Lust System: Sword Genius in Women's World

The ice clone took on another gargoyle, meeting it head-on. Their clash sent shards of ice and stone flying, but the clone's attack failed to hit the core as well.

"Alright, think, Xavier. They're moving their cores, but they can't move them too fast," he thought, watching their patterns.

The third gargoyle swooped low, aiming for his back. Xavier spun, driving his sword into its shoulder. As it recoiled, the ice clone followed up with a powerful slash, managing to crack open the creature's chest. The core flashed briefly before shifting to its leg, the gargoyle still intact.

"Distract them," Xavier shouted to his clone.

The ice clone darted toward two gargoyles, swinging its sword to keep them occupied. Meanwhile, Xavier focused on the damaged one.

He lunged forward, feinting a high strike before slashing low toward its leg. The blade connected, and the core shattered with a tiny burst of light. The gargoyle crumbled into rubble.

"One down," Xavier said, turning back to the others.

The ice clone wasn't faring as well. It fought well but was taking heavy hits. Another gargoyle slammed into it, breaking off one of its arms. Xavier gritted his teeth, knowing he had to act fast.

He darted toward the gargoyle attacking his clone, his sword glowing faintly as he infused it with mana.

With a precise thrust, he pierced the creature's torso, catching its core just as it tried to shift.

The gargoyle shattered, but not before landing a heavy blow on the ice clone, reducing it to shards but his clone already killed one of the gargoyles.

"Two left," Xavier smirked, breathing hard.

The remaining gargoyles hovered above, circling cautiously. They dove together, forcing Xavier to roll out of the way. He struck upward as one passed, clipping its wing and sending it crashing to the ground.

Before it could recover, Xavier drove his sword through its chest, shattering the core with a clean strike.

The final gargoyle screeched, enraged, and charged straight at him. Xavier braced himself, sidestepping at the last second and slashing across its side. The core shifted to its arm, but Xavier anticipated it was going to move.

He pivoted, delivering a downward strike that split the arm in two and destroyed the core.

The room fell silent as the last gargoyle crumbled into dust. Xavier exhaled, leaning on his sword for support.

"Well, that was tougher than I expected," he said, glancing at the shattered remnants of his ice clone.

The only problem he had was that he couldn't recover their crystal core since he had to shatter them before they would die; a gargoyle like this with a moving core would be an intermediate-tier beast, definitely not an advanced tier.

With his strength returning, Xavier turned and made his way back; there was nothing else to do, so he wanted to check the other room and hope they had a surprise like this waiting.

Before long, he was where he started; Mari still wasn't here, so he had more time to kill. Xavier wasn't really concerned about magic crystals; magic crystals in the cave are not like beast crystals or crystal cores.

For a magic crystal to contain enough Mana for him to absorb, it had to be put in by someone; magic crystals in caves are used mainly for decoration, making crystal light for homes and other stuff.

Even if he gathered a huge amount of them, the Mana inside would only amount to a low-level beast crystal, so there was really no use.

Xavier matched forward into the second cave, and just like the first one, a room was at the end, which was lit up by crystals on the ceiling, but this room was totally empty; there was nothing here, just a plain empty room.

"Two more to go," Xavier spoke as he began walking back; his sword was already placed in his inventory since he didn't want it weighing him down.

'After this cave then I'm going to the capital, I can try to buy other magical items like this illusion mask and then I'll find a dragon rider, but I doubt any of them would want to make the trip'

'I can't remain here forever I won't be at peace, I'll always be wondering if the kingdom is still standing and I'm sure it was the demon queen who attacked and my mission here to is defeat her and secure another reincarnation if I died'

'The main problem is getting back to Avalon, if the kingdom is destroyed then the demon queen would be the ruler and if it isn't, I'm sure the kingdom would send people to track her'

Xavier came out of the path and sighed heavily, if there was a way off this continent, it would be ok the back of a dragon, so he would have to become a dragon rider if none of the others wanted to listen to his proposal.

Xavier entered the third path. Again, there was a room at the end of the path, but unlike the other two paths, it was connected to another path.

Xavier wasn't sure if he should continue to the new path or go back, he wasn't sure how long the path stretched.

"I can't see any light ahead. Maybe it's a dead end; I'll just check to be sure." Xavier walked forward into the path, and it turned out the dead end wasn't a dead end. There was a right turn. Discover more stories at empire

Unlike the rest of the paths, that was just a straight path, this one had bends, and Xavier continued forward, following the path where it led. Soon, the paths began to light up with small amounts of crystals on the ceiling, and the more he went in, the more crystals there were.

Till he ultimately reached a dead end, "What the, I just wasted 10 minutes following; it was a dead end as I thought." Xavier turned around and walked back, but to his surprise, where he came from was also a dead end.