Chapter 452

Chapter 452

Luckily, from the pure force of the brute's attack, I'm thrown flying backward through the air, and the intensity of the lightning shocks lessens the further away from the golden glowing man I get.

I quickly increase my momentum away from him even faster using airsteps, then activate stealth while simultaneously creating a body double to send back down at him.

While my copy plummets back toward the golden ball of electricity and soul energy, I dungeon walk even further away, activating my new extreme stamina skill to heal some of my lost HP instantly. Then, use self-regeneration to heal up all minor wounds like the slashes across my chest and fix up the holes in my blood-bonded armor.

However, the tingling sensation of electricity buzzing through my entire body stays longer than expected. I have to push my self-regeneration skill to its limits to mend the burnt flesh and shocked organs from head to toe.

Meanwhile, my senses are severely dulled. Getting hit by one of its lightning strikes again in a more compromising position could easily have ended much worse. I cannot let that happen a second time.

Even when carefully going for the kill shot, I severely underestimated my opponent.

A loud explosion of white light erupts from below me as the self-destruction skill of my body double creates a shockwave of mana over 40 meters wide in diameter.

I hear the man's loud yell from within.

Even if there was no Qi imbued in that attack, it must have hurt a bit. These new body doubles of mine equal my mana control exactly, and letting out a full force attack with no regard for my life would be a devastating move.

However, the aura of golden light continues to glow from within the white shockwave of energy from my fallen double. I feel the size of the man in the center of the blast begin to expand and expel more energy.

His form begins to shift and grow, similar to when I watched the Ranked-Up Dark Guard shift from his human body to one of a massive monster.

"He's transforming already...?"

Huge arcs of lightning begin to shoot out, reaching further and further away from the man's position in the middle of the boss room.

They begin to reach out over 100 meters away from him, arcing toward me.

I go into full battle mode again, boosting my perception skills to their limit and watching the electric arcs come my way.

The first instinct that comes to mind when I see this electricity is that there's no way for me to dodge them. I've encountered a lightning user one time before, back in the C-Class exams, and the only way I could get away from the attacks was to not be seen.

The other was to take them head-on and tough it out.

Based on the near paralysis-inducing feeling I got after just one split-second hit from this monster's extreme version of the skill, I'm sure muscling through isn't an option...

It also saw straight through my stealth skill the instant I made it within its inner aura's range, so I'm fairly certain sneaking away from its attacks isn't going to work either.

I summon another body double and send it at the growing ball of golden light again to act as a distraction while I rack my brain for more answers to my predicament. My All-Seeing Eye is doing full scans of the boss room, watching arcs of electricity move closer and closer to me as they somehow get stronger the more the Soul Energy Ball grows.

Another pulse of golden light erupts from the center of the boss room as my double explodes using a kamikaze style attack again, and this sparks the beginning of an epiphany.

My eyes track the fast-moving, nearly invisible shockwave of soul energy as it fills the air, and following it at the exact same speed are multiple arcing lines of electricity.

This phenomenon captures my interest, and I push all of my mana control into my perception skills, leaving my attack and defenses limited while another body double is produced to make for a distraction and catalyst to run this test again.

As the next pulse of mana and soul energy comes out, lightning follows.

My eyes adjust to the small fluctuations in mana, and every rogue lightning strike I see arcing through the boss room is traveling on waves of mana.

"It is just a skill after all..." I whisper under my breath.

The lightning strikes aren't just a natural occurrence, they are summoned from mana, so they have to follow the natural rules of the system and dungeons. The arcs of energy can only flow as fast as the waves of mana a caster pushes them.

These invisible waves of mana, just like the simple mana arrays sent out into the air when I use skills like enemy detection or my all-seeing eye; are usually mana readings I neglect to watch closely during battles, because they never directly affect me or have any offensive abilities.

Now that I see them, however, there's no going back.

It feels like a dance that I've been practicing for years, but finally get to perform for the first time.

Every time I disappear and reappear, sections of the boss room's mana get sucked away by my plunderer skill that is pushed to its limit, burning through MP like a furnace to keep the graceful display of precision and timing alive.

Arcs of electricity brush by my legs, back, arms, and face as the crimson thread gets shorter and shorter, bringing me closer to the deadly wolf.

Once I'm close enough to be within its inner aura filled with bloodlust and dense arcs of electricity. It's ranked up buff sends waves of intense intimidation deep into my psyche, but I don't let it slow me down.

If anything, the increasing pressure makes me move even faster, relying more on my subconscious battle instincts. I begin dungeon walking multiple times a second, shortening the thread further until my blade glowing with Qi lands its sharpest point dead center between the wolf's eyes.

In this exact moment, one of the creature's Soul Energy pulses is triggered right on cue. It's shielding fluctuates and my opening is made available for less than a tenth of a second. I release a wave of Qi from my sword's tip dense enough to melt through the weakened golden aura and pierce right through the wolf's skull, cooking its brains with a violent release of every drop of energy I have to wager.

The Qi in my core is drained by over 75% in a single strike, then the wave of Soul Energy and electricity that produced the fluctuation allowing me to land this attack hits me like a tsunami.

I feel the full power of its concentrated extreme lighting summoning attack flow through my veins.

The last thing I see is the flowing white Qi burst from its eyes and the golden collar around its neck begins to disintegrate and fade away. An explosion of energy sends me flying into the air, ripping the outer layers of my shielding, armor, and skin to shreds, but the ringing in my inner ear and the fading sensation of electricity going away tells me that everything worked out.

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Use Absorption]

Skill: Combat Magic [Extreme Lightning Summoning]

[YES][NO]

[Use Absorption]

MCP: 77,801,424

[YES][NO]

[Rank Up]

[YES][NO]