Chapter 470: End of Training

In its enraged state the boss became far more dangerous putting Joshua into a difficult position. The creature didn't give him any time to think before it charged over to go on the attack once more. Its aura had been shattered from Joshua's last attack, but it was quickly creating a new one its enraged state. Any damage that Joshua had done to it previously was quickly healed up in its current form which was common for creatures that entered such a phase, but all Joshua had to do to win now was hold out until the enraged state finished and then take the creature down while it is drained of energy afterwards.

Although the creature had become much faster in its current form as it shot across the field at Joshua it still wasn't as fast as the mutated ant could get when it went all out, but it was much faster than Joshua forcing him to go on the defensive. Every time Joshua blocked one of its attacks with his scale blade he was sent sprawling backwards from the power of the blows even in his aura hardening state. If Joshua wasn't testing himself at the moment he would be more focused on avoiding any of the attacks instead of blocking them, but he had a new skill that he needed to test out and this was a great opportunity to do so.

The skill that Joshua had started trying to focus on using had an active and a passive portion to it. The passive portion was what he was focusing on through the clashes between him and the boss. Each time the boss hit him a good portion of the force from its blows was being stored away as energy inside of Joshua's own aura. The energy didn't build up into a shield or anything like that, but seemed to be constantly building up the longer the clash between Joshua and the boss went on. He could feel the building up of energy and knew that it was a part of the skill and was just waiting until it reached its maximum.

The boss's enraged state seemed to last a lot longer than Joshua was expecting and it was likely do to the fact that it was a higher level than the last time that Joshua had fought it, but after a few minutes of taking a beating Joshua felt that the amount of energy stored up from the skill had reached its maximum. He was glad there wasn't a visual sign in his aura that showed his opponents that the skill was building up. They would just have to guess when he was about to release it which could happen with any attack.

With enough energy stored up Joshua finally dodged out of the way of the rampaging mutated scorpion as it tried to slam Joshua into the ground with an overhead strike followed by its tail swinging around and trying to stab him through the chest. With the sudden burst in speed Joshua was forced to blink out of the way so that he wouldn't get pierced skewered like a piece of meat. The strength behind the stinger on the end of the scorpion tail was strong enough to pierce through Joshua's aura in the boss's current state and he didn't want to risk the battle simulation ending before he even got to try out the active part of the best new skill he had gained.

Joshua left some aura string traps behind in the spot that he blinked from so that when the tail pierced through his last location it would get caught up by them. The aura strings weren't sturdy enough to hold the boss for more than a second, but that was all Joshua needed as he appeared behind it with his scale blade swinging down from above. The aura around his blade seemed to grow thicker and more intense the moment Joshua started pouring in the energy from his skill. Although there wasn't a sign that he was using the skill when it was in its passive state it was fairly obvious when Joshua activated it.

The aura around Joshua's blade grew brighter and far more concentrated then Joshua had ever been able to do before. It was as if an aura hardening state was taking form around his scale blade. That was the only way to describe it as the blade exuded power and killing intent which instantly caught the boss's attention as it tried to turn around so it could avoid the attack. The aura strings however hindered it for a moment which was the nail in the coffin for the boss's chances of getting away. Knowing that it wasn't going to be able to avoid the strike in time it raised both of its arms up in an attempt to block it, but Joshua could tell that was pointless the moment his blade hit its mark.

For a short instant Joshua could feel that his scale blade was cutting clean through one of the aura covered arms of the enraged boss before the aura around his scale blade seemed to explode with energy creating a massive pressure that shoved Joshua away from the point of contact. Joshua still held his scale blade in his hands but all the energy from the attack was transferred over towards his opponent and the results of that was clear to see from the towering dirt cloud over a large crater in the ground where Joshua and the boss had clashed.

Joshua could only look at the devastation in shock as he stood up off the ground. He'd have to get used to the push back of using such an attack in the future if he planned on fighting with it more often, especially since the skill was still only level one at the moment and had a long way to go before it reached its max capability. The power of that explosion wouldn't be enough to outright kill some of the massive creatures in the prairie if they were able to prepare for it, but if he struck a vulnerable area it was easily able to do fatal damage. This was a game changer in Joshua's opinion with all of the other skills he could use alongside this one and he couldn't wait until he was able to start leveling it up so that it will be an even more dangerous ability that he could use in the middle of a fight.

Joshua knew that the boss was not dead since he could still feel its aura even if it was much smaller than it had been before the attack. It didn't take too long for the dust and dirt to clear out and Joshua was met with the sight of a nearly dead humanoid scorpion creature that was glaring in his direction. It's left arm which it tried to use to block Joshua blow was completely gone all the way up to the shoulder while the other one was mangled with the little bit of aura that the creature had left trying to repair it at a slow pace. There were several wounds all over the beast's body that were dripping blood on to the ground that it was having a hard time trying to heal up from.

The only part of the boss that wasn't falling apart at the moment was its large scorpion tail that had been stuck in the ground before it was attacked. Joshua was certain that the boss would have preferred to have dodged his attack altogether, but if it was forced to block it then it would have wanted to use its tail instead of its arms. The tail was much sturdier than the rest of its body especially when it gets coated in aura. The boss still would have taken some massive damage while withstanding Joshua's attack but it would have been well off enough to heal up and keep fighting. Instead it was an a position where its enraged state was finished and it was left as nothing more than a sitting duck for Joshua to put down.

"Well I guess I've tested this skill enough for now." Joshua said out loud to himself as he prepared to put the boss out of its misery. He had gotten more than enough out of their fight and now had a good idea of how all of his new skills would work in combat. He was most impressed with the vengeance skill that had such a powerful active ability while the passive ability worked well with Joshua fighting style. Although he avoided fatal blows he had no problem tanking attacks that would just knock him back. Plus Joshua would also build up energy whenever he blocked with his scale blade so there was no need to take extremely damaging hits to build up the energy for the skill.

The amount of damage the skill did was well beyond Joshua's expectations. If the mutated scorpion was restrained or taken by surprise there would have been no way for it to block Joshua's attack. Taking that kind of force directly to a weak spot would kill most bosses that Joshua had come across up to this point and it would likely be the same for any of his opponents throughout the tournament. There was no way Joshua would use the skill against opponents he could easily handle, but he'd always have it as a last resort in a serious fight to take his opponent by surprise.

The two other new skills Joshua had gotten were useful, but more in a group environment instead of one on one fighting. Even so they would be put to good use the next time Joshua went on an expedition, just not so much during the tournament. With a quick blink and a swing of his aura covered scale blade Joshua was able to cut off the remaining arm of the boss since it tried to block his attack while being too injured to move out of the way fast enough. It's aura at this point was too thin to help protect it so Joshua's scale blade tore through its arm before slamming deep into its shoulder. The strike was quickly followed up with an echo strike before the boss could use its tail to try to knock Joshua away. The attack finished the boss off and ended the simulation fight.

Once the simulation was over the environment in Joshua's training ground returned to normal as all of the damage around had been removed completely. The system of course showed a bunch information about the fight for Joshua to look through along with a footage of the fight so Joshua could experience it from a different perspective and see what he could do better, but for now Joshua just shut things down and prepared to go home and get some rest. He had one more day before the tournament would begin and planned to get the most out of it.