✧A/N: 100 chapters! To celebrate this, you can comment here to suggest a Rank 1 spell or technique that will suit the current Dante (Don't be shy to comment, I won't make fun of your spells).✧

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Looking at the disappearing figure of Fafnir, a woman looked at the commander and asked: "Who the hell tamed that thing? I can't believe that a Rank 1 shadow is able to communicate!"

The commander didn't respond immediately, the memory of the day the saintess candidates arrived resurfaced in his mind.

"I heard that it was a 'gift' to a saintess candidate. Someone from the Northern Region gave it to her." The commander sighed: "A Rank 1 shadow that can communicate and use a weapon. And judging by his feats until now, he is likely Elite-class. He came to me one day and suggested going secretly into small 'missions' for the camp, and I honestly couldn't reject this opportunity honestly."

"If such a being is just a 'gift', then how powerful is the tamer? What other horrifying shadows does he have?"

A male soldier smiled: "Who knows? Maybe that shadow is his most powerful one. Aren't you overestimating the tamer?"

"Haha!" The commander snickered: "This doesn't make him less terrifying. Do you know what the tamer's rank is according to that candidate?"

A female soldier frowned: "Isn't Rank 2 quite obvious?"

The commander shook his head: "No, he's supposed to be a Rank 1 and an orphan on top of that!"

Every soldier in the room looked at the commander in shock. If he was truly Rank 1 who didn't receive any help and he gave such a strong shadow without flinching, then he was either significantly stronger with high talent or had a special ability to tame stronger shadows.

Both possibilities were indeed terrifying. One suggested that the tamer was a fighter who could win against most of his peers without help, and the other suggested that only his first ability was enough to shock the world.

They were shocked, but no one said that what the commander said was unbelievable. In this world, anything was possible.

Unknown to them, Dante wasn't even a tamer to begin with, he didn't have anything to do that.

And unknown to Dante, he was gaining a reputation while reading peacefully in the treehouse.

¢¢¢

Fafnir left the camp.

The camp was located above a hill that allowed observing a large area and worked as a perfect defensive high ground, which turned it into a strategic point.

There were many soldiers on towers observing the area searching for threats and enemies, specifically the giants. They saw Fafnir walking down the hill, but they didn't react. The commander had informed them about Fafnir a few days ago and they got used to him.

After less than an hour of crawling, Fafnir finally reached a nearby spring. The ground around it was dyed green with the vitality it drew from the blue spring.

The sight in front of Fafnir looked lively and majestic, but he didn't focus on that for even a moment as he just searched for his targets.

Shadow Spell — Shadow Detection!

'Found them.'

As Fafnir activated his only detection spell, he immediately sensed their location. He clenched his sword firmly and snuck behind a nearby tree.

Tilting his head slightly to the side, he finally saw them.

A small group of eight brown tigers.

Five of them were at least twice the size of Fafnir, the largest seemed to be male and the smaller ones were females. As for the other three, they were tiny and fragile, the size of a normal dog.

The adults lay peacefully under the moonlight, their breathing hinting that they were sleeping. As for the kids, they were playing and fighting around them, showing a sight of adorable innocence that could make people want to hug them.

But that wasn't the case for Fafnir.

He only saw a bunch of Cores of Existence that would soon belong to his lord.

Shadow Spell — Fire Javelin!

A flaming shadow spear materialized in Fafnir's demonic arm.

He held it tightly, his shadowy muscles tensing, and took a few steps to the side, the tigers were clear in his sight.

When someone cast a projectile spell, it'd be shot toward the target with a high speed. The demonic baron, Ash, was able to launch a rain of exploding spears.

But Dante discovered something.

The force of his manual throw was higher!

Throwing a spell at the moment of cast with higher speed would consume more mana. And as Dante's shadow, Fafnir had only 50% of the capacity of Dante's mana pool.

Fafnir couldn't waste his mana recklessly. Thus, holding the javelin, he stood in a throwing posture before launching the javelin with incredible force.

Swish!

The javelin hissed against the wind, the sound was loud enough to alert the tigers' sensitive ears.

The male tiger was the first to wake up, it opened its eyes looking for the source of the hissing sound. But just then—

Stab!

Before it could process what was happening, a javelin struck it on the eye, digging a little into its head before stopping at the skull.

The little tigers looked at their father with terror, then proceeded to run behind their mothers.

ROAR!

Its roar echoed through the air, waking up the female tigers. Looking in the direction the javelin came from with intense fury.

At this moment, it saw him, a human-like shadow wielding a sword.

That was the attacker!

A brown energy covered the tiger's body, looking like a thin layer of stone working as armor. It took a step forward…

"...!"

Thud!

Only to fall to the ground.

It tried to stand up, but it always slipped and flipped. At this moment, it finally noticed the heat of the javelin.

'His brain is getting fried.' Fafnir thought coldly before conjuring another javelin and throwing it toward a female tiger.

Swish!

Unfortunately, this time it didn't hit anything. The tigers were fully awake now, and the one who was targeted dodged the javelin at the last second.

The same brown energy covered the female tigers, three of them didn't hesitate to charge toward Fafnir, while the fourth stayed with the little tigers and the male one.

As the three tigers ran toward him, he conjured another flaming javelin and looked coldly at the fourth tiger.

With no hesitation, he threw the javelin directly toward it.

The tigers looked at the javelin passing by them with shock and hesitation, but they eventually decided to continue running.

The fourth tiger couldn't dodge the attack and leave the children behind, so it faced the javelin head-on.

A layer of stone covered its right paw as it raised its paw and swung toward the upcoming javelin.

Stab!

The javelin passed through its paw and the stone layer before stabbing its shoulder, but it survived the attack.

Simultaneously, the three tigers arrived before Fafnir and attacked.

Shadow Spell — Shadow Chains!

Three shadow chains launched toward the tigers, the first and the second evaded the chains, but the third was caught by them.

The chains wrapped around it like snakes, stopping it from going any further and leaving the other two to fight Fafnir alone.

The first attacked in an attempt to bite him, but he leaned his body backward with an impossible angle for humans and swung his sword, covering it in shadow flames and stabbing the tiger's neck.

The tiger's thick fur and the stone energy layer blocked the sword from causing a lethal injury and allowed the tiger to run with only a small wound.

The second tiger attacked by swinging its claw. Fafnir saw that and decided to approach it differently as he channeled his mana inside his body.

Chaos Magic — Chaotic Thoughts!

Before the tiger's strike could land on Fafnir, the tiger froze as it changed the direction of the attack into itself. The claw cut through the tiger's face and poked one of its eyes.

The tiger's thoughts fell into a chaotic madness, one attack wasn't enough for it, it looked at the chained tiger and charged toward it.

'Oh, I got a nice effect.'

Fafnir smiled and charged toward the first tiger, which was now looking at its friends attacking another in a daze.

Chaos Magic — Chaotic Thoughts!

Once again, Fafnir cast a chaos attack, but this time, the tiger only shook its head and looked at Fafnir with hatred more intense than before.

'Tsk, it didn't go well.'

The chaotic thoughts weren't always in Fafnir and Dante's favor. This time, the spell only increased the tiger's resolve to kill Fafnir.

It charged toward Fafnir again with the intent to bite him, it seemed to have learnt from the past attempt as it aimed for Fafnir's legs this time.

With a straight thrust, Fafnir lunged, aiming for the tiger's eye. In its insane state, filled with hatred and madness, the tiger stopped caring about its own life and didn't bother to dodge.

The sharp tip pierced the eyeball and went further. Simultaneously, the tiger bit Fafnir's right leg and tore it off.

Fafnir didn't feel an ounce of pain as he simply punched the tiger with his demonic arm, pushing it to the side.

The tiger wanted to attack Fafnir again, but it didn't realize that the sword had already pierced its brain. As it was about to leap toward Fafnir, its life finally ended as it fell motionless.

Fafnir's leg started regenerating as he looked at the tiger's corpse coldly.

'First core.'

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