Lord of Annihilation

{Peak-Level Stage 1 killed- 10000}

{Mid/Peak-Level Stage 2 killed- 4903}

{Low-Level Stage 3 killed- 0}

{Current Evaluation- A+}

While twirling the newly gained Sword Energy on her fingertips, Olivia thought to herself, 'Only 97 more to go. The plan worked way better than I expected it to work,'

"'You're not you when you're hungry', huh?" Olivia broke into a chuckle. 

Tapping her cheeks and stretching them to get rid of the dumb smile on her face, Olivia muttered, "No one uses that joke anymore, stop laughing." 

It still took her a few minutes before finally calming down. Olivia then seriously controlled the sword energy in her hands, manipulating them to form shapes and patterns.

Continuously fighting the Sword-Winged Angels and seeing their usage of sword energy allowed Olivia to finally comprehend the essence of the energy. 

After this last battle, something clicked within her mind and she was finally able to create and use sword energy herself. Once again, Olivia's combat prowess underwent a sharp increase. At this point, she was only a few steps away from reaching the absolute peak of stage 2.

'It's not that different from soul power in control. It's just a lot slower and denser,' Olivia analyzed.

Moving all the gathered sword energy to her left hand, Olivia used her right hand to unsheathe her sword. She then controlled the sword energy to adhere to the sword surface.

Similar to a fish meeting water, the sword energy instantly jumped onto the pathways built into the sword and moved without any hindrance. Almost immediately, Olivia felt her control over the energy increase by a few levels.

'Whoa, this is much better!' she exclaimed, swinging the sword a few times. 

Then, she grasped the handle with both her hands and performed a standard slashing movement. A semi-material beam of whitish energy flew from the edge of the sword and disappeared into the rock wall, a few meters away.

Watching the sword energy disappear without any apparent reaction, Olivia showed a confused reaction and thought, 'Is that it? That did nothing?'

Just as she was about to check the sword energy, Olivia's soul senses picked up the scene before her.

A portion of the rock wall suddenly slid down and crashed against the ground with a loud thud. The ground trembled for a few moments, as clouds of dust rose up and clouded the air. A perfect mirror-like surface was now present on the site of the attack. 

The sword energy had cut the face of the wall with such accuracy and perfection that it took a second for the rock wall to slide down from its cut portion.

The lethality of the sword energy was simply incomparable!

Having watched this scene, cold sweat appeared on Olivia's face and back. She looked at her sword first, before looking up at the cut rock wall, and finally looking at her sword once more.

"Oh my god," Olivia spoke with pure amazement, "was sword energy always this powerful?"

Her practice of [Absolute Evasion] had ingrained within her the concept of never getting hit. As such, never once during this two-month period had Olivia directly tanked an attack.

The most that would reach her body were the aftershocks of the attack, and even these aftershocks made cuts and lacerations on her clothes and body.

Now, seeing the actual impact of a full-powered sword energy attack, Olivia instinctively shuddered. She vaguely imagined the consequence of receiving such an attack with her body.

'I would be dismembered into pieces,' Olivia's face paled at the result.

It was pretty obvious. No matter how much stronger her body had become after the training and the buffs from her soul power, she was still human in the end.

There was no way her body would remain complete after tanking such an attack.

"Thank the hea—well, I guess I should be thanking Lucius for ingraining the habit of dodging in me," recovering from her pose, Olivia muttered to herself in relief.

The innumerable pebble strikes and countless lashing suddenly made sense to Olivia. All the pain that she had experienced as punishment made perfect sense.

Carefully sheathing the sword back into its scabbard, Olivia continued, "I should probably be careful when using that. Not only is it terribly lethal, but it also drains a lot of concentration and soul power."

"Right now, I can only make 30 or so attacks continuously before losing consciousness. If I was to properly apportion it, I can use around 70-75 attacks before running out of soul power."

Nodding her head in satisfaction at this new gain, Olivia then scoured her surroundings one final time before moving once again. She could not afford to stay at one location for too long, or else she would become prone to falling into the enemy's trap.

Olivia accurately understood just how much, her opponents currently hated her. Her actions of destroying their food supplies and poisoning their only source of water had, after all, crossed a certain line.

Navigating through the maze-like gorge, within which she was currently present, a thought occurred to Olivia, 'Have I become a terrible person?'

The thought lingered for a few seconds before an answer followed.

'Yep, there's no doubt about that. I have indeed become a terrible person,' Olivia admitted to it.

Surprisingly, however, there seemed to be no hesitation or disgust in her mind. In fact, Olivia's face carried a small smile as she admitted to her change.

'But why does it matter for as long as I achieve the required result? Be it direct combat or indirect scheming, as long as the ends are met, the means and methods do not matter.'

'Getting that S+ evaluation reward is my goal. And if anything stands between me and that goal, I should naturally get rid of it.'

Olivia's thoughts while inhuman and immoral were exactly the type of mindset a person seeking greater power must possess. If she did not even possess this level of determination, there would be no point in her training.

Was it wrong? Yes. 

But then again, why would someone climbing to the top worrying about the state and feelings of their stepping stones.

There was no peaceful way to climb to the peak of this Universe.

One must be determined to kill and to be killed on their quest for power.

'Speaking of the S+ evaluation, I've yet to meet a Stage 3 being. There's less than a month left,' Olivia thought worriedly.

Of the two months she had spent building aggro on this planet, Olivia had yet to come across a Stage 3 being. At this point, she had begun to worry if a Stage 3 being would show up at all.

'How much farther do I push them before this 'Mighty One', which I'm assuming to be a Stage 3 existence shows up? Isn't what I've done already—' Olivia's pupils suddenly shrunk.

Immediately exerting strength onto her feet, she used all her might to stop her dash and kill the momentum. Olivia's feet dug into the hard clouds underneath her, creating trenches of sorts.

'EVADE!' A single thought exploded within her mind, as her instincts furiously warned her about the approaching calamity.

Exploding the soul power underneath her feet, Olivia operated [Absolute Evasion] to its greatest extent and desperately performed an evasive maneuver.

In the instant that she had moved, a long and dense sword constructed out of sword energy struck the ground underneath her feet. Trembling for an instant after contact, it then exploded with tremendous power.

BOOOOM!!!

Waves of sharp and scathing sword energy swept across the immediate surroundings. The rocks walls of both sides of the narrow gorge held on for a single second before shattering into thousands of shards whizzing at unseen speeds.

Olivia's mind worked at speeds that it had never reached before, as she desperately minimized the damage received mid-air. Turning and spinning at impossible angles, her actions bested that of the greatest gymnasts as she fought off the waves of energy.

"FU*KING HE--!!" Spitting out an incomplete curse, Olivia felt a secondary wave of pure destructive energy slam into her body.

On contact, the armor on her body instantly turned into shreds, revealing the flawless skin beneath. The wave of destructive energy had barely diminished as it continued to tear apart her skin and gorge into her muscles.

The unpleasant sound of bones shattering was drowned by the furious whistles of the wind as Olivia's ragged body flew backward for a few hundred meters before crashing onto a rock wall.

Having sunk five or so meters into the rock face, Olivia's body was battered to the point of turning into a bloody mess. 

Her hands and chest, which had tanked the majority of the damage, were broken and burnt. Her legs and abdomen were relatively fine, having lost only the skin and received cuts of the muscles.

Her head, which was slumped on her burnt chest, was the least injured part of her body. Still, crimson blood drenched her hair and face, as her mouth continued to throw up mouthfuls of blood. It was evident that her interiors weren't in great shape either. 

Raising her head, Olivia's violet eyes, which were no longer being hidden beneath the blinds, released an unbounded murderous intent as she stared at her attacker through her burnt and blood-drenched hair. 

A 2m tall, winged angel dressed in spotless white robes. Her silver-colored wings glimmered against the bright sunlight creating an inviolable halo around her figure. 

Her feature-less face stared toward Olivia and her grotesquely large mouth opened and spoke.

"So you're the bug causing all this trouble up here, huh? How disappointing," she shook her head.

Hearing her words, something snapped within Olivia's head.

A malevolent smile appeared on her face, creating a sinister image coupled with her bloody body. In a light-hearted, playful tone of sorts, she spoke.

"I'm gonna rip apart that wh*re-mouth of yours for saying those words."