716 Beckoned Retriever
The Beckoned Retriever.
A fierce, Tier 9 beast with a height of two and half meters, excessive, long dark furs draping from its powerful body that featured six prowling paws from six, thick legs. Crystal-like, long and thin claws protruded from their ends, gleaming with a light coat of mana that promised no shallow cuts.
Its slanted, electric blue eyes with black slits for pupils never blinked, and never lost sight of its prey as its body circled Skullius, its rounded, whisker polluted snout twitching with an abnormally wide mouth full of crystal-like, long, sharp teeth.
Skullius licked his lips as he also kept the Beckoned Retriever in his sight, noting that at its rear end, two long tails swung like whips in the air.
‘Its stats are as high as some weaker Cluster Generals, barring its mana quantity at least. I wonder what abilities it has?’ Skullius thought.
A large, blue mana core with a sharp radiance bellowed in the creature’s body, which Skullius considered a win. If every monster he was to face in a purple Cluster had a purple core then… he would have to start thinking about writing a will.
Just then, the Beckoned Retriever turned into a blur as it dove to the right, then to the left, and began darting around Skullius at lightning speed without approaching too close.
A fierce gust of wind began to whirl around the Hybrid Luman who, from a distance, looked to be trapped within tens of dark, quivering strokes that landed on dozens of points in less than a blink, before shooting to others.
‘It’s quite fast…’ Skullius thought.
He wagered that even if he could see normally right now, he wouldn’t even be able to keep track of this beast.
However, he didn’t need sight to deal with something like this.
His enemy was quite wary of him. Probably because of the large coat of mana around him.
“You should be even more cautious my friend,” Skullius said with a smile before the layer of mana around him disappeared.
No.
It was expelled from his body to cover the surroundings, applying a tragic effect to them in an instant.
BOOOOOM!
With a comical whimper, the Beckoned Retriever suddenly found its body pushed hard against the ground by some, peculiar force, and it couldn’t even struggle to get up!
It was as if the world was pressing down on it with enough oomph to make a small hill crumble!
The creature glared at Skullius who hadn’t moved an inch, a mocking smile plastered on his face as he gazed at its large body.
“Its neat how useful this is, isn’t it? And you didn’t even try to stay at a safe distance, making it easy for me,” the Hybrid Luman said as he then started to approach the beast slowly.
Naturally, his mana core, which was capable of mimicking the mana flow within gravity, allowed him to expel such an effect. The goal was to be able to mimic the effect of Distorted Gravity, which Skullius had seen on the stout mountain in Fortune, but this was currently all he could manage.
Still, the Hybrid Luman could choose the direction he wanted to effect the gravity – as long as there was a flat surface in said direction. He only got better at this as his mana quantity increased, but using it on more powerful opponents proved to be a bit of challenge as some of them were capable of resisting it a moment’s notice – like Hobbu Bobbu.
Right now, Skullius hadn’t explicitly mentioned that it was gravity because he feared the many screens at the stadium had enhanced audio functions too, and he would have just revealed one his cards if he said it out loud.
As he approached the immobilised beast, Skullius gripped the handle to Demion’s Dance. He didn’t want to have to waste time on these creatures. While it was great that he got to confirm that as long as he was targeting something that wasn’t the mountain, he could move freely, he would much rather continue his journey, slow as it was.
But then…
…!
[Primal Caution] gave Skullius another gripping warning, causing him to stop moving at once.
The Beckoned Retriever was still on the ground, no movements from it registering through his [Graceless Hunter]. However…
Before Skullius knew it, he was dyed in a brilliant, white glow, a crushing force, and a rising, scorching heat that flared to a few tens of meters around him mercilessly, burning the innocent, albeit creepy vegetation. A maddening noise had thumped out loud along with this unexpected attack, and the Hybrid Luman had found himself buried in the ground a moment later.
Naked, and with his body more or less a dark, charred mess featuring bits of hard roasted flesh, Skullius was momentarily dazed.
‘W-what the hell was that?!’ he thought with subtle hints of fright and frankly…awe, glowing in his white eyes.
[Primal Caution] only took ahold of Skullius’ body when things he could evade himself on a basic, physical level were involved, but the fact that it didn’t even bother with this one meant that…
Skullius cursed.
A moment later, a new layer of flesh, blood and bone was already weaving over his unsightly remains, his gear re-emerging as well as with a pump of some Null Life Essence.
The ever ready presence of [Saint Lumis’ Benign Arc] spared Skullius a great deal of cursing.
~~~
[Saint Lumis’ Benign Arc (Special) | Lv.19]
<Passive>
Adequate reserves of mana will be used to repair the user’s body each time damage is incurred, to guard from curses of the same level, and to ward off – to a lesser extent – intrusive forces from enemies.
-Caution-
The duration and effectiveness of the process is determined by the severity of the damage taken – where physical damage and curses are concerned.
<Active>
The user can create a halo with a 120% increase in every aspect of restoration that the -passive- grants. The halo covers a broad range, affecting the user and their allies with an 80% increase their overall ability. Lasts 10 Minutes.
Mana Requirements: 30,000 (I) Mana Points.
Duration: 10 minutes
Cooldown: —
~~~
When Skullius’ was almost whole, the trusty hold of [Primal Caution] caused him to jerk backward, narrowly saving him from being sliced to ribbons by the nimble Retriever which had been released from its detention when Skullius lost focus from the attack just now.
In the midst of this, Skullius heard a shattering noise, like that of glass, coming from above his head, and his face fell. He immediately realised what it was.
The illusory glass revolving over him, with a numeric figure over it, had shattered, only to reform again. The 1,000 above it was gone. Now, there only stood…
900.
‘Seriously? That was considered a lethal hit? I didn’t even feel a thing!’
A heavy blow took 10 Glass Units from the target, and a lethal blow took a 100, according to the rules.
By all accounts, what had hit Skullius, even if he didn’t understand what, was most definitely lethal.
The Retriever sped up, and tried to dice Skullius again with its fangs, but Skullius wasn’t retaliating yet. He split his thoughts with [Omniscient Thought Cracker], and tried to decipher what exactly that burst of light was.
It was way too fast.
In truth, the Retriever was also faster than him stat wise, and to make sure he dodged cleanly, he was using gravity to pull himself away towards the large trees at even quicker speeds while he tried to think.
A full ten seconds later, Skullius looked up, his [Graceless Hunter] capturing the images of the clouds.
‘Don’t tell me…’ he thought.
At the exact moment, one of the clouds above him shone at its base. This phenomena didn’t last for more than a few microseconds before, with an unforgiving radiance, then a shuddering noise, a bolt of white lightning streamed towards Skullius!
So that was it?!
The Hybrid Luman had already taken action the moment the brilliance, with a very faint spark of mana, had poured out from the cloud.
On instinct, he activated one of his three, speed enhancing skills, and evaded right before he was struck for the second time.
It was only when he was a six meters away that the ground screamed, violated by the heat and force of the attack that obliterated another massive chunk of the forest, causing a torrent of flame to spill over.
‘It’s lightning!’ Skullius thought. ‘And to think I gave these clouds the benefit of the doubt!’
Once again, the Retriever shot in Skullius’ direction, but unlike with gravity, Skullius when using [Destined Warp Steps], was many times faster than he was before.
Twinkling footsteps appeared in the direction where he wanted to move, and as long as he followed them to the letter, he would barely be seen moving over any stretch of distance within the skill’s range.
Skullius’ gripped his sword when he appeared behind the Retriever, and by the time the creature turned its head to him, a silent assassin of dark crimson hue had already streaked from his sheathed sword in a straight line and cleanly beheaded it.
The refined red energy that Demion’s Dance expelled was as sharp ever, and effective at killing mortals, as its name – Mortal Ruin – boasted.
The large beast slumped to the ground lifelessly.
Skullius gave a sigh.
He wondered what those who were watching his battle just now would think. Even though it had barely lasted a minute, Skullius was sure keener eyes had already begun to dissect his move set, Guissepo probably more so.
‘At least I’m keeping many others hidden, just in case,’ Skullius thought with the scratch of his head.
He glanced at his sword. Thankfully, the sheath and sword were strong enough to withstand that first lightning attack, especially the former which had all its properties focused on defence. Some signs of damage could be seen on it though.
Skullius had been about to absorb the Null Life Essence from the Retriever to make up for the amount he had lost to repair the VergeRider when he stopped, a deep frown on his face.
‘I didn’t receive a notification for the kill, did I? And to absorb the Null Life Essence…’ Skullius thought.
A bright glow shone from above in that moment, but Skullius was already gone from where he stood by the time a thick bolt of lightning descended.
To the Hybrid Luman’s surprise, the bolt didn’t strike where he had been positioned, but over the Beckoned Retriever, dyeing it white, yet without the destructive mess from prior attacks to the surroundings.
Instead, as he perceived through [Graceless Hunter], the corpse of the Retriever rose unsteadily, while bound in the enclosure of blinding beams and streaking, smaller bolts derived from the larger one just now. Its head rose to reattach itself to a bleeding stump on the whole!
‘What did I even expect here?’ Skullius asked himself while looking at this in disbelief.
The Retriever’s furs turned milky white and stood on end.
The coiling bits of scattered lightning did not die out, seeming to instead become a part of the resurrected beast.
Skullius nodded at this in profound incredulity, and when a third tail suddenly emerged from the Retriever’s rear, bumping the beast’s overall physical values twofold, Skullius almost gave a round of applause.
Immortality?
ƥαṇdα-ηθνε|·ƈθm
Sure! Why the flesh not?!
The enraged Retriever growled in a frighteningly low voice, prompting Skullius to prepare once again.
‘How do I get out of this one?’ he wondered.