Having been insentivised to get as muchenergy as possible in order to get his next trainer and having gained the ability to use the ice king form, Nero decided to descend further into the dungeon
"I've heard that every 10 floors is a dividing line where things get more difficult" he thought to himself as he made his way down the floors, not even bothering to pick up the magic stones of the enemies that he had defeated as he didn't want to lose out on a entire nights worth of training
By the time he had reached the stairs to the 10th floor with the amount of energy that he had managed to get the bar to 70% full
"Alright then, depending on how much energy the monsters on the 10th floor give me, and how difficult they are to beat, will let me decide whether I stay down here until the bar is full, or if I have to stay on floor 9 and come back again tomorrow" Nero decided out loud, descending the stairs
Arriving on the 10th floor Nero instantly noticed how different the floor was to the prior ones, instead of tight corridors illuminated by the faint light emitted by the walls, it was a open field, covered in trees made out of stone, a constant mist hanging in the air
"It is just like how it is in the anime" Nero commented, placing his hand on one of the trees and feeling the cold texture of stone
"Hehehe"
"Hrm" Nero responded, picking up the sound of evil sounding laughing
Before he knew it he had been surrounded by a group of imps, each of them looking at him hungily
"A group attack huh, but compared to the killer ants you don't look to difficult to deal with" Nero noted as he got ready to charge them
All of a sudden his danger senses screamed at him, forcing him to dive to the side as a blunt weapon came down next to him
"So that's how you're playing it" Nero groaned, clicking his tongue as one of the imps lunged at him, leaving him no chance to try and deal with the orc that had just tried to take him out
Easily taking out the imp that had charged him Nero was about to continue to deal with the rest of them only to see that they were about to shoot magic spells at him
"Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me" Nero complained, dodging the magic before suddenly remembering the orc behind him who was swinging at him horizontally
Fortunately Nero had learned how to dodge attacks from all different directions from Yumi, ducking down and using his already coiled legs to burst forward
"If you guys are going to use magic then so will I" he called out, summoning multiple black ice's and sending them at the imps, his accuracy being affected due to having to keep the orcs attacks in mind at the same time as the imps, leading to only 2 of the attacks to fatally hit the imps and the others to only graze the rest, but it was enough, the damage causing the imps to falter allowing him to finish off their numbers, slashing their necks or crushing their skulls with his tessen
"Phew, now it's your turn big guy" Nero breathed, turning to the orc
Due to its large size the orc was not as difficult a target once the imps were gone as it was unable to hit Nero who had been trained by both Yumi and Aurathia, there was just one problem
"This guys defensive power is way too high" Nero complained, his tessen unable to inflict any decent wounds as Shirayuki isn't able to cut deep enough and I don't have enough strength to be able to crush its head with Hyōka"
Being forced to rely on his magic while dodging Nero shot 2 black ice's into the orcs eyes, blinding it
"ROAR" it bellowed in pain
Now with its sight gone it started swinging its club around frantically, trying to hit Nero but he had taken distance in order to not be hit
"Guess I've got no choice" he determined, closing his eyes and focusing, his hair turning pure white and his eyes opening to reveal that they had turned red, blades of ice forming in his hands
Charging at the orc Nero slashed, his technique being quite basic but even so, he was able to carve a large chunk out of the orcs body
The damage caused the orc to drop its weapon in pain and fall to its knees, leaving its face at the perfect height for Nero to stab his ice blade into its throat, with a flick of his wrist decapitating the monster and causing it to turn to dust
"Well that was a colosal pain in the ass" Nero breathed, deactivating his ice king mode "now let's see how much energu I got from that"
Looking at the bar he saw that it had increased by 5%
"Yes, that's enough for me to stay down here" he smiled, but before he could celebrate more he felt his balance start to falter
"What the?"
Turning around he saw another group of imps, this time joined by a pair of bats
"You're never going to give me a fair fight while I'm on this floor are you?" Nero complained, looking at the snickering imps as the bats emitted even more sound waves, causing Neros to lose even more balance
"Alright then, I'll use you guys to fill up my energy bar, and then maybe I'll even find a few more of you fuckers to kill just because of how much of a pain in the ass you've already been" Nero smiled savagely, charging at his latest foes.