BOOM!
The battle between Astartes' party and the Catacomb Lord of the Snakemen Habitat Catacomb began in full force!
Facing them was a large five-meter-tall snakeman that was unlike any of its kind they had encountered. It was the Snakemen General, the Catacomb Lord. After arriving on the third floor, this Catacomb Lord immediately ambushed the party, smashing its massive tail at them.
Fortunately, Oaken Shield was adequate to the task and had responded deftly to the powerful attack, unleashing his [Greater Earth Barrier] skill to block the attack.
However, he was not prepared for the cunningness of this Catacomb Lord!
The Snakemen General stopped its attack at the last minute and demonstrated a deadly speed filled with trickery, flanking the team from behind. With its intelligence, it had targeted Oaken Shield first, who was the only tank of the team, and caused him to waste a powerful defensive skill.
The Snakemen General capitalised on the element of surprise and drew a large breath, unleashing its powerful skill [Poisonous Beam] at the party! But just when it did that, Astartes also made his move. With his magic cloak granting him a light floating ability and his other equipment boosting his agility and other attributes, Astartes moved swiftly from the middle of the team and stood before the attack.
[Magic Shield]
BOOM!
A barrier of mana appeared before his figure and collided with the poisonous attack, deflecting it as it crashed into the earth, corroding several patches of the land with toxic smoke.
Adele seized the initiative within this moment that the Snakemen General was clashing with Astartes and arrived on its blind side, landing her [Reaper Death Slash] on its tail, slicing it off cleanly as greenish blood spurted out of it.
The Snakemen General released a painful scream and immediately backed away from Adele and Astartes. Despite having its tail sliced off, it was still a large creature and suppressed its pain, maintaining its combat ability. Instead of targeting Astartes, it aimed its [Poisonous Beam] at Adele.
Adele was unable to dodge this fast attack and was forced to use her [Reaper Death Slash] attack again to fend against it. Her sword slash was like black lightning, splitting the beam of poison into two. Yet she was unable to prevent a few blobs of poison from touching her body.
This caused her armour to corrode horribly, and even her skin received acid burns. Despite attacking Adele, the Snakemen General was very wary of the human who blocked its powerful attack and had its attention partially focused on him.
However, the Snakemen General was unprepared for Astartes' next move. He would naturally never let Adele's effort to distract the Snakemen General go to waste, and therefore, he waited for the opportune time when the Snakemen General was unaware to cast his skill.
[Darkness Hand]
Two black, corporeal hands of darkness that seemed to emerge from the abyss abruptly appeared out of the ground beneath the Snakemen General and, within a blink, slithered around its body and firmly locked it in place. Moreover, the moment they came into contact with the Snakemen General's body, they emitted a dark, pulsating glow that gradually yet rapidly drained the life force out of it!
The Snakemen General had a fearful expression on its face and used all its power to break free of this deadly trap.
[Hardened Scales]
The Snakemen General unleashed its second skill, and its body became more robust and bigger. Even the vitality-draining effect of Astartes' [Darkness Hand] was mitigated, and this allowed it to quickly overpower the restraints.
It swiped its large claws at Astartes, aiming to skewer the latter, with its rapid attacks, but Astartes was calm, not taken aback by this development at all. He knew that Catacomb Lords of Class E Catacombs usually possessed two skills, and therefore, he was always alert to any surprise skills.
Instead of dodging the Snakemen General's attacks, Astartes cast the [Icicle Blast] skill, meeting its attacks head-on!
Having reached the master level of proficiency, the [Icicle Blast] skill increased to twenty icicle blades in number. Not only that, but the power of each icicle blade had become a lot sharper and refined, possessing a terrifying cold effect!
Therefore, Astartes met the Snakemen General's sharp, venomous claws with attacks from his [Icicle Blast]. The results were spectacular!
He only needed a single slash of his icicle blade to cut apart the limbs of the Snakemen General! Even with the reinforcement of its body from the [Hardened Scales] skill, it was no match for Astartes' Icicle Blades, which cut through its skin and bone with ease.
[Icicle Blast]
[Icicle Blast]
Despite its resilience and haste to retreat from the terrifying might of Astartes, the Snakemen General was dismembered gruesomely, its blood and flesh scattered across the ground and was killed within minutes after the battle had begun!
Once again, like the Lionmen Catacomb, Astartes and the team had cleared another Class F Catacomb at an extremely quick pace, even killing the Catacomb Lord within minutes!
Their rewards were plentiful as well. They made sure to gather all the loot they had obtained and quickly left the Catacomb. Seeing the heavy load that the party carried in terms of loot, Astartes made a mental note to obtain a storage-type tool from the Rankers Association(RA) going forward.
From the performance displayed in the two Catacomb raids, he was pleased to realise that his combat capability made him a terror for any Class F Catacomb Creature. Moreover, even though a Class E Catacomb was quite dangerous, Astartes was confident that he had enough power to conduct a solo raid.
His power and skills would only continue to improve, and for now, only a Class E Catacomb or higher would be able to give him immense pressure or a heavy sense of threat, probably.
It was still amazing to him how, only less than two weeks ago, he was a mere human, on the brink of life and death, to transforming into a person capable of slaying several dozens of Class F creatures with ease.
But Astartes quickly cleared his mind of the niceties. This was an apocalyptic world teetering on the edge of collapse. He may have gained power to change his fate and may have grown rapidly over the past few days, but in the grand scheme of things, he was still a weakling. Any Class C or even Class D monster could kill him. He still had a long way to go.
Having cleared the Lionmen Abode and Snakemen Habitat Catacombs, he had already achieved his target of clearing the four Class F Catacombs of Yosemite City halfway.
Although he did not feel like he had expended much strength and he felt that he could still enter more catacombs, he did not think that was true for the other members of his party. They had sustained several light to moderate wounds during today's raid. Although they were healed swiftly and their lives were in no danger, it had to be said that they looked quite exhausted and in need of rest.
Astartes did not hesitate to give them the order to go back home and rest. With the loot that they had obtained from the raid, their powers could elevate greatly, bringing them to the peak of Rank F. As for Adele, she could also exchange her share of the loot for Rank E cores, increasing her powers steadily.
As for Astartes, he did not take a single share of the loot and declined to do so despite the insistence of the rest of the members. Now that he had reached RANK E, weapons, equipment, and cores of the lower ranks meant little use to him. It was more logical for his other party members to grow strong quickly with the rewards they had obtained.
The truth was that, to grow even more powerful, challenging Class F Catacombs was not enough. He needed to enter a Class E Catacomb or higher!
But this did not mean that his current plan to raid all four Class F Catacombs was a waste. It was a chance for him to further grow his combat experience, as well as refine his skill mastery. This would give him greater confidence in charging into a Class E Catacomb.
After everyone agreed to challenge the Troll Cave and Stone Golem Abode Catacombs tomorrow, everyone dispersed, leaving Astartes as the only one at the entrance of the Snakemen Abode Catacomb.
He did not head home, but rather headed towards the location of the Trolls Cave Catacomb. He was going to challenge the remaining two catacombs alone.
Just like the Lionmen Abode Catacomb, Astartes unleashed a bloodbath among the trolls, eviscerating them with countless icicle blades from his [Icicle Blast] and [Darkness Hand] skills!
The trolls could only face their inevitable deaths as their bodies and limbs, as well as their head,s were brutally severed and eroded of their lifeforce by Astartes' spells, countless bloody corpses strewn on the ground, with a human figure clad in white and gold, floating above everything and leaving the scene behind like a cold, emotionless deity.
His progress through the depths of the catacomb was unstoppable, and with his [Magic Shield] and [Greater Heal] skills being used frequently, their progress of efficiency also improved, not far from reaching the Great level.
He soon reached the last floor, where he faced off against the Catacomb Lord, the Troll Chieftain. Compared to the fierce Lionmen Catacomb Lord, or the agile Snakemen Catacomb Lord, the Troll Chieftain proved to be by far the Class E Catacomb Lord with the most monstrous endurance!
With its [Mad Endure] skill, which gave it its times two monstrous ability, as well as its [Earth Stomp] ability that could injure and most importantly impale the movement ability of its enemies, allowing it to smite them with its club into a deadly oblivion, Astartes was pleasantly surprised by the pressure he felt during the battle!