Return of the Woodcutter

Sheyla swung her daggers left and right, slaying as many hobs as her abilities allowed her, defending Ogoro's paralyzed body with all her might. 

Despite the fact that her Gift Thrill of the Hunt was activated, boosting her agility past her limits while increasing her awareness, the same fate as the other women awaited her. 

Surrounded and exhausted, Sheyla could not keep up with her enemies' number. Aito was forced to watch as his comrade fell on her brother's full armored body. Four hobs were necessary to hold her down. 

Like a floundering fish caught up in a net, Sheyla attempted to free herself as a fifth hob started unstrapping her already tattered leather armor. 

"No! Get off me!" 

Aito could feel her hope waver. Each pieces of protection taken off brought despair, eclipsing the hope she had in something, in someone. 

Under her, Ogoro seemed to know what was happening. His body started trembling, but he did not move. He could not move. Cheek against the ground, empty eyes fixed on the distant corpses, Ogoro couldn't see his sister but could feel her struggle. 

Forced to hear the voice of Sheyla being undressed by horny hobs, further increased Ogoro's sorrow and misery. His own powerlessness disgusted him, affecting Aito who could feel his distress. 

At the sight of Sheyla's struggle, influenced by Ogoro's feelings and his own, something boiled inside Aito. 

His conflicted emotions progressively turned into a primal one, rage. Yet he refrained from letting it loose, for it would do him no good in their current situation if he were to activate his Gift Fury.

Sheyla's hope dimmed as her breastplate was thrown aside and a hob slowly ran its dirty fingers down her weavedmail, only to rapidly lift it, revealing her white shirt, tearing it apart to show her undergarment.

It grabbed her still covered chest furiously, enjoying the perfect mix of softness and firmness, reveling itself in her distress. 

However, it was seriously disappointed when only empty cold eyes looked at it, denying it the pleasure it sought, something she had done before when pleasuring assassination targets she hated on Earth to avoid being affected mentally—though some targets had disliked it.

Pissed, the hob's sharp nails dug into her chest as it started to slowly get rid of the annoying bra. 

Another hob proceeded to look below Sheyla's belt. A sore in its eyes, it cut the belt with a dagger, throwing it aside to unbutton her pants crafted from weaved steel and leather, salivating at the idea of the paradise lying beneath it. 

Aito felt her hope drastically waning as she realized how pointless it was to hold onto it, huddling herself back inside a corner of her mind to protect her mental health. 

Abandoning almost all hope, her head dropped on Ogoro's back, shifting to the side as she took one last look at a body clad in grey armor. 

Their gaze met.

But in this now poorly lit hall where almost no artificial light source could be found because of the battle, Sheyla could not see Aito stare back at her, however, he saw her, her and the hob struggling to lower a pants crafted by Ainar. 

Aito clenched his teeth hard. With the ax shaft that had been preventing injuries in his mouth gone, he bit his tongue. Yet this pain was nothing compared to the emotions bubbling inside him.

As if this nightmare was not enough, now that he could somehow perceive a part of the immaterial world, a certain goddess who apparently hadn't fall silent could throw her thoughts at his face. 

[I am still watching, mortal.]

He swore the goddess was doing it on purpose, implying his previous decision was foolish. Anybody else would have accepted it after all. 

Aito did not give her the pleasure of a reply.

[Look at all of them falling. Look at that woman on the verge of being raped. You should have accepted my offer. You thought it would be easy because you absorbed a level 2 soul? Even your soul doesn't respond anymore. Be reasonable. It is not too late. You can still save them with my help.]

Bulging veins took shape under Aito's visor, his skin glowing redder by the passing seconds.

That last drop of misery overflowed his already cracking patience, letting loose the Furious Beast lying dormant inside. 

Anger exploded as a sudden surge of strength flowed through his body. Mana circuits constricted, slowing down the energies' course towards the exits. 

As they were one and the same, his soul vibrated with fury, synchronizing entirely with the body, pulsing madly in a last desperate attempt to follow Aito's wish, defying the goddess and kill every single one of those filthy creatures. 

A suction force, stronger than before, forced open his mana circuits, expanding them, pulling back volatile energies, not only in his body but outside of it.

Surrounding Aito, human and hob corpses alike trembled uncontrollably as their dead mana circuits reopened. Mana, soul force, and essence poured out through the openings, propelled towards Aito's body in form of blue lights with lines of vibrating transparent energy. 

His every pore weren't enough to let them all pass at the same time. Thus, numerous tiny particles of blue light enveloped his body in a raging storm, circulating madly as if they were impatient to get through, damaging his skin and muscles.

Corpses around him were pushed aside by a blue dome that was getting bigger and bigger. 

Such power pushed Aito's body off the ground, defying gravity. He felt himself levitate, glowing brighter and brighter as more soul cores emptied their content around him. 

In the cathedral, no sounds of fighting could be heard anymore as hobs and humans alike halted to lay their eyes on a floating armored man and the raging storm. 

Life returned to Sheyla's eyes, as the intrigued hobs on her stopped their mischiefs. She dared break out of her mental confinement, drawn by a new source of light.

Ogoro's fingers slowly moved, his soul force returning to him. His eyes lifted upward towards the dome where a body floated at a height matching a building's second floor. He couldn't help but shiver. Wondering if it was real. 

Even Olmera who had somehow survived and escaped the raping—because hobs weren't interested in old hags—looked up in amazement, thinking it was a miracle delivered by the gods.

Hobgoblins with narrowed eyes stared at the dome as a sense of dread crept its way up their spines. 

They knew instinctively they had to stop whatever was going on right here, right now.

Unwilling to let anything impede their Crimson Hunt, dozens of them nimbly climbed pillars only to jump daggers first at the dome. The torrent of energies repelled them like they were mere ants, hurling hobs by the dozens at the surrounding walls and pillars.

The energies rapidly orbiting and damaging Aito's body shone so brightly it basked half of the cathedral's hall in its light. 

Somehow, in what could be considered a microsecond, Aito thought a pair of ethereal eyes observed him. He stared back, but they disappeared. 

He couldn't say if it was an illusion caused by the immense pain from a storm raging inside and outside his body, or something real.

[HOW!?] 

Even Valinar lost her divine composure at such an unexpected turn of events. The goddess had previously given up because she had no more bait. 

However, when she had sensed despair invading Aito's heart, she saw an opportunity, a weakness in that man's iron will she could exploit to draw him to her side. 

Yet, the goddess could never have predicted that her new attempt to win him over would lead to this situation. 

Inside Aito, his core expanded and cracked, on the verge of shattering. Even with that much energy, a challenger couldn't simply skip a step to reach level 3 and become an Ascender. 

That much was impossible with Aito's current means. If it were that easy, every challenger would have become Ascenders by now.

However, despite its apparent exhaustion, Aito's soul continued to furiously absorb and accumulate energy, driven by stubbornness, the desire to win, its pride, and its contempt of the divine.

But sheer will wasn't enough to digest all that storm. And thus, in dire need of more storage space, however greedy or unreasonable his order was, Aito commanded his soul to create a new… thing, something that would allow him to contain those overflowing energies. 

More than willing to obey, his soul started transferring the excess of power elsewhere, outside the core. It used its own soul force and mana to build a new storage space. Soon a small auxiliary core orbiting around the main one was created. 

Taking orders directly from the soul, it rapidly traveled around the main core, storing any incoming mana, foreign soul force, and essence. Processing all of it, allowing the main core to take a break.

It orbited around so fast that even the energies trying to escape from the main core would either be consumed by it or be redirected towards the center. With such a speed, the circulating auxiliary core looked just like…

[The First Circle!? How did you do that on your own!?] 

Ironically, it was what she had wanted to help him achieve, but didn't expect him to do it alone. Moreover, Aito hadn't needed to reach level 3 to do that. To her knowledge, no one had ever done that without proper preparations before.  The black challenger didn't even know what the First Circle was.

In and out, Aito's body, muscle fibers, bone, skin, organs cracked and pierced by the raging storm, reassembled faster than they've been destroyed. Focusing and compressing the fuel provided by the cores to grow exponentially stronger. 

Lifting the bottleneck, going past the previous limits.

[That's absurd!]

Feeling a surge of strength flowing through his body again, Aito smirked, moving his hand up, deploying his signature rude gesture as the light around him dwindled and gravity slowly pushed him back towards the ground. 

'Fuck you,' he said mentally, flaunting a middle finger. Silence was the goddess's only response as, this time, a pleasant notification popped up and a flurry of data entered Aito's mind.

BING! 

[Congratulations! You have Ascended!]

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