16 Wrathful Scourge
Seeing the level and amount of damage it could do, made me feel very afraid. I realized now I had been way too relaxed when going into this and did not take into account for strange things like this to happen. Just because I have never read of any accounts of it in the books at home does not mean that such things were not possible. But something like this where the monster was originally a level 5 turning into a level 25…. I couldn’t wrap my head around it, no matter how much I tried to think about it.
There was one thing I did know at this time, and that was I had to be careful. If this new kind of monster were to hit me at its current level, I am sure I will be sent flying to someplace that I would never come back from. Whether I lived or died would be another question. But I also knew that I could not run towards the village. This meant I only had one option, I had to run deeper into the forest. Because if I did run to the village, I would be bringing about everyone’s doom.
While I had a feeling most of the people in the village disliked me, only Trent and his goons have ever said anything mean to me. So I did not wish to see anyone come to harm who never actually harmed me. And if they did come to harm due to this monster, it would be my fault.
“Fireball! Wind Rush!”
With no other choice, I launched a fireball right at the wrathful scourge before running off deeper into the woods. Sadly I could not leave any marks to find my way back. I could only hope to rely on visual direction by climbing trees if I am able to escape this predicament.
“Roar!” The wrathful scourge seemed angered by the attack just now and began chasing after me. Luckily it did not seem to have any long-ranged attacks, so I could make use of my small figure compared to the wrathful scourge’s large body to make it in between batches of trees and bushes with ease.
I weaved in and out of the trees, testing the intelligence of this monster to find that it was actually quite dumb. It would get caught up on two trees that were next to each other that I would slip through even though it could easily just run around them and catch up to me. Not that I was complaining because this was good news for me.
My brain spun as I began trying to formulate a new plan using the lack of intelligence the wrathful scourge has. “I am not sure it’s possible, but in theory, it should be possible to form multiple magic circles at the same time. If I use two ice walls and then bombard it with fireball after fireball, I should be able to kill it…. At least, I hope.”
To be perfectly honest, I have no idea if this would even work. But I need to restrict the wrathful scourge’s movements as much as possible. And casting ice lock on a monster that is way above my level was not something I was going to risk stopping and trying to cast. In the books I read, it says ice lock can be easily undone if the monster is stronger. They can easily shatter the ice with brute force.
I know there is a saying that you do not know until you try. While that was very true, in this situation, it was not something worth risking. I would not risk my little life to test a spell. Ice wall was more practical in this situation as I could easily manipulate its thickness, making it as sturdy as a boulder. By using two of them to herd the wrathful scourge into a narrow passage that it might not be able to get through, it would at least give me more time to prepare my attacks to try to take it down in a barrage of spells.
Now I know I could use an intermediate attack spell in this situation, but the problem with that is that the power of my spells seem to be much higher than that of a normal spell. My only thought on why this was, was because from the novels I read, intelligence sometimes also acts as a boost to magic power. While I do not know if this is actually true or not, in my case, I do know that my fireballs are more powerful than my mother’s by a lot.
I continued to run while I drew magic circles in my eyes, trying to create multiples at one time. The process had to be quick in order to cast spells almost instantly, or it would be useless. Every second counted because every second was one step closer to a chance of me dying.
One would think that it would be tough trying to do so many things at once, but for some reason, I was able to have multiple thought processes as I ran through the forest and was creating magic circles. It actually surprised me that my mind seemed to be able to handle such things a little too well. This may be another perk of having infinity mind.
I ran for almost fifteen minutes, and during this time, I have created the same two magic circles over and over until I finally got them down to creating two ice wall magic circles and fifteen fireball magic circles at the same time. “I think this is good enough….” I mumbled as I looked for the perfect set of trees.
My idea right now was to find a set of trees for the wrathful scourge to get caught up on. Then I would cast my double ice wall on both sides of it. When it broke through the trees, I would already have my fireball spells flying at it. I just had to do everything correctly and make sure my timing was perfect.
I was actually sweating. My palms were soaking wet, and I could feel my fingers starting to prune because of it. This whole situation was a lot to take, and the pressure of what I was about to do was really weighing me down. I took a deep breath as I spotted the set of trees that fit my plan and charged forward.
I slipped through the gap between the trees and quickly turned around, four magic circles appearing in my eyes, two in each. I reached out both my hands as I skidded to a stop and yelled out: “Ice Wall!”
Two, one thousand foot long walls that rose up to ten feet into the air, and were almost six feet wide formed in front of me in a V shape, only leaving a small gap for me to see through. I took a deep breath and shakingly let it out as my eyes glowed once more. The wrathful scourge had already destroyed the trees in front of it and was now charging right toward me. The closer it got, the tighter the space became for it until it finally seemed to have lodged itself in between the two walls of ice.
My eyes were filled with fifteen magic circles each, thirty in total. I closed my eyes and opened them once more before extending my hands out once again. “Fireball….” ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
Fifteen fireballs formed in front of me and shot through the space between the walls of ice, barreling down the channel I made right at the wrathful scourge. The wrathful scourge must have felt the danger of the fireballs because it began to struggle to get out of the way but with how far it was wedged in and how thick the walls of ice were, there was no way it could force its way out. Each of the fifteen fireballs landed directly onto the wrathful scourge. And as the first explosions were going off, another fifteen followed up behind them.
*Boom!*
When I saw the massive explosion, I knew right away that I had gone way overboard. I braced myself for the incoming shock wave that spread out from the impact point. I watched as the walls of ice shattered and vaporized under the extreme heat of the fireballs and the force of the explosion. As the wave of energy spread out, I lowered my body to try to ward off some of the impact but was still sent stumbling a few feet back.
[Wrathful Scourge Tiger Killed]
[Experience: +20000]
[Level up!]
[Level up!]
[Level up!]
[Level up!]
[Level up!]
[Level up!]
[Level up!]
[Level] 2 → 9
[Status Points] 5 → 40
[Skill Points] 0 → 7
“Hah! Hahahahahaha! I did it!” Seeing the notification and the experience I had just gained, I couldn’t help but shout out for joy as I sprawled my body out on the ground. I was very tired. With all the running around and planning as well as attempting to cast so many spells at once, I just really wanted to take a nap.
But after a few minutes of rest, I still got up to examine the damage. A crater at least over fifty feet deep and one hundred feet wide had formed. My ice walls seemed to have acted as a natural barrier, so no flames spread to other parts of the forest. Knowing the wrathful scourge was dead, I walked right over to the crater and looked down inside. “Hmmm? What’s that?”
Deep in the middle of the crater was a shiny object that caught my attention. I do not know if it is because of my dragon heritage or not, but shiny objects always quickly catch my eye.
Not wasting any time, I slid down into the crater that was still smoking from my attack and walked over to the object that glimmered in the center. When I got close enough, I saw a purplish, bluish stone with a gentle glow about it lying there in the dirt. I reached down and picked it up, and focused my eyes.
[Item Acquired: Evolution Stone]
[Evolution Stone]
[A consumable item that will help any being evolve.]