Watching five of the Tier 2 Shadow Unicorns jump at her from different directions to attempt to overwhelm her, Cely smiled wickedly.
With a single flick of her left pointer finger, the claw on it flew out, turning into an afterimage that passed through the heads of the five wolves. Sidestepping, Cely watched in sadistic amusement as the five dead bodies crashed into each other where she stood before, before looking back to the leader.
The Core Tier Shadow Unicorn's eyes were bursting with rage and fear as it looked at its dead packmates that had crumpled so quickly under an attack it could barely follow. Knowing escaping would just put it at a disadvantage, though, the leader barked at the Tier 3 wolves around him, telling them to get ready to attack together.
As they approached Cely, though, instead of just jumping at her, darkness began to seep out of their bodies, quickly spreading into the surroundings before enveloping everything.
"The little doggies want to play hide and seek, huh? No matter. I don't need eyes to see anyway."
Hearing this, the alpha suddenly felt an intense threat from below and warned its subordinates. It was too late, though.
Four of the seven Tier 3 Shadow Unicorns could not react in time as silvery-white roots shot out of the ground, piercing their bodies. One other one had its right front leg slashed off by the roots, wailing in pain as it retreated with the leader, while the other two managed to dodge fully.
The Four pierced wolves, though, started to howl in excruciating pain as they were eaten alive from the inside out. They tried to use their energy to fight the foe inside their own body, but it was like the immune system fighting a virus. It usually did more damage to the invader than to itself.
Noting this situation through the darkness, the leader and all the other wolves created a bit of distance between themselves and Cely before opening their mouths in unison. Beams of pure darkness escaped the mouths of the Tier 3 Shadow Unicorn, while the leader had dozens of beams shooting from seemingly space as well.
Considering that the beams and the darkness were the same color, and that their presence and spread made no sound, one might think Cely would not be able to see them, but she could.
The trick behind this was that she wasn't using smell, hearing, sight, or vibrations to locate things. Instead, she was using the energy to locate things. Yes, Cely could "see" energy.
It was not an easy thing to do, and usually beings wouldn't learn this until Tier 5, but technically any Tier 2 and above life form could do it.
Since she knew of these attacks, it was relatively simple for Cely to solve. Cely swung her hand, ejecting all 10 of her finger claws into the air to disrupt 10 of the beams aimed directly at her, while ignoring the one meant to intercept a possible attempt to dodge.
While she was doing that, the rest of the small fry tried to sneak attack her, which, of course, wouldn't work. 20 more masses of silvery-white mycelia broke through the ground below the 20 Tier 2 Shadow Unicorns. A few of them howled in pain as they were pierced, though those calls extinguished almost instantly as they were devoured within a split second with the rest of their companions.
"HAHAHAHA! How delectable! Hehehe... haaa. Now then, let me take a look at you one last time, little doggy. Let me see your D̴̥̻̝̂̈́̚Ȩ̵̨̺̥̓S̴̻̥̫͐̿P̸̱̊A̴̹̠͔̟̋̒Ỉ̶̘̈́Ṟ̵̼̰̗̓̔!"
Sheer malice dripped from her every word as Cely snapped her fingers, ejecting a wave of energy that dispelled the darkness.
The scene was discouraging. Of the original 33, four remained. One of the Tier 3 wolves was even missing a front leg. Blood dyed the grass and wildflowers of this valley a shade of red, with tufts of fur scattered around. No bodies of the dead wolves were left at this point.
Cely stood in the middle. Silvery strands danced around her body, which was draped in blackish-red killing intent. She was evil.
She loved to kill, to torture, and practically fed on the fear of her enemies.
Cely was never human to begin with.
Not in her previous life, and not now.
The alpha just looked at her in terror. It couldn't move anymore. It was despairing. Without truly having fought this monster, it had killed most of its pack in less than three minutes. Worst of all, it could tell she was playing. It could tell this devil in human clothing was just toying with it, in the palm of her hands.
It knew it couldn't escape. But its subordinates did not. And so, one of the uninjured wolves, though overcome with fear, tried to flee.
The leader winced as it heard the flesh of the fleeing wolf being pierced, followed by painful howls as it was devoured by Cely. A second later, the despair in the leader's eyes turned to acceptance as it tried to use its own energy to kill itself.
"What do you think you are doing?"
It was like the voice of the devil, whispered straight into the Alpha Shadow Unicorn's mind, like a cacophony of a hundred voices.
Before the leader could kill itself, a root pierced into its core, dispersing the accumulated energy, saving its life. Even if only shortly.
"Don't you dare ruin my enjoyment. Little. Doggie. HAHAHAHAH!"
Cely laughed maniacally as she started torturing the wolf below her. Her roots carved out its insides while ensuring not to hit vital areas to make it last as long as she could. The other two tried to help, but before they could move to stop her, they too were pierced at last.
It lasted for 20 minutes. All the monsters around the valley were frightened by the continuous sounds of a tortured Tier 4 monster. Any Tier 4 monster in the vicinity had no desire to find out what could make a Shadow Unicorn of such caliber scream like that, while the few Tier 5 monsters in the surroundings had no desire to make another enemy by intruding.
"Such delectable appetizers!" Cely practically monaed this sentence, as she experienced the baptism of foreign energies again. All the energy and cultivation of all the monsters were flowing through her, being refined again and again, while forcefully stuffing her own realm.
Stage 1 Foundation Establishment
Stage 2, Stage 3,... until she hit Stage 6, it did not stop. And then, it ground to a halt just at the barrier of Stage 7 of the Foundation Establishment realm. At the same time, the System kept blaring notifications about level-ups, only grinding to a halt at level 36/40.
At the same time as all of that, though, memories kept surging into her mind about abilities and usages thereof, though most of them were not interesting to her. The only one that was even close to making her happy was the domain-type ability the Shadow Unicorn Alpha had demonstrated just now. She felt that it had a lot of room for improvement and would prove useful.
Willing it, Cely started to create a new shadow domain around herself, blocking all light in the surrounding area.
"If I can combine this with my devouring, I will be able to erase all information transmission within an area. No light, no sound, no smell, no energy. What a nice addition." Cely muttered to herself, a normal smile now decorating her masked face.
Something was troubling her, though. Her foundation had become unstable again to the point where absorbing more would be risky.
"Guess I'll just store some snacks for later."
Deciding that it was better to store some monsters in her storage ring so she could feast later when her foundation was stable again, Cely started moving again. Half an hour later, she had arrived at the area where the Poison Leaper Frogs should be. Though the only thing of note here was the express lack of things to note here.
"Why is it so empty? The mission said there should be dozens in the surroundings, but there are just some tracks, and that's it."
Cely complained while looking around for any signs of the Frogs. It seemed like they had fled further into the core, which would be a massive detour for her, so she decided to give up on it for now. Maybe they would be there on her way back.
After another few hours of travel towards the Oakland Spider Nest, though, she noted a lack of any intelligent life. Not a single monster, not even Tier 1, could be found around her path. Cely looked around a bit before she suddenly stopped while looking forward. She had understood what was going on.
"I am surprised that just killing a single pack of Shadow Unicorns would alarm you. Though I am guessing you were more alarmed by how I did it. Sigh... don't worry, I will only hunt my mission target, and I'll be gone after. You won't see me again." Cely spoke resignedly.
She had attracted the attention of the Monster Gods. That's the reason why no monster was on the path she was walking. They had all been forewarned by the god to avoid casualties.
A few seconds after Cely spoke, a cold snort echoed in her surroundings.
"We better not." Four voices echoed in the forest around her. Each one deep and throaty, filled with threat and malice, before the forest returned to stillness.
'They have become way more sensitive to stuff like this.' Cely complained in her head before moving on.
A couple of kilometers farther, the first sign of the Oakland Spider Nest began to appear. Large webs scattered the forest, and faint scuttering could be heard from many small Tier 1 spiders moving through the dark.
'Seems like they weren't warned, or that Monster God is confident this would not be easy for me.' Narrowing her eyes, Cely reviewed the info from the mission again.
Thousands of Tier 1 spiders, about 250 Tier 2, roughly 40 Tier 3 spiders, seven spiders of Tier 4, and the Oakland Spider Matriarch at the peak of the Core Tier.
Considering how the Monster God seemed so confident, Cely could guess that the Spider Matriarch had likely broken through to Tier 5. Thinking about this, Cely's thoughtful expression bloomed into a smile under her mask.
"I like a good fight!"