Episode(16): Boss Fight(2)
SOVEREIGN OF DEATH~(16)
Crackle!
Sparks of electricity danced before me filling the space with lightning.
Woah!
Thankfully I felt the shift in the atmosphere and reacted or I would have been toast!
Retreating, Nagisa glanced warily at this new opponent.
After killing so many wolves, Nagisa had some understanding about them.
Unlike normal wolves, all the wolves in this dungeon had one similar trait. Incredibly tough defenses and a fast speed.
This was not even to mention their fast recovery speed.
If you didn't give them a deep enough would, they would immediately heal as if nothing had ever happened.
Coupled with my abilities, I far surpassed them in physical stats and regeneration however it couldn't be helped that I was a bit envious.
If I had these abilities back on earth, would the old guy have been brave enough to bully me?
But, thanks to this analysis Nagisa came to a conclusion.
Monsters in this world were abnormally strong, they even seemed to have innate abilities.
The wolves had innate speed and defenses, though it still was yet to be seen if other monsters had innate traits of their own.
Magically attributed wolves were rare and so far I'd only fought a fire breathing wolf.
Lightning was a whole other concept.
[So troublesome!]
It was hard to tell if I even had immunity to lightning.
He could ignore fire by splitting it apart, ice by doing the same and with his current physical stats heat and cold had relatively no effect on him at all.
But, lightning was a different matter.
And even without considering the damage it could do to himself, the wolf before him seemed to use the lightning to boosts its speed and reaction.
So far it was the fasted monster Nagisa had faced.
Just barely, I wove around dodging behind trees and twisting through the air avoiding the attacks.
If I was off by a single beat, the attack would hit and I'd be done for.
But, this was troublesome.
Forget the speed, my own speed was far above its own so even if it tried all day it would never land a hit.
What worried him was, how was he supposed to land a hit of his own when the bastard was covered in lightning?
Even if I attacked within the span of a half a second, the lightning would cause my speed to slow down due to its stun effect and that would be enough time for another wolf to attack.
The only other way was to keep up this game of tag until he found a solution.
The two streaks of light shot through the forest at a blinding speed no one else could match.
Swish!
Lightning covered claws tore through the air, however I stepped back the attack splitting a tree into chunks of wood.
The wolf growled, at the same time the sparks of lightning surrounding it increased in intensity and it vanished appearing about my head in an instant.
Its claws sliced through the air even faster than before, yet still the human dodged by a hairs breadth!
Kh!
Damn.
Although I evaded, a stray spark of lightning brushed against my cheek and my joint felt stiff for a moment.
My cheek sizzled as a red scorch mark appeared before healing quickly.
But this wasn't the only time as stray sparks of lightning occasionally hit him.
This won't do.
Circulating mana at my feet, I vanished in an instant appearing on the branch of a tall tree while watching the rampaging wolf below.
[This is an issue]
He was faster than the wolf, but the wolf was no slouch either. And if possible he would like to get rid of this guy or he might interfere with later battles.
But, I can't get close. Even those stray sparks of lightning made my movements dull and stiff, if I were directly struck wouldn't I be stunned long enough to be countered?
I need a way to get closer and attack.
'I don't have any lightning resistant weapons do I?'
Then, I have no other choice.
If it had to be done, then the only other way was to use extremely speed to avoid getting stunned.
If the electricity would hit within milliseconds then all he needed to do was be one second faster and avoid it after attacking.
It wouldn't be easy.
Normally Nagisa would never be confident that he could do this.
But, I have magic! With magic, what was impossible before became completely possible now!
He jumped down, all the while drawing his sword and swinging it with force.
A blade of mana shot out. Feeling the attack, the wolf turned and crossed its arms to block, but it was too late.
Crash!
It was flung crashing through a tree with a bang.
Landing, Nagisa bent his knees and rushed out at the same moment gripping the hilt of the sword.
Without even worrying about mana reserves, I circulated energy into my legs rushing out at a speed like never before.
The huge swirl of his magic power surrounded him like an ocean, yet the strangest thing occurred.
To the wolf, the magic power receded as if it was quickly being emptied until only a small glow remained around his body, yet the wolf did not feel relieved at all!
Its instincts screamed and it fled.
Hah! Not so fast!
In this moment I only felt a feeling like never before and my surroundings became a blur.
Even the lightning wolf that could keep up with my earlier, its movements became like a snail and before I knew it my sword carved through the air slicing off its arm completely.
The sparks of light crackled towards me, however the me now was able to react swiftly and avoid them.
At the same time, the wolf struck from behind and lost its arm was flung rolling and spilling blood from the force of Nagisa's speed.
Nagisa slowly walked towards the wolf, the world around him completely different from before.
I feel lighter, my magic also felt smoother to control.
Did I break through some shackle in my understanding?
Ding!
<
So, it wasn't my imagination.
Even if he couldn't see his individual attributes, Nagisa who had a near perfect control of his body could feel the changes instantly.
Surely enough, his magic control made using mana so much smoother and even recovering lost mana took a matter of seconds just converting breathing into mana.
When I arrived at the location where the wolf was struggling to move, even the sparks of electricity dancing around its body felt slower in comparison to before.
This was indeed growth.
The wolf looked at him in hatred and with a howl launched itself forward.
Shu*
I also shot forward meeting the wolf head on.
Its remaining claw sliced wildly through the air causing the air to whistle.
Lowering my posture, I shifted and swung the sword.
With a squelch, blood spurted and its remaining arm had been completely severed.
Then, with a twist of the sword I carved open the wolf's stomach spilling guts everywhere.
At this moment, the wolf seemed to realize it would not survive and like a sponge it absorbed and compressed all its remaining mana into its body.
This is-
!!
A sense of déjà vu struck when I saw this scene and I acted quickly.
Recalling the suicide bombing of the flame wolf I was stunned, a wolf of that level naturally wouldn't cause much effect even if it blew itself up.
But the monster before me was much stronger, if it blew up-
That couldn't happen!
But, even as his sword sliced the wolf into bits the crackling lightning surrounding the bits of flesh soaring through the air continued to intensify.
Boom!*
The explosion roared sending a mushroom cloud high into the sky.
Far away, standing on a tree branch I coughed while looking at the destruction with awe.
[Cough]
Thank goodness I had that awakening and had more speed than before.
Escaping that self-destruction with his speed was no issue, but he was slightly in turmoil.
[This still counts as my kill right?]
Hopefully I get EXP even if its suicide or all that fighting would be for naught.
Hm?
Feeling something was off, I leapt off the tree. By the time I landed, a pillar of flames rose into the sky completely devouring the tree and leaving nothing but ashes.
Almost at the same time he was distracted by the flames, several ice drill shot towards him at high speed.
If one were to compare these ice drills to those of the normal wolfs and the wolf guardians, there would be no comparison.
After all, even standing there Nagisa heard no movement through the air. The wolf must have instinctively condensed the moisture in the air to mask the attack and created a concealment effect.
In any case, the point was a normal person could never react to this attack at all.
Yet, with a tilt of my head I watched in slow motion as the attack went by. Then with several agile movements I easily slipped past the attacks.
Are you kidding? With my level of mana sensitivity, even if you masked the physical portion of the attack, as long as it was still a magical attack it was easy to sense it.
Roar!*
A wolf had snuck up behind Nagisa to get the jump on him, but anticipating the attack he grabbed one of the lance like ice drills and threw it out with force blasting away the wolf.
The loud crash echoed as the wolf pinned through by the ice drill crashed through several collapsing trees.
I didn't pause my movements, though the ice in the drills had caused a layer of frost over my right arm I clenched a fist and the frost shattered.
In that single moment I had already memorized the fluctuation of mana in the attack and grabbed another ice drill from the air while avoiding the others with a somersault.
This time no frost covered my arm and I barely felt a chill.
This operation was near instinctive, but I knew all I had to do was through the drill.
Shu!
The speed broke the sound barrier blasting away all the regular wolves and flew towards the ice werewolf.
At first, the ice general wasn't afraid after all this was its own magic. But, as it tried to invade the attack and manipulate the drill it realized that the ice drill thrown back to it was invaded with foreign magic and it had no control over it at all!
But it was too late to move, the drill was already mere moments away from collision.
It could only abandon its attempt and create a thick shield.
The moment the drill collided with the shield, the force was like the shockwave from a nuclear bombing!
Trees were uprooted, the ground tore apart like clay and not to mention even the ice general felt like defending against this force was futile.
Let's not even talk about the physical power used to through it at the speed of sound, the magical power that was packed into the drill was way too much for such a simple attack.
But, not even Nagisa knew he had done this at all. To him, it just felt like the ice no longer bothered him and it felt easier to throw it back.
As for reading the magical flow in the attack within an instant and overriding the control of the spell, ask him and even he would be baffled.
That was just how monstrous his magical sensitivity and control was now.
The Ice wolf could only shift the shield causing the drill to slide off the shield and fly into the distance crashing through trees and creating a huge explosion deep in the forest.
[Die]
!?
The wolf didn't even get time to recover when the words echoed beside it. There, the human that was meters away had appeared in an instant with a sword raised high.
Why was he even there?
The wolf couldn't even ask the question before its head was severed.
Well, that should have been the case.
Clang!
The metallic echo rang through the forest and a look of irritation surfaced on my brows as I retreated.
This is the second time dammit!
Veins bulged all over as the wolf pounced not caring about my frustration.
We clashed, it was a bit stronger physically than the rest but nothing special.
As the other wolves gathered, I drew my ice sword from the sheath.
With another clash, adding more strength into the sword I forced the ice wolf back before sending out an ice blade with a twist to the surrounding wolves.
Fwish!
Silence!
The surroundings were completely silent now as everything was encased in a deep layer of ice.
I should really name these swords.
While he was in his own world, the long clawed werewolf struck from above.
It seemed to want to take advantage of my split attention, but I never let my guard down.
The moment its claws swung down, I vanished. But with my disappearance the wolf's vision twisted and the only thing it saw at the end of its sight was me shaking blood off my sword.
It had died, decapitated.
Sigh*
Glancing deep into the forest I could still sense the wolf kings aura and it had yet to move.
Most of the wolves were dead, but the stronger ones remained.
But none of this mattered anymore, I had made a new discovery. Watching as the wolves encased in ice shattered and became particles of frost, those particles floated over to the sword.
The moment they touched the blade, the blade shone slightly and the frost was absorbed and my stamina and magic recovered faster.
I don't know exactly what magic power is, but from what I could tell it was like blood. Although magic power existed all around, magic power wouldn't be restored by taking in external mana instead it would automatically recover itself inside the wielder.
Thus, magic power recovery mainly depended on how firm your magic foundation was.
Although it was also possible to draw mana in from the outside, it was a hassle to convert that mana into usable magical power so Nagisa wouldn't bother.
Now, magical foundation referred to ones mana capacity, magic control, magic output as well as how talented you were in using magic.
My magical foundation is extremely firm so recovering mana is a cakewalk, all it would take it a bit of inhales and exhales and I'd be good.
Still, with the addition of the swords effect, fighting a drawn out battle just became so much easier.
This didn't mean the remainder of the fight would be easy, the enemies that remained were the strongest and would be difficult to defeat.
But so what?
I walked slowly while thinking, my gaze firm before dashing out in a full sprint.
Almost at the same time a silver werewolf flashed before me.
It threw a fist at Nagisa, however he reacted quickly and evaded watching as the fist struck the ground destroying it.
The same moment my instincts told me to block, in that instant the wolf had quickly thrown another fist hitting my sword used as a shield fluttering through the air.
Boxing?
I was stunned as I retreated and saw the wolf's stance. This was definitely boxing, no doubt!
But, a dog boxing?
What was next, flying pigs?