The beam of energy struck the side of the hull and blasted right through it. Ronan used dispel, losing another big chunk of mana, but the damage had already been done. When the next wave crashed into the hull, he felt the ship tilt downwards.
I needed a little more time to figure the spell out, but I guess that was hoping for too much. Let’s see if I can figure it out while fighting this bastard off. With that, Ronan leapt off the ship and conjured a sword, hoping to distract the boss from damaging the ship further as he continued his experiment.
Ronan was both relieved and worried when the Orkrakstacean turned its focus from the ship to him as he leapt off the deck. If he ended up needing the ship for another hypothetical stage it would be great if it wasn’t destroyed by the boss monster, but at the same time he wasn’t sure he could figure out his new spell while also evading its attacks.
Not because he had no way to defend against them or even just avoid them, but rather because using dispel or any other skill or spell that required his mana would interrupt the cycle that he was using to experiment. Every time that happened he would lose some of his mana and be forced to start his experiments all over again.
That very scenario unfolded as the monster let another beam of white-hot energy rip, its four claws guiding the now-larger-than-before spell to carve through the ocean and the various sea beast corpses floating in the ocean in pursuit of Ronan. He cursed and sped up, caught in the middle of trying to figure out how he would propel his spell towards the boss and unable to counter the energy by any means other than running.
He leapt from corpse to corpse. At one point he landed on the bloated body of a dead fish monster and the scales beneath his foot burst, causing him to trip and fall into a cavity inside its flesh. Right before Karadaxos’ spell struck him, he let his experiment fall to pieces and immediately cast dispel.
The energy vanished, but the boss was barely fazed. It wasn’t the first time Ronan had cancelled its attacks in that manner and it was clearly adapting. He didn’t like that. The longer the battle went on, the stronger the boss would grow and the more it would learn about his capabilities. Of course he still had plenty of cards hidden up his sleeves but he would prefer to simply work on his sorcery in peace at that moment.
Unfortunately that wouldn’t happen. It opened its jaws and roared, spraying a strange liquid into the cloudy sky. Then it started to move towards him, its long crab-like legs moving faster than he would have thought possible for a creature of that size. He suspected he was faster, but maintaining his top speed required his full concentration, especially when he was stranded at sea with only dead monster bodies to use as footholds.
With the sight of the monstrous marine abomination bearing down on him occupying his mind and vision, Ronan had a sudden idea. A terribly reckless, yet equally ingenious way to bring the boss down. He might end up killing himself in the process, but it would surely be worth it given the rewards.
He began to form the beginnings of his new spell once more. A focused gathering of mana with a single purpose: to unleash untold destructive power in a narrow cone when it was triggered. Ronan had been trying to figure out a way to propel it, given that it reached the limits of his mana control and he couldn’t add more with the purpose of directing the spell, but he had realised a far better way to deliver his payload. A method that suited him far more than launching it from afar.
The boss was tearing through the ocean on a beeline towards him. It had a vengeful look in its eyes and the first of its tentacles was already spearing through the air on a direct collision course with him. Rather than run away or evade the tentacles, Ronan did something that the boss would never have expected. He started to sprint directly towards it.
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The abomination adapted fast. The tentacles that were already moving curved harshly downwards to intercept him, while it started to build another spell with its four claws. All of a sudden the world flashed white. Ronan barely stumbled, but his focus was drawn to the sky, where a huge stormcloud had gathered, crackling with lightning. The feeling he got from the cloud was that it was packed full of mana, with more constantly being drawn into it. Fuck, whatever it spat into the sky earlier must have caused this. Damn boss has too many moves.
The tentacles he could handle. He had a sword in his right hand that he’d conjured previously and as long as he didn’t use too much mana he was able to deflect the descending strikes that barraged him from every angle except behind, though the closer he drew to the boss the more often it did manage to wrap around and almost catch him off guard. The real problem was the storm overhead.
Ever since the first bolt of magically-empowered lighting had struck one of the floating corpses, the rate at which it fired off fresh strikes had increased, as well as the quantity of bolts that it launched. Most were inaccurate and hit corpses or the ocean, with one even striking the hull of the ship, which was thankfully unharmed. Ronan grew worried as he noticed that the more bolts were discharged, the closer they seemed to be to striking his position.
Unfortunately he wasn’t able to attempt to dispel the storm cloud. That would certainly use more mana than he was comfortable with. Going over his limit would cause the spell he had painstakingly constructed and was currently holding in his left hand to destabilise and explode in his face. Given that it was the most concentrated and powerful spell he’d developed to date, he had no desire to experience the backlash. His previous experiments had simply been about testing the mechanics of the spell and he had refrained from packing as much mana as he possibly could into them just in case they blew up in his face. A decision he was grateful for as many of them had done just that.
However, he had one more trump card to use if the lightning struck him before he reached the boss. Ronan leapt between two floating bodies, idly wondering if he might be able to use sorcery to move better than he currently was. One type of skill he lacked was movement skills. He could try doing the Path of the Gladiator again to request it from one of the sponsors, but if he could figure something out with his own ability first that would be preferable. Another bolt of lightning struck a corpse that floated right next to the one he had jumped onto. His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t falter.
That was exactly when Karadaxos decided to unleash its next spell. This time it was not a beam of energy but a storm of what looked like tiny needles which sprayed towards Ronan. Dozens of the needles embedded themselves in the corpse he stood on right before he jumped off, with dozens more splashing harmlessly into the sea. He was confused about the boss’ decision to use such a seemingly weak spell until the next lightning bolt tore through the air from the storm above.
Rather than striking a corpse or the ocean, it actually seemed to pause about two-thirds of the way down and then suddenly split into a hundred separate bolts that struck out at random. At least, he thought it was random until he realised that every single tiny bolt that had split off from the larger lightning bolt had hit one of the needles that the boss had just spat. He saw a few of them shining, reflecting the bolt on their surface. How is that fair!? The boss can make mini lightning rods and just blast them everywhere? What the fuck? Unfortunately he only had so much time to curse before another wave of needles sprayed from the focus between its four claws.
He jumped to another corpse, avoiding most of the needles. He felt a pinprick in his forearm right as he landed. Looking down, he saw a tiny metallic glint in his arm. Shit! He reached to grab the needle, yanking it from his flesh. He moved to toss it away but before he could another bolt of lighting tore through the air, part of it splitting off and coursing through the needle clutched between his thumb and forefinger.
It took every ounce of concentration and willpower he possessed to not let the spell in his left hand burst at the seams. However, he was forced to let the sword held in his right hand dissipate as the lightning mana had somehow infected it, causing a severe backlash from his Sorceric Bastion of Purity sub-class.
There was no time to wonder how the storm had bypassed its supposed immunity to foreign mana infections, because more tentacles were about to hit him and he still had about a hundred metres to go before he reached the boss, which had stopped charging at him the moment it saw that he had no qualms about facing it head-on.
