BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER SYSTEM

Erik kept running as the battle between the Red Palace's workers and principal Van Dyke, raged. He often glanced back to see how the situation was, and it wasn't pleasant. The Principal was now fighting in melee, but he was clearly exhausted since he had used a lot of mana to perform the previous attack.

The young man quickly left the Red Palace's huge garden, but it took some minutes to do so. Once outside, he reached the streets, where he was by no means safer. At that point, Erik felt like he had been running for hours as his heart pounded vigorously in his chest and adrenaline pumped through his body.

There was only one thought in his mind: to put as much distance as possible between himself and the Blirdoth.

Erik had barely escaped from there, thanks to the principal's intervention, but he knew that Blirdoth wasn't something the older man could kill based on what he saw.

Typically, Blirdoths were not that powerful; even he could kill one with a little bit of effort. However, this beast was clearly a deviant or, worse, a sentient.

The young man was now in a part of the city that he had only seen while traveling to and from the Red Palace and that he had never visited before.

The buildings were tall and imposing as if to match the Red Palace's grandeur. They stretched to the sky and cast huge shadows across the narrow streets. The young man felt a sense of unease as he walked through the unfamiliar streets, and the sight of the towering buildings only added to his discomfort, as there could be monsters at every corner. If he were lucky, he would be able to kill them, but in this situation, that wasn't assured. He couldn't shake off the feeling that he was being watched.

"Fuck…"

Erik kept running, but he was aware that it was just a matter of time before some thaid would confront him. That meant that his best shot at surviving was to use his other powers; however, doing that was dangerous. He could be seen by someone hiding in one of the buildings or be spotted by cameras.

"System, do a surrounding scan and check for the presence of cameras around here."

[UNDERSTOOD. COMMENCE SCANNING. 3…2…1… SCAN COMPLETE. 15 CAMERAS AND A DRONE HAD BEEN FOUND IN THE SURROUNDING 100 METERS; DO YOU WANT TO CONNECT TO THEM?] The biological supercomputer asked.

"Do it and turn them all off! Do it every time you find a nearby device! I don't want to be seen by anyone," Erik said, wondering what the hell a drone was doing around there.

[CONNECTION COMPLETE. ALL DEVICES TURNED OFF. THE BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER WILL DEACTIVATE ANY DEVICE THAT GETS WITHIN A 100-METER RADIUS.]

At that moment, Rebecca's connection with the drone got severed, and she lost sight of what the young man was doing.

Erik then took his backpack and grabbed a mask from it. He wore the same one he used when he killed Logan, Conal, and Orson.

"With this, at least, no one will be able to recognize me," he said to himself. Then he kept running, hoping that no beast would find him. He thought about hiding in one of the buildings, but he could risk being trapped by thaids if they found him, while being on the outside at least gave him a chance to run away.

After a couple of minutes of running, however, what Erik feared happened. Some Thaids managed to find him. He was made aware of that due to the system's notification.

[WARNING: MULTIPLE HOSTILE DETECTED.]

-----------------------------

<Quest: Kill the beasts.>

-Rewards for completion: 5000 experience points, 1000 DNA points, and four intelligence stat points.

-Failure Penalty: Death.

-Description: A group of thaids is trying to kill you. Murder them before they can harm you. Show the result of your training.

-----------------------------

"Oh god…" he said once he saw the quest and the notification.

Suddenly, a group of thaids emerged from the corner. It was another batch of Eganesus, nothing the young man couldn't manage, but it was still very troublesome to deal with as their stats were very similar to his. However, this wasn't the main problem, as that role would fall on their numbers.

They were at least 20, and after carefully analyzing them, the young man understood he was in trouble.

The thaids attacked him all at once, their fangs bared, and they moved quickly under the bright sun. Erik took his flyssa out of its sheath and drew bared it against the monsters, preparing for the fight of his life.

An Eganesu tried to bite the young man from the left and another from the right, and some were trying to do the same while running on top of the other thaids and simultaneously preventing Erik from moving. There was only one way for Erik to escape the monsters. Going upward.

At that moment, Erik jumped on top of the first thaid, stepping on its head like a stepping stone, and jumped on top of another monster, using it as a ladder to escape the encirclement.

Erik swung it at a couple of Eganesus, separating their heads from their necks.

[MULTIPLE HOSTILE CREATURES KILLED: MANA ABSORBING PROCESS STARTING.]

[0%...1%....5%...30%...70%...100%]

[MANA SUCCESSFULLY ABSORBED, STARTING CONVERTING PROCEDURE.]

[3...2...1...0]

[MANA SUCCESSFULLY CONVERTED INTO EXPERIENCE. 534 EXPERIENCE POINTS AWARDED TO THE HOST.]

"System, turn off all the notifications until the end of the fight!"

[NOTIFICATION TURNED OFF.] The system replied.

Erik managed to escape the encirclement, but the thaids were relentless. They turned behind to attack the young man, and they did try to bite him. Three of them almost accomplished the feat, but Erik killed them by projecting three long and spiky bones from his forearm. Piercing them in the head, he backed away thanks to the space he got while going out of the encirclement.

He killed five, yes, but they were still fifteen and hungry. The young man quickly found himself in difficulty as more than ten Eganesus dashed again toward him, trying to bite him.

Erik fought back with all his might, his sword stopping a couple of attacks by slicing the mandibles of the Eganesus. Typically, they would have backed away, but these creatures didn't. Once they could not use an appendage, they used another.

Slowly, the thaids were overwhelming him, and Erik knew that he was in danger of being overrun. However, he had some tricks up his sleeve: he used the poisonous astral wolf bite to fight back against the creatures.

Suddenly, the head of a giant Leylarhad made of mana appeared, scaring momentarily the thaids. The head was big enough to bite two monsters at the same time, and if they didn't die, the poison contained in the astral projection's fangs would have done the rest.

Luckily, that moment of distraction was enough for Erik to kill another two thaids, while the wolf's head killed another two. Erik then backed away again; the pressure he had felt suddenly vanished when the four monsters died, and he was now sure he would be able to kill the thaids and come out from this confrontation.

The battle raged on, the sound of clashing metal echoing through the streets. Erik was fighting for his life but was able to hold his ground. He couldn't let his guard down, as there were still more thaids coming at him, but he felt a surge of confidence knowing that he could take them on.

As the fight progressed, he killed more monsters until no more than six were left. Erik avoided another attack by jumping on an Eganesus' head and acrobatically spinning while slashing at its head.

He took advantage of the situation to jump onto a different thaid's body and slice it open by piercing its thorax and slicing it up. The beast started bleeding profusely and fell dead shortly after. Erik took his chance to jump off the creature as another thaid tried to kill him, but he did bend to an impossible degree and slice the beast's head off.

At that moment, a thaid finally bit him. Erik saw it coming toward him, and even though he couldn't stop it, he had two ways to defend himself: the metallization power and the mana exoskeleton. He pumped mana through their neural links and successfully shielded himself from harm. Erik projected out of his shoulder another bone and pierced the creature's brain, killing it while it was still biting him. After that, the fight was short, as the awakener easily killed the two remaining beasts.

At that moment, all the notifications returned to Erik at once. He quickly scanned through them, noticing that he had gained a significant amount of experience points and had leveled up.

[MULTIPLE HOSTILE CREATURES KILLED: MANA ABSORBING PROCESS STARTING.]

[0%...1%....5%...30%...70%...100%]

[MANA SUCCESSFULLY ABSORBED, STARTING CONVERTING PROCEDURE.]

[3...2...1...0]

[MANA SUCCESSFULLY CONVERTED INTO EXPERIENCE. 4806 EXPERIENCE POINTS AWARDED TO THE HOST.]

[LEVEL UP.]

[QUEST COMPLETED. ABSORBED ENERGY SUCCESSFULLY CONVERTED INTO EXPERIENCE. REWARD ISSUED.]

As Erik leveled up, the biological supercomputer replenished the energy he had exhausted during his ordeal. One of the many perks that the system gave him. He felt a surge of energy as he received the reward for his hard work.