With black scales growing on his skin, and his pupils transforming into slits like that of reptiles, Jason's entire being turned more ferocious.
The same applied to his aura that was eager to devour the Gigantic Light eagle and feast on its blood.
Petri's stigma had manifested above Jason's, increasing its effects by a large margin.
Through this, the mana that coursed through Jason enhanced his speed further, giving him the ability to evade the second batch of light spears that were thrown at him.
In the end, the Gigantic Light eagle's strongest ability was not that it could fly, but its great control over its own light affinity.
Even Jason had to acknowledge that.
However, this didn't mean that he would sit idle and let the eagle harm or even kill him.
Rather, it caused his aura to flare up as he received an adrenaline rush, increasing his excitement to fight further.
His life was not yet under great risk, and the foes he had fought in the past had been much more dangerous than the Gigantic Light eagle.
As such, Jason could take the fight lightly if he wanted to.
Yet, that was not how he would choose to fight.
Instead, he would give his best to defeat his opponent as quickly as possible, avoiding unnecessary trouble that could occur by wasting too much time.
With a large amount of mana inserted into his Emperor Eyes, he could clearly detect the light spears' trajectory, evading them easily owing to the physical strength and flexibility he attained by fusing with Petri.
Afterward, he pushed his feet and the long tail that had grown out of his coccyx from the ground the moment he landed on it.
Through this, he catapulted himself towards the Gigantic Light eagle that had already conjured more than a dozen new light spears and shot all of them towards Jason.
In an attempt to evade them to avoid being pushed backward, or possibly injured, Jason leaned his body forward, twisting his body at an odd angle.
Jason even used his tail to bash it into the ground, forcefully propelling himself into the air. This helped him evade three light spears that had almost hit him. his body leaned forward, and almost touched the ground, evading the spears that had predicted his movement.
The eagle was taken aback to see Jason deftly evade all of its attacks, thus it was not prepared for his counterattack, let alone the fact that his entire being was suddenly clad in an additional layer of a black armor.
Solaris had emerged from the soul world, tightly enveloping his entire body along with Byakur that had enlarged to three meters.
The moment Jason brandished Byakur at the eagle, it prepared to retaliate using the same tactic as before, only to witness something it hadn't in their first clash.
Jason had used a much larger amount of mana to activate the abyssal effect of his Emperor Eyes, in addition to the passive enhancement of the Chaos attribute he had just annexed.
There was not much of it left, but the Chaos attribute was still potent enough to enhance his abyssal effect tremendously, even without being used up, simply by remaining stored.
As such, the eagle entered the seemingly endless darkness his abyssal effect could create.
Even if it was only for half a second, it was enough to give Jason the momentum to pierce Byakur through the eagle's chest.
A moment later, Solaris' flame flared up, burning the eagle from inside out, slowly depriving it of its life force, ending its life even faster than the lethal injury.
It didn't take long for the Gigantic light eagle to die, as it succumbed to the injuries caused by Jason's flames searing through its bone and flesh, screeching in pain in a last ditch effort to survive.
In the end, it was for naught, but that was how nature worked, and Jason understood this.
However, at the same time, he couldn't do anything against the fact that he wanted to advance the tower in order to not waste his time.
And in order to advance through the tower's floors, he had to kill the beasts that attacked him.
Hiding away was not something he would do if it was avoidable, and the rewards he was likely to receive were most certainly good enough to make up for the dangers he had to face.
In the end, every single being strived for power, and Jason was just like them.
In order to protect himself and everyone who was close to him, he had to be stronger than those trying to harm him.
Furthermore, Jason had yet to figure out if his grandparents were alive, let alone find them.
As such, he would have to search through multiple worlds, with the biggest clue being the mysterious Chaos Emperor whose soul fraction was imprinted within him.
There were too many mysteries around Jason, and he had yet to find out the truth about most.
However, at the same time, he wouldn't be able to do that without the necessary strength, which forced him to find more treasures, including conquering the dungeon, and reap all possible benefits!
Shaking his head, Jason tried to change his train of thoughts as he mumbled to himself.
"I'm still thinking too much about killing...is that what makes me human, and stronger, or is it a weakness?"
Jason was not sure of the answer but he tried to distract himself by focusing on dissolving the fusion with Petri and retracting the Celestia aura and Stigma.
Afterward, the eagle corpse disintegrated into countless particles which Jason saw owing to the Emperor Eyes, only to witness that the particles were pulled into the gate that began to glow faintly.
The engravings on the gate were silver in color, but Jason could also see a sliver of faint blue in it.
He had no idea what this could mean and could only make assumptions.
Yet, all of them were proven wrong only a day later.
Because he had been fighting for days on end, Jason recuperated his strength during the following hours, only to rest a little bit after his mana core was filled and his tension finally released.
This allowed him to see minute changes in the engravings on the gate, which made him curious.
The silver color was slowly fading, being replaced by the blue hue.
At the same time, he got the feeling that it would be better to enter the gate before the engravings turned completely blue.
There was no reason for this, but Jason just followed his instincts, and the moment he entered the portal, he understood that his instincts had been proven correct.
[First floor has been successfully cleared. 1 Merit point has been rewarded.]
[Two bonus merit points have been rewarded. 100% Bonus of reward for being unscathed. 100% Bonus of reward for clearing speed.]
'So...the color of the engravings indicate how much time I have left to receive the speed bonuses?' Jason asked himself while waiting to emerge on the second floor.
At the same time, he was confused about the 'being unscathed' bonus. In fact, he had been hit by quite a few attacks, and even if they had barely grazed him, he had a few scratches on his arms and legs.
As such, the Unscathed bonus shouldn't have been given to him.
Except if the meaning of being unscathed was different than Jason assumed it to be.
How could Jason know that Primordials interpreted the word unscathed completely differently than he did, and that their meaning was much more horrifying than he could yet imagine?
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