An air of pressure formed between Leon and the vicious millipede queen as they faced off. Just the aura that the both of them actively gave off was enough to send all the weaker millipedes running off to go and face weaker enemies.
'This is it.' Leon held his sword in his hand a bit more firmly. The pressure that the millipede queen gave off was much more different than that of her offspring. The fact that she possessed several mental skills also boosted her mental presence by another margin.
That said, she was not easily able to brush away Leon's will. Not only had he faced a lot of obstacles and overcome them all over the past weeks, but his current race was also much more powerful than what he should have been.
Normally, there was no way that Leon would be an Obsidian Skeleton Noble is he followed a normal evolution path, but because of the effects of the Obsidian Pool, and the immense amount of mana being circulated underground helped to further boost his prospective advancement directions to prodigious heights!
[Unruly Undead. I... Will smite... You!] The mental waves that brushed past Leon's skull carried the thoughts and intentions of the millipede queen. Even with her compound eyes pointing in no specific direction, he could feel her pointed stare trying to pin him in place.
Another second passed before the millipede queen suddenly sprung into action. Her many legs stomped on the ground, while the front portion of her body was lifted up, revealing her wicked front legs that resembled sickles.
Leon also lunged forward, with his body leaning low to the ground as he ran. His sword glowed even brighter as his weapon enhancement skill gained a couple more levels. In his left hand, a ball of red flames was beginning to form, powered by Leon's charging mana.
When the fireball had reached a mature state in just a couple of seconds, he flicked his wrist, sending out the spell, which rushed forward to collide against the carapace of the millipede queen.
BOOM!
The force of the explosion ruined her forward momentum and pushed her to the side, but it was only for a moment. By the time she righted herself and turned to face Leon, he was already in front of her. He slashed his sword, aiming for the joint in her legs as his target.
Shhhk!
The sound of his sword slicing through thick chitin and flesh rang out before the thick carapace of the millipede queen burned up the momentum he had built up.
Whoosh!
A pointed claw came rushing down at Leon's head and he abruptly dodged, jumping backward to put some space between himself and the claw. But unfortunately, he had been unable to dislodge his sword from the millipede queen's thick and sturdy carapace.
Leon weaved and bobbed around, his high agility carrying him smoothly as he danced between the deadly legs of the millipede queen. Her dexterity was also high enough to put some pressure on him and prevent him from being able to move back in close to retrieve his sword. It was starting to irritate him, so he turned to his other new skill that he had yet to use.
'Curse Eyes... I don't know what you do, but don't let me down!' Leon thought and activated the skill. His eyes flashed with a green and purple light that reflected against the carapace of the millipede queen's body. By chance, it was also reflected across the backs of many other millipedes.
The effects of Leon's Curse Eyes were apparent at once. The weaker millipedes immediately began to underperform. Their movements slowed, and their coordination slowed to a crawl and was very basic. Sometimes, they even clashed with each other, and were distracted long enough to be taken care of by Leon's army of Undead Millipedes.
The millipede queen released a piercing screech that shook the ceiling of the cavern. Small pebbles and rocks began to fall to the ground as she screeched, and the millipedes under her control began to go out of control.
A small screen popped into Leon's vision for a moment, and his spirit immediately soared.
[Skill: Curse Eyes have been activated.]
Cooldown time: 4 minutes, 32 seconds.
Effects: Reduces all attributes of any enemy caught in its radius by 50%.
___
'Sweet! I can do this now!'
With a burning flame in his empty chest cavity, Leon pounced on the millipede queen like a hungry predator finding prey after going for an entire week without food. The first thing he did was to disable her. He sliced off her front legs first to reduce the direct danger toward him, before going on to sever most of her other legs.
Even after severing her legs, Leon could see that they were already beginning to heal up. Her healing factor was very strong!
Feeling the pain of having her legs being sliced off, the millipede queen began to regain her senses, pushing her instincts to the side in order to use a more rational approach to combat Leon. She used the most reasonable, and also the most predictable approach to fend of Leon while she healed herself.
[Return to me, my children!] A heavy psychic wave washed over all the millipedes in the cavern and they immediately turned around to rush to their queen's aid.
Leon gritted his teeth and commanded his forced to stall the millipedes. While the weaker millipedes that he had just raised could only stall one or two enemies at most, the stronger ones that had advanced once were strong enough to battle against a group of Ghost Millipedes without falling back.
Nedra swept through the masses of clustered millipedes like death itself, waving her front legs like sickles harvesting wheat.
Kaladin's hands repeatedly flicked and twisted as he sent out spell after spell. Huge explosions shook the entire cavern, and Leon could only thank the heavens that the place had not collapsed on itself yet.
He turned to face the injured Ghost Millipede Queen for a final showdown. This was it.