The Crystal Vortex spun towards the constantly undulating ground as I kept moving about. Danger! Air Burst! Two Expanding Blocks surged out of the ground and slammed together with a bang, where I had just been. The gravel caught between them was crushed into fine dust. Acid Shot x20. I began melting them as I flew out of the way.
I had given up the thought of any defensive skill since level 5 and now level 6 monsters were insane. Tanking attacks was a bad idea in my opinion. That was why Body stat was my specialized stat, even ignoring the two to one ration I had come up with Perception. I needed to be able to move quickly and resist damage.
When I needed to move, I needed to move. When an attack did land, I needed to be able to survive. I would have survived the crush attack, but it would have risked injuring me. The Body stat made me chunkier, based on what we had observed. It also allowed me to resist physical attacks and move quickly.
I hated putting so many stats into it, but it was for piece of mind. While I was careful, against level 6 monsters, it was not simple avoiding all the attacks. Still, my combat instincts had become top tier fighting so many different types of monsters.
The Reverse Reflection Mirror floated down from the airship. Straps had been made up to so I had something to grip to on the back. I grabbed the straps with my right-hand making use of it like a tower shield. Using monsters like this was nothing new. But it was something I didn’t’ like. I had to trust too much in Michelle to manage the monster and counter any attacks. Her skills were immense, but I didn’t want to become overly dependent. There was a difference between teamwork and dependency in my mind.
To capture a level 6 monster, and the Infinite Block, I would make an exception. It was rapidly approaching. Joyo would handle crowd control with the airship in support along with Michelle. I kicked off the ground. This fight couldn’t happen near the Crystal Vortex and the area underneath it appeared to be mostly clear.
Above, below, and behind were all the key danger areas that needed to be cleared by people. Still, I wouldn’t trade a bed and the support I was receiving for poking at these zones alone. As I moved towards the Infinite Block Boss, I felt a sense of fear grip my heart.
Tiny cubes no bigger than my fist quickly divided and reformed as the monster grew to massive proportions. Another four expanding blocks burst out of the gravel and came at me from the sky. Air Burst. Acid Shot x40. They would die soon, and they weren’t immediate threat as I quickly closed the distance.
A massive hum filled the air. I felt my bones begin to shake. The Infinite Block was quickly reconfiguring its cubes. This was why I needed a defensive monster in the form of the Reverse Reflection Mirror to get close. The cubes spun in massive rings while spinning themselves. Level 6 monsters really had a huge repertoire of attacks.
Several of the cubes shifted to rods and began gathering massive amounts of energy. I could feel the energy being in sucked in from around me even at a distance, as I rapidly raced across the shattered lands. “You better work,” I muttered as I kept moving forward bring the Reverse Reflection Mirror in front of me.
The pulse attacks quickly started up as I closed the distance. The various rod shaped portions of it moved to the center of the spinning rings and began firing rapid rays, one every second. Where the beams struck the ground, an Expanding Block formed at the location. If one of those beams hit a person, they would have to resist an insane amount of curse of damage. Anyone with less than 5,000 in Aura would definitely be consumed by the attack.
At least the monster couldn’t track. But its firing rate was incredibly fast and rapid, it didn’t make a huge difference. This was why melee was freaking insane. The amount of curse damage at the higher levels was simply immense. That was why I preferred my long-range beam attacks to annihilate monsters instead of doing this insanity.
If it was anyone put Michelle, I would never trust them with a level 6 monster, but she had proved herself worthy of my trust over the years. The first pulse attack struck the Reverse Reflection Mirror and went sailing into the sky.
There was a force to the pulse attacks, but they were light as they bombarded me relentlessly. I closed to within a 100 feet, or 30 meters, of the spinning rings that made up the Infinite Block. The airship was about a third of a mile or half a kilometer behind me. The Infinite Block quickly reconfigured, itself to mortar fire.
Spiked rods began to be launched at me. Each of these rods would impale their target to deal even more curse damage. Getting impaled by one, for anyone other than me was an instant death sentence. The spiked rods were why we couldn’t go with the level 4 version of the boss monster in my right hand.
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The entire Reverse Reflection Mirror violently shook as the spiked rods hit it, then shot back in the opposite direction. It reflected everything. The problem was that these were attacks from a level 6 monster, and it was a level 5 monster. It would only be able to endure for so long before being overwhelmed.
I closed to within strike distance of the monster. It didn’t retreat in the slightest. Tossing the Reverse Reflection Mirror in front of me, I needed both hands for the next part. I had a capture box attached to my side. Quickly unclipping it, I opened it and snapped it closed around of the cubes of the monster. The Rod of Taming was built into it, turning it into a bulky hammer shape. The rod sticking out one end of the box. The Magnite level 5 material was built to run down in bracing along the sides of the rod to a pommel at the other end.
This way I could grip the rod the and the metal itself. The Rod of Taming was so I could begin the capture process. I was channeling an active null enchantment into the capture box along with several passive enchantments, suppressing the portion of the Infinite Block. A passive enchantment wouldn’t hold based on the failures of past capture boxes. It had been specifically made for this purpose.
It was incredibly expensive, in terms of crafting crystals. Using level 6 crafting crystals that had been upgraded from level 5 monsters. Each one representing a significant time investment.
I was already retreating and the Reverse Reflection Mirror was quickly getting overwhelmed as multiple metal blocks slammed into it. It was dusted. Now the hard part started, that was the easy part. Keeping this capture box intact while I dodged for the next 100 minutes was something only, I could do. The level 6 Infinite Block entered rage mode.
Some monsters did this when they were being tamed. They took off the kiddie gloves and went all out. The Infinite Block quickly began to float towards me as rings spun up into the air and spread out. The pulse attacks started up from multiple direction, with the occasional spiked rod coming from the main portion.
Loads of Expanding Blocks began to form in my wake. That was when Michelle’s ant and spider summons entered the fray, timing their annihilation explosions to take out the monsters while they were still small. I quickly kept moving side to side, staying close to the undulating ground as the Infinite Block kept chasing me.
I moved in a large loop around the Crystal Vortex, a bit more than a tenth of a mile, or a quarter of a kilometer. The airship rotated slowly to keep its front aimed just behind the Infinite block, as beam attacks continued to lance out in all directions taking out encroaching Expanding blocks that broke off towards the airship.
Joyo remained underneath the airship, keeping the ground clear of any encroaching monsters. We had run the numbers, it was going to be tight, but we could this up for an hour. Normally we would target the level 6 monster, but if it was too damaged, then each individual portion would strengthen. The piece I had could only be contained in the capture box, or capture hammer, by not attacking the Infinite Block. Otherwise, it would break free. While each level 6 monster was a special snowflake, this kind of difficulty was present across all level 6 monsters in one form or the other.
That was why we hadn’t captured any of them. It was no exaggeration saying capturing a monster was a hundred times more difficult than dusting them. At least they were still fairly predictable, even if they had a lot of attack patterns to take into account. But those attack patterns didn’t change. Monsters from level 1 to 3 would mostly just attack or ambush.
Level 4 to level 6 monsters gave a reaction based on input. Create situation A, you get 1. Create situation B, you get 2, and so on. There was no variation or improvisation. The real question was if level 7 monsters would be able to fully adapt, or if they could pick a response from 1 to 3 if presented with situation A.
The amount of money we were spending in crystals to support this attack would be over one billion points. Level 1 beam cannons cost five million points and used up a million points per shot. The beam cannons on the airship were level 4 beam cannons. Each one cost hundred million to make, not taking the cost to install them on the airship. For ten cannons, that was a billion points on just cannons alone.
Firing them made my ass cheeks clench up. Each shot from a level 4 beam cannon cost 20 million. We were averaging 10 shots per minute, or 200 million points per minute. For the hundred minutes this operation would last, that 20 billion points we were spending to capture this monster. That was about another 1,400 stat points for me.
All the soldiers had at least one beam skill that was level 6 they could use. But the problem was typing against specific monsters and their limited energy pool. Normally we wouldn’t be using the cannons like this, but the soldiers’ skills were an emergency backup.
We couldn’t afford to cut corners unfortunately. There was already a massive investment in this operation and trying to pinch points during such a crucial operation would lead to failure. Still, it was painful to watch points evaporate as the cannons fired across the zone.
If we faced a level 7 monster, we might have to upgrade the front four to level 6 cannons just to be safe. They would cost half a billion each with each shot costing a 100 million points. A single shot was enough to give a new arrival around 6,000 stats.
The sheer thought of just spending points like this was like a knife in my heart. We tried to offset costs by grinding level 5 monsters that were easy to grind in desert areas, but that was a drop in the Crystal Vortex that was the cost of airship operations. It really as the sixth member of our team with how many crystals it consumed.