The ground started shaking. Screeches could be heard. Darrius yelled.

“Stay in positions”

Everybody nodded and had serious expressions weitten on their faces.

“Alright, I’ll be leaving.” I said as I launched forwards.

“What?” Darrius was confused. I turned my head.

“This was the plan all along.”

After I said those words I went even faster.

As I ran I could see lizards. A lot of them.

But there was something wrong.

That Boss Lizard. He was the one leading. At first I thought he would be the last, but turns out I was wrong. I used Identify on him. Because I had leveled up the skill a lot. I could use it from a distance.

[ Dragon-Blood Lizard ]

[ Level - 58 ]

“Shit” I cursed, that’s way stronger than I thought. I looked behind and muttered.

“I guess you won’t survive this after all.”

I thought I would be able to battle the lizards and the lizard boss, but I won’t be able to divide my attention in the slightest when I am fighting this guy. I had a serious expression on my face.

This was the hardest battle I had to fight yet. The Lizard boss, who was standing on two legs, had red l scales, was followed by at least 50 other green [ Mutated Lizards ].

The Red lizard suddenly released his magic intent. And so did I.

Red auras crashed, and the earth around started to shake. The red lizard saw that I wasn’t that easy of an opponent and screeched. When the [ Mutated Lizards ] heard the screech, they started to divide in two groups. Both made way for me and the Red lizard. They left for the adventurers in the back. Leaving behind me and the Dragon-Blood bastard.

The lizard stopped in place, and so did I.

We looked at each-other and stopped our magic intent.

I quickly got ready and used [ Enhance ]. My physical abilities received a buff, but I knew that wasn’t enough. I quickly used [ Frozen Sea of Materialization] and materialized 5 Ice spears around me.

The Red Lizard looked at me and launched towards me with speed I could barely follow. I stepped backwards and I could see blood spilling from my arm. It was just a scratch, and the red lizard was standing on the spot I dodged from.

This is going to be very, very dangerous.

I launched the ice spears towards the red lizard. It dodged them one by one, I materialized a longsword and used [ Mana Coat ] on it. I accelerated towards it with all of my speed. I slashed towards it, but all of my sword strikes got parried by its claws. I could see its claws was starting to get frozen bit by bit, because of the sword.

To make the effect even more bigger. I used [ Instant Ice Mana ] to coat my sword. White mana surrounded the black ice longsword. Creating a dazzling sight.

Again, I slashed towards it.

Slash

Slash

Until it was fed up. The red Lizard opened his mouth and screeched. Releasing a flaming breath. Because I was at point blank range. I had to activate it..

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

[ Passive - Barrier ]

The pocket watch’s effect. The [ Dragon-Blood Lizard ] was only level 58, which meant the barrier would completely defend against its attack.

As expected, a golden barrier covered me, completely stopping the attack.

The red lizard looked at me with fury and used the same attack.

But I would never fall for the same trick twice. I easily dodged this time and used [ Magic Missile ]. I pointed my finger at the red lizard and shot the beam towards it.

Because it didn’t have enough time to dodge. It could only control where the missile would land. In this case, it was in its shoulder. Only to realize that’s a big mistake. That was a magic missile powered by ice mana. Its arm was entirely useless now.

I smiled and didn’t let it take a moment to breath.

I materialized another sword because the last one was destroyed and aimed at its face. Unexpectedly, it used the arm of the shot shoulder to block.

What? How?

The thin ice on its wounded shoulder started to disappear. Revealing a healed shoulder.

“What?“ I didn’t have much time to think, as the red lizard launched another flaming breath towards me.

I took a deep breath and concentrated. I dematerialized my sword and focused my mana on my claws. [ Mana Claws ]

For now using my own claws would be far better. I am not a swordsman, if I was. I wouldn’t have done that.

We started another round of scratch and pull. We both were riddled with scars which were slowly healing. I had [ Lesser Gluttonous Regeneration ], while the lizard also regenerated at even a faster pace than me. I didn’t know if it was a skill or because it had dragon blood. But I had to find a way to kill the damn thing.

I used the skill [ Freezing Sea ] and an additional white aura appeared. Me and the red lizard entered another round of close combat. Each of my slashes with my claws did damage and thin ice appeared on its scales. While the red lizard emitted flames on his claws, leaving me various burn marks all around my body.

As our battle continued my wounds couldn’t regenerate anymore, my mana was also near depletion. While the red lizard didn’t seem like he was going to stop anytime soon. Flames surrounded its body.

It was Ice vs Fire.

Yet I am loosing.

I wiped the sweat in my forehead and muttered.

“Frozen Coffin”

I put my hands on the ground. Ice started to appear on the ground and started to surround the red lizard. The black ice enveloped it.

*Huff* *Huff*

I started panting crazily. That last move drained all of my mana away.

But as I expected that didn’t kill it. It’s only sealed inside the ice.

I don’t know how much longer will the ice contain it, but I will have to be ready when it does.

I immediately sat down and started to use [ Meditate ]. Not only do I need to supply mana into the ice, I also need to regain some of my mana.

I also chugged a few mana potions that the old man had left me. I could feel mana filling my body. I was greatly surprised at the effects of the mana potions.

But that only recovered around 40 percent. I meditated for another five minutes and the Ice started cracking.

“Already?” It hadn’t even been 8 minutes since I sealed it. Thankfully, I had already regained half of my mana.

The Ice cracked and was destroyed.

*screeech*

It was really mad at me. The red lizard looked at me with a crazed look of anger. Flames enveloped its entire body and it launched at me like a rocket. I used [ Enhanced ] and accelerated too. We met in the middle and our claws crashed. One filled with Ice and one with Fire. If we were the same level, I would have already won this clash, but unfortunately we’re not. I was losing, the red lizard had much more mana than me, it’s physical abilities were also stronger than mine.

The situation didn’t look good for me. I parried its blows and dodged the occasional flaming breaths. I shot a few spears at it. Only to be dodged.

There was only one thing I could use right now.

..The element of surprise.

We had been fighting for fifty minutes. My clothes were ragged and I was bloodied all over. The red lizard also had wounds, its regeneration abilities had slowed down massively, while I couldn’t regenerate anymore.

I was on the loosing side, but I had a plan. And that was to make it mad. The reason for that? Is to fake death.

Only then do I stand a chance of killing that thing.

So I started running around it in circles. I occasionally used [ Thread Creation ] to try to trip it. Right now this skill was useless for any other situation. Fire was a major weakness. But I suddenly had an incredible idea.

What if I coat the threads with Ice mana?

I tried it and it worked. The threads had a white glow to them. I launched the threads all over the red lizards. And it dodged them, until it couldn’t. Once again it breathed another wave of fire. Annihilating the threads and continuing towards me.

But I didn’t dodge and Instead, I also used the only fire element skill I had, [ Fireball ]. I knew it wouldn’t stand a chance but it was the only way my plan would work.

I pointed my hand at the flames coming at me and a red ball of fire appeared, I immediately shot it towards the fire.

When the two fires came in contact the red lizard’s flame destroyed the fireball I had prepared, and went toward me, but the red lizard didn’t know that because the moment the fires came in contact, smoke appeared all over the place, and the red lizard couldn’t see what happened.

The moment the Flame breath arrived at me I once again used [ Passive - Barrier ] to block the attack. But that’s something the red lizard had no idea of.

After the smoke screen dissipated.

I was on the ground, with scorch marks around my stomach..