. Ten times increase? That was no joke at all. He could be ten times stronger for one minute. The sort of advantage that would give him was ridiculous.

The only issue was the cooldown time, but it made sense. After all, he was getting a ten times increase in strength.

Next, it was time to check the new skills he had gotten. Immediately, the screen changed to show them, and there were two of them.

[Shadow Harness, Shadow Switch]

He looked at both names with a bit of confusion. They didn't make any sense to him at first, but he proceeded to read their contents.

[Shadow Harness: Channel and use the special ability of your shadows. The strength of the ability used is subject to the user's current level. User can only harness one ability per day.]

[Shadow Switch: Instantly switch positions with one of your summons, no matter where it is. One use per day.]

As he read the final one, he couldn't help but smile. The skills he had gotten were simply great. Adding them to his arsenal made him a whole lot stronger, which was exactly what he wanted.

"System, show me my stats." He decided to assign his stat points before doing anything else.

[Name: Aren Raze]

[Class: Shadow Mage]

[Type: Shadow]

[Tier: SSS]

[Level: 10]

[Soul Fragments: 100/2000]

[Soul Energy: 6500]

[Strength: 22]

[Speed: 26]

[Defense: 16]

[Constitution: 20]

[Intelligence: 23]

[24 free stat points]

[Skills: Consume, Summon, Shadow Sense, Merge, Shadow Harness, Shadow Switch]

"I have twenty-four left. My defense is the lowest. Though my wolf guard and armor offer buffs to defense, it still shouldn't be out of balance.

System, add six to Defense and four to Strength. Four to Constitution, five to Intelligence, and two to Speed."

[Strength: 26]

[Speed: 28]

[Defense: 22]

[Constitution: 24]

[Intelligence: 27]

[3 free stat points]

"There's three left, but we'll use that later."

Now that he was done with the boring stuff, he got to his feet. He saw Elena talking to some members of the group as if they were making a plan.

"Tsk." He clicked his tongue and approached, and when he was close enough, he spoke. "I'm heading to their base to end this." His tone was flat and without emotion, but very serious. When they heard him, everyone froze and turned to look at him.

"You can't do that. You can't just go wandering off by yourself again," Elena said adamantly, pointing at Aren.

"You don't get it. I don't really care what you think. All I want is to be out of here, and your obsession with holding everyone under your thumb is delaying that for me.

I don't know if you're blind or what, but those people who lost their lives and came back aren't exactly excited to keep fighting.

If you paid even the slightest attention to people, you'd know that and stop forcing your ideas on them. Either way, I'm gone." Aren said, and started walking.

"You aren't going anywhere!" Elena roared.

She thrust both hands forward, and a massive gravity attack shot out like a cannon, slamming straight into Aren and hurling him back into the wall. The stone cracked in the shape of his body from the impact.

He coughed up blood, his head ringing from the blow.

Everyone froze.

Blood trickled down the corner of his mouth.

Then his lips slowly curled into a smile.

The sight shocked everyone present.

Aren opened his eyes and looked straight at her while she still pinned him to the wall with gravity.

"The worst mistake you could've made," he said calmly.

He immediately summoned his lightning wolf, which landed on the ground and instantly unleashed a powerful breath of lightning. Fear erupted as everyone scattered.

Elena reacted instantly, using her gravity to hurl herself into the air. The lightning slammed into where she had been, triggering a massive explosion, debris, dust, and shattered stone flying everywhere.

Distracted by the blast, her grip on Aren loosened.

He dropped from the wall and landed smoothly.

His wolf guard formed around his arm.

Aren's eyes turned cold as he stared at her descending.

"You could've done anything," he said. "Anything else. But you chose this."

Elena retaliated with another gravity slam, trying to crush him into the ground, but Aren was already gone.

He moved faster than her eyes could track.

She attacked again.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

The ground slammed down repeatedly, but Aren was already past each impact before it could land. Her eyes widened as she realized just how fast he was.

When he was halfway to her, Aren unleashed a close-range strike, forcing her to dodge. She rolled, sprang back to her feet, and fired another cannon-like gravity blast.

Aren bent sideways at an impossible angle, dodging it cleanly.

That was what high Constitution allowed. In the blink of an eye, he closed the distance.

Elena tried to attack again, but Aren slipped past it, parried her arms upward, and drove his knee straight into her gut. The impact folded her forward as she coughed blood.

He grabbed her, spun, and hurled her into a wall.

She slammed into it hard and collapsed to the ground.

"You might be strong," Aren said, walking toward her with slow, heavy steps, "but you're not skilled enough to stop me."

She struggled to rise.

"You think power alone is enough," he continued. "You forget that in the trials, it's not just the strong who win, it's the strong and the smart."

He grabbed her by the neck and lifted her off the ground.

She tried to attack again.

Aren punched her in the gut instantly, cutting off everything she was about to do, then released her and let her drop. Without another glance, he turned and walked away.

Silence dominated the area.

Under the stunned eyes of everyone present, Aren had defeated an S-tier Awakened in less than ten seconds, without flashy techniques, just movement and raw precision.

As Aren passed Leon, Leon smiled and followed after him.

"Seems like it'd be better if we left," Leon said.

Aren paused and glanced back. "You're coming with me?"

Leon shrugged. "I just watched you take out the strongest one. She's basically useless now, and besides, I prefer moving with you."

Aren didn't respond. He didn't like the way Leon said it or how he spoke about her, but he kept walking.

Aiden and Kira followed as well. The last time they had gone scouting, it had been a group of four. It only made sense that the same four left again.

The rest stayed behind, standing still, watching with confusion written all over their faces.

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