It wasn't hard to deal with the incoming bolt of lightning, and Adriana used the same tactic as before to deflect it enough so that she could dodge it. Of course, the moment that she knew the bolt wouldn't harm her, she focused on the incoming boss. The eel had quickly reached top speed, and it would only be a matter of seconds before she was on top of Adriana. Adriana wasn't sure what the boss would do, and she ignored the incoming razor eels, choosing to instead harden the water between her and the boss. She didn't want to stop the boss; that would require too much power. Instead, she wanted to slow the eel down to the point she would have some chance at reacting to whatever attack the boss had planned. After all, the boss's speed had increased to a ridiculous amount, and though Adriana could go just as fast and even follow the attack, she would have to drop her shield, which she did not want to do, considering the many eels attempting to hurt her.
Additionally, if she did run off, there was a good chance that the boss would stop targeting her and instead go for one of her friends, which was unacceptable. Thankfully, her tactic worked to some extent, and the lightning imbued eel began to telegraph her plans. Her blade-like tail began to glow brighter, and lightning crackled around it, all the while elongating slightly. The moment Adriana saw that, she stopped trying to slow it down. Instead, Adriana began to pour mana into a barrier in front of her, making it seem as if she planned to take on the attack.
Jelty, seeing the overconfident mermaid looking to directly block her attack, got excited. The dumb mermaid had been slowing her down, but now, without that, she wouldn’t have enough time to set the barrier down properly. Arriving in front of the mermaid in a blur, Jelty whirled forward as she spun her body toward the mermaid, adding that extra force to her bladed tail.
Seeing the sparkling yellow tail of the eel coming straight towards her barrier, Adriana smiled. She could have completely blocked the lord's attack, but that would have been a waste of mana, so instead she decided to bait the creature into a sense of overconfidence. The lightning blade struck her barrier and began to break through it without too much resistance, but it was enough for Adriana to move out of the way of the attack. Not that she even needed to be in the path of it to begin with, considering it was a barrier, but the tactic was done so the eel would strike the strongest area of the barrier. That said, what happened next was not something Adriana had been expecting.
The lightning blade of the eel struck the barrier, broke through it, and right as it passed through the spot Adriana had been at, there was a discharge of power. Blinding light exuded from the eel's tail, causing Adriana to look away, her eyes closed as she was momentarily blinded. More importantly, with the discharge of light came a discharge of lightning as the water around the mermaid sizzled with power, her shield absorbing the brunt of the attack but draining plenty of mana from her.
Now, as annoying as the blinding effect was, Adriana was not really concerned, and she recovered in a matter of seconds. She wasn't even scared of a follow-up attack as she had plenty of normal mana to block at least two more of the boss’s direct attacks. The problem came when she looked around the sizzling water, which still sparkled with errant currents of electricity, and found that the boss was no longer there.
For Arctur and Alexion, the fight was quickly losing any entertainment value. There had been some struggle at first with the many eels, but with every eel they killed, the challenge of the fight was reduced greatly. Even after the boss decided to engage and began blasting Adriana with its attacks, the two of them were not very worried about anything. At the very least, they gained some entertainment when the lord decided to rush Adriana, but that was about it. They had dwindled the number of eels down to less than ten and were mostly messing around as they kept track of the lord's progress to the mermaid. Their hearts even skipped a beat when the lord's attack landed on the mermaid's barrier, and the bright flash of light made them lose sight of their friend. Of course, they knew she was fine as they could still feel their mental link, but it had still been a fun moment, especially with what the boss did next.
Jelty knew that her attack did not kill the mermaid; even so, she could not let the other two continue killing off her kin, since the moment all her eels died, she would be next. So, right after her tail discharged, her focus switched over to the white-haired elf, and she supercharged her body, turning herself into pure lightning and shooting herself over to him. A second later, she manifested in front of the elf, and in the same motion, she swung her tail, striking his blue shield while unleashing another flash of light. The attack struck, and she swept the elf downward using the momentum to strain herself, releasing a weak bolt of lightning at the green man. However, she didn't stop there, and the moment the lightning shot forward, she once again began supercharging her body, as she began turning to lightning once more.
Alexion was caught off guard by the boss's action, and due to its sheer speed, had been unable to react properly. That said, it was clear that the boss was underestimating them or, at the very least, attempting to keep them busy. Probably a bit of both, as he was able to recover from the blinding light in a matter of seconds. The attack had drained quite a lot of mana from him, and he only had enough normal mana to block another one, so he had flooded his body with pure and godly mana just in case. However, another attack did not come, and as he looked around for the boss, the last thing he saw was a mass of yellow lightning shoot towards Arctur.
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Having seen what happened to his friend, Arctur was now expecting the boss, and he managed to dodge the incoming lightning bolt with ease. In response to the incoming boss, Arctur created a multitude of barriers around him in order to block the attack. There wouldn't be enough to completely stop it, but it would be enough to delay its arrival.
Showing up in a flash of yellow, the eel appeared in front of Arctur, her tail mid swing as it began to crash through his barriers. However, now that the creature was stationary, Arctur could put the second phase of this plan into action. Roots began to sprout from his hands and shot forward at the incoming bladed tail. Then, before the lightning tail could hit his shield, the roots grasped onto it and halted its already weakening advance. Of course, the roots didn't stop there, and they began to crawl up the eel's body at least until it discharged its attack and currents of lightning shredded the plants and finished breaking the remaining barrier before zapping Arctur’s shield.
Jelty felt like she had stalled the green man enough and looked back to the mermaid, only to find the floating corpses of her kin around her. Then she looked over at the elf, finding even more of her remaining eels dead by his hand. At that moment, it was clear to Jelty that her rush of attacks had been for naught. However, even if all her kin died and she was the only one left, even if they cut her piece by piece, she would never surrender. Jelty knew that her time was almost over, but she would not go down easily. Swimming off back to her nest, Jelty floated in front of the wall as she watched the three adventurers finish off the rest of her eels. Then, once they were done and were together again, looking in her direction, she spoke.
“Fools! I will never surrender! Your power means nothing to me, so trust me when I say, you better kill me now, if you can, or those frogs of yours will feel my fury!”
As the boss spoke, the trio began to feel energy extend from it. At first, they were confused as to what it was, and then they realized the boss was manifesting its Presence. It was odd because they hadn’t really felt proper Presences from monsters. Sure, they could feel their energies, but a Presence was different, and now they could feel the hatred and bloodlust the boss held for them and the frogs. Of course, it meant as much to them as the creature's words since they had felt much worse things. Still, it made the decision of killing the creature final. Granted, they still waited to see what the boss would do.
Dan watched, amused at Jelty’s last words and proud she had unlocked her Presence. It was something he could have given his monsters, but had chosen not to for most of them. He would eventually do so on later floors, but in the beginning stages, he thought it was too much. That said, it was a nice and unexpected touch to the lord's final move.
Jelty did not wait to see what the trio would do; instead, she began to spin in circles, concentrating power on her blade as she did so. Naturally, the faster she spun, the more power was placed in her blade, causing the glow and crackle of yellow lightning to increase. Finally, as she reached her highest speed, she bit her own tail, completing the circuit, and her entire body lit up with energy.
The party was happy to watch the lord spin and concentrate her power. Of course, they did put up some defenses, but they were really just looking forward to a final flashy attack, not really thinking it would do much. Sadly, the attack was a disappointment, not because it lacked power, but because, instead of a powerful blade attack, the eel did something completely different.
Spinning in place, the lord bit her tail, causing the built-up power to spread through her body. A second later, this power was unleashed as bolts of lightning shot everywhere, tearing into the ground and causing the water to sizzle as they wildly danced about. The attack was impressive, and anyone or thing that was near or would attempt to get close would be killed, but the problem was that the eel was stuck in place, and all the party had to do was wait it out. However, they felt it would be a bad ending to the nice fight and instead would at least show some respect to the lord.
“Creeping Bramble Opression.”
“Aqua Jet Spears.”
A winding, dry brown bramble with incredibly sharp needles began to sprout from the wall behind the boss. The bramble bush quickly grew, and though at first it was torn apart by the lightning, as it widened, the two forces found themselves matched. Things got even harder for the lightning dome when spears of wind and water began to appear and shoot with great speed at the eel. The first few spears were struck by lightning, but when they were destroyed, they exploded in a burst of pressurized wind and water, disrupting the lightning. Finally, a few made it to the eel, though to the lord's credit, they were also destroyed before they could strike its body. However, the explosions' pressure was enough to disrupt its spin, and the brambles quickly advanced.
Now surrounding the lord completely, the brambles advanced even as the storm of lightning restarted. Even worse for the boss, the spears began to pierce its body, and though they were weakened by the lightning, it was still enough to damage its body. Then the fight came to a quick end as Adriana had had enough and, with a burst of mana, squished the weakened boss along with the large brush of brambles.
