Defiance of the Fall

Zac was still quite pleased with the skill , even though it wasn’t as flashy as the black lightning of the demon leader . It wasn’t fancy but he could immediately imagine a few uses for a skill such as this . For one he could surprise an enemy . He or she might have thought that they dodged his strike , but instead they were well within the range of his skill blade .

It was also a brutal instrument when fighting against multiple enemies . If he pushed it past its point of stability he could wield a huge blade and slash at multiple people at one , at least for a short duration before the skill broke . With his monstrous strength he believed that he could create a great deal of carnage in that brief window in time .

Of course , that would be a last resort attack , as cramming that amount of cosmic energy into one skill use would greatly drain him .

There was one thing he didn’t understand with the skill . He had gained his Dao seed from managing to incorporate this intangible force of heaviness into his strikes while he was walking back to the camp , but he was utterly incapable of doing the same with the skill .

He tried using a few Dao empowered strikes , and they did have an air of weight to them . It wasn’t as tyrannical as the axe-man’s of course , but it felt like these strikes should be harder for someone to block compared to normal strike .

But when he tried incorporating this feeling into Chop] , everything got jumbled and he didn’t even manage to produce the blade . He saw no reason that they shouldn’t work together but guessed that he had to practice some more before being able to use it as he wished .

The last thing for him to test out with the new skill was the sharpness . It was somewhat pointless if he got a larger edge if it wasn’t sharp . Sure , with his strength he’d do damage anyways without a sharp edge , but if the translucent edge was dull he might as well swing around a tree trunk .

He charged up a meter long blade and swung down upon a rock almost as tall as him . With a clang the cosmic energy blade cut halfway into the stone . Satisfied , Zac let the blade dissipate .

It seemed that cutting through things would use up the energy faster compared to simply having it summoned , but even while not cutting things it continuously drained him slowly . Of course he could likely keep inputting more and more energy and the blade would remain . But it seemed to be a wasteful use of cosmic energy .

Zac felt that the skill was best used as either a finisher or surprise attack , not in a long protracted battle . He would only be able to use it continuously for a few minutes at the most before being completely drained .

The sharpness seemed to be roughly the same as with his actual axe . It did seem to model itself after his axe’s edge after all , so it made sense that they would share some features . He wondered if the sharpness improved if he got a higher grade weapon in the future . He was sure that his weapon was a low F-grade blade , as he had looted it on some random demon after all . It couldn’t be too valuable .

He then brought out a sword from his pouch to test whether he could use Chop] with other weapons , but it at least didn't work with swords .

He was planning on testing some more but a snap of a twig in the vicinity stopped him in his tracks .

Zac got a sinking feeling , as he had made sure that there were no beasts in the area before trying out the skill . He quickly slunk down into nearby foliage and started to retreat toward his camp , taking great care to not make a sound .

Only the gwyllgi among the demons seemed to be active during the night , but he had never heard those beasts make any sounds while moving through the forest . That meant that the snap of the twig was more likely to be one of the war parties moving about .

He swore at himself for his carelessness . He had been on a high from his new boosts and wasn’t as careful as he should be . Even when grinding beasts his biggest priority had always been keeping a lookout for these parties . He always kept moving and didn’t fight close to his base as he didn’t want to attract attention to that area .

Now he was quite close to his camp , and his swing into the stone had made a sound . He soundlessly passed through the layer and entered his illusion array . He could only hope it was a large critter that was lumbering around in the dark .

Zac held his axe at the ready , vigilantly gazing into the woods . His hopes were soon dashed as he saw one of the roving war parties moving close by . The demons conversed in their language with subdued voices , seemingly arguing about something .

The core of the party consisted of 6 demons and an imp . They generally seemed to be average soldiers , with none of them wearing expensive-looking gear . There also were a few gwyllgi and barghest surrounding the party .