A myriad of spells and skills were desperately unleashed at the Slime King. The students were holding their breaths; hoping that their attacks would cause even an inkling of damage to the slime.
However, something unexpected happened. As soon as the first spell came in contact with the Slime King, a window popped up in front of everyone.
[RAID Mode Initiated.]
[Rules: Whoever damages the 'Slime King' will be rewarded with experience or an item. The one to deal the most damage gains the most rewards.]
Everyone was given a shock as they look the window. Only a few seconds later did it occur to Yoru and Liam that because so many people attacked the Slime King, it was registered as the start of a raid.
In response to this sudden development, the Slime King multiplied itself, becoming smaller in mass. The two slimes began aggressively jumping around, this time, not high in the sky but low jumps that were capable of squashing the students.
"Everyone, move back!" The Slime King's attack pattern most likely changed, making the fight even harder than earlier.
Most of the students were excited at the message while some of the smarter students realized the sudden increase in difficulty.
"If these slimes are lethal to one thing, it's gotta be curses!" Liam was determined to both get rid of the slimes and gain some experience. No matter how little the experience he got, it would be multiplied by 99 so it didn't matter.
"Withering!"
"Withering!"
"Withering!"
Liam cast [Withering] 3 times without hesitation. He would definitely need more than one curse to do some damage to the slime.
3 Strange black runes appeared in front of one of the slimes before some of its body turned purple and black and it squirmed around in agony.
The slime wriggled sporadically, disregarding the other students' attacks as it made disturbing noises.
Some of the students stared in awe as the body of the slime turned purple and slowly ate at itself.
"Who cast such a powerful spell? Is a senior here?"
"Although the spell is powerful, a senior's spells would do way more."
"J-Just keep using skills if you don't want to lose your lives!"
Liam gazed at the slime before preparing to cast withering again. As he was about to speak, a message popped up.
['Low-Ranked Curse Arts' proficiency has increased by 0.36x99.]
As Liam read the message, his grasp over the curse arts suddenly increased at a tremendous speed. He could feel the power of his available curses getting stronger even without using them. Along with the sudden boost of power, he felt that he was capable of just barely using two curse arts simultaneously.
He braced himself and prepared himself. It was commonly known that only experts were capable of such feats and the cost of failure would cripple the user's arms at the least. The most devastating cost of failure would disable the user from ever using the said skills ever again, no matter how hard they tried.
"Here we go..." Liam said as he took in a deep breath.
"Low-Ranked Curse Arts: Witherings!" Liam could feel his mana steadily being drained while casting the curse. The amount of mana needed to simultaneously cast the curses was about 3 curses worth.
As Liam cast the curses, a symbol; bigger than the previous three, appeared in front of the same slime that had already started regenerating its body. The slime noticed the familiar power that caused it immense pain and quickly moved backward out of fear. Although the slime moved, the symbol only turned to face the slime before half of the slime's body turned black and purple.
The half of the slime's body that was cursed began shriveling up like a deflated balloon until it looked like a sheet of crunched-up plastic wrap. Liam was immediately shocked at the results of the curse.
Some of the students began unleashing multiple skills at the injured slime, hoping to deal damage to the deflated side of the slime and gain some experience. The skills and spells of the students barely did enough damage to make the slime move back.
At this point, the slime's body was twisting and turning sporadically around itself, apparently trying to heal its cursed body, although that didn't seem to work like last time.
"I-It's not healing? Why?"
"I'm confused. The teachers said that no matter the kind of damage a slime took, as long as it was given some time, it would heal right back up."
"We mustn't waste this opportunity! Everyone attacks the slime with your most powerful attacks!" The students looked like a frenzied mob that wanted to destroy the slime completely without leaving a single bit of it behind.
They all began casting more powerful skills and attacks.
The slime began dodging the attacks despite their low attack power. It became wary after being permanently damaged by the previous mysterious attack.
Seeing the results, Liam turned to the other slime that was unharmed and attacking other students. It also became wary of the students' attacks and didn't want to be injured like the other slime. Seeing this, Liam cast another set of curses again.
The good thing about arts is that there are no cooldowns. Arts are not like skills, they're superior because they have no cooldowns and have more power. The only thing that prevented people from learning arts is that they're incredibly rare and are restricted to members of clans. Liam was one of these clan members; formally, but now that he was kicked out he was on his own.
"Witherings!" Liam started saying withering with an 's' now since he was using two curses at the same time. While casting the curse, he thought of something else.
"Withering and Hollow!" Although he called out the names, nothing appeared; confusing him.
'Is it the name or is it not possible?'
"Hollowed Withering!" Still, nothing happened.
"Withering Hollow...?" Finally, both the symbols of [Withering] and [Hollow] appeared before merging together and forming a complex symbol that wasn't possible for Liam to read. The symbol enlarged by a few meters before disappearing and reappearing in front of the unharmed slime.
The slime immediately jumped backward, it seemed like it kept its guard up the entire time. Despite evading the symbol, it turned towards the slime before glowing a light purple. The symbol disappeared and the inside of the slime's body immediately turned black and purple.
"Who's casting such a powerful spell?"
"Is it one of the teachers?"
"Maybe a senior really is here?"
"Don't be stupid. A senior would be able to kill these slimes in but a few seconds!"
"Yeah, I heard from my older brother that every senior is allowed to pick an art to learn and each of them is powerful!"
"Really? I definitely can't slack on my studies and training then if I want to be a senior and get an art too!"
Many students began chatting while gazing at the injured slime as it twisted and turned just like the other one. Soon, their gazes turned into expressions turned into ones of shock as they witnessed the result of the mysterious attack.
The inside of the slime deflated just as the other slime did, but the core of the slime also withered. The slime wasn't anything special as it quickly turned to dust along with the inside of the slime. The difference between withering and hollow is that withering accelerates the age of its target along with corroding the target from the outside first.
If it can't harm the outside then it'll try the inside. Hollow immediately attacks the suggested target from the inside every time. It also doesn't accelerate the age of the target and only shreds it to dust after getting inside of the target. Hollow was much more dangerous because of this, it was made to shred things to dust the moment it came in contact with something.
And thanks to the combination of both the curses, the power of both was greatly amplified and boasted terrifying damage to anything or anyone.