Chapter 87. S-ranker Yeon Hwawoo (4)
In the blink of an eye, the white lightning stabbed at the axe lashing down. As Dullahan became super-armored while he was using his skills, his axe would not leave his hand no matter how strong a force hit him.
I quickly pulled the spear back and stabbed forward again. In the same spot I just stabbed, I hit again and again. As the technique used most of my mana for protecting my body, the HP cost decreased while the MP cost increased. Each time I thrust my spear out, I used about 3% MP and 1% HP. By the time my seventh attack hit, a crack appeared on his axe. Although Dullahan’s eyes opened wide, I did not stop. Eighth, ninth!
[I can block it!]
“You can’t!”
[Kuaaaaaaa!]
Before my tenth attack went in, Ruyue breathed out a large amount of freezing energy. Dullahan’s lower body and his axe became covered in frost. Of course, the frost couldn’t affect Dullahan in his super-armored state, but it did all allow his axe to make an ominous cracking noise when my spear hit it.
While Dullahan’s eyes were wide open in shock, I delivered the eleventh and twelfth stabs. The crack on the axe became bigger. At the same time, it was just centimeters away from hitting the ground. The moment before Outburst was activated, I gave Peika as much mana as possible. Then, I transferred the mana protecting my body to the tip of my spear. Just like that, I made my last attack.
“Break!”
[Rubbish!]
The result, of course, wasn’t rubbish. The moment the radiant lightning struck his axe, the crack on the axe expanded, making the axe shatter. After breaking the axe, my spear continued forward, striking Dullahan’s chest.
[Critical Hit!]
[Kahak!]
Letting go of his axe handle, Dullahan tumbled on the ground. It seemed he received a huge shock, as he had even let go of his head that he had been carefully protecting. At the same time, the message I was somewhat waiting for rang out in my ear.
[You created the skill, ‘White Lightning Consecutive Strike!’ With an exquisite control over vitality and magic, you deliver fast and strong stabs consecutively, then deliver a final uncontrollably powerful strike! For each stab, you use 1% of your HP and 3% of your MP, while the final strike uses 15% of your HP and MP! This skill can only be used by its creator. As the skill’s creator, the skill level is adjusted to low-rank level 8.]
[You created a skill! White Lightning Consecutive Strike is the highest-class spear technique, adopted from ‘Heroic Strike.’ This skill, which is impossible to use without a deep understanding of vitality and magic, will make all enemies feel overwhelming awe and respect. You obtained 1 skill point as reward. Current skill points: 12]
I had done it. That was the first thing I thought. The moment I delivered the final blow, I had felt the technique become a much stronger skill than Heroic Strike. Controlling my mana to protect, rejuvenate, and strengthen the body, while focusing my body’s energy to the tip of my spear, was hard to the point that I wanted to vomit. However, I had done it and the reward was extremely sweet. Not even the throbbing pain in my arm could take away from the happiness I was feeling. However, why did it become White Lightning Consecutive Strike, instead of Heroic Consecutive Strike?
[Kuaaaaaa!]
Having been separated from his head, Dullahan had lost his sanity and charged toward me. Now that he had lost his weapon, I was wondering what he was using as a weapon. Surprisingly, it was his black horse! That thing wasn’t dead yet!?
[Kiaaaaaa!]
“You crazy son of a bitch!”
Dullahan grabbed the black horse’s back leg and swung the horse at me like a sword with his brute strength. Setting aside the argument of whether the black horse was suitable weapon or not, its sheer size put enormous pressure on me. I first hastily fell back, then decided to test the second skill that could be useful in this situation.
The second skill wasn’t anything special. It was a fancier version of the spear extending technique I had been using for a long time now. I would make a spear blade made of mana and imbue the mana blade with elementals. It was a weaker version of Elemental Tempest.
“Elementals, come!”
[Spin spin?]
[Is it spin spin?]
“No, but I’d like you to come into my spear blade. Though, you might get a bit dizzy.”
[Are you cutting that rotting undead?]
[It’s going up, down, and swinging left and right!]
[Roller coaster!]
[It’s a roller coaster!]
After that, the elementals crazily flocked to the mana spear blade. My spear was normally a little under 3 meters long. I had extended the spear blade by 1 meter through my mana, which extended another meter once the elementals gathered. It was like Sun Wukong’s monkey wand. Using it, I slashed down at the black horse’s body closing in on me. Every time the elemental mana spear blade collided with the black horse, small explosions occurred from opposing attributes. The skill I created without much thought was incredibly effective.
[Whee, fun!]
[Explode~!]
[Uek, I’m going to puke…]
[Whoo, going up! Going down!]
Ignoring the elementals’ voices, I swung my spear repeatedly, meeting Dullahan’s black horse swings. As I swung my spear like a lightsaber, pieces of flesh were cut out of the black horse until it died and disappeared into particles. Dullahan continued attacking me without realizing what had happened. Without his sanity and weapon, he wasn’t threatening in the slightest. I dug into his embrace and thrust out my spear.
[Kuaaaaaa!]
B-Boom! When the elemental spear blade touched Dullahan’s body, it made consecutive explosions, unable to pierce through. The 2-meter long mana spear blade began to shorten. At the same time, the explosions made Dullahan fall back slowly. By the time the 2-meter spear blade was entirely gone, there was a sizable injury on his chest. I continued to push my spear forward. From the repeated damage he took, Dullahan’s defense had been worn down, and my spear pierced him easily.
[Kuk!]
“Die!”
After shaking my spear violently, I quickly pulled it out and kicked Dullahan. From the shock of having his chest pierced, Dullahan was completely vulnerable to the kick and flew back. I didn’t miss this opportunity. Calling the elementals once again, I created a long spear blade. I then swung the spear toward Dullahan, who was far away. In the instant that my swing’s trajectory lined up with Dullahan’s body, I disconnected the flow of mana between my elemental spear blade and spear tip, causing the blade to fly out. I had separated the mana blade only and shot it forward. The experimental technique showed great results. The blade flew in the trajectory I aimed, colliding with Dullahan’s head and causing a huge explosion.
[Kuhuk!]
[You learned the active skill, ‘Elemental Blade!’ This outstanding skill, created by an ancient Elementalist, extends the reach of the weapon with elemental-imbued mana, allowing its user to attack several enemies or enemies far away! This skill uses 150 MP per second, and retrieving the skill returns 50% of the MP used. When the blade is sent flying for attack, the MP will not be restored. You learned this skill without anyone’s teaching! The skill level is adjusted to low-rank level 6!]
“It’s unfortunate that I’m not its creator, but it covers both long and close-ranged attacks. What a perfect skill. Well, now for the fin… damn it!”
Although I had not made any special attacks, a crack had appeared on Dullahan’s armor. It was undoubtedly a skill! How did he have so many different skills? As it seemed too late to dodge, I thought I would have to use Dragon Skin, but remembered the Heavy Armor Mastery skill I had just recently learned.
[Heavy Armor Mastery: When equipping heavy armor, your defense increases greatly, and allows you to move more easily. You can also increase your defense by imbuing your armor with mana. The effectiveness increases with skill level.]
Although Dragon Skin was an excellent skill, it had a drawback of drastically lowering my speed, making it hard for me to avoid follow-up attacks. Dragon Skin should only be used as a final resort. Deciding to test out Heavy Armor Mastery’s effectiveness, I imbued a portion of my remaining mana into my Skeleton Knight Set. At the same time, I dematerialized Ruyue and put up an ice wall between Dullahan and me. Although it took a while to explain, only 1.7 seconds had passed since Dullahan began to use his skill.
Immediately afterwards, Dullahan’s armor exploded and flew out in all directions with black mana. Dozens of armor fragments flew through the ice wall towards me. Dodging what I could, I rushed toward Dullahan.
Pu-buk! With heavy impact force, the armor fragments stuck themselves on my armor, but it seemed the mana-imbued armor was effective, as the armor fragments did not deal a great amount of damage. Ascertaining my victory, I smiled. The Dullahan in front of my eyes did not have his weapon or armor, and was shaking with his head far away from him, trying to pick himself back up.
“You don’t have to get up, really.”
[Kuuuu…!]
As if to reply to my taunt, Dullahan groaned and wriggled his body.
As it was disgusting, I decided to end it quickly.
[Choose your reward.]
[1. Brain Strengthening Elixir
2. Dullahan’s Giant Axe]
I wondered why, I really did, but Dullahan gave something called the Brain Strengthening Elixir. But why? Was Dullahan actually extremely smart? Even with his head separated from his body? Swallowing down the questions that arose every time I saw Dullahan’s reward list, I chose the Brain Strengthening Elixir and consumed it.
[You can think more quickly and your senses are heightened. Your intelligence and magic increase by 1.]
“Oh, lucky. That’s already the second stat increase.”
In any case, I was happy with its effects. Not only could I raise my intelligence, which I felt was lacking, but I could also increase magic, which was always great to have more of. I almost felt the timing was too perfect. Though, it was about time an elixir raising intelligence and magic appeared.
“You won again and survived.”
When I left the battle room, Lin was smoking and staring at me, instead of doing his blacksmithing work. As he greeted me with a hint of disappointment, I shrugged.
“I realized I was lacking a lot in ability, so I tried a few things out this time. All in all, I think it was quite successful. I’ll need to do two more battles like the one I just had… I’m going to review the fight for a bit.”
Were there any unnecessary movements? How did Dullahan move and what was the most effective way of dealing with it? What about the black horse? What about the communication between me and Ruyue? Peika’s elemental magic? When would the skills I just acquired be most useful!? There were tons of things to research. I sat down and closed my eyes to meditate, but Lin interrupted me.
“Desire to improve is good, but you should relax a bit and let your body rest. You’ll hurt yourself if you overdo it.”
“Thanks for worrying, Lin.”
“No, now that I’m working on your equipment, I need to get my money. I don’t really care if you die or not.”
“You’re such a tsun… Eh? What money?”
“This. You only gave me the initial deposit, not the cost for the entire thing. You have to pay 100,000 more.”
I turned my gaze to where Lin was pointing with his chin. There, I saw the naked corpse of a woman, wrapped in a thin cloth… it was the succubus’ corpse. Although it was wrapped with cloth, as it was see-through, the succubus’ naked body was in full view. Even her head was perfectly sewn back, making her look like a sleeping woman. Of course, my cheeks flushed bright red.
“W-What!? Why is she naked!?”
“What’s up with that virgin response? That’s a common way to take the spiritual power from its physical body.”
“I’ve never seen that before…”
“I don’t know about Earth’s culture. In any case, that’s the most basic knowledge any monster artifact blacksmith should know. The parts I want from the succubus, its eyes and wings, I already have set aside here. The eye will be the core of the artifact, and I’m going to use the same method to take the mana out of the wings.”
He took out a glass bottle and showed two golden eyes floating around in an unknown liquid. The succubus’ eyes really did seem to have special powers, as they continued to glow inside the glass bottle.
“Turns out, this guy was a boss-rank monster. That’s why the succubus had a special magic power. You can look forward to it.”
“I, I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but I’m going to meditate.”
“Ha, this is why virgins are… well, I’m sure noonim will be happy… two virgins, how fitting.”
I didn’t hear him. I didn’t hear that draconian’s words! Hypnotizing myself, I fell into meditation. Of course, for the next 10 minutes, only the image of a naked woman popped up in my head. Damn it!