The Battle of Heaven

The first thing I felt when I walked into was the wind blowing hard against me.

"….Is this a joke? Brilliant Fragment?"

[No, it is not. Ashborn has his way of training his successor by having him fight the various creatures he has fought in the past. I have my own way of strengthening you]

I did not pay attention to the pride in his voice.

Because standing in front of me is a being that can only be my doom.

With bright red eyes glowing menacingly, A humanoid form that was twice as tall as me and covered in armor that looked to be made out of exotic materials. With six feathery wings flapping behind them, keeping them in the air. With spears, axes, and swords that looked like they were made out of pure light.

Standing in front of me, was a hoard of angel-like beings.

Then, I looked around at the area and realized that the floor was made out of cloud-like material with fog obscuring the rest of the area.

If I had to guess, the brightest fragment must have created this realm with the image of 'Heaven' as we humans know it and created these monsters out of his own power.

This bastard is trying to put me through the wringer from the get-go.

The Angels did not give me time to think as the angels at the back immediately released their arrows of light straight at me.

I hastily put up my shield.

Thanks to the rune of reinforcement, the shield held against the onslaught, but looking at the angels, it did not look like they were going to stop anytime soon.

I held up my shield and charged forward toward the angels who started to maneuver in the air to move behind and attack me on my unguarded back.

Unfortunately for them, I did not give them the time and directly jumped into the air and drew my sword.

The first angel to die was one of the bow-wielders.

From what I saw, the angels are divided into two types. Meele fighters, who had physical combat weapons and wore heavy armor. And Ranged fighters, who had cloth armor and wielded bows or magic.

I immediately targeted the nearby Ranged fighters and used flash step to reach them instantly.

For a few seconds, it was a slaughter.

By the 30-second mark, I had already killed 10 Ranged fighters.

Then things went south.

Without warning, a Warhammer hit me on my right arm, directly shattering my armor and forcing me to drop my sword and retreat.

[HP: 1900/2000]

During the time I was slaughtering the Ranged fighters, the angels had regrouped.

The Melee fighters are now at the front. Those that had shields were forming a protective wall while those that had spears were pointing them forward through the gap in the shield wall.

A classic Phalanx formation.

But they are not done. The mages have taken to staying put behind the Melee fighters, surrounded on all sides by sword, axe, and hammer wielders. The same strategy was also being used for bow wielders.

Right now, it can be said that I am a single man against an entire organized army.

And I am loving every single minute of this.

I felt a wide grin stretch across my face as my heart thumped in my chest like a hammer.

This is it. This is the feeling I had been missing in my previous life. This adrenalin, this life-or-death situation. This rush of excitement.

I hadn't felt like this ever since I stopped going skydiving and bungee jumping since my previous parents died.

This is one of the few feelings that make me feel alive.

I shed the broken armor from my arm and concentrated on my mana.

These things think that they have the advantage because they have disarmed me?

I will show them their error.

I concentrated, pulling from the deep pool of mana in me, and held the image in my mind of what I wanted.

A sphere. A container of my power.

No, it is more like a projector. A conduit, a direction.

Light gathered around my hand as the winds picked up due to the sheer pressure of the attack that I was preparing. The compressed mana started to take on a near-physical form as space started to distort around it.

The Angels sensed that whatever I was doing is going to be a problem for them and immediately attacked.

I held my shield forward, withering the arrows and blasts of magic from the Angels while the front line of the Phalanx started to advance towards me.

Within 20 seconds, the angels were near enough for them to strike me while my shield shattered after a final combined blast from the Ranged fighters.

Unfortunately for them, I was already done preparing.

With a grin, I pushed my right hand forward and released my hold on the compressed mana.

What followed was a sound that was similar to a bomb going off.

Most of the frontline of the phalanx was vaporized instantly as a massive beam of light carved through their ranks, killing anything that was caught in it.

What I had created, was a bastardized version of a Kamehameha from Dragon Ball.

[New Skill Created]

[Skill points rewarded]

[Mana Blast (Active) Lvl: 1] [MP: 1000]

I dismissed the notifications and took advantage of the time that the Angels were in disarray to re-arm myself.

Once again, I pulled on the mana within me. This time, instead of performing an attack, I visualized it to form a sword and shield for me.

But then, I encountered failure as I failed to stabilize the mana to form a solid shape.

Shit, now I will have to fight these things barehanded.

But as I was thinking of a new strategy, an Angel suddenly appeared out of nowhere and swung his axe at me.

I bent backward and barely avoided the attack, only for another hammer to catch me on the side and send me flying.

[HP: 1400/2000]

Fuck, I can't take three more hits like that. That thing took 500 HP straight out.

But the Angels did not give me the time to breathe as I was, once again attacked with arrows and magic, forcing me to evade continuously.

The only good thing about this situation is that my previous attack has managed to reduce their number from over 200 to 50 or so. Now I just have to think about how to defeat these remaining Angels.

I used Reinforcement and Augmented sight and activated the runes on my armor, slowly restoring my HP while I searched the battlefield for an advantage while running with my reinforced speed.

I found my answer soon as I spotted a discarded hammer near the spot where the frontline was previously.

I shot forward, combing both Reinforcement and Flash Step to reach the place instantly, and reached for the hammer.

Only for my fingers to pass through it.

Damn it. Looks like only angels can wield their weapons and I can't pick up any discarded weapons.

With no other option, I decided to do the one thing I did not want to do.

I took a sloppy boxing stance and shot forward.

For the next few minutes, the only sound in the dungeon was the sound of fists striking metal. Only, instead of the sickening sound of bones breaking, only the groans of broken metal rang out.

I continued raining fists on them without any real form or technique. Just pure power and the will to not survive.

Thanks to this mindless violence, I managed to whittle down the numbers until I finally killed the last of the Angles.

[Levelled up]

I finally collapsed on the cloud-like ground in exhaustion and simply stared as the System started to list out notifications.

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[Player Level Increased to 25]

[Skills Leveled up]

[Conceptual Reinforcement Level: 10-- 12]

[Augmented Sight: 10-- 11]

[Flash Step: 1-- 6]

[High-Speed Regeneration: 8--10]

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I dismissed the notification and got onto my feet again. With my fatigue, HP and MP reset with the level up. It is time to search for the boss monster of the dungeon.

But first, I need to think about what to do about weapons.