Another Test? (1)

As he held the sword, suddenly another tremor ran through the subterranean space, as Valkorion's senses warned him that something was coming and that something that was coming wasn't peaceful by any means, and it would be prudent to meet it in the single combat.

In a few moments, he sensed registered several presences all around him, as they were crawling the walls in an attempt to reach his position. He didn't know what was going for him, but he held the sword close and was ready for the combat.

Unforrutly, Valkorion wasn't powerful enough to use the Sealed Artifact as anything else, aside from its nature as a sword. So, he has no fancy abilities right now, but even as just a sword, the value of the weapon was peerless.

He could see that it was superior to the Valyrian Steel by a great degree, and it was extremely sharp, never losing its edge. The cutting power of the Excalibur is no joke; that one was sure. 

In a few moments, he saw the first monster that appeared from the shadows of the subterranean cavern. 

To his surprise, it was an Ettercap.

Ettercaps were a race of bestial, spider-like aberrations and rather common Monsters that lived in the cavern and subterranean spaces of the known world. They were primitive and had a strong affinity with spiders.

An adult Ettercap stood 1.8 meters tall and weighed something around 91 kilograms to 100 kilograms. Ettercaps resembled hunched, grey-purplish humanoids with distended white underbellies, spider-like faces with fangs and eyes and such, and two sharp, black, chitinous claws instead of hands and feet.

Valkorion counted around twenty of them exiting the shadows of the cave. He knew that neither of them was Extraordinary Creature, but their physical strength was still on the level of a very well-trained soldiers.

He immediately steeled himself and rushed to the closest of the Ettercaps, and with a swift sword stroke, he severed the head of the current. As soon as the Ettercap was decapitated, he headed for the next one, using the more aggressive forms of the Juyo Sword Style, and with one hack, he pierced through the neck of another other.

Fortunately for him, they were not particularly intelligent. They were cowardly and vicious, preferring to set traps to ensnare their enemies. Ettercaps tended to be solitary creatures, and their only purpose was to eat and to breed.

They were no warriors in any place, and in a direct confrontation, they were rather weak, as they preferred their traps, ambushing their enemies or just overwhelming them with sheer numbers to do their job.

Unfortunately for the aberrations, this time, they met their match, as Valkorion was killing one after another. They were rather clumsy, and most of them didn't even know how to fight, so it was a total bloodbath as all twenty of them were soon enough massacred without much resistance as he stabbed the Excalibur into the last one that attempted to escape.

'Still, the sword has some sort of passive light effect on the creatures... when it comes into contact with their flesh, it leaves there some sort of burn marks.'

Valkorion thought as he drew out the sword from the corpse of the last Ettercap, swinging it to get rid of the remaining blood on the blade.

'Even more of these Abberations... still... the progress of digestion is getting faster, and my own comprehension of the sword is also increasing... is this perhaps some sort of test from "Him" or what?'

Valkorion thought as he got once again into the battle stance, preparing to meet another wave of the Ettercap Abberations head-on, as he put his left leg behind his right leg and put his sword into striking position so he could rush at the nearest enemy.

Aberrations...

These creatures did not fit into the natural world. Though some believed aberrations originated from the Far Realm, this was not true for all aberrations. One of the most famous Aberrations, the Driders, for example, were unnatural crosses between Drow and Spiders.

Aberrations were not natural beings in most cases; in most cases, they were just punishment from the Gods, angels, or experiments of the powerful Beyonders that were released on the world, procreated, and created another species or whatever.

In the end, it didn't matter as most of them were as dangerous as hell and were hostile to everything else aside from themselves. In some cases, even that wasn't true...

Knowing that the Excalibur had some sort of passive light-insured ability that was especially effective and lethal against all dark-attributed monsters filled Valkorion with a new sort of confidence as he appeared among the group of ten Ettercaps and stabbed one of them through his heart. 

Not even a second later, he swirled in the air, kicking one of the Ettracps into their fleshy stomach, causing the monster to be sent flying a few meters, as it fell down to the depths of the underground cavern.

He immediately turned around, slashing toward one of the aberrations that was hacking at him with its claws. He severed its hand, and not even a moment later, he stabbed the sword right into the creature's mouth, killing it instantly.

Valkorion was cutting, slashing, and hacking until he was entirely covered in the blood of the Ettercaps from toe to tip, doing two of the spider aberrations that lunged at him with newfound ferocity when they saw the carnage.

He dodged almost effortlessly, flipping in the air as he landed behind the Ettercpas and stabbed the Excalibur to the back of one of the creatures. At the same time, one of them turned around and attempted to bite him in the neck, as he turned down and delivered a punch to its spider-like jaws, hearing an audible "cracking" sound.

The struck Ettercap was disoriented for a time, allowing Valkorion to pull out the sword from the deceased creature, and with one precise slash, he slit the throat of the poor Ettercap that didn't know what was happening after Vakorion broke its jaws.

Seeing that he was alone on the place for the time being, Valkorion started breathing heavily, as he was rather tired. Around him the corpses of the Ettercaps that he killed started piling up a little bit. 

If he were to count them, there would be around thirty to forty of them, all of the spider aberrations being killed in very quick succession, one after another. As he was enjoying the short, brief pause, his senses once again heard a screeching sound and clapping sound as if someone was crawling on the wall.

Though, this time, it was not Ettercaps but something far more disgusting in his eyes.

'Chwidencha... Sequence 7 Extraordinary Creature...'

A Chwidencha seemingly consisted of nothing but a writhing mass of long, hairy, flexible spider legs. Each leg ended in a barbed spike and had one side covered in thorn-like hairs that allowed the limb to easily tear through the flesh and bone of any unfortunate victim.

The creature did have a central body hidden under the dozens of legs that radiated from it, but this was normally only seen after the Chwidencha's demise.

Valkorion was rather educated in the Beastiary of the Valyrian Freehold, so he had an easy time in the identification of his enemies. Seeing something as Chwidencha made him a not-really happy camper.