Having decided that it was time to finish things, Adriana focused solely on defense. Well, maybe that wasn't true; she wasn't solely focusing on defense, but was instead using the state of the battle to her advantage. With every beam that she blocked and every blade of water that she countered or returned, Adriana began to position Chuck and the mini-boss closer together. The two had already been rather close together, but in order for her attack to work, she wanted them to be as close together as possible. Thankfully, the two creatures didn't notice what she was up to, and as the seconds passed, they slowly began to approach one another, Adrianas' beams and oddly angled water blades, as well as her general positioning, guiding them until they were finally only a few feet apart. Of course, the moment they achieved the required distance, Adriana spoke the words.
“A Thousand Blades of Water.”
She said the words calmly, but ensured the two creatures heard them, even as she focused more on the image of the technique than on the words themselves. This particular technique could be used in a few ways; one was using it in a very literal manner, creating 1000 blades of water to launch at her enemies. When using the technique in this manner, she focused on a picture of 1,000 blades of water. However, for this particular encounter, she felt it was more prudent to use her technique in a different manner. What she was accomplishing was not something most individuals of her rank could achieve, mainly because they lacked the mana, the understanding of concepts, and general connection with water magic, among a few other things that her Innate Magic gave her.
Normally, it was best for the name of the technique, which was the words of power, whether used directly via the Language of Creation or simply empowered with will, concepts, and imagery to match what the actual words stood for. However, it was possible to use words with one meaning and have them manifest differently. Granted, such a thing was difficult for early rankers, as it contradicted the technique itself. In this case, Adriana, instead of using 1000 blades of water, was going to manifest the technique differently.
Hearing the name of the technique, the two monsters in front of her stopped their attacks and watched intently, expecting to see many blades of water start to form around her. However, instead of seeing blades of water, they fail to notice how the already turbulent water began to gain a semblance of order. Of course, Adriana couldn’t let them pay attention, since they would notice what was happening around them, so she quickly began her barrage of attacks. Granted, she was as careful as the technique required her concentration, thus preventing her from using her Shield or even her Body Enhancement Magic. At the very least, she was able to make barriers of water, but they were weak, as most of her mana was being sapped away and used for her technique.
The moment that Adriana had the attention of the two monsters once again, the trickle of mana she had been spending on her technique quickly turned into a small stream, which then turned into a raging river. Of course, by then the initial stage of her technique had been set up, and the currents that had been slowly forming around the two monsters quickly took a turn for the worse. In a matter of seconds, the streams of water turned into raging rivers as a whirlpool came alive around Chuck and his mini-boss. The two monsters were caught off guard by the sudden change, and they began to get buffeted about, forced to stop their relentless attacks as they focused on stabilizing themselves and the water around them.
Naturally, the moment that they stopped their attacks, Adriana was able to stop retaliating and focus much more on controlling her technique. She knew it would only be a matter of time before Chuck could get a hold of itself and stabilize itself to some extent. From there, she didn't doubt that it would be possible for the boss to break out of her technique, so it was of the utmost importance that she finished what she began. With another effort of will, Adriana caused the currents of water that were buffeting about the two monsters to begin getting sharper as she manifested them to act like sharp blades.
Dan watched as the whirlpool turned from harmless yet powerful currents of water into something akin to a blender. It was like the very water itself was the mouth of a monster that held hundreds of rotating circular saw blades. Blades that cut into his two monsters as they buffeted around the whirlpool, attempting to regain control of their movements. The only saving grace was that the blades did not cut too deep, which, in a way, could be considered torture in and of itself, as the water quickly turned red; his monsters dying via a thousand small cuts.
The moment Adriana saw blood begin to spill, she decided to bring her attack to its conclusion. With another tug of her will, the enclosed whirlpool she had created began to compress, which of course only caused more blood to spill as the two creatures received cut after cut. However, at that moment, and to Adriana's surprise, there was a burst of mana as Chuck decided to stop messing around. It had been less than a minute since her whirlpool began, and the beaver had been struggling to control its momentum. Chuck had spent the last few seconds or so trying to stabilize himself by swimming with and against the currents, but Adriana had made sure to make the whirlpool incredibly wild. That, along with the constant cuts, had made it impossible to escape, and having seen there was no hope, the beaver had obviously decided the only way out of its predicament was to get serious.
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Chuck stopped moving around as it gained control over the water around it. That said, it was spending a lot of mana to do so, but at the very least, it was no longer being thrown about or being cut. Instead, the beaver began unleashing attack after attack against the ever-enclosing water pool. These attacks didn't do much, and though a few destabilized a few of the points they struck, the numerous bladed currents tore the rest apart, and Adriana’s technique quickly repaired itself.
Finally, the end of the battle came when the mini-boss was shredded into pieces. The mini boss had been trying to stay alive for as long as possible, but it was much weaker than Chuck, and though it had been able to stabilize itself a few times, there was a limit to its mana pool. Then once it hit this limit, it was unable to stay afloat any longer, and the current took hold of it once more as it was shoved into the bladed maw, which easily turned it into unrecognizable chunks of meat. At the same time, Adriana did not fail to use this opportunity, and she called out to the still-standing lord.
“Chuck! You don’t have to die! Just surrender now, and no more of your kin will need to die such gruesome and unnecessary deaths!” Adrianas words were firm and showed little care, even though she did feel a little bad about killing the cute animals.
To its credit, Chuck did not reply right away, though the moment that it stopped attacking her creation, she knew that she had him. Or maybe she was wrong, as her technique kept shrinking and shrinking, and eventually it began to disrupt the boss’s field of control. Seeing this, she believed that the beaver would choose death over subservience, but the moment that a blade of water cut its skin, it clearly decided that servitude was better than death.
“Very well! I will go with you,” Chuck finally said, his last words sounding very much defeated.
Hearing the beaver's words, Adriana forced her technique to disperse. She hadn't wanted to kill the boss, as they needed him alive to increase the chance of completing the event. Thankfully, Chuck had seen reason and had decided to finally submit.
With the boss in tow, Adriana headed upwards and quickly met up with her two companions. Though both looked a bit worse for wear and the fight had definitely challenged them, it was not to the point where they had actually needed to go all out. However, it was at that sweet spot where they had actually needed to take the fight seriously, and just what they needed to continue advancing. More importantly, they now knew that the dungeon had some fights worth fighting, and if they got lucky, there would be a fight out there that truly made them go all out.
For the moment, however, they had used a good amount of their mana, and they had a boss to deliver back to town. Then once they had delivered Chuck, they would get some rest and finally go deal with a certain eel.
While the party was somewhat leisurely swimming out of the lake, the rest of the adventurers who still found themselves in the area received a shocking surprise. The moment that Chuck surrendered, all beavers received an update on their orders and quickly split. They no longer had a reason to work together in such large numbers and thought they would continue to fight adventurers. They would only do so if provoked or if they truly wanted to. That said, many adventurers continued to chase the beavers they had been fighting, while others chose to retreat or let their targets go entirely. Some even decided to head deeper into the lake, following the trail of destruction left by the overpowered trio. Naturally, this eventually led them to the spot where the trio had fought the lord, and considering the lord was no longer there, it was clear that they had either killed it or recruited it.
Of course, no one believed that the trio had done it alone, but once rumors about their rampage began to spread among the multiple adventurer groups that had seen them, the idea of three people taking on a boss didn’t seem far-fetched. That said, upon hearing the descriptions of the sheer power displayed by the three individuals, adventurers felt like maybe things were being put out of proportion. After all, it was possible for a highly trained adventuring group to defeat a lord, even with some minions helping it. However, three people, breaking through the stalemate between beavers and adventurers, then moving through and defeating dozens upon dozens of the monsters, and finally defeating the lord, was a bit much. If anything, it seemed like multiple groups were involved, and the trio had simply tipped the balance. In fact, that made more sense. With all the adventurer groups around, it was much more feasible that the trio had come at the right time to allow the adventurers to break through. Of course, the trio still had to be respected, as it seemed they managed to take a lord by themselves, something that was later confirmed as they were seen entering the town of Fraggle’s.
