Chapter 22: Becoming an Illucard-Slayer part 2: The Mysterious Cave/ A Whole Lotta Rabbits (Chapter 21)
After Itami resolved to defeat the illucard, he went to sleep.
The next morning, Itami woke up energized and determined, so after he ate breakfast, he marched directly to the magic beasts' territory.
Illucard's territory was very unique.
Unlike the other kings, his land wasn't marked with claw markings, but an intricate pattern.
It was a tree with an arcanic circle under it.
This was strange because typically, magic beasts didn't have markings like that.
However, this wasn't where the peculiarities ended.
No, they had only just begun.
Much like the grendel, the illucard stayed in a cave, but to compare the two would be foolish.
From the outside, The cave looked like a small entrance to a mountain like the other, but when he got inside Itami was astonished.
'Wow. It's as if the entire cave was hollowed out, and I can even hear my voice echo.' Itami said in praise
The cave was about 200 meters high, and the end of the cave was farther than the eye could see; However, this wasn't the most impressive part of the cave.
On the ceiling laid one of the most precious materials on the continent.
Etherite.
In this continent, there were many precious ores and crystals, but the most precious of them all was etherite.
Chevalier risked their lives every day, so their most trusted partner wasn't their squad mates, but their weapons
Chevalier lived and died by their weapons and armor, so it stood to reason that they'd pay exorbitant amounts to maintain and create them.
Among the materials for a chevalier's armory, the most important was its ether core, which allowed the efficient use of aether and ether through the weapon.
Without it, over time, the weapons would quickly deteriorate, and Itami's rods weren't any different.
This was part of the reason Itami chose rods in the first place.
On a weakly to bi-weakly basis, Itami had to sculpt and create new poles out of stone because he didn't have the resources to get a proper core.
It was too extravagant to create weapons like swords and blades that needed time that Itami did not have and would not hold up to his ether.
For the core to be made, one needed two ingredients, an artisan and a grade crystal.
Artisans were crafters who spent their lives smithing and creating weapons, but they weren't too hard to find because it was lucrative and weapons were a need everywhere.
The problem was the graded crystals.
Crystals were graded from grade 1 to grade 5, and they were extremely hard to come by so much so that most chevaliers fight with their spirits or weapons made of ether to avoid cost or use grade 1-2 cores.
Etherite was grade 3 core, and although this didn't seem like much it meant everything to those on this continent.
So much so that people would fight wars for it.
Yes, people would actually risk their lives for material.
That was just how rare etherite was to the general populace, and above Itami was a chandelier full of it.
Once Itami saw the etherite on the top of the ceiling, he immediately knew that he'd have to keep this place secret and he'd have to win this fight today.
Etherite was also useful for magic beasts because it could allow them to evolve and build their aether heart.
Aether hearts are what magic beasts use to process aether, and like humans, their power would multiply when they could use them.
If Itami didn't kill the illucard today, it was unlikely he'd have another chance.
While Itami was lost in thought, thinking about the severity of the situation, he suddenly saw a group of snow rabbit men pour into the area out of nowhere, and before he knew it, he was surrounded.
Thousands of them, with their beady red eyes, white fur, and long ears, look at him as hunters stalking their prey.
This deeply shocked Itami because magic beasts typically didn't stay in the same area unless they were of the same race.
Usually, this led to fighting between the leaders of both groups.
The only way that would happen was...
'Oh my Arcana, I hope it's not that because if it is, this will be a thousand times more difficult.' Itami thought to himself, thinking of the worst possibility.
"Well, it doesn't matter because soon the hunter will become the prey."
As the rabbit men swirled around him, Itami decided to attack first.
Itami decided to thin their numbers quickly, so he attacked the beasts with his regular speed.
This was saying something because his speed had increased tremendously since his last fight.
If before he was fighting at 3 or 4x his original speed, now he's fighting at 10-13 times.
Honestly, Itami was excited.
He had gotten insanely fast and was prepared to let those rabbit men know it, so before those to the right of him could attack Itami, a weird line had appeared on their throats, and a red waterfall bathed him.
After this, Itami started to smile because this was the power he'd dreamed of.
However, inside him, there was a figure who wasn't pleased.
Edward was disgusted by this side of Itami because
he looked like a murderous psycho.
Nevertheless, he wasn't surprised.
Edward had taken note of Itami's masochistic tendencies and love for violence when he was training him.
A normal kid at Itami's age would complain or cry with the way he was training, but Itami decided he wanted to do more.
'According to Itami, he wasn't always like this. When he was younger, he enjoyed stories and loved to play hero games. How I wish I could've met that innocent boy. What did that bastard uncle of his do to make him?'
Seeing the boy's expression, Edward chose to be the responsible adult in the situation.
"Cut it out, kid. You're creeping me out."
After Itami heard this, his smile contracted; he was embarrassed about his earlier display.
He could only imagine how ugly his figure was if it creeped out a magus.
He wanted to hide in a hole, but the battle wasn't over.
One by one, rabbit-men bodies started to pile into towers from a multitude of injuries.
Some had been impaled through the stomach like a kabob.
Others had encaved chests and hearts.
However, most died from their brains being beat in.
Those were the most gruesome because the blood and brain matter would splatter all over Itami's body.
Nevertheless, it didn't matter how they died because they all had one thing in common other than many broken bones.
What mattered was they all died with a single swing of his pole.
Some warriors loved the feeling of their enemies being crushed or sliced apart, but that wasn't Itami.
What Itami valued was efficiency.
He didn't care about the number or if they died cleanly or not.
Itami wanted it to be quick and methodical.
As the battle raged on, Itami noticed that the number of rabbits wasn't decreasing.
This started to worry him deeply because although he was strong, he wasn't invincible and had finite stamina.
As the seconds went by, he was slowly but surely losing his energy, his attacks were getting weaker, and he knew he couldn't keep this up for long.
Itami decided to try and finish them all in one fell swoop.
He didn't want to do this previously because he wanted to save his energy for the upcoming fight with the illucard, but now he didn't have a choice.
If he continued to fight this battle of attrition, he would lose more energy than he'd be saving.
Itami vaulted into the air to allow himself space from the constant onslaught of attacks and prepare himself for what he was about to do next.
Yes, he was going to use it, an aether attack.
Itami put his canes in a cross formation, and slowly, but surely white cubes from all around him started to flow, with the poles being the center.
Next, Itami started his internal counter,
'Core formation rate 10%-15%-47%-80%-100%.
Core stabilization rate 95% pure.
Ready for fire.'
Finally, while falling upside down into an endless sea of white, a yellow ball materialized in front of Itami, and he bellowed at the top of his lungs.
"Ether Cannon!!"
It was a majestic sight.
The yellow ball danced in the air and landed at the epicenter of the beasts
**BOOM**
, and like they never existed at all, they disappeared into a bottomless crater.
Once he confirmed they'd all been cleared, Itami used a regular ether jet on his back and sat down on a nearby rock.
Currently, Itami was exhausted from that last attack and only had half his ether left.
" I can't believe that attack took that much out of me."
Itami said panting heavily.
Hearing this Edward chimed in
"Of course it did. You are still not used to using aether attacks yet, and it was only 95 % pure, so you had to override the last 5 % with ether."
"Can't you give me a break I just finished fighting"
Suddenly, Edward felt an unusual ether.
"I mean I can, but he won't."
Hearing his words, Itami looked up and stared daggers at the figure in front of him.
In front of Itami was a boy who looked as old as him but was pale white, scrawny, and had a weird aura about him, and although he knew nothing about him, he knew who he was, no, what he was.
He was the illucard.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone