On a peaceful morning, David Frank got into a carriage and quietly left his manor, left Viscount Frank's city in the viscounty, and headed to the border fortress in the Klan Mountains.
He traveled light, bringing only the twin maids and necessary belongings. The coachman was that lackey Doug.
That's right—Young Master David had taken back the kicked-out Doug.
He'd been having people watch Doug these past few days. Besides drowning his sorrows at home, Doug hadn't done anything or shown any intention of wanting revenge on David Frank.
As someone who'd followed David Frank since childhood, Doug's loyalty was beyond question. The big scumbag and little scumbag truly had a deep master-servant bond...
At least he felt he could trust this scumbag who'd quickly get beaten to death on the street without him.
So David welcomed back the faithful Doug, ignored his teary gratitude and various flattery and praise, and kept him around as a workhorse.
From then on, David moved into the border fortress and started living in a small house next to the military camp.
The camp officers recognized David. At first, he thought this young troublemaker was coming to find someone to go hunting with him again, but he didn't do that.
Young Master David rarely didn't bother anyone and stayed pretty mysterious, almost never interacting with anyone at the fortress.
In fact, he spent most of his time not even at the fortress.
...
In the uninhabited deep mountains of the border range, David in his black trench coat carried a light hand axe and casually walked into a dark valley forest.
He pulled out a bottle of black potion from his waist and poured it on the ground. The black liquid immediately gave off a disgusting, pungent smell that quickly drifted away with the wind.
This was a special potion David had gotten through those black channels. Its effect was to lure evil non-human things.
During this time, he'd been using David Frank's original wealth and connections to get quite a bit of knowledge about monsters through the cult and various underground black markets. This taught him how to lure these monsters out...
Anyway, it wasn't something you drank, so preparing this kind of potion didn't require much technical skill. And as it turned out, David's potion worked really well.
In less than ten minutes, some tall, weird figures appeared in the dark forest.
Their pale skin was covered with a layer of smelly fuzz. Their faces looked as hideous as drowned people, with black claws on their arms constantly dripping some pungent-smelling liquid.
These monsters were different from those green-clawed monsters David had hunted before. Their life values were even higher.
[Life Energy: 320/320]
David expressionlessly pulled up his face covering, though the cloth did jack shit against the stench.
The next moment, several monsters simultaneously attacked him. They pounced, quickly surrounding David and swinging their claws.
David symbolically raised his hand axe to block in front. With his combat skills, blocking was pretty limited in effectiveness.
The black claw coming from behind tore through David's coat, but the wound left on him was super shallow.
The monster's attack only dealt around 100 damage. Compared to his nearly ten thousand life energy, this kind of attack would be lucky to cause a minor injury.
David grinned. With a thought, the Hand of Monster suddenly thrust out, piercing right through the chest of the monster behind him.
Seeing their companion lifted by that green monster claw and flung away like a rag doll, these dark creatures seemed a bit surprised, but they didn't retreat at all. They just immediately changed tactics and started making dodging and maneuvering movements.
But it was pointless. David, holding the hand axe, was like a charging berserker who didn't fear the monsters' counterattacks at all. His wildly swinging axe had no technique, but when chopped with full force, the monsters could only dodge.
Usually, he'd swing the axe, they'd dodge, and then the monster claw would follow up with a thrust, seriously wounding the monster with one strike.
This tactic worked every time. David quickly found his rhythm in combat.
He was learning how to fight, learning to use his advantage of thick life value to crush opponents, killing efficiently.
A few minutes later, four or five monsters lay in the dark forest. David dropped the hand axe and reached out to grab a monster's arm...
[Devoured monster arm, absorbed life energy, limit +320.]
Life energy surged in, notifications of increased limits kept popping up. David felt a wave of comfort throughout his body. This pleasure was enough to briefly numb his nerves that had been tortured by evil spirits for so long.
Devouring non-human monster arms could strengthen the Hand of Monster. He looked forward to this claw, his main attack method, becoming stronger and stronger.
"Crack crack..."
Suddenly, the sound of tree branches being pushed aside rang through the forest, followed by heavy footsteps. Looked like the potion's scent had attracted another big guy.
David slowly turned his head toward the approaching massive dark shadow, his pupils slightly contracting.
[Life Energy: 4800/4800]
"Huh!?"
First time seeing such a long health bar. David couldn't help freezing for a moment.
Not only that, this monster's size was huge too. Even on all fours, it reached three meters tall. It looked like a gorilla covered in disgusting fuzz, but its head was like a wolf beast with hideous fangs.
Clearly, this was a higher-tier dark creature than those earlier monsters.
The moment it spotted David, it roared and charged at him with a thunderous rumble. Its massive body carried terrifying momentum, snapping trees along the way.
David turned and ran to the side, but the opponent was too fast. In the blink of an eye, it was already close. Three thick claws swept across, smacking David and sending him flying with a bang.
"Pff..."
David coughed up blood. His life value dropped by over 500 points. He rolled on the ground several times before stopping.
That hit was even more terrifying than Videns's blood bullet!
Foul blood splattered all over David, spraying across tree trunks throughout the forest.
He got up from the ground and wiped away the hair stained with the monster's black blood, muttering: "Guess I should bring a hat next time..."
Boom!
The monster's massive body fell powerlessly. Its headless neck sprayed black blood like a fountain, quickly forming a pool of foul-smelling blood.
The dark red Hand of Divine Corpse retracted. David, pale-faced, spat out the remaining fishy taste in his mouth.
Turns out, when the monster hit him, his Hand of Divine Corpse had also grabbed the monster's head and yanked it off.
For this, David directly paid 4800 life energy. His own health dropped to less than three thousand points.
Sure enough, the decision to not casually use the Hand of Divine Corpse was correct. When terrifying enemies appeared that the Hand of Monster couldn't beat, using the Hand of Divine Corpse to instantly kill them was the right choice.
Good thing this monster's health bar wasn't as long as his...
But the harvest from this dangerous giant monster was also extraordinary. The wounded David immediately pounced on the monster's body and grabbed its arm without hesitation!
[Devoured monster arm, absorbed life energy, limit +4800.]
The massive life energy fused into his body all at once, making even his breathing quicken...
At the same time, the monster claw changed again.
[Hand of Monster III: Requires 10 psychic energy or life energy to activate, cooldown: 2 seconds.]
Its level increased. The cooldown shortened again. The claws became sharper too. Attack power clearly rose another level.
That surging sense of power came from his arm. Now he felt that if he faced Videns again, he could probably slap him to death with one hit...
...
In the evening, David appeared at the entrance of a border outpost camp. The bored Doug had been waiting there for him.
Seeing David return covered in blood, Doug totally panicked.
But David didn't care. He refused the servant's suggestion to treat his wounds and casually threw a big bag of materials collected from monsters onto Doug's horse.
Looking at that bag of foul-smelling stuff, Doug's face turned white.
The clever lackey instantly thought of something. His Young Master David had once pursued those mysterious powers.
Maybe the ritual the young master did before actually succeeded. He'd already become a powerful supernatural being...
No wonder the young master's aura kept getting more and more terrifying.
...
For the next two months, David kept hunting those dark creatures in the border mountains.
Actually, they weren't that numerous. David even felt that with his hunting, those monsters seemed to be getting fewer and fewer.
Just when he thought he'd kill all the dark creatures in this area clean, leaving not a single one—the dark tide arrived.
Massive darkness shrouded the border mountains, like a shadow cast by that weird planet in the distance, covering the land...