Ray was a little stupefied the Floor Lord was not only still standing, but he had also showed next to no reaction. Had he crossed a Vitality Tier or possessed some sort of item or equipment that allowed one to ignore pain?
The warning that bloomed in the next instant more or less confirmed it.
[Warning!]
The effects of Lifeblood Chaos have been dampened by Silverite Melder’s Armour.
Ha, there it was. The Sylvan leader’s armour was suppressing the effects. Of course, Ray recalled one of the very first Sylvans he had faced having something similar. No surprise he wasn’t the only one with strong Gear.
The next instant, even greater power began building from the Floor Lord. It had to be Propulsive Blanket. The streams of twisting white energy covered his entire form, obscuring his figure so that only that grin of his remained.
Then he shot bodily at his enemy.
The only reason Ray was able to keep up with the Floor Lord’s speed was because of the combination of all his buffs. Aethereal Envoy, Goliath Eater, the new and upgraded Soaring Wings, the stats boost thanks to his Heroic Reputation. They all combined to give Ray a massive boost in power, one that flooded him with potency.
A potency he made full use of.
Ray dodged back, indicating his large, Spiritguard sparks to stay close to him. The first cast he had used would stay as defence. The next, though, would be a part of his plan.
The Floor Lord was fast. He swerved and switched direction, flashing in at Ray with ever-building power. The very air was warping under the stress of the Propulsive force around him.
Ray’s next use of Spiritguard sparks smashed into the Sylvan. He could feel Vengeful Plunder taking effect immediately. Every single one of the twelve sparking orbs counted as a separate hit, so all his primary stats were raised by twelve. The boost came in at the perfect time. Ray created another wing and made every spiky feather shoot out a jet stream of power.
The tiles on the floor exploded outwards where the Floor Lord struck, where his target had evaded less than a second ago.
Ray thought he had a clear opportunity to strike. He even called up another volley of Mottling Spiritguard. Which was the right thing to do, just for a very different reason than he had anticipated.
With seemingly no sign, the tiles erupted again, right underneath Ray this time. A spiralling growth speared out with bullet-fast speed. The exact same trick Lastiel had used.
That was the only reason Ray was able to instinctively switch his sparking orbs from offence to defence. It took two spheres to fully block it. The spiralling growth crumbled into amethyst shards as the Spiritguard orbs burst apart as well. Ray sent the remainder straight at the now-onrushing Floor Lord.
Once again, they dealt no damage through that blanket of Propulsion around him, but they did raise Ray’s stats just in time for him to dodge even easier this time around.
And then to attack directly.
The Floor Lord was once more supplementing his attacks with that projected spurt of Growth Mana. Ray evaded it.
They repeated the same exchange a couple more times. Ray had to curse that Insanity wasn’t proccing effectively. That description of Propulsive Blanket did say it negated all damage and status affliction from anything below its Tier, and Mottling Spiritguard was definitely not at Tier 7 or higher.
After the last exchange, Ray twisted and slammed straight at the Floor Lord, calling up Soulstrike. He had carved the enormous limb into a tapering point again, then slammed straight at his opponent, pushing in Mana using the Mana Infuser ring to raise its Tier.
They crashed into each other, straight up. Ray didn’t try to manoeuvre himself to dodge as he struck just so or anything like that. No. This was a face-to-face impact where the stronger one would come out on top, and with everything Ray had performed so far, he had to be the stronger one by now.
No surprise that his Soulstrike pierced through that Propulsion blanket. A scream resounded, and at the same instant, the Floor Lord’s charge struck Ray’s Spiritguard orbs compressed into a shield in front of him.
Then they blasted apart.
The force of the explosion ripped apart the floor and sent a burst of energy crashing into the ceiling too. Ray was amazed, and then immediately struck by vicious pain on his back and shoulders. He retained enough control over himself to send in some Recovery to fix up whatever injury that crash landing had caused.
It wasn’t enough to trigger the Animus Remnant spell, for which he was more or less thankful. At this rate, he’d need it for later.
Ray’s heart stuttered in expectation, though. Surely he had finally landed a fatal blow. Wasting no time, he got to his feet to check. Good thing he had, for the Floor Lord was flying straight at him with another ferocious laugh.
Flying… with his own wings.
For the briefest moment, Ray had to appreciate a few things about the Handler. The huge wound from that last Soulstrike right on his chest was already healing and closing up, even as he flew.
More importantly, the Floor Lord had constructed his wings from the spiralling growths jutting out his back. They formed riblike appendages with a Propulsion Point attached to their ends, creating the force he needed for flight.
“Yes!” the Floor Lord shouted. “Let me drink in your surprise. Give me your shock and fear. And die.”
Despite Ray not wanting to give him anything of the sort, it did start a frantic chase. Ray swooped and dodged away from the Floor Lord. He was mightily thankful that the chamber was so open. With how erratic his motion had become, he would have hit something if there had been anything large enough inside the huge room.
At least all the flying and evading gave him time to crush a few more Mana crystals to top off his total capacity. He needed more than just the couple he had used in previous encounters. It made sense. He was using True Mana now, not regular Mana.
But why wasn’t it working? His stats were boosted quite high, his power flowed within him with rising ferocity. And it still didn’t work. How? Why?
Kredevel had said that the Floor Lord held items that granted him far greater strength. Accessories that further raised his already-high stats, armour pieces that boosted his defences and Recovery.
The handler mixed things up with Projected Growths. Violent violet spires burst out of the ground, all to impale Ray mid-flight. He was fast enough to dodge the majority, but slowly, he started to realize that he was being corralled. His speed was great enough to evade the Floor Lord, but that wouldn’t matter if he had nowhere to go.
A Compressive Blast nearly took his head off. The explosion of the Floor Lord’s attack against one of his Spiritguard orbs made his ears ring and his mind vibrate. Not fun.
Ray tried to get some elevation, but that didn’t help. The Floor Lord was making his earlier fears come true. He was making those spear-like growths jut out from everywhere. Not just the floor, but the ceiling and walls as well. Even worse, each of the growths were sparking with the same twisted white energy.
In other words, the Floor Lord was leaving Ray almost no room for proper flight.
Olgolair himself was no longer flying as he had. Instead, he had raised both hands, condensing his Propulsion power in them. Then he fired two massive blasts simultaneously.
Ray countered with the spell he had hoped to hold in reserve for the time being. Primal Spiritcraft reshaped his right arm into a draconic neck and maw. Gigantic ones. They didn’t need much strength to lift, thankfully, so Ray had no trouble aiming at his opponent and immediately firing off the laser breath.
It was such bliss that he didn’t need to focus on condensing his Mana into True Mana anymore. If he’d had to do that, he might have already lost to the Floor Lord.
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The two abilities met in the distance with a crackling detonation. The explosion rocked the chamber, though Ray’s flight ensure he wasn’t shaking too. But more importantly, it had destroyed several of the growths around the explosion’s vicinity. So, he rushed in to take advantage of the greater space.
Speed and manoeuvrability. Those were the advantages Ray held over the Floor Lord. He just had to get himself into position, cast even more Mottling Spiritguard, and raise his stats even further.
The Floor Lord got there first. Ray cursed as he was forced to change direction. More Compressive Blasts shot at him.
Not from his opponent, directly. But rather, from all the remaining spiral growths.
Ray screamed out in frustration and fell back. This was getting incredibly annoying. Even when he dodged effectively, his attacks didn’t leave enough of a mark. He wasn’t dealing enough damage. How much stronger would he have to become?
It was almost like the Floor Lord was aware of his strategy too. He was no longer giving Ray the room to use Mottling Spiritguard to attack. Ray was forced to remain in the distant defensive position.
Fine, then. If Olgolair wanted to play from far away, then Ray would oblige.
Ray cast another Spiritguard to create a cover for himself, then used Lifeblood Soulform. He would have patted himself on the back for remembering the names of his new spells if it wouldn’t have been such a fatal endeavour.
As it was, Ray could only hope that the Floor Lord didn’t see much of the ethereal draconic head with the spiky wings flying away from the battle.
To that effect, Ray charged straight at his opponent. The Handler’s attention had to be on him. As such, he attacked head-on, throwing blasts of Spiritsorb. The new version of Chaos Chymify shot like actual bolts, fast like arrows made of lightning.
The Floor Lord could have blocked them easily with his Propulsive Blanket. He even did so, for the first few blasts Ray fired.
But then, Ray began using the Mana Infuser ring to raise Chaos Chymify’s—oh no, Spiritsorb’s, he had been doing so good not making a mistake with the names—Tier with Mana. He took the spells to Tier 6, so that his Thoroughness Reputation allowed him to pierce through the defence of the Tier 7 Propulsive Blanket.
The damage from the spells clearly stunned the Floor Lord a bit. He must have had a massive pool of Recovery, for Ray never saw any evidence of the damage directly.
And then he had to stop casting because his wings’ timer ran out. Damn. Had it had been a few minutes already?
The bigger problem was that he fell straight to the floor. This was dangerous, as the Foor Lord proved in the very next second by calling up more Projected Growths. It was difficult to protect himself against attacks coming straight out of the ground, even with the assistance of the Spiritguard orbs.
No wonder, then, that his leg got impaled in short order.
Ray screamed, even as reactivated Primal Spiritcraft and used Soaring Wings to pull himself back up. The pain of the spiralling growth dragging itself out almost made him shriek again.
The entire time where he had lacked wings had lasted barely a second or two, and the Floor Lord had still gotten to him. Fuck.
Yelling in triumph, the Sylvan leader was about to charge. His Propulsive Blanket was once more wreathing him, twisting lines of white light scarpering over his body. But then he froze as the construct Ray had sent out came into play.
The monstrous draconic maw flew in for just a second before opening its jaws as wide as it could. Then it blasted out its compressed laser of chaotic fire.
It didn’t hit the Floor Lord. He had never been Ray’s target. Not with the laser breath.
No, the fiery beam went straight at the Floor Lord’s treasures.
Ray’s spirit almost seemed to go aflame as he watched, for just a millisecond, how the panic overtook his enemy’s expression. For all that the Floor Lord was confident in his superiority over Ray, he had not foreseen his treasured collection of assorted ritual ingredients being targeted. So now, his mind was forced to scramble.
The laser beam didn’t hit its target. Despite the surprise, the Floor Lord was honed by a ton of experience. His response to the attack from the flying Greater Windbane maw was to use Projected Growth.
A ringing shield of spiralling growths shot up around the small area where the various items had been gathered. They formed a powerful barricade, strong enough to even stop the maw’s laser breath from breaking through and destroying the ritual items. It wasn’t that the laser couldn’t destroy the growths. It did. But the Floor Lord was able to replace them just as quickly.
Which meant he was distracted in that moment. Vulnerable enough for Ray to strike.
Having sent his Recovery to take care of his leg wound, Ray flew in as fast as he could. He had to reapply some of the boosts from earlier, like Aethereal Envoy.
That was fine. All he needed was to reach his opponent as quickly as possible. Which he did.
And immediately proceeded to use Soulstrike to craft up the enormous True Mana arm.
The Handler twisted around to face Ray just as he got in close. He tried calling up his defences. Armoured Growth to protect him, with a Propulsive Blanket on top.
But Ray was ready for it. He slammed his crafted arm forward, but as he did so, he used Primal Spiritcraft again. This time, he applied it on his True Mana arm, just as he had instinctively done against those Wild Tides murderers. Immediately, the arm turned more sinuous and scalier, lengthening even more to form a neck.
He didn’t push away the memory this time. The snap of Randall’s neck was loud in his ears. The murderous, distasteful grins on those asshole’s faces was branded on his eyelids.
With a fiery roar, the pointed end of his summoned arm erupted into a huge draconic Maw. One that Ray crashed into the Floor Lord.
“You want my shock and fear?” Ray shouted as his momentum rammed the Floor Lord back. “Then take it.”
Ray had angled the hit so that he was forcing his opponent downwards. Caught in the giant maw, Olgolair couldn’t escape from being slammed to the floor, more tiles cracking and exploding outwards. Even with his “wings” providing a Propulsive force, it didn’t work.
The very next instant, Ray fired off the compressed laser breath from the draconic maw he had crafted on his arm.
Somehow, he held himself steady in the air as the whole area exploded. Chaotic flames burst outwards, the ground exploding as tiles shattered in every direction like shrapnel. If the Floor Lord didn’t die with this, then—
A spiralling growth emerged from the base of the black-and-white neck. Too close for Ray to dodge fully. Too close for him to fathom how the Floor Lord could have called it up.
It flashed out and nearly punched a hole through Ray’s throat. As it was, he had just barely thrown himself back. Forget killing the Floor Lord, he had to save himself first. It still caught him. Pain bloomed at his neck, blood spraying both outside and inside too.
Ray was choking. Panicking. He was going to drown and suffocate in his own blood. He couldn’t breathe, could barely think with how violently he was coughing—
Another instinctive application of Recovery saved him. He wasn’t even fully aware of sending it to his neck, but the blood stopped spraying and the pain retreated. The coughs wracked him still, on and on until he had ejected much of the blood that had gone down the wrong way in his throat. He couldn’t even begin to feel the sheer disgust at having to swallow his own blood.
But Ray was fine. He was alive. He was good enough to end this.
So he righted himself quickly to attack the Floor Lord. Even if Ray had been interrupted way before he could fully emit all the laser breath he would have wanted to, ideally, it had to have been enough to wound his foe.
Sure enough, he got the briefest glimpse of the Floor Lord’s armour having broken off him. One of his arms was wrapped by a twisting net of spiral growths, though it was dripping blood profusely, while a huge, gaping wound remained open in his chest. Ray really wanted to scream and ask how in the world he was still standing.
But that brief glimpse was interrupted as the Floor Lord attacked the next second. Spiral growths burst up from the ground, but Ray quickly took himself higher.
Only to be slammed back by a growth that flew in from nowhere.
Had to be the same application of Projected Growth the Floor Lord had used on both Ray and Kredevel a while back. It hadn’t targeted Ray directly. While he had been struck, his arm going numb under the pain, the Floor Lord had actually aimed for and destroyed his wings.
Ray fell to the ground, even as he tried to recreate Soaring Wings. Livid agony wracked his arm and shoulder. That had hurt. His heart spasmed, thoughts of being impaled flashing through his head. The wings came back just in time. He flew off at a rapid pace just before another burst of spiral growths emerged.
The Floor didn’t immediately attack just then. Ray understood it. He wasn’t closing his wounds either. Even his huge Recovery pool had limits.
As such, he had to be careful about further exchanges. Ray would too. His entire right side spasmed hard. Burning pain, proof that he had suffered fractures, coursed down his limb. His shoulder might not have been dislocated, but moving his right arm was going to be absolutely horrendous.
The more important question was how this would change the Floor Lord’s approach to things. This battle had gone on for too long.
No, Ray had to be active, not reactive. The bigger issue was how he would bring this fight to an end.
How he—
The Floor Lord was crushing a strange crystal. It reminded Ray of the Mana crystals, but bigger and more purplish. Was that a more advanced form of Mana crystals, one that regenerated a greater amount of Mana?
Ray grinned. That also reminded him of the new skill he had. Channel Mana. He might not have read the description of Channel Mana yet, but he was certain that skill was the practical manifestation of his class’s ability to use different kinds of Mana besides just True Mana.
With slightly shaking hands, Ray pulled out the Toxic Man crystal. The lime-green gemstone glimmered softly, seeming to pulse in his hand in anticipation.
Now he knew how he was going to end this battle.
The Floor Lord was slowly approaching. More power was building around him, both the spiralling bursts of Growth Mana and his Propulsive Force. It wasn’t just a simple Propulsive Blanket this time. He was reinforcing it with his Growth Mana.
Ray took a deep breath. One more exchange. One more blow. He could do this.
With a yell, Ray charged at his opponent.
At the same time, Olgolair sped up too.
Just like before, they crashed into each other. Ray recreated his True Mana arm with Soulstrike, crushing the Toxic Mana crystal and imbuing that Mana into the tip of his constructed arm. New, virulent energy sizzled through him, like he had doused himself in wasabi.
At the moment before impact, the Floor Lord launched his Propulsive Blanket at Ray.
Ah, that was smart of him. Too close. He had waited until his target was too close to dodge. Sure, Ray had called up the Spiritguard orbs as a shield before himself, but with how much power there was behind the Floor Lor’s blow, it might not be enough.
Even worse, Olgolair himself was clearly intending to launch his attack and then get out of dodge, the bastard. As soon as the blast left his body to slam into Ray, he jerked to one side.
As such, Ray didn’t get to hit his foe as well as he would have liked. His intention had been to perform another stab with the spiky end of the True Mana arm, but that didn’t happen. He did get a slash in, though, punching through the side of the Floor Lord’s arm to leave another gaping wound.
A wound that was now infected with Toxic Mana.
Ray had pushed it out through the spiky end of his True Mana arm at the very moment of contact. He would have yelled in success, but his sparking Spiritguard orbs broke under the Floor Lord’s assault, and even with a hastily-cast Impervious Shell blocking much of the blow, he was flung back, wracked with pain as he tried to protect himself.
Despite the pain and the world twisting and breaking in his sight, Ray grinned. Animus Remnant had activated, suffusing Ray with renewed Recovery and True Mana.
Even better, the Floor Lord’s scream of agony was music to his ears.