Lev stared at the monster that didn’t pay him any heed. It was weirdly annoying.
For a few minutes now, he had just observed the Goliath and found absolutely no weak spots on its body. The single thing he could target was the insides, only possible due to the half-open mouth.
That revealed another big issue. Universally, the internal defenses of any being were way too strong to bypass. The soul was theorized to have tight control over the body’s mana flow, preventing disruptions and other harmful attacks.
For the Goliath, those defenses were likely exponentially more potent. Even reaching its body was only a theoretical possibility, not something Lev had managed yet.
Then there was the matter of damaging its insides. Only one thing in his arsenal possessed such capabilities, and even then, it was a very unlikely prospect.
He would have to improvise. Hard.
Fracturing Wave was one of the best variations of Mana Slash in existence. Lev had absolutely no doubt that, within the same evolution, he wouldn’t lose to any other variation. He didn’t even have that much experience with it compared to ancient Masters, but he still believed that.
The skill used willpower to augment itself. He wouldn’t have ever considered using it like so if he didn’t have Reinforced Mind. That title improved his willpower very slightly for every point of Wisdom and Intelligence, and by now, he had a large sum.
Still… he stared at the monstrous face with squinted eyes. How do I line up a perfect shot?
Gliding the bubble close to the ground, he looked at the opening from different angles. No matter what, unless he went up close and stood on one of the teeth, there was just no way to fire a slash down the throat. He would have to settle for redirecting most of the damage inwards.
Observations from a kilometer away weren’t the most accurate, but given the size of the Goliath? That was more than enough.
By now, he had run enough calculations in his head to estimate the creature’s size. If he wasn’t terribly wrong, then the Goliath could likely just climb atop Windkeep’s walls with a single step. It was that massive.
He just didn’t know why it seemed to be braindead.
Several minutes had passed since Lev began his testing. Lances, orbs, carpet bombing, fully-powered shieldwalls, and even pulses of aura empowered by mana. None of them evoked any reaction, and that worried him quite a bit.
Was he that little a threat in Goliath’s eyes that even the usual lure the world used to send monsters his way wasn’t enough?
He didn’t want to put his hopes into the alternative. A whole Goliath just walking into their hands, too mentally impaired to even defend itself? Incredibly unlikely. Scratch that, it seemed beyond impossible, more akin to tempting fate.
Just to be safe, he retreated to his bubble. If his instincts weren’t constantly blaring alarms, he would’ve fired a testing slash right there. Thankfully, even he wasn’t that stupid. Preparations were in order.
Shieldwalls were enchanted by the dozens. There wasn’t enough space in his construct, so he moved farther ahead. The shieldwalls were arrayed where he expected the Goliath to arrive after exactly three minutes. That was all the time he had, mostly limited by how much mana he had to keep for the final move.
Leaving the new constructs on the ground, he flew back to the Goliath. The moment he was within what he estimated to be five hundred meters from the monster, a weight settled on his shoulders.
Forming a barrier confirmed that all mana manipulation was impeded. A tiny trickle of willpower was required to counteract the influence. It wasn’t a big issue for him.
When he was about half that distance away from the Goliath, things quickly went from bad to horrible. Mana rushed out like a river, searching for the human in the vicinity. Disruption potent enough to kill him reached the barrier armor in a blink, only to meet a wall.
The armor resisted, small cracks appearing in its entirety. Two formations shouldered the massive burden, drowning in pure mana as Lev constantly overloaded them.
That turned out to be a mistake. Like a predator smelling blood, the monster’s passive aura congregated in his position. His barrier armor almost exploded from the strain, forcing him to dart backwards. No more than a second later, a compressed blast of disruption from the monster’s mouth tore through the air, right where he had been a moment before.
It roared towards the ground, carving a massive groove in its wake.
So the true danger zone is just slightly shorter than my manipulation range. Useful, Lev noted, preparing himself. I hope Drakys is watching over me.
The Exalted most likely was. Putting the man out of his mind, Lev powered up his strongest skill. Fracturing Wave needed to be molded and empowered, either actively or passively.
That worked out in his favor. Staying just ahead of the monster’s detection zone, he focused on the passive aura bearing down on him. His regeneration was redirected to the mana slash, joined in by a large stream of mana from the orbs.
For now, there was no point in going hard from the very start. The first Fracturing Wave was going to be a test, which he began the moment the Goliath reached his arrayed shieldwalls. All of the defensive constructs rose into the air and formed a large blockade in front of him, leaving a tiny gap for the mana slash.
Lightning and fire were infused into Stargazer in equal measure. The resulting slash was smooth and nearly silent, shaped as best as his mind allowed. It passed through the shieldwalls and reached the monster’s disruption zone in a blink, and suddenly Lev’s danger senses went ballistic.
Wave after wave of raw, potent mana rushed out of the monster’s front legs. It paused for the first time, its head turning towards the Fracturing Wave, though the eyes remained stationary.
Disruption clashed with Lev’s attack, lacking strategy or subtlety. It was akin to throwing huge boulders at a laser, supremely overkill and inefficient.
After just the fifth wave, the mana slash was reduced to a husk of its former self. Regardless, it powered on, landing on the Goliath’s forehead.
Fortunately for him, the monster didn’t even bat an eye at what could’ve been a provocation. It just continued to bombard him with disruption, each one rocking his arrayed shieldwalls. Lev repaired them as fast as he could, but it was still a losing prospect.
So, wrapping himself in a small bubble and carving a Lightning Surge formation on it, he waited for the gap between the incoming waves and shot off, leaving only destroyed barrier constructs behind.
The moment he was gone, the Goliath resumed its march as if nothing had ever transpired.
****
“He’s got guts, at least,” Shen remarked, gazing at Drakys with a raised eyebrow. “How much mana was that? Compared to you at the same level.”
“That was about a fourth of my pool for a test run,” Drakys replied, eyes fixed on the Goliath. It was starting to worry him a bit. “For him, though? That wasn’t even a twentieth of what he has right now.”
“Marvelous,” Shen commented, his eyes lighting up. “And it seems like he doesn’t want to conduct any more tests. What do you think is gonna happen?”
“He will do minimal damage,” Drakys mused, then tilted his head a little. “Never mind, he’s about to put his willpower through the mill. Get ready, we move the moment he’s done.”
****
Lev had an idea. He also wasn’t sure what to feel about the idea.
On the one hand, it was bound to be effective if nothing went too wrong. On the other hand, he could just as easily die or require immediate assistance. The Goliath was, after all, still an adversary of unknown capabilities. He could only hope that his preparations were going to be enough.
Willpower was going to be the main driving force. Even now, he couldn’t properly assess his reserves of that elusive force. He could, at best, just tell when he was using it, how much of it, and if he was low on willpower, or getting low. That was all.
This time, though, he planned to use every possible drop. Lev sincerely hoped his estimates weren’t wrong, or the pain was going to be… exquisite.
No time like the present, he snorted to himself, gazing at the Goliath. Definitely no time like the present. What the hell am I even doing?
Lev sincerely hoped Mana and The System favored the brave, because otherwise, he could only call himself dumb.
Ah, well. You only live once.
Willpower rushed out of his soul, leaving him winded before he even got started. Twenty shieldwalls were enhanced to the brim. They were arranged in front of him in two layers of ten.
Stargazer received a large portion of the remaining willpower. Runes were primed and overloaded in preparation, specifically, the formations for the next stunt.
Then it was time to play dodgeball. Shieldwalls in the front and a bubble holding a ton of mana behind him, Lev steeled himself and waited. The Goliath walked towards him, towering in far more ways than he was comfortable facing in an enemy.
The moment he came within the outer ring of its detection zone, the attacks started. Mana and aura tried to corrode the shieldwalls and his armor, finding no purchase. Each attempt got stronger and stronger as the distance between Lev and the monster vanished.
Targeted blasts of condensed mana flew at him, joined by waves of disruption. A ceaseless barrage truly tested his senses and dexterity, especially pushing against the bounds of Aerial Maneuvers. Lev paid close attention to that, using small shields enchanted with kinetic absorption to step on and halt his momentum quickly. A new path bloomed in his head as the lethal dance progressed.
He blocked as many attacks with Shieldwalls as he could, hiding behind one in the case of waves. That lasted for merely a few seconds. As if a switch was flipped, the world became sadistic when he crossed into the next threshold of the detection zone. The Goliath’s head turned, its steps slowed, and it opened its mouth to charge an attack.
That was Lev’s cue. He forced himself to convert as much mana as possible, matching the monster’s accumulating charge. Stargazer’s blade shone bright and brighter from the infusion, and all of his remaining willpower was used to shape the ultimate Fracturing Wave.
Her blade elongated, becoming several times larger than the wielder himself. Lev waited until the Goliath stood only a few dozen meters away from him, its ugly face dominating his vision and looking down on him. He resisted a smile when its mouth opened even wider, heart skipping a beat when his senses finally registered the sheer amount of mana in the air.
His pool alone wasn’t enough. From his bubble, all of the orbs rushed out and arranged themselves behind him in a circle. Lev dragged all of the mana out, even as his soul protested, and mentally prepared the final part of his plan.
Gripping Stargazer tightly, he swung horizontally. Along the move, an incredibly compressed and potent mana slash took shape. Lightning and blue flames complemented each other due to his passive skills, buying him a few more moments before things went out of control.
Lev didn’t waste any time before implementing something new. Like a seal, a barrier slash came into existence around the Fracturing Wave, hugging it tightly. Runes were carved faster than ever before, pushing the limits of Augmented Carving despite the skill not being at the maximum level.
The urge to retreat and save himself almost overwhelmed him when time slowed down to a crawl. He didn’t need his Perception skill to know that death was about to descend.
Still, those thoughts only lasted for a moment. Lev ruthlessly banished them as fast as they came. Weakness was not something he wanted to be a part of himself. He was a Favored and on track to be the strongest Master in existence. Anything short of that was unacceptable, and he had to put in the effort to make it a reality.
Holding back the huge Fracturing Wave was the most taxing thing he had ever done. The struggle lasted for a split-second, and yet that was enough to nearly knock him unconscious. More than just a lot of willpower, the slash held nearly as much mana as two of his full pools and half of Stargazer’s reserves.
With relief flooding his senses, he launched it at the same time as the Goliath’s huge beam of disruption erupted.
Still, Lev’s job wasn’t done. Just as the slash was launched, Stargazer continued to move in the same motion. Altering her trajectory, he brought her up and behind him. He threw her in the opposite direction to the Fracturing Wave. All of the willpower stored inside her was given one simple command. Lightning Surge came alive on her blade, and she immediately turned into a streak of blue. Within seconds, she vanished from sight in the skies.
More than half of the slowed moment was already spent. Lev turned around, fearing the worst. His eyes found the sealed slash just as it collided with a titanic beam of disruption. The latter visibly distorted the air, both searing and freezing it as it tried to cancel out the Fracturing Wave.
It met enchanted barriers first. The slash’s speed slowed to a crawl, yet it still cut through the opposition. Mana parted against the seal, unable to bring down the large amounts of willpower and pure mana infusion. Even the runes were arranged specifically to counter the disruption.
Halfway to the Goliath, everything about the seal and the Fracturing Wave seemed to be in order. Lev recalled all of his shieldwalls in front of him, arraying them in front of the approaching twin halves of the disruption beam. They collided with his defenses, shattering the first two before struggling against the third. Seeing that he was in the clear, his attention returned to the clash taking place above him.
For another instant, the barrier seal held up admirably. It unraveled, though not after consuming itself thoroughly. An undisturbed and good-as-new Fracturing Wave was unleashed, and with a perfect position afforded by the seal’s sacrifice. The disruption didn’t hold a candle against the raw might of Lev’s skill as it tore its way through everything, and that was when things went wrong.
One moment, the Goliath’s eyes were dead and lightless. In the next, the dreadfully familiar color of Chaos flooded them, the black irises snapping onto Lev.
Terror ravaged his very being. Drakys’s aura fully revealed itself, and a second presence joined in. Both of them moved at speeds Lev knew he couldn’t deal with, even in the long second brought about by his Perception skill.
Observing those things didn’t help with the facts, though. Like a tsunami, another wave of disruption originated from the monster’s front limbs. Similar to the Blighted Threader Lev had faced once, the approaching attack was also heavily influenced.
Sickly black, it devoured ambient mana in its wake, leaving no doubts about just how much Chaos outclassed blight. Light itself dimmed, and the suns up above seemed to stop shining. Only the fate worse than death in front of him existed, for the Drakys and the newcomer would never reach him first.
Lev almost closed his eyes in acceptance, only for his vision to become double. Reality blurred, showing him something he had no right to see. White scales the size of mountains moved briefly, shedding off layers of overgrown dirt, stone, and nature. A titanic slitted eye turned towards him, and several things happened at once.
The slowed instant expanded to multiple times the intended length just as it was about to end. The advance of the Chaos wave slowed to a crawl, right before it could hit the Fracturing Wave, and Lev’s shoulders suddenly felt unburdened. No longer did the Goliath’s aura reach him, freeing him of a constant burden, nor was his manipulation restricted anymore.
All of that happened due to a single notification.
[
You have been Blessed by your Patron Divinity.
]
****
300 Chapters, wooh! I really wanted Book 5 to end on this chapter, but alas, trying to make that happen made me stop writing for a whole week. Guess it will end on 302 or so. Here, have this cliff hanger thingy instead.