Firstly, tamed demonic creatures couldn't forcefully break the bond with their masters unless their soul was more than two times stronger. That meant even if Ray advanced Muri to the bronze rank, its soul wouldn't be strong enough to overwhelm him and snap the chains that bound it to his command.

Secondly, Muri genuinely seemed to have taken a liking to him. The chances of betrayal were minimal.

Still, it was a demonic creature, and demonic creatures could never be trusted completely. He would not advance it beyond the initial bronze rank without first strengthening his own soul.

Notifications sounded.

♦️ -200,000 EXP

♦️ Your tamed creature [Muri] has advanced from Iron Rank

♦️ Muri's strength, agility, and stamina stats has experienced a great surge

♦️ Muri's soul quality and magic power capacity has tripled.

♦️ Muri can finally use the Devour and Mimic skills

♦️ Muri have gained the chance to upgrade one of its abilities. As its master, you have been granted the privilege to decide which of its skills it should upgrade.

"Muri, upgrade the Mimic Skill," Ray said after a lot of thinking.

"Muri!" The Metal King Slime obeyed instantly.

The [Mimic] skill has been upgraded into a Semi-Divine Skill.

♦️ New Effect Unlocked: Transfiguration

— Allows you to transform others into the shape of beings or objects that you have devoured. This includes the things you have devoured without using the Devour ability.

"Not bad. If used correctly, it could even bring down a silver ranker." Ray's eyes gleamed. The task of killing Varun no longer seemed impossible.

With the Semi-Divine version of [Mimic], he believed he could come up with a surefire method of killing a silver ranker within two months.

He opened the Metal King Slime's character panel to check its changes.

[Name: Metal King Slime]

[Race: Demonic Monster]

[Rank: King Type — Bronze Rank 1]

[EXP Required to Level Up: 500,000]

[Strength: 30]

[Agility: 20]

[Stamina: 20]

[Soul Quality: 45]

[Magic Power: 4,500]

[Skills: Solidification, The King's Aura, Metal Magic, Devour, Mimic (Semi-Divine)]

For an initial-stage bronze ranker, Muri's stats were terrifying.

'As expected of a king-type demonic creature,' Ray smiled in satisfaction.

It was worth noting that he had enough EXP to level up Muri, but he couldn't do it without first advancing his own soul quality. Otherwise, Muri could break free from his control, and that would cripple his foundation permanently, he definitely couldn't allow that!

Ray then took out the Demonized Alpha Wolf's corpse and laid it on the ground.

He glanced at the Metal King Slime and commanded, "Muri, use Devour on it."

Although the Demonized Alpha Wolf's corpse was skinned and hideous, Muri obeyed without hesitation.

♦️ Your tamed creature has used [Devour].

♦️ The skill was successful.

♦️ Your tamed creature has gained the memories of the Demonized Alpha Wolf.

♦️ It has received the following benefits:

— Its hunting and fighting ability has improved.

— It has learned the human language.

— It has mastered the method that allows demonic creatures without proper vocal cords to speak the human tongue using magic power.

"Did you gain anything useful from its memories?" Ray asked.

"Besides the ability to understand and speak the human language, not really," Muri replied. Its voice sounded tender, reminiscent of a youth yet to undergo puberty.

"Why did the Demonized Alpha Wolf even learn it?" Ray asked curiously.

"To hunt better," Muri answered plainly.

"Huh?" Ray raised an eyebrow.

"When it was young, it was quite weak. It hunted near human villages to sustain itself and ended up learning the human language during that time. Understanding human speech made hunting easier. Villagers often spoke carelessly in its presence, unaware it understood their words, which help them understand their plans of luring him into a trap. This happened many times throughout its life. That deepened its interest in the language, and eventually it created a method demonic beasts could use to speak it." Muri explained.

"I see." Ray smiled. "It was an interesting creature."

Some time later. The barrier trapping countless Dire Wolves started to dim.

"Muri, get ready. Once the barrier runs out of power and vanishes, we'll move in to kill the remaining mobs in the dungeon," Ray said.

The more the barrier dimmed, the more it became transparent.

Soon, it ceased to be.

Hooowwwllll!

Hundreds of enraged Dire Wolves rushed towards Ray and Muri.

"Muri, let's finish this quickly, as planned," Ray said.

Fwuuuuush!

Hundreds of razor-sharp metallic spikes surged out of Muri, raining down on the Dire Wolves.

Pshhhk! Pshhhk! Pshhhk!

Dozens of Dire Wolves were impaled mid-charge. In but a blink, their enraged howls turned into screams of agony. The ground shook with the force of their bodies crashing down.

But not all of them fell.

More than half survived, their thick hides and desperate movements allowing them to escape the storm of spikes.

Some of the survivors circled the pair, blood-red eyes glaring at the master and his tamed creature with intense hatred, growling threateningly.

Ray's gaze narrowed.

"I will take care of these pests," Ray said to Muri as he moved to kill the Dire Wolves encircling them. "You take care of the rest."

"No problem, master. I will be done in no time." Muri bounced out of the encirclement, going straight towards the place where the majority of the surviving Dire Wolves were gathered.

Behind him, Ray's figure blurred as he shot towards the Dire Wolves who had been daring enough to come too close to him.

BOOM!

One Dire Wolf's skull exploded under his punch that released a tornado of level 1 upon contact with its flesh, fire consuming its body as it crumpled.

Another lunged from behind, jaws wide open, aiming to snap his neck.

"Too slow," Ray said. He had no blind spot, so attacking him from behind was useless. Even if he could be caught off guard, he was too fast for mere initial stage bronze rankers to harm him! Their speed and attack speed was simply too low compared to him.

Shhhhck!

An azure slash cut through the air, slicing clean through its neck. The headless body collapsed to the ground lifelessly.

Ray rushed towards his next target.

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