After every calmed down and the group separated astra from being near their temporary ally everyone returned to their tasks.
Everyone except for Ezekiel who had slipped away the first chance he saw.
He was using his mana sight to maneuver through the swamp and he knew to be very careful this time.
If he had been watching the trees last timd he wouldn't have been killed but now with better preparation he was able to hunt down these enemies... if he could find any.
The places he searched were empty so he was forced to just cultivate his mana and specifically cultivate his poison affinity to try to unlock it.
As the mana entered his body he felt a sense of nausea that he did not notice with the other elements.
His body was adjusting slowly but it was making progress and that was what mattered.
He was able to absorb some of the poison element in the mana but the rest still floated through the other plane in that strange way mana would move.
Since he had gotten the best results ising the crystallized life mana in the previous dungeon when he tried to gain his affinity with it he figured the best method this time would be the same, so he searched for a dense region of poison elemental mana.
The farther he got inside of the swamp the more poison he saw but this was more trap based mana than actually usable mana.
He noticed that the mana in the traps almost felt like the mana used in spell circles and those circles could not be manipulated by others without causing the mana within to reach a volatile state.
By carefully avoiding these traps and those set by plantlife he was eventually able to find another enemy, this one was a large mosquito. Find your next read on m_v l|e-novelhall.net
It was buzzing around and suddenly turned in his direction as if smelling him, he knew there was a theory that mosquitoes could smell sweat and he was certainly drenched in it so he got ready for combat.
He entered the proper stance for unarmed combat and cast his normal spells, the frenzy wing in particular might end up useful here.
As the giant bug charged him he saw that it was actually the size of a dog, a dog that wanted to suck his blood but still small.
He slashed at the bug and it easily evaded but he had a wing slapping out to strike it with the bladed claws in a backhand.
The bug evaded this strike as well and it began to get frustrating.
He realized that if he was going to kill this thing he needed to somehow take out it's wings and only one spell had the potential for it.
He started to cast frenzy bombs everywhere while he attacked the mosquito and the hope was that the aoe would csuse enough cuts to the wings that the consumption would eventually make the wings fall apart.
The mosquito seemed to be trying to fly above him now and this strategy wasn't bad but it wasn't hard to keep the danage piling up.
He began to battle the swarm of bats and he focused on using frenzy bomb to take out as many as possible.
The bats were very low level for this dungeon but he was still weaker and with them constantly cracking his armor and guard he wouldn't be safe for long.
He unleashed his spells by lobbing three at a time, the bats were so densely packed around him that he could take advantage of his immunity to shadow damage and let the projectiles simply blow up in his face to start killing these frail enemies.
The minimum level for this dungeon was three hundred and because of this it was quite the significant boost to him even with his level being at three hundred and forty nine.
He was getting basically nothing from these kills but he did get a lot of stats surprisingly.
He also saw that once he had shredded through the bats he was above a sea of black flame, the tree tops had begun to act as the highway for the consumption to spread throughout the dungeon.
He settled down in the original point and began to explore what was left behind, mainly looking at the plant based traps.
He was totally focused on his task until he heard crashing through the woods and witnessed a large reptile charging him while covered in consumption.
He jumped out of the way and made sure to cover its back in frenzy wing needles but the tail slapped him into a tree which knocked the breath from his lungs.
The lizard charged him again but he was ready.
He was curious if it had the same weakness as real world alligators so he used his teleportation skill to jump onto it's back and then while his wings held him against it in a stranglehold he wrapped his arms around the maw of the beast.
In the real world alligators are incapable of opening their mouth if even simple pressure pinned the maw closed, by putting your jand under the bottom jaw one could basically force the alligator to use its weight ir its claws to fight since the jaw had no opening strength.
This lizard seemed to have been developed with a similar weakness as it could not get his grip loose no matter how hard it struggled.
With him on it's back and stabbing into it with his wings it also could not easily roll over due to the injuries it now had that would probably make it bleed out if it attempted a roll.
The lizard thrashed around and purple oozed out of it's maw, poison.
The poison caused a new problem because it began to eat away at his armor while he made sure it could not break free.
He kept striking it faster and harder to open its body to attack the sensitive organs.
His wings were stabbing at a rapid pace and his other hand slashed at the beasts throat to try and make it drain the poison out.
He eventually just took his Voidbeast fang and shoved it into the eye of the thrashing lizard.
"DIE ALEADY YOU STUPID LIZARD!"