Chapter 518: 519. Combined Bonus

Two line strikes flew against each other. Neither was strong enough to cancel the other out, leaving them to cross through without affecting their destructiveness. Both walls of the cave chamber exploded. In one case, though, a yellow dragonlet exploded with them. Facing it, Dark pulled reality so as to avoid the strike towards him, causing everything with instances to shift slightly to a position they hadn’t chosen.

Dallion gritted his teeth. His ally was too frivolous with forced splitting. On the surface, it seemed that he had an advantage over the enemies. After all, four yellow dragonlets had been killed so far, without inflicting a single wound. However, that was a false impression. The dragon swarm remained largely unaffected, constantly increasing in size. Dallion, too, had made that mistake the first few times, believing that his initial successes were an indication of how well he was doing. All this was just the preparation phase. The real fight was yet to begin.

Forcing the nearby creatures to keep their distance with a series of strikes and arc slashes, Dallion then played another chord. The emotions he had to link two were a lot more complicated than before, constantly shifting. Even so, his music skills were high enough to allow him to achieve the desired effect. No sooner had he done so than he felt reality shifting.

Not this time, Dallion thought, pulling the desired reality into one of his own instances. When it happened, Dark was beyond surprised. As someone used to combat splitting unopposed to this point, he still couldn’t accept that there were others who could do to him what he constantly did to everyone else.

“Hey!” Dark shouted. “Why do that?”

“I told you not to reality split when you feel like it.”

“But I was about to kill one more!”

“That would leave only a few hundred left. This is supposed to be a coordinated fight. When I asked you to help me, I didn’t mean letting you face them until they get you.”

A loud snarl suggested that the green dragonlet didn’t share Dallion’s assessment of the situation. Thankfully, in his mind Dallion still remained his teacher, so no further combat splitting followed.

Good, Dallion thought. “Move close to the walls and get here,” Dallion said, while still playing on his harpsisword.

The order was only half obeyed. Dark glided towards Dallion, but did so right across the empty space, clipping an enemy wing or two as he did. As he neared, Gleam spun wildly, creating a cat’s cradle of strikes behind him, dissuading any pursuers.

“You don’t have to solo split!” Dallion shouted. “Just don’t pull everything without warning.”

The instruction was lost on Dark, a ball of bitterness forming within his head.

Was I that bad when you were trying to instruct me? Dallion asked.

Do you expect an honest answer, dear boy? The echo replied.

How the heck did you put up with me?

Linking close to a dozen dragonlets with his harpsisword, Dallion then infused the chords with weight and slowness right before doing a line attack. As expected, each of the affected dragons split into instances, attempting to escape. Alas, for them, they were unable. The line sliced through all of their instances, causing them to poof out of existence.

“Not terrible,” Dark muttered, his very being glowing in awe.

You’re really bad at hiding your emotions, Dallion thought.

“Focus on the ones near me,” Dallion said, starting a new series of chords. “You’ll protect us from the ones close by. I’ll deal with the rest. Gleam will help you out as needed.”

“I can take care of them on my own!” the dragonlet grumbled.

Red and green markers filled the air. Judging by their shape, all of them belonged to Dark. Seeing them reminded Dallion that, in addition to the standard benefits of fighting together, being in a party also allowed the members to see each other’s markers. Also, it provided opportunities for them to combine skills.

Concentrating, Dallion quickly tried to remember what skills he’d seen the Dragonlet use and how they could be combined with his own for maximum effect. Before he had a chance, though, the enemies pulled back, merging into one giant creature in the middle of the chamber.

“Here we go!” Dallion shouted as he changed the grip of his weapon. There was no longer any point in using music—whatever connections he had established snapped the moment the merging occurred.

A massive yellow dragon roared, then glared at Dallion and Dark. Yellow sparks flickered all over its massive wings.

“Crap!” Dallion shouted. “Look out!” he burst into fifty instances.

Giant wings flapped, releasing a storm of lightning bolts at the opposing wall. Like a dozen crossbows, they slammed into the stone, erasing dozens of instances in the process.

CRITICAL WOUND

DARK’s health has been decreased by 20%

STUNNED

For the next 10 seconds, Dark’s actions will be impaired.

Not pleased with the results, Dallion chose a better instance of events, pulling the dragonlet’s reality there. That caused some minor confusion in the mind of the creature, but at least it had avoided getting stunned.

“What you do that for?” Dark asked. “I could’ve taken the hit.”

“The damage, yes, not the stun. Ten seconds stunned is the same as being thrown out of the fight.”

Once the trial was over, Dallion was definitely going to dedicate some time to teach Dark some of the basics. The old dragon had been quite strict in his training, but clearly not too good at explaining. The dragonlet had clear gaps in his training, making him extremely well in some areas and terrible in others.

“Don’t use—” Dallion began.

Mid way, the dragonlet did a line attack aimed to slice the yellow dragon in two. To Dark’s joy, it did. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the attack that caused the monster to separate, but the creature itself. For the briefest of moments two dragons formed, letting the line attack pass between them, after which they merged together once more.

“—line attacks…” Dallion finished his sentence.

The whip blade darted towards the dragon’s head. Being indestructible, Gleam didn’t have anything to worry about; she could run interference and keep the monster focused on her and not on Dallion or Dark.

For good measure, Dallion also summoned his hammer and threw it at the dragon.

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“Change of tactics,” he shouted. “Follow the wall till you get to his other side. We’ll attack him from front and back.”

“Who’s front?” Dark asked, flapping his wings violently.

“Me. I’ll be the focus of his attention. You keep out of sight and look for openings to take advantage of.”

As if to mock him, the yellow dragon performed another attack; or rather, two simultaneous attacks. Lightning bolts darted towards both Dallion and Dark. Thankfully, this time, both managed to make use of their instances adequately, resulting in no damage.

New guard markers appeared close to Dark. In contrast, Dallion himself had started moving before such could emerge.

“Take advantage of your markers!” he shouted. “All you need is a few full sequences to slow him down enough for an attack.”

“Really?” Absolute astonishment rang in the dragonlet’s words.

Dallion froze. That question gave him a very bad feeling.

“Don’t you know anything about combat markers?”

“They help you pick the best defense?”

You got to be kidding! Dallion thought. Speechlessness wasn’t enough to describe what he felt right now. All this time, he had assumed that the dragonlet was aware of skill bonuses. In fact, he was certain that it had attempted to use multi attacks to deal damage when fighting Dallion back in the realm of its father. However, Dallion had never considered that it might not know anything about guard bonuses. The bonus was so obvious that he considered that anyone with guard skills would quickly figure it out. Then again, the dragonlets had always been encouraged to attack, not continually evade attacks.

“Matching a sequence of markers slows down the enemy!” Dallion shouted. “I’ll show you!”

He waited till his own guard markers appeared. When the next attack occurred, instead of using markers, Dallion danced through the sequence, with Lux’s help, resulting in a time freeze. Just to be on the safe side, he went on stacking up several more full sequences.

ESCAPE TRIGGERED

If you wish to escape combat, smash the window

“Don’t move!” Dallion shouted.

There was no reason for the rectangle to have appeared. He hadn’t completed enough sequences to trigger the escape, and yet here it was. His first thought was that it could be an illusion. Looking at the yellow dragon, though, showed that it wasn’t. The massive creature remained frozen midair completely motionless, waiting for Dallion to return time to normal.

“So, you get to end the fight?” the dragonlet asked a fair distance away. Looking at him, Dallion saw that there was another green rectangle there as well.

“What did you do?” Dallion asked.

“Nothing!” Dark quickly replied.

“Dark…”

“I tried to do what you did,” it said with a hint of guilt in its voice. “It wasn’t difficult, so I thought, why not?”

Now it was Dallion’s turn to be surprised. The dragonlet’s actions had just shown that actions could combine to build up the skill bonuses. Not only that, but the bonuses had an effect on the entire party. Had Dallion known that earlier, his guilt trials would have been a lot easier.

Nil, how long have you known about this? Dallion asked.

What do you expect me to say?

A hint would have been useful.

You told me yourself that you joined forces in a party to break through your second barrier. That was all the hints you needed. Since then, have you taken advantage of the fact?

Dallion clearly hadn’t.

Did you resort to using any skill bonus? Nil continued. Now and again, sure. When you’re in a pinch, you try everything to claw your way to victory, then forget it moments after.

I’ve been using guard and attack skills quite often!

Lies! You’ve only used attack skill bonuses regularly and even then, you’ve done so almost exclusively in the realms. That’s why you’ve hit a wall. Battles of this caliber weren’t meant to be passed through brute force of ingenuity alone. A lot of calculation goes into them as well. Just because you haven’t seen signs of that doesn’t mean your enemies haven’t resorted to it.

There was no denying it. Thinking back, during the attempts to pass this trial, Dallion had lost because his enemies had become tremendously fast, killing him off with a single blow. In reality, they probably had merely taken advantage of the guard skill bonuses, freezing time for him. Since it was done in a subtle fashion, he hadn’t even noticed.

And that’s far from all! It’s outright sad seeing you mock the dragonlet about not knowing how to use guard skill bonuses, while you’re no better.

I’ve used all the bonuses I know, Nil.

Did you bother learning what bonuses all skills provide?

Dallion had no answer.

If all you’ll focus on is guard, music, and attack, you would have been better off not learning any other skills. At least then, you’d have been able to use the benefits Veil’s echo displayed.

So, this was the purpose of the trial? Dallion shook his head. To learn how to use skill bonuses.

No, dear boy. The purpose of the trial is to determine whether you have the strength to move forward to more difficult challenges. Using skill bonuses was something you should have focused on months ago. The echo’s tone brought memories of the first few months after Dallion had received the ring. Back then, shouting and sarcasm accompanied every training session. You should never have reached this level. I mean, you should have come across that problem long ago and done something about it. However, your out of the box thinking surprised even me. That’s the problem of being too good: you’ve become so good at completing trials using alternative means that it never occurred to you there might be something missing along the way.

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