Chapter 742 Ancient Magic
While the colossal Monster cannot stop the dwarf's unique Hymn and dance, everyone inside Undermine Council hears his deep but soft Hymn.
"This is… What strong magic… It should take an enormous amount of mana." muttered Angus in surprise.
Using his perception, Angus knows this Hymn should be a very high-circle spell. He even assumes that it does not belong to the circle level but is ancient magic or even forbidden magic.
Since he got the secret knowledge of Temple of God spells and healing art, Angus knows a lot of powerful spells or magic outside the common magic circle classification. According to some records, this kind of magic consumes a lot of mana and is also very powerful.
After a while, the dwarf stops dancing and claps his hands together [Ancient Magic - Hymn of The Earth]. Magically, the surrounding destroyed area changes into the hard brown earthy ground. On the top of the Earthy ground, the dwarf's body multiplies into hundreds of himself.
Every dwarf has the same momentum, mana, aura, and even breath. Without wasting any more time, all these multiplied dwarves tap the ground simultaneously [Ancient Magic - Sediment Age].
An enormous magic circle with various unknown rune symbols surrounds the colossal monster with it as the center. On the magic circle, there is a vast translucent hour hand. As the magic circle shines dimly, the time seems to stop as the hour hand ticks.
*Tick* *Crack* *Crack* *Crack* As the hour hand ticks, the colossal monster's body is cracked like a fragmented rock. Most of its legs, even already petrified, turn into stone. The hour hand didn't stop and kept ticking until it made a full round.
*Tick* *Crack* the monster's body is already petrified and full of cracks as the last tick arrives. A moment later, a light erupted from the cracking wound, illuminating the whole area.
*BOOOOOM* A strong shockwave erupted from the monster's body and covered the surrounding area.
Although ancient magic has a lot of processes, it happens in only a split second. Unless they are a very sharp seventh-grade, most people only see the monster getting a sudden cracking wound and missing parts of its body.
*GROOARRR* The colossal monster roared in pain as most of its body was full of cracks and destroyed. As for the petrification, it is already undone when the magic loses its effect.
Still, the ancient magic managed to destroy his two arms, a large part of his chest, and half of his leg.
"Huft… Huft… Damn!! What a monster!!" said the dwarf on the ground with heavy sweat and rough breath.
In contrast, the dwarf clones from [Hymn of the Earth] have already gone along when the magic end. Now, the dwarf seems aged by a few years and weak. Using this opportunity, the three giants, an ancient dwarf, a translucent dragon, and a ruby knight, launch a hard attack on the monster.
Nabe also released another [Rose Hazard] in the sky. The other seventh-grade dwarves do not stay idle and unleash their own attacks. As for the exhausted and weakened dwarf, he has already been evacuated by one of the dwarves nearby outside the battlefield.
Under the barrage of the intense attack, the colossal monster's body is getting more injured. Although it is no longer petrified like a stone, its body is still not fully healed, lowering the previous hard defense.
If the monster's body before is like hard rock, the current one is like hard mud. It is still hard but not more breakable. Suddenly, the colossal monster's head rotated and the face on the side changed.
*WHOOSHH* *BLAAARR* The monster's body was suddenly covered in a blazing flame. The wounded crack also released a burst of flame.
This burst fire negated some of the attacks and pushed everyone back. Under this blazing fire, his weapon artifact also blazed through his hand. By coincidence, the only artifact still being held is the hand axe Glandring and bell Penitence.
Furthermore, the arm that held Penitence is magically intact without any injury. As the fire covers the artifacts, the artifact is gaining fire properties. The fire in its body also deters others from approaching and slowly healing its wound.
While the hand axe could throw a blazing fire attack with a single swing. The fire pushed back the three giants and destroyed the ruby petals in the sky. This unexpected change surprised everyone.
'Is it possible to use different elements with each head?' thought everyone was surprised.
After pushing everyone, the monster suddenly pointed his axe in a direction.
Seeing this, "Stop him!!" shouted Nabe from far away.
*BOOOOOM* [Glamdring - Space Blaze] Suddenly, the area is pointed into a blaze as if a volcano suddenly erupted in the location.
"T-That location?!!" said the surrounding dwarf worriedly.
Through their perception, they know the blazing area is where the exhausted dwarf is located. Now, they understand a little bit about the monster's intention. It is gloating for everyone to hit it and reach a weakened state.
It actually does not procrastinate the battle but only hits them when they are in a weakened state like the dwarf and Warchief Might before.
Although they are not sure if the Warchief is life or death, it should be at least getting a heavy injury since it no longer appeared after this long. When they are exhausted, the monster will launch a strong attack.
At this moment, they can hardly escape or defend themselves. Even if they survive its attack, they will at least get a severe injury that affects their battle prowess.
'It seems confident in its defense and survivability. This is bad and good news for us. We could use this arrogance against him, but it also means its defense and survivability is top notch.' muttered Nabe.
As the person who fights the monster from the start, Nabe slowly unravels the monster's ability. Unlike Warchief Might and Lotord, Nabe prefers to have long, certain fights than gambling with a single all-out attack.
She prefers using counterattacks and hitting the opponent's weak point rather than brute strength.
Knowing the monster's battle tactic, everyone could only fight moderately and no longer dare to launch an all-out attack. After wielding the fire elemental, the colossal monster battle style is completely changed.
If it was passive before, the current one is more active, like a raging flame. Even Nabe's giant ruby warrior is beaten to the pulp without mercy. It also ignored its injury and charged forward like a mad bull. This deterred others from approaching the monster casually.
Fortunately, the three giant beings are not the real body and could be repaired by their caster. Though it will deplete a lot of their mana.
On the bright side, its healing rate is slower than before. With only two hands, it has a more limited way to attack. Still, everyone knew they couldn't just stay passive, either.
If they only dodged the monster's attack, the monster would slowly heal its injured body to the previous state. By then, they will have a more hard battle. Now, they could only continue fighting, hoping for an excellent opportunity to launch a deadly attack.
While Nabe and the others were having a bitter fight, they didn't notice a small golem covered by the surrounding rubble observing the battlefield. Inside this camouflage golem, Dumrod is observing the battle carefully.
'As expected of the cursed one, it could survive against that kind of Ancient Magic. Well, it seems it is not my turn to fight yet.' thought Dumrod inwardly.
Unlike others, Dumrod is quite familiar with the Ancient Magic used on it. In fact, this Ancient Magic is one of the ultimate magic for dwarves when facing a big or large-size opponent.
Unfortunately, this Ancient Magic is too demanding regarding mana requirements. It needs at least dozens or hundred of sixth-grade dwarves just to cast it once.
In the meantime, more groups of dwarves wearing special rune armor are also approaching the battlefield. This group of dwarves is the one that hit the underground tavern before. Previously, they were forced to retreat as they found the radiation in the area.
They create rune armor to resist the surrounding radiation using their superb crafting ability. Since they only fight from a distance, they don't need to worry that the rune enchantment will break during the fight.
This group of dwarves is quite powerful, with fifth grade as the weakest in strength. Moreover, these dwarfs have at least opened the third Gate of Life. It means their body has already broken its limit at least three times.
Unfortunately, they couldn't show their full combat prowess as they didn't dare to fight the colossal monster in close combat. Still, it is enough to support from far.
With the deadly radiation in the area, they didn't need to worry about being surrounded by minions. They were only required to defend against the rain spike and lightning storms. Despite the harsh weather, they could still use large-scale powerful long-range attacks.
As long as they paid attention to the monster's Glamdring hand axe, they could always retreat and avoid getting a direct hit. With the help of these dwarves, the aggressive monster also slowly gets overwhelmed.
Unfortunately, its state is slowly getting better. As the monster's body gets healed, its defense and hard skin slowly recover. Some hard parts of him, like the back or arms, are too sturdy to get injured despite receiving a direct seventh-grade attack.