Chapter 180 - Dragonkin (2)

Like a hulking monster, the lizardman darted towards Arnold. Arnold calmly stood there and watched the monster get closer to him bit by bit, but before he got too close, that part of swamp got covered with icy mist forcing the lizard to stop in his tracks, it's prey had disappeared right before his eyes.

___

You've used [ICY VEIL] (lvl : 5).

The accuracy (ACC) of enemy units within the range of skill have been reduced by 10% for 5 minutes.

Your Evasion (EVD) has increased by 10% for 5 minutes.

Special effect: [You can't see me] is in effect. Your presence will be hidden from enemy units if you don't inflict damage to any target for 3 seconds. You can trigger this effect once in every 5 seconds The effect will be broken if you're attacked.

___

The lizardman, instinctively waved his hands around to get rid of the mist but nothing happened, the mist was still there and made the lizard angrier than before.

Irritated by the sudden appearance of the mist, the angry lizardman started swinging his battleaxe like an enraged alligator who thrashed his tail around, in hopes of that his attacks get connected to the human.

Arnold felt a bit sad by looking at the confused monster so he went ahead and punched it hard across the face. The moment his fist connected with lizardman's face, claws popped up from his gloves. He didn't punch the lizard in his face by choice, but because it was the only place that wasn't covered by thick armour. The claws managed to scratch the monster deep across his face, it looked like its tough hide was no match against a Wyvern's bone.

Of course, he had already activated a couple of skills beforehand to further enhance his attack.

___

You've activated [BERSERKER'S RAGE] (lvl : 5)

Strength (STR) boosted by 150% for 20 seconds.

You've activated [RAPID FLASH] (lvl : 5)

Agility (AGI) boosted by 10% for 120 seconds.

___

Furthermore, attacking the lizardman also triggered the additional effects of his gears.

___

You've triggered the effect: [WYVERN'S CLAW]- When a target gets scratched by the claws of the glove, the target enters a poisoned state, making the target numb and limiting their visibility while making them lose 5% of their total health per minute. The duration can be extended by continually inflicting damage to the target.

You've triggered the effect : [WYVERN QUEEN'S BLESSING] - Damage dealt to beast type monsters permanently increases by 10%.

You've triggered the effect : [WYVERN QUEEN'S BLESSING] - Damage dealt to beast type monsters permanently increases by 10%.

___

The effect, [Queen's blessing] was triggered twice as both his cloak as well as the gloves shared the same additional effect.

'I didn't know the effect of the gears could overlap with one another. Either way, it's good news!' Arnold thought and once again disappeared in the mist.

Although it seemed like Arnold had disappeared in the mist, the reality was different as it would require him to remain undetected for 3 seconds and after that, he needed to wait for additional 5 seconds to fully erase his existence while he was inside the mist.

This was supposed to be the drawback of the skill but Arnold had already figured a loophole to exploit it. The key was to use his domain during the attacks. After successfully hitting his enemy once, Arnold quickly opened up a portal to his void and slipped inside it.

Once he was inside, all he needed to do was to wait for the effect to be reset and then pop out of the same place to hit his target once again. This way he could ensure two things.

One, this continuous chain of attack ensured that the poisoning effect of [Wyvern's claw] did continuous damage, up to 5% of the targets max HP. And two, the cooldown period of [You can't see me] got refused to a third of its original amount as time passed faster inside the void.

This essentially meant that rather than waiting for 8 seconds to trigger 'invisibility' he now had to wait only for a little over 2 seconds to trigger it, but to keep a safe side he waited in the void for 3 seconds instead.

___

You've dealt 340 (+83) points of damage to your target.

Damage inflicted after damage reduction due to target's defence: 329 HP

Your attacks also triggered the following effects:

• [Wyvern Queen's Blessing]. Additional Damage dealt: 33 HP

• [Wyvern Queen's Blessing]. Additional Damage dealt: 33 HP

• [Wyvern's claw]: The target has been [poisoned] and would gradually lose 850 HP over one minute.

Total damage dealt: 395 HP (+850 poison damage)

Target's remaining HP : 16427/17000

___

He had been expecting this result. He knew his punches wouldn't have been able to do much damage to the mini Godzilla, and neither he was hoping for it to happen. Rather than directly inflicting damage to the monster, he had been relying upon the continuous poison damage dealt to the lizard to finish him off. It was a slow but steady process.

He already knew it was going to be an awfully long fight as soon as he got to know fire attacks didn't work on the lizard due to the type of armour and passive ability he had, but he didn't mind it. Unless more monsters showed up there, he could take care of the lone lizardman. But in case the monsters did end up appearing during the fight, then he wouldn't hesitate to go all out regardless of how loud noise he made in the process. But till then, the red lizardman would have Arnold's undivided attention.

'Times up.' Arnold thought and jumped out of the void and attacked the lizardman once again.

The lizardman had completely given up on offence as he couldn't move, thanks to the poison status and solely focused on defending himself, but with a body as large as his, the lizardman found it next to impossible to defend himself against Arnold who was jumping around like a rabbit wielding a knife.

With each attack, the lizardman's eyesight degraded a bit more and the numbness took over his body, which was also thanks to the additional effect of his gloves. This made Arnold's life a lot easier as now he could continuously attack the lizardman without worrying about his defence. Thanks to the continuous attacks, he ended up stacking the poison effect on top of one another. Within six to seven minutes the lizardman's HP started decreasing at an alarming rate and went from 15000 to 12800 then 8550, and so on.

But as soon as the monster's HP got below 2000, all of a sudden he started howling, but it wasn't a howl of pain rather it was a plea to his kin for help.

"Damn it!"

By the time Arnold realised what was going on and managed to kill the lizardman, he was already surrounded by an army of lizardmen... there was over 200 lizardman spread all around him. Arnold quickly scanned through his enemies and although there were around a dozen red lizardmen within the army, thankfully none of them was wearing armour like the one he had been fighting a few minutes ago.

Under normal conditions, he would've been worried about his well-being and escape from there, but in his eyes, this was a golden opportunity to finish his Headhunter sub-quest once and for all, and he wasn't going to waste it by running away.