Strongest Nova: Path of Vengeance

Chapter 353: The Army of Ink Crawlers

Gray stood before the massive 10-meter-tall monsters that were the Ink Crawlers. "These are humans, you say?" he asked.

"Humans changed by something the Shadow Nova feeds them. Some sort of black liquid," Stanley said, walking over to Gray. He made his way through the aura that Gray liked to keep separated between them and touched him, marking him.

"You’ve killed these before, right? Any weak points?" Gray asked.

"None," Stanley said. "They regrow all wounds they take, so you attack until they cannot regrow anymore, and then they die."

"I see," Gray said. "I’m down on my energy, but it should be doable. You said they are attracted to sound, right?"

Stanley nodded. "Sound and movement," he said. "I truly don’t understand how they perceive us, but they were capable of even following Sheila through her concealment, so they are very much aware of where we are."

"I suppose sound it is then," Gray said. He suddenly flew into the sky with the Ink Crawlers just a mere 10 meters away and came down onto the ground with a large slam. The sound distracted the crawlers, making them come converge toward him.

Stanley pulled out the mask from his back pocket and slowly placed it over his mouth, chewing on the mouthpiece that went in. His nose wasn’t covered, only his mouth, so he took a deep breath and slowed down time.

Everything came to a crawl at that exact moment. He saw the slow movement of the crawlers’ limbs, the rising dust, and the invisible attack that Gray used to cut through one of the crawlers. He could see everything so very clearly now, which he hadn’t been able to in over a month.

He held his sword tightly, increasing its sharpness and weight to as much as he could physically handle, and then ran.

In a single dash, he cut through 5 limbs of 5 different crawlers at the same time before coming to a stop. He moved further, attacking another two before pushing against the ground to stab directly into the main body of the last one.

Stanley twisted, cutting a giant hole through the Crawler before coming back down. The cuts he made, the hole he tore, were quickly filled by slimy black fluid that covered it all, regrowing the parts that had been missing.

That, however, took such a long time that it might as well be 5 minutes from Stanley’s perspective. In that time, he moved through the battlefield, cutting through hundreds of crawlers at once.

Gray had been cutting through the Crawlers as fast as he could, with no fear of cutting Stanley as he would see it coming. Still, he couldn’t help but be surprised with how fast Stanley was at attacking the monsters.

He was a monster himself, rushing through the crawlers. Everywhere he went, the crawlers were thrown to the ground, missing either their limbs or having a hole torn in their center body.

’He’s so much stronger than me in these sort of things,’ Gray thought. On a one-on-one, Gray had no doubt he could win against Stanley. His powers were just that good, after all. But for fighting against so many monsters at once, Gray was lacking.

Stanley didn’t need to stop. He breathed in through the mouthpiece as one of the tiny oxygen storage chambers was broken and his mouth was flooded with it.

In the slowed-down time, he could breathe it slowly, not having the pressure be that much of an issue.

Stanley fought tirelessly, cutting through hundreds of thousands of limbs before finally he stopped. His muscles are sore with pain from moving so much.

Even if he had fixed the breathing issue, he couldn’t do anything with the pain in his body. From his perspective, he had fought without stopping for nearly 15 minutes and that was enough to cause anyone pain.

And because the air refused to move so easily when the time was slowed down, it was just that much harder on his body. It was no different from having no powers at all.

Stanley stepped back after a while, looking at the overall situation. The crawlers were on the ground, but slowly healing, he would have to do the same thing a few more times before he could defeat them all.

Thankfully, the crawlers themselves weren’t much of an issue for him to fight against. The sword was just so sharp that it went through the crawlers like hot metal on a bar of butter.

Stanley felt the pain in his body wash away considerably and then moved again.

Gray began finally seeing the monsters die and got happy. They were disappearing into black mist, fading away from the world as they died. He felt the soul inside some of them go into him.

’So there really are actual humans inside of these things,’ Gray thought, feeling disgusted with it all. The Shadow Nova needed to die for all of this.

The Crawlers slammed their limbs down on him, and they could slam all they wanted to, but nothing physical could transfer through the aura that Gray had placed around himself. So he could fight them with ease.

Stanley began to realize that the number of crawlers had lowered by a massive amount as well. He took a moment to breathe and looked back at the amount.

There were a lot fewer now, so the battle would be easier. After he killed these ones, he could—

His future swight activated at the exact moment, giving him the knowledge that he was hit from the back. Without hesitation, he dodged to the side.

Where he had been earlier was now a large black spike growing out from the ground. Had he not moved when he did, it would’ve stabbed him through the chest.

’Raven!’ he thought, understanding that she had finally come to the battlefield. He quickly turned around to see where she was, only to see Gray with a black spike through his chest.

Gray looked down slowly at the spike, unable to understand how his defense had been bypassed, and how he was now going to die.