I run towards the shub-niggurath, glaring at it as it gets to its feet.
“OO, OOOO…”
In front of it, a wall of earth rises. That must be the [Clay Wall] skill.
…As I thought, it really is intelligent. Even though it has an absolute defence, it isn’t conceited, and is deploying a countermeasure for my [Dimension Claw]. It mustn’t have wanted to get hit and lose more of its scapegoats for nothing.
Seeing as it didn’t immediately run back towards the goats, it’s probably still within range of [Substitute]… It would have been great if I could deal [Subsitute] with it by punching it out of range, but I guess it’s not so easy.
As I run towards the shub-niggurath, I activate [Dragon Mirror] to take on a bipedal form, and use [Ideal Weapon] to create a weapon. My aim is a sword that I can use with [Flash That Drives Away the Darkness] to bypass [Substitute].
【Normal Skill [Flash That Drives Away the Darkness]】
【The sword is coated in holy light to cut the enemy.】
【Before this flash, all deception is meaningless.】
【All forms of damage reduction or nullification from resistance skills, characteristic skills, normal skills, or special states are ignored to deal massive damage to the target.】
…If I use this skill, I might be able to ignore [Substitute] and deal damage to the shub-niggurath directly. However I’m still not used to using a sword in battle. I should be faster than it, but it’s still reasonably quick, and has a high intelligence, so it’ll no doubt do use some tricks to avoid me.
It doesn’t have many skills besides the ones related to the black young. The only ones I need to worry about are the [Plague Breath] smokescreen, the medium-range [Tentacle Whip], and most of all [Bite], which makes it difficult to escape from once it has a hold on me. It’ll no doubt also use it at some point, but [Clay Sphere] isn’t very threatening.
The light of [Ideal Weapon] begins to harden into an object. My magical strength has increased significantly from when I first used it, and [Ideal Weapon] itself has increased in level.
I should hopefully be able to produce a more powerful weapon than last time. I’ll pour a lot of MP into it. I probably won’t run out in this battle after all, and it would be great if I could get just an even slightly higher grade weapon.
…What I want is… Right. The size doesn’t matter too much, but I want something easy to handle.
The light moves between both my hands…. What? I know I wanted it to be easy to use, but… That big?
No, that’s wrong. The light splits into two, and forms into a pair of beautiful long swords. The sword in my left hand has a shining blue blade, and is engraved with red magical runes. The sword in my right hand has a shining deep crimson blade, and is engraved with blue magical runes. Twin swords…?
【[Ouroboros Blades]: Value A】
【[Attack: +100]】
【A pair of giant swords that are said to endure until the end of the world.】
【Made from the bones of a double-headed dragon that is the symbol of eternity and taboo.】
【Any monster cut by the blue blade will have a portion of its life force stolen away and transferred to the wielder.】
【Each time the red blade is swung, some life force is taken from the wielder, but in exchange the attack power is greatly enhanced.】
…Another dangerous sounding description… It’s safe for me to swing the red one, right…? Still, Ouroboros Blades, huh. It’s almost like it’s tracing out my evolutions.
As I almost reach the shub-niggurath, I pour mana into both swords. To use [Flash That Drives Away the Darkness] I must first gather holy light into the sword. I’m not quite sure how it works, but like all my other skills, as long as I think about using it, the skill should activate.
The runes engraved into the blade shine with light, and then the entire blades shines dazzlingly… However, it also feels like the swords have suddenly gotten heavier. My body tilts forwards, and I lean backwards to correct. C-can I really swing these?
Perhaps seeing my stumble as an opening, the shub-niggurath covers itself with [Plague Breath], before shooting out [Tentacle Whips] from within the miasma. By hiding the initial motion of the tentacles, it makes it harder for me to predict how they’ll strike. I swing both swords to my sides, as hard as I can. The shub-niggurath’s tentacles slice off, and scatter as chunks of meat.
I-it hit! It worked as I hoped. The black young can’t use [Substitute] against [Flash That Drives Away the Darkness].
The shub-niggurath leaps backwards out of the miasma. It’s probably feeling shocked by the sudden turn of events.
I kick off the ground to close the distance, pouring power back into the red sword. Another batch of tentacles flick out of the shub-niggurath towards me.
[Flash That Drives Away the Darkness] takes time to activate, so at this distance it’s too slow to respond. But, I haven’t put any mana into the blue sword. I can swing it faster than the tentacles.
I sweep the tentacles aside with the blue blade. I can’t destroy them, so I prioritise guarding myself over doing damage. Then, as it shines with holy light, I stab the red sword forwards.
The tip pierces into the shub-niggurath’s flesh. But, before I can push it in further, it leaps backwards to escape. A chunk of its meat flies through the air.
With the distance opened between us again, the fleshy lump and I glare at each other. I was able to graze it, but it didn’t seem to have done significant damage.
Still, it wasn’t pointless. The situation has changed now. The shub-niggurath has lost the advantage of being able to attack unilaterally. While I’m preparing a [Flash That Drives Away the Darkness], I can’t throw away my defence like I’m used to and bulldoze forwards. But the next time it gets a hold of me in its teeth, rather than using [Dragon Mirror] to flee, I can simply use [Flash That Drives Away the Darkness] to cut it in two.
As time passes, Aro and the others should cut down more of its black young. Now that it can’t force its way into using [Bite] on me, it’s gotten a whole lot harder for it to quickly reduce my HP. This isn’t a stalemate for me. Once all the young are dead and its loses the protection of [Substitute], I should be able to bring its HP down in a matter of seconds.
I run towards the shub-niggurath, glaring at it as it gets to its feet.
“OO, OOOO…”
In front of it, a wall of earth rises. That must be the [Clay Wall] skill.
…As I thought, it really is intelligent. Even though it has an absolute defence, it isn’t conceited, and is deploying a countermeasure for my [Dimension Claw]. It mustn’t have wanted to get hit and lose more of its scapegoats for nothing.
Seeing as it didn’t immediately run back towards the goats, it’s probably still within range of [Substitute]… It would have been great if I could deal [Subsitute] with it by punching it out of range, but I guess it’s not so easy.
As I run towards the shub-niggurath, I activate [Dragon Mirror] to take on a bipedal form, and use [Ideal Weapon] to create a weapon. My aim is a sword that I can use with [Flash That Drives Away the Darkness] to bypass [Substitute].
【Normal Skill [Flash That Drives Away the Darkness]】
【The sword is coated in holy light to cut the enemy.】
【Before this flash, all deception is meaningless.】
【All forms of damage reduction or nullification from resistance skills, characteristic skills, normal skills, or special states are ignored to deal massive damage to the target.】
…If I use this skill, I might be able to ignore [Substitute] and deal damage to the shub-niggurath directly. However I’m still not used to using a sword in battle. I should be faster than it, but it’s still reasonably quick, and has a high intelligence, so it’ll no doubt do use some tricks to avoid me.
It doesn’t have many skills besides the ones related to the black young. The only ones I need to worry about are the [Plague Breath] smokescreen, the medium-range [Tentacle Whip], and most of all [Bite], which makes it difficult to escape from once it has a hold on me. It’ll no doubt also use it at some point, but [Clay Sphere] isn’t very threatening.
The light of [Ideal Weapon] begins to harden into an object. My magical strength has increased significantly from when I first used it, and [Ideal Weapon] itself has increased in level.
I should hopefully be able to produce a more powerful weapon than last time. I’ll pour a lot of MP into it. I probably won’t run out in this battle after all, and it would be great if I could get just an even slightly higher grade weapon.
…What I want is… Right. The size doesn’t matter too much, but I want something easy to handle.
The light moves between both my hands…. What? I know I wanted it to be easy to use, but… That big?
No, that’s wrong. The light splits into two, and forms into a pair of beautiful long swords. The sword in my left hand has a shining blue blade, and is engraved with red magical runes. The sword in my right hand has a shining deep crimson blade, and is engraved with blue magical runes. Twin swords…?
【[Ouroboros Blades]: Value A】
【[Attack: +100]】
【A pair of giant swords that are said to endure until the end of the world.】
【Made from the bones of a double-headed dragon that is the symbol of eternity and taboo.】
【Any monster cut by the blue blade will have a portion of its life force stolen away and transferred to the wielder.】
【Each time the red blade is swung, some life force is taken from the wielder, but in exchange the attack power is greatly enhanced.】
…Another dangerous sounding description… It’s safe for me to swing the red one, right…? Still, Ouroboros Blades, huh. It’s almost like it’s tracing out my evolutions.
As I almost reach the shub-niggurath, I pour mana into both swords. To use [Flash That Drives Away the Darkness] I must first gather holy light into the sword. I’m not quite sure how it works, but like all my other skills, as long as I think about using it, the skill should activate.
The runes engraved into the blade shine with light, and then the entire blades shines dazzlingly… However, it also feels like the swords have suddenly gotten heavier. My body tilts forwards, and I lean backwards to correct. C-can I really swing these?
Perhaps seeing my stumble as an opening, the shub-niggurath covers itself with [Plague Breath], before shooting out [Tentacle Whips] from within the miasma. By hiding the initial motion of the tentacles, it makes it harder for me to predict how they’ll strike. I swing both swords to my sides, as hard as I can. The shub-niggurath’s tentacles slice off, and scatter as chunks of meat.
I-it hit! It worked as I hoped. The black young can’t use [Substitute] against [Flash That Drives Away the Darkness].
The shub-niggurath leaps backwards out of the miasma. It’s probably feeling shocked by the sudden turn of events.
I kick off the ground to close the distance, pouring power back into the red sword. Another batch of tentacles flick out of the shub-niggurath towards me.
[Flash That Drives Away the Darkness] takes time to activate, so at this distance it’s too slow to respond. But, I haven’t put any mana into the blue sword. I can swing it faster than the tentacles.
I sweep the tentacles aside with the blue blade. I can’t destroy them, so I prioritise guarding myself over doing damage. Then, as it shines with holy light, I stab the red sword forwards.
The tip pierces into the shub-niggurath’s flesh. But, before I can push it in further, it leaps backwards to escape. A chunk of its meat flies through the air.
With the distance opened between us again, the fleshy lump and I glare at each other. I was able to graze it, but it didn’t seem to have done significant damage.
Still, it wasn’t pointless. The situation has changed now. The shub-niggurath has lost the advantage of being able to attack unilaterally. While I’m preparing a [Flash That Drives Away the Darkness], I can’t throw away my defence like I’m used to and bulldoze forwards. But the next time it gets a hold of me in its teeth, rather than using [Dragon Mirror] to flee, I can simply use [Flash That Drives Away the Darkness] to cut it in two.
As time passes, Aro and the others should cut down more of its black young. Now that it can’t force its way into using [Bite] on me, it’s gotten a whole lot harder for it to quickly reduce my HP. This isn’t a stalemate for me. Once all the young are dead and its loses the protection of [Substitute], I should be able to bring its HP down in a matter of seconds.
