When I finally grew aware of my surrounding, my eyes almost popped out of their sockets. I felt the wind being pushed in my direction more violently by the second, while a large presence stood to my side releasing the intent to kill.

However, in the same second my eyes grew cold enough to turn a desert into an arctic wasteland. Every bit of my body radiated killing intent many times stronger than the hobgoblin that had attacked me while I was thinking.

'I really shouldn't stop to a thing whenever I'm in the middle of a fight.' I thought while ducking down and completely evading the bat that was aiming to smash my head like a watermelon.

The moment I had released my killing intent, the hobgoblin froze in fear, unable to move a single muscle and therefore halting the attack prematurely. Its eyes looked at me in terror while cold sweat drenched its back as if knowing that this moment would be its last.

To its surprise, however, it watched as I jumped back and out of its range, my eyes never leaving it for a moment as if threatening it. Through natural instincts, it could feel that if it had attacked at the moment, it would have died almost immediately, therefore it chose to not attack.

Thoughts of fleeing flashed within its mind, but once again, after taking another look into my eyes, it concluded that it might not be the best thing to do.

I on the other hand was thinking of ways to become stronger, and right now the only way to do so was to strengthen my mana as well as learn how to control it better.

So far, the only experience I had when it came to controlling mana was the red energy that I would exude when feeling an intense emotion or drive. While I might have been feeling an intense drive at this current moment, it didn't seem to meet the blood energy's requirements to activate.

'Maybe I should just...' I closed my eyes yet still kept releasing my killing to ward the hobgoblin off from attacking me. Entering the void world again, I felt a slight sense of fear shake me for a moment, yet after steeling my nerves and pushing forward, I didn't feel anything like it again.

Moving my consciousness toward the brown rune, I looked around and found four other smaller brown runes attached to it. I couldn't read anything that the runic patterns said, but for some reason, I could feel what each one of them meant and did.

Stretching out the hand that had formed out of the blue, I touched one of the smaller brown runes and grasped it even though it was a 2-dimensional thing.

Information immediately shot into my mind before unknown energy, that I could only guess was the system, reached into my solar plexus and gripped onto something, forcing it to release an earthy-yellow mana.

I felt the earthy-yellow mana travel down my arm in a circuit-like pattern before finally, it had reached the tips of my fingers.

'This sensation.' I opened my eyes and looked at my hand just to realize that it looked the same as before.

[Blood eyes activated]

[Hp: 150/150]

[Mana: 45/50]

As I looked at my fingertips once again, I couldn't help but gasp and feel shocked, to the point where my killing intent wavered and vanished in the same second, allowing the hobgoblin to shoot forward with its fastest speed while swinging down its bat like a hammer.

I looked at the runic matters that had appeared on the tips of my fingers, yet before I could even appreciate them, I felt a slight feeling of dread, not one that would make me worried but one that lingered in my head like the constant buzzing of a fly.

Seeing that a bat was descending on me, I tried to swat it with the back of my hand but instead, something strange happened. For reasons I could not understand, it felt like my hand was pulling weight behind it as it flew up, and before I knew it, a rock spike left the ground and pierced the hobgoblin in the stomach, leaving it unable to move and weakened to the point where its attack had become harmless to me.

"You're kinda weak," I spoke matter-of-factly.

The hobgoblin's face contorted in rage as if it could understand what I saw saying, yet any movement that it would have made would only injure it more.

I looked at it with a mixture of pity and awe. I had an idea of what I had done I had done, but I didn't know exactly how I had done it. It felt like a natural movement had turned into a lethal weapon in a split second, and I wanted to know more.

"Hmm... Let me see." Striking a pose, I pointed my hand at the hobgoblin and shouted-

"EARTH SPIKE!"

...

...

...

"Nothing!?" I exclaimed a little let down by the fact that nothing had happened.

Once again, I pointed my hand towards it yet struck a different pose this time while shouting the name of the attack, yet even then nothing had happened.

I tried to do this for another 30 seconds, something that only angered the bleeding-out hobgoblin even more than earlier, yet it knew that moving would mark the end of its life.

After another 15 seconds passed, I sat down cross-legged on the floor, my hand on my chin while my eyes looked at the hobgoblin from top to bottom.

"What was the difference between the first time I used it and now? I even tried swatting upwards again but it didn't work..." Feeling a little bummed out, I let out a sigh for the umpteenth time.

*ROOOOAAAAAR*

My back straightened instantly before my gaze landed on the enraged hobgoblin that was now running toward me. A questioning look appeared on my face but after a second of analyzing, I could easily infer what it had done to get to this point.

"I see..."

I watched the hobgoblin grow closer by the second, its enormous feet slamming onto the ground and causing it to crack in the process. Blood gushed out of its open wound at every step, yet it did not seem like it was affected by it.

"A suicidal attack? Let's see about that." I let out a wry smile and pulled my arm back, winding up for a punch that would dye the room with its blood and organs. However, the moment I winded back my punch I felt like there was something different.

It once again felt like I was pulling something, something heavy to the point where my arms felt like they were moving through a viscous liquid.

My eyes widened while my body shuddered after remembering what had happened in the void world, but after a second of this feeling, it all finally clicked in my mind.

'This is feeling. This is earth!' I roared inside my mind, excitement taking over all my other senses.

With another movement, I clenched my fist tightly and swung it as if I was pulling something alongside it.

*Rumble*

*Swoosh*

*Pitue*

An earthen spike shot out of the ground behind me and swooshed past my ear, missing it by a hairsbreadth. However, while it might have missed me, I was not the target.

Due to the momentum held by the hobgoblin as the spike approached, it could not stop in time to dodge.

In one swift movement, the earthen spike entered the hobgoblin's head through the nose, destroyed its brain, and decapitated it before splattering its remains all over the walls and floor of the cave.

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