Chapter 16 - Solo

(Verum POV)

Rocks=Stone, Stone=resource.

I knew how to get myself out of this predicament.

When I first used the Crafter skill, I knew that it was way too versatile to not be used in battle.

Quickly, I aimed my hand towards the rocks lying around, and they responded by glowing. Yes! It works! I brought all I could reach to me, Then peeked around he wall sending stones that were transforming into spears towards them.

Now, in case you don't know, stone is heavy, so spears made entirely of stone, would deal huge damage due to their momentum. If you don't know what that is, go back to school.

The spears directly pierced through the demons, killing them, and even managed to break the scorpions defense, doing some damage to it. But not enough, according to me.

A green glow enveloped the scorpion, as it suddenly dashed towards me, making me withdraw my head behind the wall. Then, as I quickly summoned my mana to cast flamethrower, it appeared, and swung it's stinger in an arc, shooting out a crescent of faint green towards me.

As my flames enveloped it, the crescent hit me on my left shoulder, sending me flying backwards.

[-83]

[You are 'Bleeding'!]

[HP will dro-

I did not bother reading it, I knew that this was my opportunity to kill it.

Using Dash, I approached it, and quickly casting Black fang while simultaneously using Crafter to get the spears out, I stabbed my sword into one of the wounds, but not before using Heavy blow combined with my new skill 'Rupture', to augment my attack.

[Rupture]

[Attack to destroy their defense, Defense reduced by 50% for 1 minute]

[+100% damage]

[Cost: 25 Ki]

[Cooldown: 10 seconds]

It lurched for a bit, before stabilizing, so I jumped off of it before quickly healing myself, before getting ready to evade. It charged at me again, so I rolled out of it's way and then making another stone spear attack, and this time, when it struck, it died.

"Huu.. That.. was.. intense." I said to myself, before I plopped down on the stone road. "Worth.. it.. I guess."

[Wind Blade]

[Shoots out a sharp wind]

[Cost: 20 MP]

[Cooldown: 5 seconds]

I had decided to rest and recover for a bit, while mulling over my shortcomings. One of them being that I had too little MP, I would need to remedy that, another was my speed and reflexes, Training, maybe? I didn't know, like I said, need to research and experiment.

I sat there for 2 minutes, casting heal on myself once I recovered my MP, then, when I had sufficiently rested, I continued. On my way up the hill, I encountered 7 more demons, and 2 more scorpions, I had learnt from before, and destroyed the demons throat first. I even managed to get the 'Blade bomb' spell. If nothing else, sneak leveled up too.

*****

I was halfway up the hill, I came across 'It'.

I could not think of another word for it, except for 'Eldritch Horror'. It was like a walking tree, a blood-colored one. 4 thick, trunk like legs, each 80 centimeters tall. 4 tentacles in place of arms, each at 90 degrees from one another at the top of it's body. It did not have a head, atleast, I couldn't see it, and from the rest of it's body, I didn't want to.

[HP: 400/400]

I could not see anything else except for it's health, which meant that it was about Level 27 or something, since above 30 it would not have shown anything at all.

Can I take It? I wondered, and since there was no penalty for dying, I decided to give it a go.

I rushed at it, and it spun around towards me, however, before it could do anything, I quickly cast all my fire spells one after another. As soon as it was hit by Fire bolt, it screeched, then the Fire ball stunned it a bit, before Flamethrower consumed it, and it again screamed. I waited for it to attack, but it did not, just stood there, twitching and screaming, before falling on it's side.

"Eh? Just like that?" I was surprised, to say the least, because according to level, that thing should be stronger that the scorpion. Nonetheless, I continued onwards. I came across 3 more of them, along with more demons, and the same thing repeated each time. Fire Bolt, Fire Ball, Flamethrower, Wait, Proceed. It seems like Blood-type monsters are weak to fire. I'll have to note that down somewhere.

For some reason, these 3 monsters seemed to be the only ones here, Demon-Demonic, Eldritch-Blood, and Scorpion-Wind, It seemed off, for none of them seemed to above level 30, but hey, I wasn't complaining. I continued on, and got into another scuffle with the demons, this time with one of 'those' and got 2 new skills from it as a result.

[Ravage]

[Attack in a rage, doing 50% more damage per strike]

[Attack speed increased by 75% percent]

[Cost: 5 Ki per second]

[Stomp]

[Stomp on the ground, dealing AOE damage]

[Radius: 3 meters]

[Cost: 25 Ki]

[Cooldown: 10 seconds]

"Uh!" I exclaimed.

Turns out, you don't want to get hit by those tentacles. Those things sting like hell, and aren't any good for your HP either. Once again, I was on the ground, recovering.

By now, I had a pretty good grasp of their fighting styles.

Demon- Rush madly trying to kill without any regard for self, screech at first sight to attract nearby monsters.

Scorpion- Will evade sometimes, but mostly tries to use clamps, uses magic if it sees retreating movements.

It- Same as demons, will use Stomp if can't hit.

Finally, I reached the top, and immediately climbed a broken pillar, I knew better then to attract attention.

And there, lying in the middle of rectangular ruin with almost intact pillars, lay the boss, the only thing between me, and all that sweet dungeon loot.