Lev continued to stream mana into the disk. His eyes remained fixed on the approaching minor calamities, trying and failing to find any optimal methods to bring them down.
His willpower recovered steadily. By now, it was fixing itself faster than his earlier exercises, which boded well. It would take longer than he would like still, but at least now, he could do something to hold the monsters back.
After a while, he powered up the two cannons on top of his bubble. As a precaution, he had slotted two third-threshold cores inside them to keep them active at all times, and it was paying off now.
A large amount of fire mana was converted. Just to test it, he streamed a bit of blue fire into the cannons and immediately had to pull it out. They threatened to explode almost immediately, for the enchantments were far from enough to accommodate that deadly element.
Taking a deep breath, he checked the constructs one last time before filling them up in earnest. The good thing about the cannons was that they didn’t require much input from him. The bad thing was that they wouldn’t do much against such monsters.
He didn’t need them to, and now that his reserves had expanded considerably, and since the cannons had been precharged, both of them were ready to fire after just a decent chunk.
Before that, however, he lowered the bubble close to Kora. She immediately stepped inside and used her mana regeneration buff on him at full potency, which was nearly a 300% boost.
“Are you sure?” Isabella asked, tiredness obvious in her voice.
“I’m only trying to slow them down,” Lev sent back, thoughtful. “Who knows, I may end up actually hurting them.”
No one else had anything to say, too busy recovering their stamina and steeling their resolves. It was one thing to hear about gigantic monsters, and entirely another to see them marching towards their little base.
Shieldwalls are obsolete against these things, Lev noted, looking through all of his constructs. The disk can harm them for sure, but I’m not gonna risk any more damage to my mind right now.
In the corner of his bubbles, many densely enchanted pillars were piled up. He had to constantly expand the bubble because of the increasing quantity of the pillars, and the round construct was pretty much the size of a large house by now.
Not yet, he breathed out. Or at least, not for their actual purpose.
They were his prepared tactic to make progress towards evolving lightning, and to study its erratic behavior and how it reacted with his barriers. That, however, was something to be done in a controlled environment, not when everyone’s life was on the line.
“Blessed Lev,” the Hunter said, connecting to Isabella’s communication item. “Leave the giants to me.”
“The Nerafs?”
“Yes.”
That helped a lot. The Nerafs were much larger compared to the Mamirs, who were about as tall as the hound had been. The Nerafs, however, towered far higher. They quite literally shook the whole dungeon with their steps, something Lev acutely noticed through his barrier floor.
Time to act, then.
Both of his cannons swiveled towards one of the Mamirs. To its credit, the monster’s posture stiffened to dodge, but the beam arrived too fast for that.
They landed directly on its reptilian face. A deafening hiss rolled through the dungeon, loud enough to shake his bubble.
Lev didn’t let up, constantly withdrawing more and more mana from his core and Stargazer. For the first time, he could feel the enchantments of pole cover, the mana converters, approaching some form of a limit.
Granted, the current output was still far from actually stressing them, but he noted the detail for later.
In the seconds that it took to clear the blasts, Kora stepped out of his bubble. Melvine and the rest of the humans had already started marching away from the Hunter. It remained in place, its aura rolling out to taunt the massive duo.
The potency of the taunt was so impressive that even Lev nearly made his cannon turn to the being, only managing to control the impulse after a moment.
Just like him, his friends also stumbled or paused, struggling to shake off the abrupt influence.
Behind them, the stag was left unguarded beyond the unenchanted barrier floor and the surrounding shieldwalls. Leaving the boss by itself was incredibly risky, and yet they hoped its automatic defenses would hold until they could converge back on its position.
More likely than not, however, they wouldn’t need to, not after the earlier display of passive might.
“Plan?” Melvine sent through the communication item.
“Uhhhh, I open fire, you guys move in, and I’ll support?”
“Glad you’re not one of our strategists,” Isabella remarked, her grin audible.
“Har har. If I had my way, you would all be hiding from the resulting explosion.”
“Very strong,” she replied with an impression of a slow nod, as if agreeing with a child to pacify him. “Okay, but anything in particular?”
“My cannons are charged again, which puts me at nearly half my mana,” Lev began, healing his fraying limbs due to the mana overuse. “The one I targeted is not as unscathed as I expected it to be. Leave it to me.”
They didn’t question it. Melvine asked him to inform her if anything went wrong, which he agreed to and aimed.
Both cannons fired at the same time again. The previous blasts had dispersed fully, revealing the extent of the damage for a brief moment.
The Mamir’s eyes were seared shut. He had specifically aimed for those, yet it still sensed the incoming attack and ducked in advance.
Unfortunately for the monster, Lev had launched a few lances to tease out an early reaction. Before it could even duck fully, the two beams once again landed on its face, directly on the previous wounds.
A roar of agony echoed in the dungeon as Lev spared a moment to observe the Hunter. It glided forward with speed he couldn’t hope to match anytime soon, each step covering dozens of meters. Reaching the massive Nerafs in a matter of seconds, things quickly got interesting.
Massive claws elongated even further. The Hunter wasn’t small by any means, and yet, it had to bury its claws into one of the monster’s legs to launch itself upwards. Landing on the Neraf’s back, a body enhancement came alive, and their ally’s strength quickly became absurd.
Large chunks of flesh were torn off in a blink. The Hunter sheared through the durable skin without showing any signs of struggle, digging deeper and deeper as the Neraf tilted.
The second Neraf headbutted the spot where the hunter was, though it escaped without much trouble, changing targets and jumping on the second Neraf’s neck.
Blood spurted out in great streams not long after, though Lev didn’t have time to watch anymore.
Melvine and company reached their adversary in a bit, which was only a few hundred meters away from the Mamir he was targeting. Their strategy became obvious when Isabella opened with an obscene amount of fire.
Some of it turned blue and was promptly thrown at the massive creature’s face. The explosion from those fireballs matched his own beams, effectively robbing it of vision, except it also made it harder for the humans to track its movements.
Elias and Aryan rushed around it, aiming to hinder its mobility by cutting into the sides of its snake-like body.
Seeing that they had a viable strategy going, Lev brought most of his focus to the recovering monster in front of him. Blasting it to bits was very much possible, but he didn’t have the mana to spare. They only allowed him to take on one by himself because he had the reserves to at least keep it busy until they dealt with their own enemy.
That wasn’t something he was fine with either. The situation was only getting worse, and he knew for a fact that life was going to get much harder once these four monsters fell.
The dungeon still had many more bodies to throw at them. He needed all the levels he could get.
Stepping out of the bubble with Stargazer in hand, he looked at the semi-crippled Mamir. It could sense him quite clearly, as its destroyed eyes still remained fixed on his form.
That, he could use to his advantage.
From the bubble, multiple hastily prepared shieldwalls flew out. Mana flooded them, both from the slotted second-threshold cores and his own pools.
Predictably, the monster moved, expecting the defensive constructs to attack. Gripping Stargazer’s haft tightly, for there was no room for any intricate or stylish moves that required flexibility, he charged.
No hesitation was visible in its posture as the monster raised both arms, bringing them in from the sides.
All of the shieldwalls scattered in their path were easily smashed to bits, though Lev easily passed the slowed fists to reach the monster’s maw. It opened wide as a rush of mana gathered.
Not taking any chances, he also shaped a Fracturing Wave with a decent amount of lightning. To his surprise, the mana in the Mamir’s mouth didn’t turn into any element he could identify.
Instead, it was imbued with a sickly force. With a start, he realized it was the monster’s willpower condensed into a blob of mana, which was launched towards him.
The ball of pure arcane roared far louder than anything Lev expected, forcing him to imbue his own willpower into the Fracturing Wave. More mana than he was comfortable with rushed into the skill like a torrent, turning his glaive into a crackling blue nexus of power.
Heaving from effort, he swung. Both his skill and the ball of mana were too densely packed, and the initial collision sounded like a clash between mountains.
Neither gave way. The slash pushed the ball back, though not by much. Their edges were fraying already, and he just barely had time to raise massive barrier walls between the two and his friends before the attacks lost cohesion.
The ball exploded first, far less dangerous than his own slash. Unfortunately, the detonation also caused the Fracturing Wave to follow, too destabilized to go on.
Lev’s bubble appeared below him, and he jumped in without hesitation. A moment later, the world brightened, pressing against all the defensive enchantments on the bubble’s surface.
The temperature rose to dangerous heights, though Lev didn’t care much about that. All of his focus was on ensuring that the blast remained as contained as possible. Barrier walls, each as high as his manipulation range allowed, blocked all of the explosion from reaching his friends. Whenever one cracked and faltered, four more picked up the slack.
After nearly half a minute, he emerged from the bubble again. Somehow, the monster was still alive, even if it could barely be considered so. And yet, when Lev tried to finish it off with a lance, a scaled arm blocked it, trembling as the monster got up again.
Not wanting to spend longer than necessary on this, he powered up Stargazer and chucked her at the creature’s face. This time, no limb was fast enough to block the weapon, and it smashed straight through a ruined eye and released a wave of lightning inside the skull.
[
You have slain [Mamir - Level 568]
Arcane Maelstrom has reached Level 296
Arcane Maelstrom has reached Level 297
]
Not a single skill level, he noted, and immediately moved towards the other Mamir. This one, he realized, was considerably stronger than the one he had faced, which also explained why it was relatively unharmed.
After yanking Stargazer out of the gore she had caused, Lev sped up. Lightning flooded his armor, and while a small part of his mind closely observed how his speed actually increased and how the element reacted to environmental resistances and his armor, he scanned the monster’s arms.
Dense, layered skin protected its limbs, something he would find difficult to cut through. Blowing it up was a simpler solution, but now that he had less than half of his combined reserves, that wasn’t feasible.
The Mamir whirled towards him, feeling both his aura and the amount of mana he was using. Two giant arms rushed towards him, and now that he was close enough, its tail also moved.
Melvine took that moment to launch a slash of freezing mana at its torso, though that did little to slow it down.
Lev stopped abruptly and let the first punch pass by him. Forming a small barrier platform beneath his feet, he used it as leverage to launch himself downwards, also avoiding the tail that would pulp him, leaving the final punch that followed his speed with unerring accuracy.
Stargazer’s haft came up just in time to prevent a direct hit. A wave of lightning erupted from his armor in tandem with the block. Time seemed to slow down as something clicked in Lev’s mind.
A somewhat forgotten skill reared its head, and he followed its lead without question. Kinetic Absorption enchantments on his armor worked overtime to negate a significant portion of the force, except his Glaive Mastery skill had a better use for it.
For the first time, Lev imbued a small bit of willpower into the runes of Kinetic Absorption. It didn’t suddenly become more potent, nor did the conversion become more efficient.
Instead, his mind latched onto the absorbed kinetic energy. The iron vice of his willpower commanded it to move through his armor, supporting a movement in tandem with the mastery skill.
As the Mamir’s fist was about to blow him away, Stargazer tilted to the side. The motion was so smooth that the massive hand followed, gliding past Lev.
The breakthrough wasn’t done, however. Just as the hand was moving away from him, the rest of the absorbed Kinetic energy came forth in a single strike, cutting deep into skin and flesh.
Lightning was released inside the wound as an afterthought, the jolts stunning it for long enough for Melvine to press her opportunity even further.
[
Self-Taught Beginner Glaive Mastery has reached 2nd Level 8
Self-Taught Beginner Glaive Mastery has reached 2nd Level 9
]
The levels were beyond unexpected, and also a great boon. No doubt, a skill as strong as that was going to be a comprehensive boost to his melee capabilities, but his mind was stuck on an entirely different detail.
… Do I have a connection to Kinetic Manipulation?
It wouldn’t be so far-fetched. Isabella and Amelia had obvious connections to fire, and he also had something like that with pure mana. Perhaps there was more to it than he saw on the surface.
Needless to say, Lev’s desire to get out of the dungeon for further testing had just amplified.