It was out of Zac’s expectation it would grow to this size . As he continued putting in more power into the skill it kept growing , but Zac soon felt that he was starting to lose control over the skill . Suddenly the cosmic energy blade simply dissipated , leaving no trace of ever being there .
It seemed that there was a limit of how large he could grow the blade without it starting to become unstable . After some experimentation he knew that he could keep the blade stable at roughly one meter . Any larger and it would quickly become unstable . The longer he made the blade the shorter duration he could keep it .
It seemed that this was all that there was to the skill . He tried shooting it away like a ranged attack or boomerang , but nothing happened . It was firmly lodged to his axe . Of course , the proficiency was only at early stage , and it might get more functions at higher levels .
Zac was still quite pleased with the skill , even though it wasn’t as flashy as the black lightning of the demon leader . It wasn’t fancy but he could immediately imagine a few uses for a skill such as this . For one he could surprise an enemy . He or she might have thought that they dodged his strike , but instead they were well within the range of his skill blade .
It was also a brutal instrument when fighting against multiple enemies . If he pushed it past its point of stability he could wield a huge blade and slash at multiple people at one , at least for a short duration before the skill broke . With his monstrous strength he believed that he could create a great deal of carnage in that brief window in time .
Of course , that would be a last resort attack , as cramming that amount of cosmic energy into one skill use would greatly drain him .
There was one thing he didn’t understand with the skill . He had gained his Dao seed from managing to incorporate this intangible force of heaviness into his strikes while he was walking back to the camp , but he was utterly incapable of doing the same with the skill .
He tried using a few Dao empowered strikes , and they did have an air of weight to them . It wasn’t as tyrannical as the axe-man’s of course , but it felt like these strikes should be harder for someone to block compared to normal strike .
But when he tried incorporating this feeling into Chop] , everything got jumbled and he didn’t even manage to produce the blade . He saw no reason that they shouldn’t work together but guessed that he had to practice some more before being able to use it as he wished .
The last thing for him to test out with the new skill was the sharpness . It was somewhat pointless if he got a larger edge if it wasn’t sharp . Sure , with his strength he’d do damage anyways without a sharp edge , but if the translucent edge was dull he might as well swing around a tree trunk .
He charged up a meter long blade and swung down upon a rock almost as tall as him . With a clang the cosmic energy blade cut halfway into the stone . Satisfied , Zac let the blade dissipate .
It seemed that cutting through things would use up the energy faster compared to simply having it summoned , but even while not cutting things it continuously drained him slowly . Of course he could likely keep inputting more and more energy and the blade would remain . But it seemed to be a wasteful use of cosmic energy .
Zac felt that the skill was best used as either a finisher or surprise attack , not in a long protracted battle . He would only be able to use it continuously for a few minutes at the most before being completely drained .
The sharpness seemed to be roughly the same as with his actual axe . It did seem to model itself after his axe’s edge after all , so it made sense that they would share some features . He wondered if the sharpness improved if he got a higher grade weapon in the future . He was sure that his weapon was a low F-grade blade , as he had looted it on some random demon after all . It couldn’t be too valuable .
He then brought out a sword from his pouch to test whether he could use Chop] with other weapons , but it at least didn't work with swords .
He was planning on testing some more but a snap of a twig in the vicinity stopped him in his tracks .
Zac got a sinking feeling , as he had made sure that there were no beasts in the area before trying out the skill . He quickly slunk down into nearby foliage and started to retreat toward his camp , taking great care to not make a sound .
Only the gwyllgi among the demons seemed to be active during the night , but he had never heard those beasts make any sounds while moving through the forest . That meant that the snap of the twig was more likely to be one of the war parties moving about .
He swore at himself for his carelessness . He had been on a high from his new boosts and wasn’t as careful as he should be . Even when grinding beasts his biggest priority had always been keeping a lookout for these parties . He always kept moving and didn’t fight close to his base as he didn’t want to attract attention to that area .
Now he was quite close to his camp , and his swing into the stone had made a sound . He soundlessly passed through the layer and entered his illusion array . He could only hope it was a large critter that was lumbering around in the dark .
Zac held his axe at the ready , vigilantly gazing into the woods . His hopes were soon dashed as he saw one of the roving war parties moving close by . The demons conversed in their language with subdued voices , seemingly arguing about something .
The core of the party consisted of 6 demons and an imp . They generally seemed to be average soldiers , with none of them wearing expensive-looking gear . There also were a few gwyllgi and barghest surrounding the party .
Zac didn’t dare to move even though he knew that his camp just looked like an empty area with some extra dense bushes . His illusion array was effective on the eyes , but he had no idea whether there were skills that could sense the array . He had tried it with his Eye of Discernment] without finding anything , but it was also the cheapest skill that the Nexus Node offered .
Suddenly he saw a gwyllgi was slowly coming extremely close , moving some ways from the group . If it kept moving the direction it did , it would enter the bushes he had moved to the edge of his camp , and soon after enter his array .
Zac’s fears came true as it trotted forward and entered his camp through the dense bushes . Zac was ready and with lightning speed he grabbed the hound’s neck as soon as it was through the array , and with a twist broke it . With his strength he could probably rip its head right off , but he didn’t want any blood to spill .
He slowly dragged the corpse into the camp and flung it to the side . Luckily the array also had sound dampening , so no one should have heard anything . He resumed his vigil against the rest of the group , and it seemed no one among them had noticed the missing beast . The gwyllgi often moved some distance from the parties acting as scouts , so it would likely take some while before they noticed their missing beast . Unfortunately , they had stopped just 50 meters away from the camp .
They still seemed to be arguing about something in hushed tones . One of the demons seemed nervous and kept pointing toward where Zac had tested his skill . The others seemed unconvinced and dismissive .
One of the demons rolled his eyes at the nervous one and started to actually walk toward Zac’s camp . The nervous demon entreated him , but was just met with a dismissive wave of his hand . He started fiddling with his pants and stopped at a tree just half a meter away from the edge of the illusion array .