Chapter 350 Brance’s First Turning Point Quest (3)

Taking a deep breath, Brance waited until there was less than 5% left in the Barrier’s durability, summoned the angry Archangel to the second floor, activated the Mana suppression, and smiled adventurously.

“Let’s do this shit,” Brance said as he was whisked down from the 5th floor to the 2nd, where the actual confrontation was to begin.

In an instant, Michael and Brance were teleported to the second floor, appearing on opposite sides of the stadium-sized room.

While Michael was utterly confused at the sudden changes, Brance calmly unsheathed his Katana, slid his left foot forward, and dropped into his fighting stance.

At the same time, he was counting down in his head. The last thing he saw before teleporting was the 10-second timer remaining on the monitor for floor two, indicating the time left till the buff/debuffs set in.

“What is this?” Glancing around the new surroundings, Michael curbed his anger temporarily and cautiously observed everything before his golden eyes landed on Brance over 50 meters away.

“Mortals and their tricks. It never ceases to amaze me how you foolish beings always try to lure your opponents into baited traps, thinking it will make any difference.” Clutching the hilt of his flaming greatsword, Michael sneered at Brance and began slowly walking forward.

In Brance’s eyes, Michael appeared to be flickering as he moved, covering a few meters per step. Activating [Mana Sight], Brance noticed something strange in how Michael moved. It was as if the space around him was opening temporarily, allowing him to skip at least five meters ahead with each move.

‘Space Affinity? But that can’t be right; all of the particles around him are golden, just like his armor and wings, not the aqua color I observe around the Headmaster. What the hell kind of Affinity Skills is he using?’ Brance thought, but his mind shifted gears as the notifications appeared in both his and Michael’s eyes, revealing two opposing reactions from them.

-You have received a 35% Stat buff to all of your non-hidden stats.-

-One Targeted Enemy has received a 35% Debuff to all non-hidden stats.-

When the Debuff notification appeared in Michael’s eyes, his forward movement halted as he confusedly felt the power in his body draining rapidly as his Max HP plummeted around 112k due to his VIT stat dropping 1400 points.

For Brance, he calmly opened his Status Window to examine his buffs.

: STATS :

: HP 26,600/39,680* (TEMP +13,080) :

: Mana 18,480/25,020* (TEMP + 6540) :

: Stamina 13,300/19,840* (TEMP + 6540) :

: Stat Points- 0 :

: Skill Points- 190 :

: Strength-  935 (1262):  (TEMP +327)

: Dexterity- 777 (1049):  (TEMP +272)

: Agility- 777 (1049):  (TEMP +272)

: Intelligence- 935 (1262):  (TEMP +327)

: Vitality-  935 (1262):  (TEMP +327)

: Mind-  777 (1049):  (TEMP +272)

: Will Power- 15:

: Gem Cutting:0 , XP 90/100 :

: Killing Intent- 348 – 4.5g :

Using his free hand and pulling out several potions, Brance gulped them all down so fast that he even surprised himself, as in the heat of the moment, his only worry was to get all of his Resource stats refilled before Michael snapped out of his daze.

‘1k AGI and DEX are no joke….’ Absentmindedly, Brance stared at the empty bottles in his hand before tossing them back into his inventory. Rolling his left shoulder and flexing his arms and chest muscles, Brance had to calm himself down and ignore the inevitable high that came along with Rapid Stat Growth.

After exhaling shakily, Brance glanced over to his skill list as he searched through the list of newly-acquired skills, looking for something that would improve his power further, when he found two of the Paladin Skills he had acquired after capping the level.

-Tier-2.5 Paladin Class Skill [Close Quarter Combat]

-Category: Passive Skill.-

-On the battlefield, you have honed your blade to its extremes through perseverance and experience. As such, in close quarters combat, you are unmatched among your peers.-

-Crit Rate: +15%.-

-Ignore Defence: +10%.-

-Blocking: +15% (Reduces the damage to yourself and your weapon’s durability when blocking attacks).-

-Counter Damage: +20%.-

-Tier-3 Paladin Class Skill [Light’s Force]

-Category: Active Buff Skill.-

-Paladins are the strongest of all Warriors due to their ability to manipulate Light Mana. Light Mana is unlike any other, as its strength lies in its ability to create. By infusing your body with a sudden surge of Light Mana, the user can temporarily boost their Affinity and Class Skills by a small margin.-

-Temporarily increases all Offensive Skills by 0.5 Tiers for three minutes.-

-Consequence: All Skills will be debuffed by 1 Tier for 30 minutes once the skill effect wears off.-

-Cost: 3500 MP, 1500 STAM.-

-Cooldown: 1 hour.-

Without hesitation, Brance pumped all his remaining 190 skill points into [Close Quarters Combat], raising it to Tier-3 and increasing the boosts to 25%, 20%, 25%, and 30%. Since it was a passive skill that only applied to “in the pocket fighting,” something Brance was best at, he knew this skill would be the key to his victory.

‘Tobs, play that song from Doom Eternal.’ Leaning forward and gripping his Katana off the right side of his body, with the tip of the blade nearly touching the ground, Brance steadied his heart as his eyes trained in on Michael, who was still looking around dumbly.

-Now Playing “The Only Thing They Fear Is You” by Mick Gordon.-

Brance’s confidence rose drastically when the track kicked in, and a cocky smirk crept onto his lips. Slowing his breathing down and feeling the song’s beat in his mind, he waited for the second decreshendo, which led to a powerful guitar riff, and once the riff began, he kicked off the ground and surged forward.

Steadying his gaze as he moved, Brance observed Michael’s HP bar, which was overfilled, even though he had lost approximately 112k of his overall maximum. In a sense, all this meant was if he wished to regenerate, it would stop at 138k instead of its initial 250k, so the additional 47,294 HP was simply leftovers.

The first step was wiping out the overflow of HP and moving on to damaging the Archangel, or at least that was what Brance thought as he quickly closed the distance between them.

Standing in place and gawking at how low his stats had fallen, Michael was so focused that he didn’t even realize Brance was on the move.

: Strength-  4000 (2600):  (TEMP -1400)

: Dexterity- 1996 (1298):  (TEMP -698)

: Agility- 3264 (2122):  (TEMP -1142)

: Intelligence- 2555 (1661):  (TEMP -894)

: Vitality-  4000 (2600):  (TEMP -1400)

: Mind-  1855 (1206):  (TEMP -649)

: Grace- 2984 – 3.1g :

Dumbfounded by how heavily his stats had recessed, Michael felt a pang in his heart, as the stats he was so proud of had nearly fallen to the point of putting him at the Peak Stage of Tier-3, or the Early Stage of Tier-4. The lowered stats were unfathomable for him, who was a Tier-8 Existence in his prime.

Gritting his teeth, Michael punched out with his left fist, shattering the Stats Window, only to find Brance was right in his face, with his sword arching downward so fast that it caused him to panic momentarily.

CLANGGGGG

Having barely enough time to raise his sword to block the incoming attack, Michael skittered backward several steps as Brance was hot on his heels, dishing out the precise strikes of his modified Hiten Mitsurugi Style.

“YOU DARE?” Despite roaring, the Archangel pushed off with his back leg and met Brance’s attacks with some of his own. Still, Brance was able to precisely time his parries, pulling Michael into an on-the-move dogfight and forcing them into a series of rounds in which neither could gain an edge.

Although Michael may have thought Brance was keeping up well, in reality, it was all Brance could do to block every attack and counter with his sword strikes.

In fact, if it weren’t for the fact that he currently had [Mana Sight] active, Brance wouldn’t even be able to see Michael’s movements. This was due to the disparity between their stats.

Even with the second floors buff/debuff active, Michael still outclassed Brance’s AGI stat by more than double. If Brance couldn’t see the flow of Mana, which left a bright golden after image, there was no way he would be able to estimate the line the Archangels sword was following.

However, the fight hadn’t yet become nearly as one-sided as Brance feared, as with each concussive and explosive round of strikes passed, he was able to get a handle on just how high Michael’s stats were.

Ducking under a horizontal slash from the flaming Greatsword, Brance spun on his right knee and kicked out full force into Michael’s calf, taking the leg out from under the Archangel and causing him to lose his footing.

As this happened, Michael, whose body was now mid-fall as his lead leg was taken out, extended out his middle right wing and used it like an extra arm to catch himself while pulling all three of his left wings back before stabbing them forward at Brance like lances.

Without hesitation, the instant Brance noticed Michael’s shoulder muscles tense up, his left hand went to his sheath, and he used it like a lever alongside kicking off the ground to dive out of the way from the tri-pronged wing attack, narrowly avoiding it.

Unfortunately, though, he used too much force and ended up losing control of his roll after throwing his body half a dozen meters backward.

This was precisely the opening Michael needed, and with a flick of his wing, and a flap of the others, he dove forward, floating a meter above Brance’s tumbling body, and caught him by the collar of his Mana Construct armor.

“HAHA! IT SEEMS I WASN’T THE ONLY ONE AFFECTED BY THIS STRANGE EFFECT! YOU AREN’T USED TO YOUR INCREASED STRENGTH. PITTY, THIS ENDS HERE, MORTAL!” As he took the battle to the air, there was arrogant pride in Michael’s eyes, and the hunted had become the hunter once again.

Blinded by arrogance, Michael didn’t hear as Brance calmly muttered a skill name.

BOOOM

The Archangel slammed the helpless Brance directly into the second floor’s ceiling a quarter of a second later.

“HAHAHA, THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU, A FILTHY HYBRID MORTAL, TRY TO STAND AGAINST A GENERAL WITH THOUSANDS OF YEARS OF COMBAT EXPERIENCE!”

BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM BOOM BOOM

Michael repeatedly slammed Brance like a dog toy into the ceiling before moving on toward the ground, spiking the lifeless body downward, forming a crater, and finishing off by jumping back into the air and unleashing a flurry of Mana attacks into the ground where the collapsed Brance lay silently.

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