Martial Era: Starting With The Strongest Talent-Chapter 154: Hell Class

Adam remained silent for a moment, replaying the shadow’s words.

You are the only one I have seen remain sane...

He contemplated the words for a while before he finally looked up.

"What is the test?"

The shadow clapped its hands once.

"Good."

The world shifted instantly and the apartment vanished.

Adam now stood on the cracked streets of District Seven.

The old convenience store across the road, the broken streetlight and the faded crosswalk lines.

It was a near perfect reconstruction.

Above him, the shadow stood in the sky as if resting on an invisible platform.

Adam’s expression didn’t change.

"The test has two phases," the shadow said. "One to measure your strength. The other to measure your combat intelligence."

A pause.

"If you pass both, you will obtain my affinity."

Adam lowered his gaze slightly.

"You never told me what the affinity is called."

The shadow tilted its head.

"Pass the test and find out."

Adam looked up again....

But the figure was now gone and the sky was empty, as silence fell over District Seven.

Then....

A violent energy fluctuation erupted in front of him.

The air twisted, space cracked and a rift finally formed.

It tore open vertically, unstable for a moment before stabilizing into a dark oval gateway.

Adam understood immediately what the test would be, as Judgement materialized in his hand.

The familiar weight steadied him.

The energy signature from the rift was distorted so he couldn’t determine the rank or class.

And [Rift] was all analyze showed him

There was no classification or scale.

Adam exhaled slowly.

So this is phase one.

He waited and moments later...

A figure stepped out of the rift.

It had green skin, a large frame, yellow eyes and sharp claws.

A crude loincloth around its waist was the only thing it wore on its body.

Adam’s eyes flickered with faint recognition.

No words were needed.

It was an unranked, level one monster.

Goblin.

More goblins stepped out of the rift.

Then more and more.

They spilled onto the street, crude weapons in hand, shrieking as they spread across the asphalt.

Adam watched calmly.

There will be more after this.

This was only the beginning.

Even as the goblins charged toward him, claws scraping against concrete, Adam’s gaze swept the rooftops, the sky and the alleyways.

But there was no shadow or observer.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t being watched.

I can’t show all my cards yet.

The distance closed rapidly.

A thousand goblins charging at Adam with reckless abandon.

The street flooded with green bodies.

But that didn’t mean he would waste time.

His Profound Spirit manifested behind him, vast and imposing.

The air pressure shifted.

The goblins were nearly on top of him but

Adam had already moved.

"Wind Carnage: Requiem."

He swung Judgement and a crescent of compressed wind exploded outward

BOOM!

It stretched across the entire width of the street, tearing forward with surgical violence and every goblin in its path was cleaved instantly.

Over a thousand bodies collapsed in the same second before the wind finally dissipated.

Green corpses littered the asphalt.

Adam rested Judgement on his shoulder and waited.

The rift churned again and another wave emerged.

These goblins were larger, their muscle definition clearer and their movement heavier.

They were Normal Level One goblins.

Adam didn’t hesitate, as he made another swing, releasing a Wind Carnage: Requiem, that wiped the street clean again.

The rift trembled a third time and this time the pressure changed.

A darker aura bled from the portal.

The goblins that stepped out were bulkier.

Veins bulged beneath their green skin.

Eyes bloodshot.

Weapons jagged and reinforced.

Abnormal Level One goblins.

And behind them...

A towering goblin nearly twice their size wore crude armor plates strapped to its chest and carried a massive cleaver in hand.

It roared, and the others responded.

Adam’s eyes sharpened slightly.

It’s a boss.

This was Adam’s first time facing Abnormal-class monsters.

Unlike Unranked and Normal variants,

Abnormals operated differently.

They formed structured packs and a boss unit commanded the elites and mobs alike.

That towering goblin at the rear...

Was the command node and Adam observed it calmly.

This was his first time seeing a boss-type monster in person.

And yet...

He felt no threat.

His star power was already brushing the threshold of a Lord.

For something to register as danger...

Its class would need to be far higher than this.

The Abnormal goblins shrieked and charged.

The boss remained at the back, cleaver resting on its shoulder, yellow eyes burning.

Adam didn’t hesitate.

"Rapid Charge."

Lightning spread across his body and electric arcs sharpened his movements, tightening muscle response and accelerating neural relay.

The world slowed, as wind gathered again.

"Wind Carnage: Requiem."

He swung once and the blade of wind tore through the front ranks, but this time the Abnormals resisted slightly. Their denser frames endured the first sweep long enough to stagger.

Adam pivoted instantly as he made a second swing and another massive wind blade erupted outward.

This time..

Everything split cleanly.

The elites collapsed.

The mob units were shredded.

Even the boss, which hadn’t taken a single step forward, was sliced clean in half before it could issue further commands.

Its upper body slid off its lower half.

Silence returned to District Seven, as Adam stood amidst a carpet of green corpses, as the lightning faded.

He looked down briefly.

If these were real... The abnormal-class talents would have been worth equipping.

But this was a mental construct and such a thing won’t be possible.

The street trembled again and the rift churned violently as the essence density increased.

Then something massive stepped through and these goblins were the size of small buildings.

Their bodies were layered with thick, darkened muscle. Their skin carried a faint crimson undertone beneath the green. Tusks protruded from their mouths like jagged daggers.

Calling them ogres would have been more fitting.

But they were goblins.

Hell-class. Level One.

Adam’s eyes sharpened.

"Rapid Charge."

Lightning exploded across his body again, amplifying reaction speed and output.

Wind condensed around Judgement.

"Wind Carnage: Requiem."

He swung.

A colossal wind blade tore down the street toward the advancing giants, but before it reached them...

A massive cleaver descended from above.

Boom!

The wind blade split in two and the shockwave cracked the asphalt beneath.

Adam’s gaze shifted upward.

There it was.

The Goblin Boss.

It was larger than the already towering Hell-class units and it wore the fur of some unknown beast draped over its shoulders like a mantle. Its muscles bulged grotesquely beneath scarred skin.

Its cleaver radiated a dense, oily poison that hissed where it touched the air.

The boss stared at Adam and Adam stared back, as the behemoth raised its cleaver again.

And swung.

Releasing a crescent-shaped slash of condensed poison, that tore through the air toward Adam, corroding the ground beneath it as it advanced.

*****

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