ZAP!
"GGRRRWWW!!!"
The red dragon writhes in pain and its entire body is terribly convulsing. Even though he has activated layers of gargoyle's highly magic-resistant defenses on his body, it is still useless against the power of the Judgment Lightning.
"What?! You're still alive! You are quite persistent."
Claire's attack leaves him paralyzed. Seizing the opportunity, she points her staff upwards and begins her preparation to cast one of her supreme-tier magic.
A large, hundred-meter wide magic circle appears on the ceiling above the immobilized dragon, basically a kilometer above. After consuming a large amount of her mana to power her spell, Claire ultimately releases a powerful water magic called Frozen Meteor.
"Let's see if you can take this!"
Upon pulling the trigger on the spell, a gigantic ice comes out of the magic circle and begins its free fall to the dragon. With a travel time of fourteen seconds, the impact speed of the iceberg would theoretically reach one hundred and forty meters per second.
Measuring a hundred meters wide and weighing a lot of tonnes, the impact will create energy equivalent to a kiloton of TNT, basically the power of a small nuclear bomb. The impact would create a momentum of almost a hundred million tonnes by meters per second, which would be devastating if the iceberg were to successfully land on him.
However, there is not only one iceberg to drop. A second or two from the first drop, another iceberg of the same size is released from the magic circle. Afterwards, another one is dropped, making a total of three icebergs.
Pulling off a single Frozen Meteor is already a great challenge even for a group of veteran mages. It is a supreme-tier magic spell that if done by average or even veteran mages, they need to gather together in order to perform it through ritual casting. Basically, her awakened abilities are all about magic dominion.
However, Claire is able to pull it off by herself thanks to her awakened abilities. Some of her abilities include massively increasing her naturally large mana reservoir, reduction of mana consumption of her spells, and mastery of multiple types of magic casting such as silent cast, rapid cast, multicast, etc.
For that reason, Claire is undisputably rivaled by no one in both the kingdom and the empire so far. Her greatness in magic earned her the epithet of 'Great Sorceress,' the most feared magician on the continent. However, right now, she fears the dragon she is facing.
(?!)
Sensing the dangers quickly falling above him, he struggles so hard to move his head, which he eventually freed from being paralyzed.
"What?!" Claire is shocked seeing the dragon move.
Facing his head above, he opens his mouth and fires a powerful dragon beam that he acquired from the greater dragon.
BOOM!
Shatter! Shatter! Shatter!
BOOOM!!
The beam hits all the falling icebergs and shatters them all in an instant before being stopped by the ceiling, which creates a powerful explosion. At the same moment, the beam creates a shockwave that flutters Claire's clothing.
As the Great Sorceress is avoiding the large and small chunks of ice falling to the floor, the dragon has healed his damaged muscle nerves and successfully frees himself from the paralysis. When Claire has set her eyes on the dragon, it suddenly disappears from her sight, vanishing like a wind and only leaving mist that is clearly not from the evaporating ice.
(?! It disappears!)
She immediately heightens her senses by silently casting layers of perception enhancement buffs on herself. The dragon's presence is hidden by the falling ice. She waits for seconds expecting an attack until she finally senses an incredibly fast movement behind, which she immediately turns her back around.
(So fast! Wait!)
Her maximized perception speed can barely catch a glimpse of the monster. However, when she sees what is approaching her, it is not a dragon anymore, rather, an entirely different monster that is flying at supersonic speed.
(A gryph—!)
The dragon has transformed himself into a gryphon and is currently zooming to Claire. As the gryphon is about to hit her, the Advanced Automatic Defense she precast earlier activates and manages to block the dragon's razor sharp claws.
Advanced Automatic Defense creates an invisible spherical barrier around the caster. When something hits it, the contact area turns translucent showing its honeycomb patterns, and the surface ripples to distribute the energy.
Clink!
Shatter!
However, due to the sonic speed flight of the gryphon, the momentum of the impact overwhelmed her defense's limits and shatters like glass. The Advanced Automatic Defense does not actually negate the knockback effect. Even if the barrier manages to absorb the impact, she would still be sent flying by the gryphon's powerful strike.
"Ahh—!!"
She stays midair for a few seconds, spinning around and losing her sense of orientation. She finally lands violently on the floor, rolling around several times and feels the heat of the surface.
(Where did that gryphon come from?! And where is the dragon?!) She questions the monster before her as she is recovering herself. (Could it be that they are one? The dragon transformed into another monster? Impossible! I never heard of that kind of creature.)
Once she gets on her feet, she looks at the standing before dozens of meters from her. It is intently locking its gaze with hers. She sees the same determined eyes from them. Analyzing its magic frequency, she confirms that its mana matches the dragon.
(It is indeed the dragon. If it could really transform into a different monster, it is undoubtedly a dangerous and powerful monster. I didn't even know if the dragon is its true form. It is aware that I am only using magic and it learns to adapt to fight in closed range. Not only is it immensely powerful but also terrifyingly intelligent— ?!)
The moment she blinks in her accelerated mind, the gryphon suddenly flaps its wings and soars high with such speed and disappears into the darkness where her light cannot reach. Even though she cannot clearly see the gryphon, she can sense it flying at a similar random pattern above her.
Following its tracks, Claire feels like it stops flying around and finally zooms straight at her. However, instead of attacking her, he maneuvers upwards and soars up again. Claire is baffled why the gryphon did not attack her until she senses something is coming at her right after the gryphon passes. She recognizes what it is.
(A spider's silk?)
As she is wondering where it comes from, she immediately casts a fireball to burn it. After that, a few more spider silks are fired at her, which she easily burns with her magic.
Another spider silk is shot at her coming from above. In response, she fires a fireball to intercept it. However, the silk does not seem to set on fire and is still coming at her at a faster rate.
"What?!"
As the silk is about to reach her, it suddenly turns into different material like something fleshy with a blade in its tip. Claire quickly realizes it and reflexively raises her left arm in an attempt to block it. The blade just scrapes and passes her arm before the long flesh starts wrapping up her body, letting go of her staff.
(So those silks were to let my guard down before launching its deceit! This monster is now doing strategies!)
After coiling her body three times, the monster pulls Claire up. When her light finally reaches the monster, she discovers that the thing wrapping her is actually the hovering gryphon's tongue.
(Damn it! This thing breaks the ice that covers my wound.)
She struggles to get free but the gryphon tightens his grip further, which breaks her focus for casting spells.
"Ahh!!"
(I can't use magic in this situation! What's worse is that my pursuers are about to reach this floor! Damn it! What should I do? I'm so fucked up!)
She stares at the gryphon and finds it staring at the entrance to the stairs. It seems like it can sense her pursuers coming too. In the middle of her desperation, she ultimately comes up with a bizarre idea.
(Now that I think about it, this monster's capabilities are insane like the transformation. This monster could be an awakener. Perhaps it is worth giving it a shot.)