You have killed a [Common Gaze of the Abyss Lv. 23]!
2,267,418 EXP awarded!
Experience gain divided between [Sorcery Dragon] (27%) and [The Crusher] (73%)!
I moved from one mana center to the next, killing the occasional weak monster I encountered in the darkness. Slowly but surely, my levels were rising, and it was going to take but a few days to reach my next evolution and advancement. Fortunately for me, my next destination, which I thought was one large mana center from a distance, turned out to be two mana centers within close proximity of each other.
‘Hopefully there’s a rank S monster guarding each of them. That would be pretty convenient.’ I thought as I flew straight towards the closest of them.
As I approached, I found a rank S monster waiting for me.
[Great Transmutation Phantom Lv. 42]
HP: 121,273/121,273
…
Titles:
N/A
Rank S creature. As the pinnacle of the transmutation phantom line, this monster is capable of transforming any and all forms of dead matter nearby into different types of matter. Like the rest of its line, the transmutation phantom is weak when caught unprepared, but deadly when granted the time needed to turn its surroundings into a death trap.
‘Wasn’t the transmutation phantom the rank A monster that wreaked havoc on the Tameryians’ equipment during the Revenge of the Abyss? I should definitely keep its magic away from my staff and my armor…’
The phantom looked like an apparition straight out of a children’s storybook, with a translucent, milky-white body and dark void for a mouth and eyes. The monster turned its creepy face my way, then, without a word, transformed parts of the Etherium floor into makeshift javelins made from an unknown, rot-like green-colored material and launched them at me.
Whatever they were, they were chockful of the rank S monster’s unique mana, which I wanted absolutely nothing to do with. With a wave of my hand, I summoned a thick wave of magma, with a wall of mana-reinforced ice directly behind it.
The opponent’s javelins struck through the magma and barely punched through it, only to slam into my ice wall and shatter. Despite stopping the javelins, I knew I was right to worry as I saw both my magma and my ice wall were turning into that strange material.
I quickly flew away, as more javelins emerged from the remains of the magma and ice and flew my way. Just as I began wondering how I was supposed to stop an attack like that, an epiphany struck me.
‘If matter is just food for its javelins, then how about an attack that isn’t made of matter?’
With that thought in mind, I fired a barrage of orbs of devouring, each of them annihilating the javelins before striking at their source and erasing large chunks of it.
The phantom responded by activating an ability that summoned a massive magic circle overhead. Innumerable, green lights glowed from beneath and around the two of us, and alarm bells rang in my head.
‘How do I stop this many attacks at once?!’
The Phantom didn’t wait for me, as javelins emerged from the countless green lights and shot upwards towards me. I was too far away from the phantom to trap it within my ensnaring domain field, and getting close to it was a recipe for disaster while it was surrounded by traps. [Almighty Push] did not last long enough to protect me from the javelin barrage, and none of my other class skills or racial traits were going to take them all out in time.
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Well, all of them except for one.
If I was lucky, it would even destroy all of the phantom’s traps. If I wasn’t, I might end up killing myself before the phantom could do it for me.
‘Gods damn it.’ I mumbled beneath my breath, as I raised my arm to the air and activated [Celestial Descent].
A massive, mundane stone meteor emerged at the top of the layer and hurled towards me, the transmutation phantom, and all the javelins it was firing.
“[Almighty Push]!” I yelled the moment the first javelin was about to strike.
Fortunately, since it was made out of force mana and not matter, the javelins had nothing to convert as it smashed against my barrier and shattered into pieces. The process repeated itself until the meteor slammed into my skill and shattered against it.
The massive meteor turned into a meteor shower as it slammed into the ground below, crashing into the coming javelins and triggering the rest of the monster’s traps below. There was far too much stone to convert into the strange material, judging by what [Appraisal] said was an empty mana pool.
As I slowly descended, the phantom stared at me with the empty void of its eye socket before turning around and flying away.
I grinned.
“It’s my turn now, you little bastard!” I yelled as I chased it down.
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” the phantom growled as it ran away.
“Why are you running?! Why are you running?!” I shouted at it as I prepared to fire an arcane dragon breath at my quarry.
Or at least I was, until I noticed where it was running away towards – the nearby mana center.
“Drake dung, you’re not involving another rank S monster in this!” I yelled, activating [Destined Collision] on the two of us.
While it did take effect on me, lurching me towards the phantom, the phantom itself carried on unaffected – a glaring ineffectiveness against incorporeal beings showing itself at the worst possible moment.
Before I could do anything else, the phantom finally reached its destination – and with it, my newest rank S opponent.
[Dimensional Tormenter Balor Lv. 58]
An obsidian-skinned giant with demonic wings, two forward-facing horns, a massive yet closed third eye, and a massive halberd strapped to its back turned towards us. With fury marking its features, the Balor flew my way, ignoring the phantom that had managed to hide itself behind the nearby Etherium.
Gritting my teeth, I activated [Almighty Push] to meet the monster’s rapidly approaching halberd.
The halberd stopped momentarily as it slammed into the sphere of force emerging from my body, before ripping through it and continuing its trajectory straight downwards.
Fortunately for me, [Destined Collision] was still working overtime in throwing me at the phantom, so that moment was enough for the halberd to whiff.
Still, the Balor was hot on my tail, and the phantom wasn’t moving from its hiding place lest the Balor discover it.
The world slowed down as I watched the halberd descend on me again, mere meters away from where the phantom was. Despite my mana reserves being far from full, they were still more than enough to make use of the one skill I had that could get me out of this bind and take down both of my enemies at once.
“[Ensnaring Domain Field]!”
The world froze, and all three of us were dragged into the domain field – the place where I’d finally hold an advantage over both enemies.
***
As the spatial anchor spat us out in open space, I immediately noticed something was wrong. Neither the Balor nor the Phantom struggled to breath in the empty void of space. Already, the Balor raised its hands, and I felt the domain field crumble beneath its powerful spatial magic.
“Oh no, you won’t!” I yelled, summoning torrents of false mana from the surrounding celestial mana bodies to bombard it with attacks.
The Balor took one hand off the magic destroying the domain field to swing its halberd, crushing all of the attacks headed for its head. The destruction of my domain field was slowed down by the distraction.
I was finally upon the Balor when I summoned a point-blank [Magmaball] to the monster’s face, which it blocked with the flat side of its halberd. I began alternating between magma magic, orbs of devouring, and force magic to attack, while the Balor punched, kicked, and smashed its halberd against attacks it couldn’t just tank head-on.
Then, the Balor’s halberd and my orb of devouring met in a cinch, a contest of power emerging between my force magic and the monster’s raw strength, as neither my magic nor its halberd yielded to the other. Or at least it seemed so, until the halberd began showing signs of cracking, while my orb had rivers of mana reinforcing it.
“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
Before the halberd could crack, the Balor growled at me, and its third eye snapped open. Terrifying amounts of spatial mana rapidly built up within the eye, and whatever magic it would unleash upon me definitely wasn’t anything good.
The cinch-breaker, however, came from neither me nor the Balor, but from the third opponent we’d ignored so far. The transmutation phantom flooded both of us with its mana, utterly destroying my armor, staff, and the Balor’s halberd.
My orb of devouring fizzled out, due to whatever the phantom’s mana did to it, and the magic in the Balor’s third eye was also affected, judging by the sheer agony on the Balor’s face.
Still, the magic had nowhere to go but out, and a blinding flash of white light engulfed me, the Balor, and the phantom.