There was little reaction from the goblin lord to her entry into the arena, despite her rude destruction of the rudimentary boundary. If anything, it seemed excited to face such a powerful opponent in battle, practically drooling as it tensed up, readying itself for an opening strike. There were no words exchanged between the two as their duel commenced, the goblin lord berserk beyond reason and Elaria deeming the monster unfit for anything more than a thorough cleansing. Though this would be an excellent test run of her newly acquired Resonant Mana Body and how it had improved her magical combat abilities.

The description was fairly lax in explaining how exactly it had improved certain aspects of her magical control, but given her intensive oversight while constructing it, Elaria had a good handle on where it was more efficient than a flesh and blood body already. In fact she was putting one such aspect to use at that very moment. The benefit of her entire body essentially functioning as mana storage, rather than having to draw from a single point, meant that channelling a skill was now instantaneous and she could produce spells from any part of her body.

Two layers of Kinetic Armour weaved themselves around her entire body, ensuring that the kobold lord’s strikes wouldn’t cause any substantial damage and Elaria would be able to redirect the excess energy back at her opponent. At the same time she formed twenty or so Earthen Spikes while confidently strolling forward. Unable to hold itself back any longer, the kobold lord charged, its powerful muscles rippling from the backlash as it pounded the rock and earth into dust with each step.

With but a thought, Elaria cast two Earthen Shields between herself and the charging kobold lord in order to dull its momentum, the action barely costing her five percent of her mana reserves despite them both costing more mana than her entire pool had consisted of prior to the upgrade of Resonant Mana Body. The strange berserk state of the kobold lord seemed to have massively boosted its physical prowess, as compared to when Luna had been duelling with the boss monster on even terms and even managing to deal some damaging blows when it showed openings, the colossal lion headed beast struggled little with her powerful defences, blowing through the first of the two walls of dirt and stone without breaking stride, the entire cavern rumbling from the impact.

The second layer of Elaria’s Earthen Shield fared little better, though the kobold lord at least lowered its shoulder into the charge in order to blast its way through. She wasn’t disappointed with the outcome, the walls had simply been there to slow the monster down a little and give her a fraction more time to prepare some more damaging skills, the first of which was fully charged and ready to launch at her opponent. As the dust and debris cleared from its vision, the kobold lord was greeted by a wave of Earthen Spikes, compressed and sharpened into deadly needles which peppered its vulnerable face and chest, its thick neck defended by the bushy mane that curled round its head.

Each spike that dug into its skin drew blood, thick globules of blue liquid that spattered over the rocky ground though seemingly causing little pain for the kobold lord whose furious charge was barely impeded by Elaria’s initial strike. In fact, there seemed to be boosted health regeneration coming into play for her enemy, the spikes pushed out as the wounds healed at a visible rate, the mana dissipating as they hit the ground. Adjusting her strategy on the fly, the second wave of Earthen Spikes targeted the monster’s movement, turning its legs into porcupines and actually making a dent in the speed of its charge which she’d thus far been unsuccessful at.

The realisation came a little late however as the kobold lord was upon her and even with the dual layer of Kinetic Armour to absorb the chunk of the impact, the sheer force of the towering beast slamming into her chest, driving all the momentum into a single point with its hard, scaly elbow knocked Elaria a few paces back. The tough, resilient structure of the Resonant Mana Body shined through; after the reduction of the Kinetic Armour the strike barely knocked the wind from her lungs and there was little delay in her counter - a localised Firestorm which she’d compressed and launched with the added kinetic energy provided through her Kinetic Armour.

Rather than the all-consuming inferno that her previously uncontrolled Firestorms had been, her much more advanced and finer ability to manipulate mana allowed Elaria to funnel the heat and power of the skill into a smaller area without compromising on the damage and the lucky kobold lord was the first to experience this upgrade as the miniature bomb collided with its face. Targeting its exposed chest and stomach would probably be just as effective, but something told Elaria that the somewhat mammalian lion head of the monster would be more susceptible to flames than the scaly reptilian body underneath.

Frankly she needn’t have worried so much about the accuracy given how potent the skill was with her refinements. Utilising the absorbed energy from the kobold lord’s charge to fire the spell gave her opponent little time to react and the whole cavern shook violently once more as the force of the spell exploding reverberated through the enclosed space. After the heat subsided and the flames cleared, Elaria could see the results of her elegantly executed handiwork - the kobold lord remained standing, though the top half of its body was charred to a crisp.

There was a brief moment where it didn’t move at all, making her wonder if just one move from her was enough to clear the dungeon’s final challenge. A slightly battle-hungry part of Elaria hoped that wasn’t the case as she’d been excited to use the duel to get used to her new body and the kobold lord had seemed to be a sturdy opponent perfect to handle such a beating. Luckily for her, the kobold lord’s flesh soon started to regenerate, reviving from the blackened and burnt state to fresh and juicy muscles and skin.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

It took just a few seconds for the monster to reform itself wholly, a sickening grin plastered on its face; calling it a battle maniac would’ve been a colossal understatement. It didn’t however stop at just regenerating, the demonic red hue that had hovered around the beast now begun to shimmer and morph before drawing back into its body at which point strange markings begun to form on the surface of its skin, as if two scarlet pythons were crawling across its body. Accompanying the kobold lord’s odd transformation came a message from the Chain.

Dungeon Evolution

The challengers strength has exceeded the typical limits for [Farrowhill Cavern], emergency defensive protocols have activated. Kobold Lord’s evolution into Lionsmane Hydra has been triggered.

Warning: Dungeon structure will become unstable due to excessive mana consumption, risk of death is exceptionally high.

That was just marvellous, though Elaria supposed it was what she deserved after complaining about the kobold lord not being enough of a challenge for her. The thrill of facing such a terrifyingly powerful enemy bubbled inside her, yet the rational portion of her mind remained acutely aware that every passing moment brought Luna closer to death’s door. Finding treatment for her companion was the number one priority for Elaria and she would have to go all out in order to bring down the evolved monster.

Watching the creature evolve was an exceptionally interesting process. The natural mana in the cavern was rather sparse after her little stunt earlier, but it seemed the dungeon had little issue in drawing on other reserves to fuel the transformation and thanks to her powerful senses she was able to observe the mana as it was pumped into the monster to fuel the evolution. Not wanting to let her curiosity get the better of her and refusing to let her instincts overrun her self control, Elaria decided not to make the classic mistake of allowing the enemy time to power up, immediately channelling a Firestorm alongside a plethora of Earthen Spikes.

Some rapid experimentation with the shape and aerodynamics of her spikes as well as an attempt to blend it with fire affinity mana prompted the Chain to give her a couple new skills, creatively named Earthen Hammer and Volcanic Spikes. Whichever divine being had a hand in creating the repertoire of magical skills really needed a lesson in the value of an eloquent name. Then again, there was a certain value in simplicity, it just didn’t appeal to Elaria’s tastes. Halfway through its transformation, the unfortunate kobold lord, or perhaps she should say lionsmane hydra? - Elaria was unsure how to refer to it during the metamorphosis - was struck with a deluge of her strongest spells.

At first it was impossible to tell if the attack had done any damage to the monster. The environment certainly took a thrashing, what little was left of the cavern doing its utmost to hang on against the combined thrashing of a mighty boss monster and a wildly powerful child mage. The smoke and dust cleared and to her dismay there had been no impact. Either the monster had already become too powerful for her spells to cause damage unless she devoted more time and mana to them, or the dungeon had a function to protect its monsters from harm while they underwent such processes. Hopefully it was the latter - she’d already had to move Luna to one of the platforms higher up in the room to prevent any collateral damage to the wolf and the clock was still ticking down on her health.

While the actual process had taken just a minute, waiting for it to complete had felt like an eternity to Elaria. The way the dungeon handled the adaptations of the monster had given her some creative ideas about how to move forwards with her own body in the future, some of the drawbacks of the Resonant Mana Body already showing - especially the crystalline muscles. Her short term solution of spongey mana had definitely helped and was a move in the right direction, but there was definitely some loss of flexibility compared with before. Watching the kobold lord’s body split apart as two more lion heads burst from the shoulders to replace its arms, another pair of legs forming behind the original set to transform it into a classically bipedal hydra was a unique experience to say the least.

Lost in her own thoughts once again, Elaria, who had begun to appreciate the scientific process far more than in her previous life where she’d fervently pursued the creative and literary arts, was taken by complete surprise by the most major change to her enemy when the three lion heads cooperated to begin channelling a magical skill. It was invisible to the naked eye but she could tell what it was from the mana fluctuations. All of them roared in unison and for a moment nothing happened. Then an immense shockwave blew apart both layers of her Kinetic Armour and slammed her backwards into the wall, two of her ribs cracking on contact.

Before she could recover the lionsmane hydra was already charging in for a follow up attack having retained the large portion of it’s physical prowess alongside the newly acquired magical abilities. Elaria poured a larger chunk of her mana into creating a new set of Kinetic Armour, opting for just a single layer as the dual layer approach had actually worked against the intended purpose of the skill. She sensed it charging up another one of the sound blasts and hurriedly racked her mind to figure out a counter.