Ethereal Sage Dicaprion started his attack with a basic fireball. A ball of dull red fire bloomed and expanded to the size of a small car. It then condensed into the size of a baseball and changed colors along the process. It went from dull to a bright red to a dark orange, which gradually lightened to a yellow flame.
This small pale yellow flame was as blindingly bright as it was hot. I could feel myself burning away by the second. I checked my HP and found it was at 24/30 and falling fast.
Panicking, I shouted out to Dicaprion that I needed some kind of protection. He looked over at the sound and, realizing my poor state, threw a ring at me. I luckily caught it after it bounced off of my chest.
Wasting no time putting it on, I immediately felt the danger from the flame disappear. I checked how low my HP had fallen and was gobsmacked; it had fallen to 16/30, just over half!
I looked at the back of Dicaption with a new appreciation for the depth of his power. Just the heat radiating from his attack is enough to kill me in seconds; what will his final attack be like?
The fireball wasn't done growing in power yet, either. The small yellow sun grew even bigger than the previous red mass before condensing. The yellow colour grew paler and paler as the temperature increased. Soon it was replaced with a white light so bright I couldn't look.
The temperature continued to soar, and the white light gradually gained a color again; it slowly turned blue. The light baby blue became darker and darker until it shifted colour again and took on a slight violet hue.
Gradually, this light violet ball changed to a darker tone of purple and began to grow even darker. But this change was interrupted by an instability in the shape of the fireball.
If he were facing the other way, I would see Dicaprion frowning. The fireball stopped its transition to black and grew in size slightly while brightening in colour, returning to deep purple from black.
Dicaprion made a punching motion reminiscent of an old anime about a screaming monkey man in an orange jumpsuit. When he completed the action, the fireball shot toward the sword faster than my eyes could track.
The area around the sword was instantly bathed in a sea of incredibly intense purple flames. My vision of the swords and surroundings was lost as the flames completely engulfed the room. All I could see was purple fire; it was beautiful in a morbid way.
I waved my hands through it and marvelled at the sheer power needed to create such destruction. 'And he isn't even the strongest there is. I want to see it. I want to see the height of this game's most powerful beings'
Soon, the flames disappeared, and I saw Dicaprion standing completely unfazed. My sword on the ground looked really hot, but it wasn't melted at all, so it looked like I was still a free man.
Dicaprion still wasn't done with his attacks, though. He had adopted a posture identical to the caster statue outside the Adventurers guild. I had time, and it didn't look like anything else was happening in the next few seconds, so I took the time to inspect the ring he threw at me.
{{Ring of Elemental Nullification: Provides immunity to all basic terrain damage. Prevents damage and negative status effects from 10 Elemental Attacks. Uses left: 3/10}}
I was shocked. I knew the ring would be good, but that is basically ten free lives! I looked up with the intention of expressing my gratitude, but all thoughts emptied right out of my head when I saw what he was casting.
The entire room was filled with a white mist, and the ground was full of liquid. Within the mist were dozens of ice lances which looked like they could pierce an entire wooly mammoth in two!
I looked up just in time for the spell to be cast. The ice lances shot toward my sword at an untraceable speed and bombarded the heck out of it. I miscounted the number of lances, too, because there didn't seem to be an end to them.
Even after two minutes, the massive pieces of ice were pelting it. The water from the floor was nearly gone, so I guessed the spell must be nearing its end.
My prediction turned out to be correct as after another minute, the fog and cold temperatures disappeared from the small area where my sword was.
I thought Decaprion would cast a third spell, but this time, he ran forward as fast as he could and leapt into the air. While in the air, he pulled out a stupidly large hammer and swung it down with as much force as possible.
A tremendous sound shook me fiercely before disappearing suddenly, and then an invisible wave hit me, only it felt nowhere near as strong as it should have. I checked the ring and saw that this attack knocked two counters off the life-saving ring!
I wasn't sure if he had finished his attacks on the sword, but he hadn't moved yet, so I walked over to him. "How is the sword holding up?"
I was pretty confident it would be fine, but I was excited to see his attacks' effects on it.
Decaprion stowed the comically large hammer in whatever special item he had and laughed while shaking his hands. "I don't know how god makes things like that, but I suppose that's why God is God and I am not. I didn't even put a dent in it. All that effort and I just got all the rust off it. It is mighty pretty, I'll say. Comparable to some of the best artifacts I've seen."
He picked up the now rust-free sword and returned it to me. It took all the willpower I had to not look at the stat changes, but I managed. But I wasn't able to stop myself from admiring the aesthetics of the blade though.
The hollow, rusted ring on the pommel now looked like polished silver and held a purple and blue gem in place. The hand wraps were made of rejuvenated leather, which was still worn enough to retain its grip. The dragon heads on both sides of the cross guard each had a gemstone in their mouths, one blue and one deep purple.
The central circle reinforcing the thinner crossguard was a polished gold engraved with tiny runes, giving it a textured look. The once chipped and rusty blade was now spotless and perfectly reflective. The flattened medial ridge of the blade had a name carved on it, and just reading it gave me goosebumps.
It is a name so old it survived three world wars and still had movies made about it, despite no one knowing if it existed.
Excalibur.