In the same way that Black Wind couldn't completely get rid of the treehead woodfist, the treehead woodfist couldn't really catch up with Black Wind. There was a little difference between the two's speed. Abel had to do something, so he drew a rune pattern with his blackfire magic staff.
"Inferno flame!" Abel whispered as he unleashed a streak of flame towards the treehead woodfist. The flame was dark red on its outer layer, with a bit of yellow in its center.
If the treehead woodfist was just as flexible as Black Wind, it should be able to dodge this flame relatively easily. Abel figured that it couldn't. It was not naturally born to be fast. It's one thing to be buffed with a speed-enhancing technique, but it's another thing to have good control of the speed that you have.
Abel just unleashed a level twelve inferno flame towards his back. The treehead woodfist was still running at him, so it had no way of dodging the heat. It tried decelerating, accelerating, changing directions, and taking sharp turns. It tried to do all of that, but the hunter became the hunted. It was Black Wind that's chasing it now, and it was much better at making a chase.
The "inferno flame" was a spell that deals damage continuously. It could do 118 to 132 fire damage for every second that it hit its target. That's a lot, of course, but its mana cost was also extremely high. Since Abel couldn't cast the spell without the staff, he had to spend twice the mana when he was using the blackfire staff.
For a cost of 14 mana points a second, Abel could launch his most powerful attack spell at his worst enemies. Normally, the inferno flame would deal damage randomly between 118 to 132 points, but since the spell rune was synthesized from the Horadric Cube, it could deal the maximum 132 points at every single second.
Abel could hold on for at least 50 seconds with the amount of mana he had. After that, he would have no mana left in his body. As risky as that sounded, it was more than enough to burn all the life that was in the treehead woodfist's body.
As the treehead woodfist slammed its body to the ground, a golden light came out of its body and flew into Abel's Horadric Cube. A grey shadow also appeared out of it, and it was also flying into the Horadric Cube.
Abel watched as the treehead woodfist lie dead on the ground. He then changed the blackfire staff in his hand into his magical knight's long lance. He tried to poke the dead body with it. Unfortunately, he couldn't find anything to loot. It made sense, though. Apes had no need to wear magic necklaces or armors.
By this point, Abel's summoned creatures had already killed the four bird-type advanced-level beasts. Without the treehead woodfist to provide them with spell buff, they stood no chance against Abel's poisonous ivies, blinding crows, spiritual guardian knights, and spirit wolves.
Abel shook his right hand to take out the reward he got from killing the treehead woodfist. He got a new bottle of the "power potion," which he wasn't sure which of his companions he should give to. It'd be a waste if he gave it to Black Wind since there was a chance that it might get the same ability that it already had.
If he was giving the potion to the leader of his spiritual guardian knight squad, it wouldn't be of much use, either. The spiritual guardian knights used the spirit wolves as their mounts, and the spirit wolves were already so fast that there was no point in making them fast.
It was for the best if he was buffing Fly Fire with it. Fly Fire was his strongest companion, so it's always good to try enhancing its basic attributes. He wasn't sure if the potion would buff its strength or its speed, but he couldn't go wrong either way.
Black Wind was begging Abel with its eyes the entire time. Abel had to be smart with the resources he had, though, so he decided to put his power potion into his kong kong spiritual beast bag. To comfort Black Wind, he decided to feed it two bottles of his "soul potions."
Abel decided that he might as well feed his other summoned creatures. Right now, he had a total of over 30 bottles of soul potions. It wasn't just Black Wind that he was giving a treat to. He decided to also buff his spiritual guardian knight.
By buffing his spiritual guardian knight, Abel was also enhancing the level of his "resurrection of skeleton" spell. It wasn't like he could only do this with his soul potion. He could also make whole sets of armor for them, which would make them stronger than the spirit wolves in terms of both their offensive and defensive capabilities.
Thus, he decided that all of his buffs would go to his spiritual guardian, knights. From this point onward, he was going to make the spiritual guardian knights his main summoned creatures. His "resurrection of skeleton" spell was already at level 7, and after giving the buff this time, the skeletons would certainly do a lot more for him in his future fights.
Abel decided to give the spiritual guardian knight captain 5 bottles of soul potion. For every bottle he handed to it, the flame burning inside its eyes would grow brighter and bluer. The more menacing it looked, the more it could be of service to him in the future.
The "resurrection of skeleton" spell was upgraded to level 9. With that, Abel could summon one more skeleton to fight for him. The stats were as such:
Spell name: Resurrection of Skeletons (knight)
Spell description: from a dead creature's corpse, summon a skeleton to fight for you.
Mana cost: 14
Skeleton count: 5
Damage: 2-4
Defense point: 140
Total health point: 84
Current skill level: 9
Those damage points finally went up. Normally, if Abel wanted to deal any real damage with his skeletons, he would have to give them multiple buffs other than to rely on their own attack points. One of the most typical ways of doing that was with the "skeleton command" spell, but that was something that he hadn't learned yet.
The way he strengthened his skeletons were quite simple. He had them riding on top of spirit wolves, which would turn them into spiritual guardian knights. When combined with the speed of the spirit wolves, low attack points tended to matter a lot less. And despite that the skeletons could deal a lot more damage now, it's always really good to have them work with the spirit wolves.
To further increase the offensive abilities of the spiritual guardian knights, Abel decided to put his forging ability to its best use. He made whole sets of magic armor equipment for them, which was unimaginable even for living human knights.
Then, as he faced towards the treehead woodfist, he started drawing his "resurrection of skeletons" rune pattern at it. The treehead woodfist's dead body started inflating, and after bursting like a popped balloon, a skeleton stood up from the shattered remains of what's left of it.
Abel just got his fifth summoned skeleton. His next step was to combine it with a spirit wolf to create a new spiritual guardian knight. After proceeding to do that, he took out a special costume set from his kong kong spiritual beast bag. When he was done helping the spiritual guardian knight to wear it, a new member was finally added to his summoned creature set.
To make things better, this new spiritual guardian knight had no problem learning to ride a spiritual wolf. In fact, it was just as experienced with riding as the other ones. Maybe it had something to do with leveling the spell.
When Abel walked towards the tree of Inifuss, he realized that he could sense a trace of life from it. As weak as it was, his druid spirit made it easy for him to detect traces of living beings.
There was a chance that this very, very old tree of Inifuss was still alive. To make sure that that was the case, Abel placed his hand on its bark. He then went into his soulspeaker's mode.
"Ugh.... Who-who is this?" an old, shaky voice suddenly came out.
When Abel went into his soulspeaker's mode, he suddenly heard a long, weak sigh that was coming from inside the tree of Inifuss. When this voice spoke, he could sense a bit of fear from it, but he could also sense a glimpse of hope–as if it was anticipating somebody's arrival.
"I, uh, I am..." Abel stuttered as he tried to find the right words. He wasn't sure how he should introduce himself to this man. After all, he wasn't even sure how he got to this place to begin with.
"Well, which is it, outsider? Are you from heaven, or are you from the underworld?" The old, frail voice asked. When it mentioned the words "heaven" and "underworld," Abel could sense the absolute hatred that it was conveying.
Abel tried to be honest about it, "I came from neither, good sir. If you'd allow me to call you that. I don't belong to heaven or hell. I came here by mistake, not by my own will."
"Now that I've answered your questions, can you tell me who you are?"
Instead of answering Abel's question, the voice just murmured to itself, "That's right. You don't smell like you come from either places! You are not a challenger. You are not..."
"Oh, uh..." the voice suddenly changed its tone, "I am sorry. I haven't talked with another living being for a very, very long time. My name is, well, uh, my name is...."
The air became silent for a while. The owner of the voice seemed to have forgotten its name. It took about ten seconds for it to speak again.
"Cain! Yes, my name is Cain!" the voice called out as it finally remembered.
"You're Deckard Cain?" Abel spoke out as soon as he heard.
"Yes! That's my name! Wait, how did you know that?" Cain asked confusedly.
"Why, you are the most famous scholar in the entire world, good sir!" Abel replied. As honest and open as he tried to be, there was something that he wasn't sure if he should ask about.
There should be at least a Millenium of time between now and when Cain lived. How was the old man living in the tree of Inifuss?