He continued aiming carefully for their exposed necks, sending heads rolling off bodies, executing each kill like he was playing an intricate game of chess requiring so much calculated precision and forward thinking.
Very soon, almost all of their heads were separated from their bodies and lying in the dirt.
Except for two survivors who were desperately starting to escape the massacre. They were actually running away now, fleeing for their lives.
Tatehan couldn't help but chuckle out loud at the absolutely ridiculous way they waddled as they ran. So this was genuinely how these creatures moved at full speed? It was honestly hilarious to watch!
He wouldn't normally laugh at a regular human dwarf though, he really wasn't a fan of any kind of body discrimination or making fun of people for their physical characteristics. Back on Earth, he had always carefully avoided that sort of cruel behavior. But these monsters were different... he just couldn't help himself in this situation. How could actual monsters possibly be dwarfs? The absurdity of it all was too much.
Even the distinctive sound that their stubby feet made slapping against the ground would genuinely make you want to laugh until your throat was sore.
The most likely reason they must have decided to attack him in the first place was probably because they had mistakenly thought he was just a normal vulnerable human or something similar. Perhaps they assumed he was just a stranded human survivor with no special abilities and no place safe to go.
They had absolutely no way of knowing that he possessed an enhanced superhuman body, a sophisticated system that granted him multiple powerful abilities, incredibly strong protective armor, a deadly sharp rock sword, versatile gravity manipulation powers, useful partial regeneration for healing, defensive kinetic absorption capabilities—and on top of all that, he was naturally a skilled and remarkably resilient fighter even without those advantages.
If they had somehow known the full truth about what he was truly capable of, they almost certainly would have left him completely alone and avoided this fatal confrontation entirely.
But now they were inevitably going to pay the ultimate price for their mistake with their heads.
The two remaining dwarf brutenecks were running impossibly fast, way too fast for creatures with their extremely short heights and stubby legs. They were genuinely pushing their physical bodies to the absolute limit in their desperate attempt to escape.
And as Tatehan stood watching from his current position, observing them flee frantically toward the boundary that marked the edge of the bruteneck area, he found himself momentarily tempted to just let them go free.
He was actually starting to feel an unexpected twinge of pity rising in his chest.
Bloody damn it! But they were still monsters at the end of the day. With one final burst of enhanced speed, he caught up to them effortlessly and sent both of their heads flying off their shoulders, deliberately choosing not to even look at their faces or give them any chance to beg pathetically for mercy or show any sad expressions.
Now it was finally time to harvest their valuable cores and discover exactly what new powers or upgrades they would grant him.
____
Tatehan realized that he seemed to be getting victories rather too easily lately. Since leaving the spaceship, all he'd been doing was killing brutenecks, leveling up, and steadily becoming overpowered…
To be honest, he wasn't entirely certain he was overpowered. He was pretty sure he wasn't, actually. He had no idea what abilities the other humans on Mars possessed or how high their levels were in combat. Perhaps they were sitting comfortably at level twenty or higher, so he couldn't just declare himself overpowered or start getting ahead of himself, because deep down he was very certain he wasn't there yet.
He wouldn't let himself worry too much about it, though. There was really only one definitive way to find out if he was truly overpowered or not, though 'overpowered' was probably going too far, 'powerful' should be the more accurate word, and that would be determined by how well he'd cope when facing the Hexapod Mauler.
For a monster rumored to be as ruthless and deadly as that creature, he was absolutely sure he'd have a genuinely hard time in that fight, and who knows, there was a real chance he might actually lose.
He sincerely hoped he wouldn't, though. He definitely did not come all the way to this brutal planet just to die here. That was precisely why he needed to keep leveling up, and do it fast, so he would stand a much better fighting chance when the time came.
Beside the now-dead bodies of the dwarf brutenecks lying in front of him, he spotted two glowing rocks positioned beside where their severed heads were supposed to be.
The cores glowed with a distinct earthy brown color, and as Tatehan carefully picked them up in his hands, he examined them closely for quite some time before he started walking toward where the other fallen dwarf brutenecks lay scattered. He was casually sauntering, actually, as new words suddenly flashed across his retina:
[Builder's Core: Unknown Properties]
Tatehan squinted hard, his face immediately etched in visible disbelief.
Unknown properties?
Why would it say that?
This was exactly the same confusing thing that had happened before with the cores from the knight brutenecks, only back then, the system had eventually given a simpler explanation than what he was seeing right now.
But Tatehan understood what the term 'unknown properties' generally meant. It indicated that whatever power or benefit the rock would grant him was currently unknown to the system. He gritted his teeth in mild frustration.
Damn it!
This was getting to be some crazy stuff.
It seemed that the brutenecks living at the far end region of the bruteneck area were somehow unknown entities to his system's database. Or perhaps it was because their cores granted significantly more valuable rewards than the cores from the weaker brutenecks that lived back near the spaceship area?
Coming to think about it more carefully, that explanation could actually be the correct answer. The lunatic carapace brutenecks gave him upgrade glowing rocks, well, that function was pretty obvious just from the name itself, and those creatures didn't naturally live in this particular region anyway. They had only ended up here because they were aggressively chasing him down, and just look at how badly that decision had ended their lives.
The knight bruteneck cores had also been marked as unknown properties until he actually used them, and look at the incredible gifts those had given him. Now the cores from these dwarf brutenecks were showing up as unknown too...
You know what this pattern means?
This almost certainly meant they would give him something equally good, just as the knight bruteneck cores had done before.
Tatehan moved quickly now, picking up all the remaining cores from the other dead dwarf bruteneck bodies scattered around. He was absolutely hell-bent on arriving at the Hexapod Mauler's territory before the sun set and dusk fell across Mars.
After efficiently gathering all the available cores, eleven total in number, he held them collectively and tightly in both his hands, watching expectantly and ready to receive whatever new power they would grant him.
He focused his thoughts on them, sort of mentally connecting to the cores' energy, and almost immediately he saw a new notification appear:
[New Passive Ability Unlocked]
New passive ability... what now?