9/13 14:41 (Summer, Sunset; Luna; Dungeon)
Luna barely entered the next room before she had to make a barrier to shield herself from arrows launched by a group of three Skeletons guarded by a group of five Zombies that started to walk towards her, their "Miasmic Aura" covering all of the Undeads before her.
She analyzed them quickly in her mind.
"Skeletons are less defensive than Zombies, especially when it comes to blunt weapons, however they are more… intelligent, i suppose, even if without having any actual brain and actually being able to use weapons." She noted the Skeletons' bows.
The second valley of arrows from the skeleton, sent as a distraction for the Zombies, were met by a volley of True Arrows that exploded on contact, sending them off course, before she moved towards the Zombies, her Wings spreading around her, becoming sharp as if made of swords, Mana Forged to maximize the sharpness of the blades, and falling on the Zombies, cutting them into ribbons.
Without any hesitation, her Ash-Viper released a breath of flames to the Zombie while Luna stepped forward hard and launching a True Mace to one of the Skeletons.
As it moved towards its left to dodge, the Skeleton crashed against a barrier from her Warden-Viper, stunning it enough for her Mace to shatters its ribcage, bringing it to its knees.
She watched as its bones started to passively heal before nodding to herself.
"It is not only the Zombies. Almost certainly every single Undead of this Dungeon will have "Undying Body" at D-Rank, at least. Let's hope D-Rank is the highest Rank of this Skill present."
From the Mace, Vision-Viper attacked with its tail, whose tip was now an hammer head, the fallen Skeleton by swinging down on its skull, crashing it, before forcefully taking its bow and stringing it by using its tail and mouth, shoting an arrow through the head of another Skeleton, distracting it and the third enough for Luna to grab its head and crushing it in her hands before shattering one of its legs with an harsh kick.
As it fell, Luna grabbed it by its shoulder with one hand and by its remaining knee with the other, rose it high before breaking its spine on her knee while releasing a [Mana Burst] to split it in two, with the two parts still grabbed by her hands.
Without any hesitation, she slammed the two parts in the ground, releasing another two [Mana Burst] from her hands, reducing most of its body to shards of bones.
Luna arose then, Ash-Viper leaving from her sleave with the order to burning the bone shards the moment its cooldown ended, before turning towards the one with an arrow in its skull and running at it.
This one dropped its bow to take the sword at its side to try and hit her only for its right leg to be destroyed by Vision-Viper's tail causing the skeleton to fall while Luna dodged to his right, two swords in her hands cutting twice straight through its body before she spun around, a great hammer falling upon the body and exploding in a wave of force.
As the Zombies were healing, she rained down True Arrows, Mana Forged with [Release], on them.
This buyed her enough time to reflect on the first Spell she ever Casted as a Lunarian, "Stats Enhancement".
That was a Spell made when the Rules were much different than now and so it is time to change it in a new one, especially considering how she had "Mana-Clad Warrior", a Spell already incompatible with "Stats Enhancement".
And so, it comes times to make a new and original Spell.
"[Awaken]!"
Instantly, her Arma manifested and ascended its material composition, becoming pure energy, even if with the same coloration of a mostly black light with white and iridescent accents.
This sharply enhanced her use of Energy and the Energy themselves in their entirely; her control was the most important thing in this situation as a wrong move with her Energy and she would destroy her own organs.
Her "Black Blood Manipulation" was spreading within her own body while her "Meditation" was active in a Parallel Process, making sure to concentrate to the maximum.
This, however, was only the first step as she surrounded herself in her [Mana-Clad Warrior] to both make sure her new Spell will be compatible with this one and to held herself in place if, for example, she exploded into pieces to minimize the needed Vital Mana to heal if necessary.
At this, and only this, point she started to move the Vital Mana within her body to enhance not only her own body or magical abilities, but every aspect of her being being enhanced, Soul included.
And this enhancement spread affected three Skills in particular: Growth Skill "Unique Arma" C, Growth Skill "Soul Harmony" C and, most importantly, Unique Skill "Singularity" D.
As a result, the speed of the Regeneration of Energy is vastly increased, being able to regenerate more than her own "Unique Arma" will consume while Awakened with the power of her Unique Skill increased slightly while the sustain cost of all of her active Spells, in this case [Mana-Clad Warrior] and her new Spell, was negated by the enhancement on her Unique Skill.
She smiled at this before naming her new Spell.
"[Greater Self]. Yes, this is an appropriate name for this Spell."
She watched as the Undead were healing before calling her Vipers back to her.
The next step was a simple experiment, the Shaping of a rain of True Daggers Mana Forged with her new Spell to test it and the result certaintly was worth the process as not only were the Shapes enhanced as much as if she had Mana Forged them with "Stats Enhancement", but it also had an additional effect.
That of being able to Mana Forge it again, with a different Spell that would be boosted slightly by [Greater Self].
She choose [Release] as the Spell.
The difference between [Mana Burst] and [Release] when Mana Forged is simple.
[Release] destroys the object Mana Forged and renders it more unstable in exchange for much more destructive range and power.
The knifes fell.
The room exploded continuosly and so all the Undeads present shattered into pieces.
Her Black Blood scoured the room breaking down everything they found into blood for her to drink.
*Luna Gained 100 + 5 Magicules. X8
Once they finished, she sighed before looking at her Wings, Tail and the three Familiar-Viper and Dispelling them.
She was in no danger, after all none of the Undead survived behind ripped apart by the previous waves of force ripping the room apart while she was unharmed thanks to her Awakened Unique Arma and [Mana-Clad Warrior].
She Shaped a pair of True Wings, her True Tail and the three Familiar-Vipers before Mana Forging all six of them with both [Greater Self] and [Mana-Clad Warrior].
The result was simple, her Wings and Tail covered in a dense layer of additional Vital Mana and so were the True Vipers in which she Summoned her Familiars.
Her Familiar-Vipers changed even further than that depending on their Skills.
Vision-Viper presented even sharpers blades and, in addiction to the third eye in the center, it presented various addictional eyes all over to maximize the use of its original Skill.
Warden-Viper was even larger with the start of horns growing from its head and its scale were forming a spine of spikes going from the base of its head to its tail.
Ash-Viper's layer of Vital Mana was hot and composed entirely of flames that however didn't burn either herself or her Shapes.
This process vastly increased the power of her Familiar-Vipers and her own options in battle.
Her creation of her new Spell was without a doubt worth it.
Blood flowed to her mouth and so did a small amount of Magicules.
As she laughed, moving to the next room, she found herself before another, even bigger group of Undeads.
Eight Zombies, four Skeleton armed with bows and swords for emergencies and two Liches at the back wielding long staffs made out of bones with a skull on top, already chanting "Curse-Attribute Magecrafts", a much more threatening Room than any of the previous.
She smiled even wider, letting them continue Casting while casually observing them, all of her Spells except her Shapes already shut down before she even entered the room as was the Awakening of her "Unique Arma".
The E-Ranked Undeads didn't attack her, content to wait for the Curses from the Liches to be Casted on their enemy.
Finally, after a couple of minutes the two finally finished Casting the Spells, as signaled by a final and loud groan, causing the Purple Magical Circles above them to glow and releasing a purple Aura all over the floor, Aura that quickly converged on Luna.
"[Curse of Fragility] and [Curse of Instability]. Yet this took too much time to Cast for such a simple effect. Hm, I see. An increase Chanting time in exchange for a lower cost. Additionally it also increased the ability of the Curses to ignore defenses. But this doesn't explain the biggest differences from other Curses." She watched as the two Liches started to Chant again, noting difference between the Curses of now and before.
"This is strange. I suppose with the two Curses on me, they can afford to lower the armor-piercing quality, saving on time, but this doesn't explain another thing. At the time they are Chanting, the previous Spell should have been started around when I entered this Dungeon. Not only that, but my Vital Mana is not fighting it nor are the two Curses fighting each other."
As the two Liches continued to Chant, she observed them, finding her response to the last question.
The Spell was anchored to the Dungeon itself, both in targeting and maintenance.
A very interesting way to use Dungeons and one Dungeon Monsters would never used on their own without directions.
Without someone to give them direction.
Someone that without a doubt modified all Monsters within which also explained the fact all of them had "Undying Body".
It was to buy time.
She watched the two Liches noting how their "Miasmic Auras" weren't simple like the other Undeads, but instead consisted of hands and skulls grasping at life.
Their "Miasmic Aura" was not No-Attribute like the other Undeads, but Curse-Attribute instead, able to actively suck Energy out of everything within towards the owner instead of damaging everything within, thing that would actually affect her Shapes.
"However, only two Curses were Casted on me when there should be stronger Undead on the lower floors, so there is a limitation." She continued to observe the two Liches before understanding downed on her. "I see. While the Curses will last beyond the Caster's death, so long as I am in this Dungeon, they can only be targeted in the same Floor. Additionally, while they exchanged Mana Cost for Casting Time, the plan was for the rest of this floor to buy at least enough time to inflict the Curses, Curses that would render the next floors quite a bit harder while lowering my Resistance to Curses in general. How smart."
Her flow of Vital Mana within her body was only marginally affected by the [Curse of Instability] considering her own immense Control, however this would still slow down her healing and the use of Energy in general.
And, additionally, this should be the last Room before the Floor Boss.
She saw all she cared to see.
It was time to restart the battle then.
She went straight for the Liches, moving at full speed differently from any other of her fight within the Dungeon.
She was a D-Rank Lunarian, her body was simply superior to any other Person and her opponents were slow E-Rank Undeads.
She was fast enough that none of them were able to react to her instantaneous movement as she moved to between the two Liches, her Wings becoming two blades, one within each of her hand, two blades specialized for decapitation that were swung, severing two heads and interrupting the Chanting, causing the Circle to malfuction released a rain of Curse-Attribute on everyone within the room.
This didn't matter much, after all every single Undead within was already Resistant to Curse and Luna was at D-Rank.
The silver-haired one didn't hesitate, her blades becoming Great Hammers that fell upon the two corpses, reducing them to bone shards and ending the draing of Vital Mana from her and her Shapes.
Ash-Viper opened its mouth releasing a vast torrent of almost-liquid fire to the cealing, torrent that rained down upon the whole room except the area immediately around Luna that was protected by a Barrier made from Warden-Viper.
The reason fire was so effective against Undeads was that, not only were they normally particularly weak to it, but because of the nature of the Fire Attribute, the Undead, even those with "Undying Body", were forced to continuosly burn Vital Energy to survive until either the flames went out or they became ash and died.
"Undying Body" could simply be bypassed if the owner of the Skill was ripped apart into enough small pieces or had no Vital Energy to heal anymore.
Thing fire was very effective in, especially considering how thanks to the upgrade to Ash-Viper, her flames were vastly hotter, more than able to destroy every Monster in the room.
She nodded to herself at the confirmation, her Curses were still present and showed no semblance of weakening.
She drunk the blood in the room as the battle already ended.
*Luna Gained 100 + 5 Magicules. X12
*Luna's Innate Skill "Familiar Summoning"'s Rank increased to C-Rank.
*Luna's Familiars "Vision" and "Warden"'s Rank increased to D-Rank because of "Familiar Summoning".
She smiled happily at the increase in power of her oldest Familiars before moving towards what she was now sure was the gate leading to the Boss of this Floor, her wings again at her back and her Familiar-Vipers underneath her mantle.
She opened it, causing an iridescent light to burst forth.
Once she could see again, she found herself in a completely different place, an arena with the floor made of bones floating in a sea of darkness, alone if one didn't consider her opponent.
An Undead Abomination, made of dozens of corpses fused together in a mass of flesh and bones, with eyes observing every directions, mouths smiling cruelly at her and a Curse-Attribute "Miasmic Aura" even stronger than the Liches' one as the D-Rank Monster, boosted further by the fact it was a Dungeon Boss, prepared to fight, releasing a scream of pain from its innumerably mouth with a specific effect, even if with a somewhat long cooldown of 10 minutes.
Luna groaned at the sound as her Curses flared up, increasing in potency and not temporaly, but as long as they were active, ergo so long as she was in the Dungeon, probably even after the death of the Boss before her.
"I see, so this is the function of the first Floor. Cursing whoever entered with as many relatively weak Curses as possible and then strenghening said Curses with the Boss as many time as possible. A relatively cheap and efficient strategy to make use out of limited power."
The battle started in earnest.
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