Kyle fell.
It was so high.
He wasn’t sure if he was going to survive that fall.
But it was his only chance.
He kept his hammer above him.
The Ore Fiend stood up and looked around, disoriented.
At that moment, Kyle saw it.
Near its shoulder blades was a round indent filled with cracks.
He kept falling.
He was going so fast!
The ground was approaching.
‘Do it!’
‘Kill it!’
Kyle swung his hammer with all of his power.
The pick of the hammer perfectly hit the round indent.
BOOOOOOM!
And the hammer exploded into pieces.
All its gadgets scattered across the room.
The pick cracked as well.
The shaft broke into pieces.
BANG!
Kyle’s legs hit the ground, breaking into splinters.
Next, his hip broke into pieces.
His spine broke in two just below his ribs.
Kyle’s body compressed as all the power of his fall came to a sudden stop.
He was put back to the time when he had been kicked by those crooks in his apartment.
It was like none of this was happening.
It was like he was not inside his own body.
It was like he was watching a video on the internet where someone died.
It was so distant.
He just looked upward, unable to move.
There, he saw the Ore Fiend.
‘That’s the Craftsmen’s Stone I made,’ he thought.
The Craftsmen’s Stone was surrounded by bent scaffolding, which was supposed to keep it in place.
And at the end was the pick, which was stuck inside the Ore Fiend’s back.
The Ore Fiend was still alive.
Sure, the pick was quite deep inside, but even Kyle could survive such a wound.
‘As expected, I was too weak,’ Kyle thought.
The Ore Fiend moved and saw Kyle.
Slowly, the Ore Fiend took hold of Kyle and lifted him.
‘Whelp, that’s it.’
Kyle’s life flashed before his eyes.
His fucked mother.
His fucked father.
His drinking sprees in school.
The countless basic bitches he had fucked.
All of this just to escape his fucked childhood.
Life was horrible.
The only way Kyle could cope with life was by making constant jokes.
Humor brightened one’s day and distracted one from the cruel realities of life.
Kyle’s head approached the open maw of the Ore Fiend.
Kyle’s last thoughts perfectly showed his outlook on life.
‘GG, go next.’
BANG!
Kyle fell to the ground, surrounded by rubble.
‘Huh?’ he thought as he looked up.
The Ore Fiend looked at its arms, which had disintegrated into rubble just now.
Then, the pick and core of the hammer shone.
The Ore Fiend’s white luster was diminishing.
The next moment, the Ore Fiend moved its other arm to Kyle, but before it could reach him, it also fell into pieces.
Kyle was reminded of the young Ore Fiend he had hit with the pick.
Its hand had also turned to rubble.
And his hammer had become quite a bit heavier as a result.
‘Ore Fiends!’ Kyle thought with renewed hope. ‘They are just ore!’
‘And my hammer can absorb ore to become stronger!’
At this moment, his hammer was growing stronger.
Sure, the hammer was in pieces, but its core was still there.
But it wasn’t over yet, and Kyle knew that!
‘It can only absorb a limited amount of Ether! Additionally, all the components are scattered around, which means it can’t completely disperse the Ether!’
Kyle gritted his teeth.
At this moment, he felt all the damage his body had accumulated.
He was almost dead.
He grabbed one of the stones and threw it into his mouth.
The Ether scattered through him, and his body started healing.
However, recovery wasn’t an instantaneous process.
It would still take a while to recover.
Nevertheless, the Ether would heal the most devastating injuries.
Naturally, his organs were bleeding, and he would die very soon.
But thanks to the Ether, he knew that he would survive.
Of course, only scraps of Ether were left in the scattered stones, but they were not completely devoid of Ether.
CRACK!
The next moment, one of the Ore Fiend’s legs gave out, and it fell on top of Kyle.
Kyle felt like a house had fallen on him.
This thing was so fucking heavy!
Luckily, its weight was somewhat dispersed.
Nevertheless, Kyle’s skull cracked, and he almost lost consciousness.
“Use your Soul!” the voice shouted in urgency. “It’s just Ore! Contact your Mining Weapon! Do it!”
Kyle’s mind extended to the Ore Fiend, and he could feel it.
It was like a humongous piece of unknown ore.
“It’s losing its will over its body!” the voice shouted. “Your Mining Weapon is absorbing the will on its surface!”
At this moment, Kyle felt like the Ore Fiend’s outer shell had become part of his body.
It was his tool.
It was his hands.
Sadly, Kyle couldn’t just disintegrate the shell.
After all, a human couldn’t disintegrate their hand with their mind.
But there was one thing a hand could do, and that was grab stuff!
Kyle felt like he was holding his hammer.
His hammer told him about its functions.
“Infuse!” Kyle commanded.
The next instant, the black core shone brightly.
Kyle could feel a ton of Ether moving from the core into the pick.
Then, the Ether shot into the Ore Fiend.
This was not just regular Ether.
This was Ether with destructive properties.
One method of mining was to infuse ore with a different kind of Ether.
In a way, it was like adding a base to an acid, turning it into water.
An instant later, cracks appeared all over the Ore Fiend’s body.
Then, it started to crumble into pieces.
CRACK!
And finally…
It completely turned into rubble.
The Ore Fiend had lost all of its previous shape and just turned into a bunch of ore, covering Kyle.
Kyle rapidly consumed pieces of the ore.
His strength was returning.
Then, he used all of his available power to move some of the rubble to the side.
He saw light again.
‘This way, I won’t asphyxiate,’ Kyle thought.
All of the accumulated stress gathered in Kyle’s mind.
And he lost consciousness.