Undying Warlord

Instead of joining the battle after defeating the strongest monsters in the proximity, Dilan kept watch over everyone.

There were only a bunch of 10 Ascenders with Kathrine. This was the maximum number of people he could focus on watching at a time.

His mind was working relentlessly, and trying to figure out what was on the minds of the Ascenders when they moved in a specific direction, slashed their weapon in a different way than he had anticipated and the moment they obstructed each other's path by choosing to fight the same low-leveled monsters instead of distributing tasks efficiently.

'Why did I even say that they're not that bad?'

The mindset of the few Ascenders, who were fighting, was crystal clear. They had given their utmost to defeat their opponents.

However, the power they used to kill a single opponent was usually more than enough to finish off an entire group of more than five monsters.

Their fighting efficiency was below average, to put it nicely.

In Dilan's opinion, they were no more than headless chickens that were trying to kill their opponents with brute force.

But that was not how it worked in the cavern tunnel where they were overwhelmed by large numbers of monsters.

Only because of Kathrine was it possible for the small group of Ascenders to face more than a hundred monsters.

There were no Bronze Tier-1 monsters within the horde that were fighting them but several ordinary Tier-1 monsters, which was why Dilan chose to pay more attention to Kathrine.

She was the spearhead of their group and manifested several tiny bolts of lightning using the bare minimum amount of mana before blasting them at her opponents.

However, instead of fighting in a crude manner, Kathrine was attempting to actively bend the bolts of lightning she released.

The final result had been way off the mark because she had missed more than six monsters that she had targeted but it was a good try.

Time slowly passed, and Dilan averted his attention back to the other Ascenders knowing that Kathrine would be fine and that she looked at the fight against the monsters as training to adapt herself to her improved stats, physique, and the newly acquired abilities.

"Nias, don't bend your back backward when you swing your longsword. Use your momentum properly, or the power you infuse in your attack decreases drastically!"

"Bettina, your hearing sense is exceptional, but don't rely too much on it. You try to move the moment you hear the monsters around you moving in a specific direction. That is great but do that only if you're adept at doing so.

Until you have gained enough experience with your passive ability, use your hearing sense to focus on defending, and searching for the perfect moment to slash at your opponents!"

"Julian, your attacks are good, but your fighting pattern is repetitive. Since the start of the battle, you've been using the same three moves to attack your opponents. This might work against tierless monsters, but even Tier-1 monsters have gained a trace of intelligence.

This is why you would lose against humans, or monsters with intellect even if your stats were to keep increasing. Try to change your fighting style pattern every now and then!"

In the beginning, Dilan tried to help the Ascenders to improve their fighting style by giving them instructions and pointing out their flaws. However, he quickly noticed that giving advice on how to fight was not that easy.

First of all, the Ascenders had to focus on their fights, which was why they could barely hear him.

But even if they heard him, it was not as if they could immediately grasp what he meant.

Dilan's fighting style had been rough and far from average before he ascended to Tier-1 and received the passive ability [True Weapon specialist].

As such, he could roughly gauge what was going on in the minds of the few Ascenders in front of him.

But even then, their teamwork was negligible and it looked like they were in a competition and raced with each other to see who would be able to defeat more monsters.

Dilan knew that this was not the case and that the Ascenders were not intentionally stealing each others' prey, or attacking the same weak monster once in a while.

That was why he felt a little bit frustrated, clearly understanding that they were in need of someone from the military, or someone, who had the capabilities to teach the Ascenders properly.

That did not only include fighting as it is, but also how to work in a team, how to utilize their abilities to their advantage, and so on.

'Is that really so difficult?' Dilan wondered, not realizing that he would garner lots of hate if everyone in his group of 600 Survivors were to hear his thoughts.

It was not like everyone had the same fighting experience and courage as Dilan had before the Primordial Ascension.

Furthermore, not everyone was ready to risk their life for the sake of becoming stronger.

After all, being alive and a coward was something most would accept willingly in comparison to being dead and 'courageous'.

But Dilan was not normal in that sense as his past was widely different than anything one would call 'ordinary'.

However, that was exactly what allowed Dilan to be so powerful right now and to strive for more strength, to never face situations like the ones he had faced in the past.

That was something Dilan had promised himself.

The fight ended a short time later. Dilan was not sure what to think about Kathrine and the Ascenders, who had fought the battle.

He frowned for a moment before putting on a neutral expression.

'Well…it was fine, I guess?'

In the end, the Ascenders had yet to gain lots of combat experience. Even Kathrine was not someone who had lots of experience of participating in life-and-death battles.

Despite that, she owned a combat mastery ability thanks to the occupational passive abilities she had gained.

That was also the reason for her to be able to pose a much bigger threat to the opponents she had fought than the others.

Of course, her stats and other advantages were also part of a reason but if one were to be unable to use one's strength properly, even after being manyfold stronger than someone else, it would be kind of useless.

Dilan spoke a little bit to the mentally exhausted Ascenders and spent some time telling them what to do and what to avoid along with some tactics which they could test out after some time.

Afterward, he told everyone to collect their Essence crystals. This was the most joyous task after a fight; to collect the Essence crystals of the monsters they had killed, to absorb the Essence and gain stats!

While everyone was happily collecting their Essence crystals, Dilan approached three corpses. All of them were Bronze Tier-1 monster corpses, which would provide several Units of status points for everyone if killed by them.

Unfortunately, Dilan could tell that the three corpses were not even close to providing enough Essence to allow him to level up, let alone gain several status points.

The latter would be a dream come true because he would feel as if he had gained even fewer status points from Essence crystals than the tenth he was ought to receive!

But that was somewhat fine with Dilan because he was sure that he had other things to do than to mindlessly kill monsters and become stronger on his own.

That would only widen the gap between him and his people, make them fear him even more, or possibly make it seem as if he was an existence much grander than them, which could lead to him being worshiped.

The thought alone was horrifying enough for Dilan to shudder even though the possibility that something like this would happen was minuscule and close to non-existent.

But even then, Dilan felt that it was better to adapt to the new situation and to change things later. After all, Milarn was constantly changing and adapting as well, so Dilan had to do the same.

Otherwise, the problems he was supposed to face were bound to be more complicated than a Sun temple, some vile Ascenders or Tier-1 monsters!

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