Chapter 118 Hellfire Forest#4

-Dash!!

I jump at him as fast as I can, making him look at me with a strange expression, before he easily dodges my attack. I then smiled before suddenly speeding up my hand movements and making a swing that almost nicked his neck… he dodged it yet again though with little effort.

I kind of grinned at him, making him narrow his eyes at me, though before he realised… An invisible scythe almost slashed his neck… before he jumped sideways again to deflect, this time with a panicked expression.

My illusion, at which previously people were focusing at, vanished and the real me, which almost slashed that minotaur's neck, came out of hiding making everyone look at me, with a flabbergasted expression.

The minotaur examined his neck and found it to be slightly scratched which kind of made him look at me with all seriousness before he spoke,"You are strong… despite not being powerful at all… you are strong. What is your name, weak human? I shall at least know the name of the one who has the ability to surprise me."

He raised one of his dual axes at me, as if challenging me to a serious official duel and I simply smiled before speaking,"You are not worthy of knowing it," before my expression turned a bit more serious.

He looked at me with a prideful expression and spoke in a loud voice,"that worthless pride of yours… It will be worthwhile to crush it into pieces," before he bent a little forward and then dashed at me with all his might.

'Fast,' I thought as I created another illusion that jumped in the opposite direction than I did, making him go a little bit away from me. He dashed through my illusion, tearing it into pieces, and I looked at him from a distance before enhancing my leg muscles and jumping the highest I was capable of.

-Boom!

Meanwhile, I created another illusion to jump at him, so it masks the explosion caused due to my jump, with which I was propelled high enough to look around and scan for the white trees and true enough, a massive white forest was visible from up this high… though… It was quite far away from our current location.

I also scanned around for any incoming danger, which I surprisingly did not find. The minotaur settlement wasn't that big, with about a hundred or two minotaurs roaming in it, which made me believe that it wasn't the main settlement but an outer settlement or something, with the main one hidden within the forest somewhere.

'Then doesn't that mean this SS class minotaur isn't really strong among their forces? Or did we get 'lucky' to encounter such a monster here? Well… let's hope that it is the latter and prepare as if it is the former,' I thought as my eyebrows furrowed and I pondered before concentrating back on the fight.

The minotaur has once again torn apart my illusion, and now he was searching for me. Observing his expression… yeah, he was ticked off with my little play of hide and seek, so let's end this, I suppose.

I thought as I began descending faster and faster. However, this time, instead of hiding my presence, I increased my power enough to make everyone's gazes shift towards me. I focused all my power on the scythe as I kept descending rapidly, which made the minotaur look at me with a slightly panicked expression as he began charging up his defence to brace for the impact.

I smiled at him, trying his best, before I finally reached…

-Boooom!!!!!!!

-Slash!!!!!

Two loud noises overlapped each other and then what was left there was a half exhausted me, standing on my feet in a huge crater and the minotaur smiling at me with a nasty expression as if he had won.

Did my attack fail to reach him… or was he strong enough to hold up against my attack? Well.. the answer is none. The attack did connect… however, to an illusion of that Minatour and not the real one…

"Not fair," I spoke in a slightly annoyed voice, because illusion was one of my strong points too… a little. Hearing my voice, that minotaur watched me as if he was trying to see through me.

"You.. don't look scared," he spoke, finally letting out his thoughts, and I sighed before my eyes scanned him as I analysed his current status.

'Still strong… he might have used up about 5 percent of his powers only. Do I need to reveal more of my cards here?' I thought before looking at his body again and concocted another plan.

'Hmmm… let's try something unorthodox,' I thought before I let that idea go… cause it might create more trouble than I can handle right now. Maybe if we stumble upon someone too strong… then I will use it… for now, let's not go too much off track here.

"Okay… let's start round 2 then," I thought before I stopped hiding my powers and openly healing myself with Life Magic. If earlier I was concentrating on using all the magic at once, now I am using one at a time.

While it may seem detrimental, it is actually beneficial in many ways. It will let me focus on solely one magic at a time, increasing its efficiency by many folds and also I won't need to worry about balancing the elements, because two elements working together, even if they are compatible with each other, isn't a good thing.

If I use ice and water together, ice will try to overtake the water element while water will go in defensive mode, trying to protect itself from converting. Ice's power will be more attack oriented and water's will be defence oriented. Kind of rough to manage both of them at once, given how the scale of balance shifts from place to place and position to position.

The reason I still used multiple magic at once despite it being less effective than the other way around was because of training. Call me overconfident, but that is the real reason why I use a less efficient power always despite things going awry at times.

'Kinda helps me increase my control, efficacy and effect of more than one element at once,'' I thought before I fully recovered myself…. Though in the meantime the minatour, too, got his powers back to full.

I then changed my powers from Light to Dark, to which I was more accustomed to and it spread all over my body before covering the scythe as well. I then looked deeply at him, analysing with a serious gaze…

"Shadow Style: Harvester of Night," I muttered before changing my scythe wielding technique from a freestyle to a definite and refined one.

-Dash

Reaching almost close to him, I slash him once… twice… thrice…

-Clank!!!

Dodging the first two attacks, he parried my third attack with great skill of his own. I looked at him with a prideful look before retracting my steps and then regaining my momentum. He looked at me with an astonished expression, but before he could think anything further, I once again charged at him.

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-Slash

-Slash

-Slash

I was fast… faster than before. He was fast too… but he was on the defensive now. Using Dark magic…

Using Dark magic has three benefits in total compared to other elements.

One is that you can gain much more enhanced power than any other element.

Two is that you can use it to overpower all other elements at once, no matter which one is against you.

Three is that you can use it to perform almost all the skills except those limited to Light magic.

The cons, however, aren't really something to scoff at either.

Your body will deteriorate faster and faster, the more you use it. So using healing magic before or after you use Dark magic is recommended, that is, if you don't want to lose a limb or two. The detrimental effects will be there nonetheless, just that the healing magic will prevent the chances of complete deterioration of your body.

The other thing bad about Dark magic is its violent nature. In other words, it is difficult to control… if you depend on it too much, it will start consuming you, consequently making you go berserk.

'And that is why I need to finish it as fast as I can,' I thought before charging at him as fast as I could while my power kept increasing every moment.

Though that wasn't normal either… generally the power increase is… slower than this. About 3 times slower honestly, but looks like… the dark mana in this place is much more concentrated than the other places… and the spirit mana being more than normal…. much much more.

Yeah… I was using spirit mana rather than the normal mana which I generally use… cause well.. I can't use that mana in this situation for two reasons.

One is that I don't have enough power in my body to utilize mana enough for this challenging fight. The other is that the normal mana here is too thin, and also the presence of mana eating parasites, making it even weaker.

'Never been more glad that I can use spirit magic,' I thought as I increased my pace more and more… getting more crafty with my attacks. The minotaur was panicking with each move I was making. The speed of his parrying was increasing, but his balance was weakening.

I wasn't winning this, but he wasn't either. Though looking at how things are going… I should be able to end this in about another minute or so.

'But what if he tries to escape during that time? It will be difficult to keep my mana in check while also simultaneously trying to kill him, when he will be utilising all his powers to run away,' I thought as I looked at his agitated face before he kicked the ground creating a wave that pushed me away.

'Is he escaping?!' I thought with a slight panic on my face… but he was still standing there firmly before he roared loudly and glared at me with fury as he shouted,

"[Blessing of the Fire: Berserker]"