BOOM!
“I want to go back to fighting Nether Wraiths!” Sol yelled as he and Amber ran away from the source of the explosions. Seven magic hands rotated above him, sending a full spectrum beam toward where they had come from.
The white beam blasted back, causing light to flood the entire passage. The duo left the magic hands behind to hold back their pursuers while they gained more ground. Sadly, the hands didn’t hold them back for long. Within mere seconds, hundreds of black flame orbs flew from the direction of the beam's attack, targeting the magic hands. Sol was forced to redirect the beam to split into a spiral pattern, forming a shield at the last second. He did so just in time, as the black flames collided with the barrier, resulting in multiple explosions.
Even though the full spectrum beam was doing its job in defending against the black flames, the duo took it a step further. A wall of stone and sand rose as they combined their [Sand Manipulation] and [Terra Manipulation] into one extraordinarily durable barrier.
If it had only been the black flames, the two wouldn’t have taken such measures, but the loud thuds that caused the ground beneath them to quake told them that their pursuers were close.
Looking at the wall they created, Sol grimaced as he warned Amber. “My hands were destroyed! Get ready!”
Amber nodded, summoning a massive sand soldier along with over a hundred normal ones to use as meat shields. In the little time they had, Sol also made his own preparations by retrieving a weapon from his spatial ring.
As he did so, the wall burst open like fragile glass, and a hulking monstrosity appeared, with a floating skull laughing maniacally behind it.
Name: N/A
Race: Laughing Skull
Talents: [Death Affinity], [Endless Chant], [Death’s Joke]
Level: 98
Name: N/A
Race: Tomb Hulk
Talents: [Monstrosity], [Unstoppable], [Rampager]
Level: 98
If it had been just one enemy, it wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but the two undead paired up to create a powerful combination. Sol wasn’t even able to disable their talent skills as they were forced to run soon after their first encounter. When Amber first tried to delay the Tomb Hulk, which took up the entire hallway, to buy time for Sol to disable their skills, it simply ran over her and all her sand soldiers in one go. Meanwhile, the Laughing Skull relentlessly unleashed the same black fire spell at Sol, preventing him from concentrating on disabling their skills.
Amber reformed herself while the two undead thought she was dead. When she did, the duo made a break for it to gain distance, while Sol continued trying to disable their incomplete law techniques. But in the end, he was unable to do so, forcing him to use his trump card much earlier than expected.
The hulking giant let out a deafening roar before charging toward the two small humans. In response, Sol took out the Tynamo Cannon and aimed it straight at the charging monstrosity. Without hesitation, he set the cannon’s power to maximum and pulled the trigger, releasing a powerful ray of void energy.
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The hulk charged forward with its hands raised in front of its head in an X shape, unafraid of the void beam, confident in its ability to trample over anything in its way. Unfortunately for the hulk, the beam easily pierced through both of its arms and straight through its head, creating a massive hole in the middle of its face. The Tomb Hulk never expected the tiny attack, relative to its massive body, would be able to pierce through so easily. It died, unable to retaliate. Its giant body shrank in size as it fell forward by momentum and slammed into the ground, causing one final tremor. No longer massive from its skill, it reverted back to its true size of 5 meters tall—still big, but not as exaggerated as before.
[You have slain a Lv 98 Tomb Hulk! Gained 6,324,219 Exp (300%)]
[You have leveled up! +5 Attribute points]
The skull, which had been floating and laughing, stopped upon seeing the truly dead corpse of its ally, which wasn’t being absorbed by the dungeon because Sol remembered to cast [Harden Earth] this time.
No longer laughing like before, the skull began its endless chant to get revenge for the loss of its ally.
“[Grim Flames]! [Grim Flames]! [Grim Flames]! [Grim Flames]! [Grim Flames]!”
As if stuck on a loop, the Laughing Skull repeatedly cast the same spell without rest at a speed normally impossible for mages. Its ability allowed it to use the chant and movement of mana from the first spell to rapidly cast the same spell without any delay. In less than a second, hundreds of black flames shot out toward the duo.
In the face of so many black flames, Sol moved ahead of Amber and pressed the button on the side of the Tynamo Cannon. The mechanical movement inside the cannon could be audibly heard as it activated its other function.
VRRRR!
The flames began getting sucked into the cannon, similar to water falling down a drain. Even if the black flames were heading in a different direction, as long as they got within 10 meters of the cannon, they would be forcefully pulled into its barrel.
The skull, upon seeing this, didn’t stop casting. Instead, it sent more black flames than before in an effort to overwhelm the weapon. Sadly for the skull, it was severely underestimating the cannon's ability to absorb and convert energy into void energy. A minute later, the skull finally stopped chanting and fell toward the ground, unable to maintain itself afloat with its almost depleted mana.
Sol saw it fall to the ground helplessly and turned his eyes to the cannon's energy total.
‘70%. It was a little over half when I shot it, so the skull was only able to fill it by 20%.’
He let the skull cast as long as it could and didn’t attempt to interrupt it as it was doing him a favor by refilling the previously spent void energy.
With the Laughing Skull completely out of mana, it was easy for Amber to slash it from afar, cutting it in two.
[You have slain a Lv 98 Laughing Skull! Gained 5,902,604 Exp (280%)]
Having defeated the undead, Sol sighed in relief. He looked back at the weapon and felt glad yet sad at the same time.
‘I’m glad it works, but to already have to use it on the 22nd floor…’
It made him wonder if he was still not strong enough to tackle these upcoming floors, but after some thought, he shook his head.
‘It was two enemies at the same time, and they didn’t give me a chance to use my own ability. I can only tackle one skill at a time, so even if I disable one, the other still has theirs. I need to either become much faster at disabling them or disable both at the same time.’
So far, he had been able to shave a full second off the process, but it was clearly not enough. He needed to try even harder and push it to its very limit. After some thought, he concluded that tackling two skills at once wouldn’t make the process faster but slower than disabling one at a time. For now, he had to focus on improving his manipulation of the strings before trying new things.
“Ready to go, Amber? Ah, before I forget. [Siphon].”
He wasn’t just about to leave without obtaining some new skills.