Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent!

The Phoenix flames flickered in Alex's hands, casting an eerie, deep red glow around him.

The Awakened and the massive Rhinoceros beast had their attention wholly focused on Alex by this point, feeling the intensity of the heat emanating from the flames.

The beast snorted and snarled, pawing at the ground, while the mercenaries and students eyed Alex with a mix of curiosity and irritation.

"Fuck off-" Another one of the mercenaries, a burly man with a scar running down his cheek, stepped forward, ready to confront Alex.

It was obvious that he was probably the leader of this ragtag group of awakened.

Alex ignored the mercenary, his eyes locked onto the beast's.

"Back off if you don't want to end up dead," Alex commanded, his voice firm.

Most of the awakened around him complied, sensing the power radiating from Alex's body. They had been struggling with the beast for too long, unsure if they would even be able to kill it, and the threat in Alex's tone was not one to be taken lightly.

A few, however, stood their ground, glaring at Alex with defiance.

"Why should we listen to a puny D- rank punk like you?" One of them, a tall woman with short-cropped hair and a defiant stance, challenged.

Instead of answering, Alex unleashed his aura. The force of it washed over the group like a tidal wave, making their hair stand on end.

The remaining members of the group, including the woman, who stayed behind felt their legs tremble.

They had never felt such a strong aura from a D tier before. In fact, they had never even felt an aura so strong from a C tier either!

"Move aside," Alex repeated, his voice low and dangerous.

The defiant ones quickly moved aside, their defiance crumbling in the face of Alex's dominating aura.

The Rhinoceros like beast, sensing a shift in power dynamics, used the small bit of intelligence it had in its disproportionately sized brain to realise that Alex was most likely stronger than these other awakened that had been pestering it for the last 15 minutes.

But like the beast it was, its instincts took over. It snorted and charged madly at Alex, its massive hooves pounding the ground and shaking the earth beneath it.

Alex, not scared one bit, took the deep red flames in his hands and enveloped his sword in them.

He could instantly hear sizzling from the metal making up the blade as the heat was too much for the sword to handle, causing it to start melting slowly.

Alex hurried up his attack, not wanting to completely wreck his only sword after his first skirmish with a beast.

He had initially planned for the Rhinoceros to charge at him, but not wanting to risk the sword's integrity any further, he led his own charge towards the beast.

The two met head-on only a split second later.

The air was filled with the sound of metal slicing through flesh, and the heat from the Phoenix flames created a thick cloud of smoke and steam.

The awakened on the sides were left utterly dumbfounded, their mouths wide open as they looked at the aftermath of the attack.

The whole fight had started and ended in just a split second.

Alex had completely sliced the 7 metre tall and 10 metre long Rhinoceros in half as he charged right through its body with almost too much ease, looking as if he was slicing butter with a hot knife.

The heat from the deep red flames was so intense that it charred the meat of the beast instantly wherever it passed through.

There wasn't even a speck of blood or organs that poured out when the two halves of the Rhinoceros fell to each side of Alex.

"Damn, that thing was weaker than I thought," Alex exclaimed, shaking his head as he examined the remains of his sword.

The blade was almost completely melted, but it had served its purpose very well for him over these last few months.

The other awakened stared at him in shock and awe.

The mercenary who had challenged him earlier was the first to break the silence.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Just someone who likes to get things done," Alex replied, embracing the cringe that was the sentence he just spoke, not bothering to explain further.

He glanced around at the battlefield, assessing the situation.

Thousands more beasts were still rampaging, and the awakened were struggling to keep them at bay.

'Let's clean up this mess,' Alex thought.

The sheer number of corpses littering the whole battlefield was an eyesore, and he had the perfect method to deal with this issue.

He raised his hands, and the Phoenix flames roared to life once more.

He first decided to test out his plan on the Rhinoceros he had just killed, placing his hand on one half of its carcass.

'Ignite.'

Just as he thought, the flames roared and devoured the corpse of the Rhinoceros like it had a life of its own.

The whole process was over in a second, showing the insane speed at which the huge corpse had been turned into a pile of ash.

He repeated the same with the other side of the Rhinoceros, but this time, there was more than just ash left behind when the flames had finished devouring.

'A beast core!'

Alex saw it immediately, and he snatched it up into his hands the moment his eyes met it.

However, to his shock, something completely unexpected happened.

'I can store beast cores in my inventory now!??'

The moment his hands came into contact with the beast core, it disappeared, leaving Alex confused at first.

But he was used to this sensation from the countless times he had the same happen with any Soul orbs he found.

And he checked his inventory, finding the beast core sitting in a corner of it very nicely.

'It's not like I'm going to use it, but it'll fetch some good money on the market! I can use any beast cores I earn on this mission to fund a new weapon!'

Alex felt his emotions flare up as he found a new use for these beast cores that had been otherwise rotting away in his storage earring.

'It's time to move on to more prey!'

But he wasn't going to stop there just yet.

The fun had just started for him!