Chapter 82: Practice Results
She would stab and slash at him and although it was an incredible speed he could still identify what would happen.
The problem with fighting the boss in this way was that he had to fully dedicate himself to countering her own strikes, although he could block her attacks they were not perfect counters as often as he would have wished.
His wings were getting injured and he had to block by hand more often than not, because of this he had cuts across his arms and hands that made the pain distract him.
He would push through the pain and focus on tearing her shield apart to actually allow his allies to do more to her, they had taken up his defense from the summoned undead... they would have been a problem solo.
Ezekiel did not know how to find the weak points of these mana constructs like Hope could but he saw that the more he damaged her blade or her aura the more Hope could take over the mana there.
He began to use his wings to attack as well and overwhelm the boss with extra strikes, the joints at the top of his wings were shrouded by sharp void mana and he effectively used them as blades while his clawed hands shredded her aura covered body.
This was the exhilaration he had wanted!
When he stabbed the boss he was able to launch needles from his frenzy wing spe into the boss which broke the aura down even further.
Keeping all of this sustained was beginning to have a harmful effect on his mana though and he was at the halfway mark, her aura was in tatters though.
The true problem was that he was being harmed by the mana burn effect now and it was doing strange things he hadnt encountered before.
He saw that his damage was increasing by small increments each second and the amount of mana consumed increased.
His void mana skill was even speeding up while his body burned with the shadowfire of his elemental power.
He roared in pain and fury like some savage beast as he fought her even harder through this.
He did not care about what happened to him in this dungeon as the only thing that mattered was the goal of getting through the battle and learning as much as they could.
When the aura finally shattered his mana was at less than a third of its capacity and he was forced to sustain his hp through constant use of life mana.
He could hardly keep moving but he still attacked her like it did not matter.
His frenzy bombs were now causing her significant harm and the needles of his wings were being stabbed into various parts of her body while his claws and mana coated wings slashed her bones. .net
In his pain and his fury he was taking worse and worse hits from the boss but he did not care.
He would push himself beyond what he had been able to do as he had found a detail he truly enjoyed even with how painful it was to break past his limit.
Even when she cut one of his wings off he did not stop attacking.
When an arm was slashed away he started to attack in other ways.
His chest stabbed completely through was ignored and with his other wing slashed in half it made him scream in pain but he attacked like a feral beast.
He only took a moment to reconcile with how reckless he was being when she cut off his head and for the smallest of moments he saw her health bar.
With everything he had done it was only 20% oh her hp gone.
~
Layla had to admit that the way Ezekiel fought was simultaneously terrifying and awe inspiring as he tore into the boss.
She was incredibly powerful at this difficulty and although the skeletons were not the worst part she could tell that diana would never be taken down by a party that could not match her level.
Her attacks were made to intentionally draw the focus of the other skeletons while Shade took them out.
Hope was doing her best to protect them with her mana wards and her healing.
Thanatos was tearing through the undead with slashes of mana while attacking the boss to help them through the threat.
This battle was going so well with Ezekiel keeping the boss off of them but now that he had died they would have to split their focus further.
This wasn\'t something they were incapable of but the lack of the boss breathing down their necks was amazing for clearing out enemies.
Hope had apparently learned a similar skill to the boss, or a spell.
The aura she made was not as powerful but she could cover everyone in a thin aura of life mana.
Ezekiel had probably not even noticed it in his state of chaotic battle but he was protected by all of them to prevent the boss from landing any easy blows.
With the boss able to focus on them the group had to alternate aggro between them.
They did not last much longer but by the time they were completely wiped out they had taken out at least 24% of her hp.
~
When the group exited the dungeon Ezekiel was waiting and be looked upset.
He saw them all approach and stood up.
"I think we need to start practicing with Thanatos as a team to learn everyone\'s strengths and weaknesses with this new ally, I also lost it in there and got myself killed so I have to figure out what that was..."
The group seemed to agree but Shade stepped forward.
"Listen, if you can pull that off again but actually keep control so you don\'t get killed we could probably beat this dungeon."
Layla nodded and stepped up.
"We need to hit lv200 so we can actually do damage that can match hers, my shadow resistance is only at 38% but its still a huge amount to take."
Ezekiel nodded and began to think about how he could make sure he didn\'t lose control again and it would start with learning hand to hand combat.
Right now his best method of fighting was to overwhelm his target with damage while using aoe to keep enemies at bay.
But his team could keep the summoned undead at bay for him meaning he could divert all his damage onto the boss.
By abusing the boss with as much magical damage as possible he could make sure her aura fell and the boss did not actually get to harm the team.
He imagined techniques to make his attacks as effective as possible while adding in spell effects in ways that would help him.
With only two spells that could actually do anything to Diana he was limited on options but he had his mana control and maybe he could try something new...
With his spells he always knew that there were two more steps to spell mastery, he had only ever learned how to cast spells silently but there were two more and one of them was potentially already something he had guessed.
He began to cast his frenzy wing spell and in the process he actually directed the mana much more carefully than he normally would.
He followed the mana path in the same wag as his mana veins which resulted in zero loss of mana to the outside world.
~~~~~~~~~~
Spell Mastery [Corrosive Frenzy Wing] tier 2 achieved.
50% increase in mana supply to the spell.
~~~~~~~~~~
Such an effect actually made him extremely excited.
By adding more mana to naturally improve his spells he was able to take advantage of greater effects, this would also show what his spells are actually capable of as this mana was actually what was used in creation and he would lose 50% of the mana to it exiting his body.
"Hey guys! I just figured something out!"
As they were walking to the forest he ensured the knowledge was well absorbed.
His teaching skills and the tutor title were able to help them understand him faster but since only Thanatos had mana veins the rest had to learn to direct the flow of mana through their own skills.
Their next step was reaching the demoness NPC to learn more and alternate between gaining expeience.
~
\'I can\'t believe he learned the second tier of spell mastery so quickly, is this what made him such a strong mage in the future?\'