Chapter 179: Chapter 170 – Clearing Floor 136

With my initial tests complete, I continued through the floor, balancing between magic and my new weapon, occasionally relying on something else for variety's sake.

As experience has taught me, flexibility was an important thing to keep in mind. The wider my skill set, the more options I have in battle. I never know what I might face in the future, and what sort of crazy thing might get pulled.

Making myself as flexible as possible increased the likelihood of my survival when brute force wouldn't work.

That said, raising my skill in my preferred ways of combat was also important, so that was more of a secondary thing I did. Always thinking of a different way to fight my enemy, and try it out once in a while.

How successful I was at it was a different matter, and one I couldn't judge by myself unfortunately, only try my best.

I continued on the floor, tearing apart groups with blades and lances of blood, rending armour with my scythe, and experimenting with my magic or claws when a good opportunity rears itself.

It really was unfortunate that my claws hasn't been keeping up with the enemies of late. No matter how I try it, they only leave scratch marks in the enemy's armour on this floor. Even on the previous floor, they weren't able to dig deep enough to do substantial damage against softer enemies.

There wasn't much point in wildly clawing at enemies when I couldn't take them down quickly that way.

I did find some success if my claws could get in the little gaps in these Evocatus' armour, but at that point pretty much any other of my main forms of attack was by far faster, safer, and easier to execute.

Not to mention that I had to get dangerously close to my enemies just to do it as well.

While I loathed to do it, being my claws was my favourite form of physical attacks, the results suggested I should abandon its use.

But for the meantime, until I decided to, I'd keep using it. Maybe it could come in use at some point?

As I was wondering about such things, I had arrived at the boss door.

The door itself was a grand thing made of stone. A large figure holding a sword planted in the ground in front of it while being flanked by countless knights similar to the ones I had fought this entire floor.

While the boss door always gave clues to what sort of boss I'd be facing off against, this was definitely the first time it felt so direct.

But being that I managed to get this far after six hours of progressing through the floor, I checked my things before pushing the heavy door open.

The stone door gave way with a bit of effort all the while giving off a low rumble of stone on stone.

The boss arena of this floor was circular, but wide. Probably about a hundred meters across. Far more than large enough for me and the sole occupant of this room to fight in. The floor and walls were made of stone slabs, the ceiling arcing into a dome, also made of the same material.

Despite this floor was made to resemble a ruined stone city or fortification, this place had the appearance of being well maintained. The large number of pillars along the walls and other details was more intricate than what I was used to. Though most floors were simply caves or wilderness, so there wasn't too much blatantly artificial regarding most other boss rooms.

Turning my attention back, there, in the middle of the wide arena stood an armoured figure. Its appearance was roughly that what was carved into the door.

A knight, similar to the countless shield-bearers I faced on this floor, aside from being almost twice the size.

I was already pretty short, but somehow this thing made me feel minuscule.

A weird urge to knock it down onto its knees welled up in me, but I quickly suppressed.

The full plate armour was quite ornate in comparison to the shield-bearer, as was its shield and sword. And unlike the other monster, this one's helmet incorporated a crown and it also had a billowing cape behind it.

There wasn't any wind in this place, so I was a little confused as to who would waste mana just to make their cape move as if there was wind. But the costs wasn't really that high and it could just be a cheap enchantment for appearance's sake.

The reason didn't matter to me anyways, though even I had to admit it looked a bit cool.

As I approached the boss with careful steps, the monstrosity rose up when it noticed my presence.

But rather than go into a fighting pose immediately, the boss lifted something other than its sword placed in the ground. The thing looked like some sort of animal horn.

The monster raised it while I watched, wary of what would come next. The boss lifted the object to its helm, then a moment later a loud roar resounded.

I only realized a bit too late what the thing was, and that ended up costing me more than expected.

All around me, banging sounds echoed around as hidden doors opened up between the stone pillars against the walls. From behind them a veritable horde of smaller monsters rushed out from them.

"What?!"

Their figures were similar to the lesser monsters that backed up the main central monsters all over this floor. But this time, like how the boss is much larger, these guys were smaller than the ones outside.

That said, while smaller and most likely weaker individually, their numbers far surpassed any which I had encountered at any one time on this floor.

In a hurry, I opened my dimensional pocked and pulled out a large clay pot, filled to the brim with blood. Rather than take my time and open the thing, I simply dropped the fragile container.

The scent of blood filled my nostrils, but without worrying about it, I gathered the dozens of litres of the crimson fluids and shot it in all directions as countless blades spinning wildly.

All around me, the sound of adamantium armour being rent and split echoed throughout the chamber.

But what rang even louder was the sound of heavy stomping. Without waiting for the backup to reach their target, the boss charged at me with a pace that belied its size.

I swung my scythe with my fully body right as it got within range. As expected, the boss pushed out its shield to intercept my weapon. But the long and narrow point of the blade along with the weight of its body along with my strength behind it allowed my scythe to penetrate the thick shield.

But as the weapon thickened, the penetration slowed, until it stopped where it sharply widened. It seemed like the boss's shield was much thicker than the shields used by the floor's shield-bearers.

"Shit!"

There was no indication of the boss stopping its charge, nor its stance breaking despite half my own length having dug right through the boss's shield.

With my attack stopped, the massive figure pulled back on his shield as it got within its own attack range.

But rather than resist the motion, I pulled on my haft, lifting me from my feet.

I landed on the shield, then bracing my feet against it, I pulled my weapon out and jumped off out of range as it turned to slash at me.

When it opened itself up for the attack, I saw what had happened. The monster's arm was just too long, and while there was a scratch on the monster's breastplate, it was far too shallow to be considered significant damage.

"Tch!"

It was going to take more work than I had hoped to beat this boss.

This time, instead of waiting for the boss to approach me, I took the initiative, swinging my weapon the moment I got in range.

Like last time, the enormous monster raised its shield to stop my blow, but before the two could connect, my scythe's blade disappeared, starting from the tip. The blade reappeared behind the monster where I bent space to redirect my attack.

But unexpectedly, perhaps the monster was able to read the flow of mana, as it reacted surprisingly quickly and leaned its body into the blow.

The cut, as a result, ended up shallow. Or rather, the blade simply scraped across the surface of the monster's armour as the angle wasn't steep enough to focus the force of my attack in a small enough point to properly dig in.

My scythe rotated in my grip as the blade tip wildly skidded across the monster's back before I took a quick leap away, drawing my weapon with me as the monster threw a quick thrust at me with its sword.

(This is annoying.)

Maintaining my distance, I reconsidered my options. And only while doing so, did I notice that the sound of tearing metal hadn't stopped since the beginning of the battle.

My eyes flickered away from the boss for a brief moment, only to get caught on the unexpected sight.

My blood blades were continuing to spin furiously along the walls as I had casted my [blood magic]. As I hadn't released the spell yet and continued to channel it in the back of my mind, they were still cutting up bits and pieces of metal fragments.

But the fragments were almost all fresh. The corpses of fallen monsters were being pushed away by fresh ones as they continued to spawn as fast as my magic was tearing their thin armour to shreds. It looked like these adds were the type to continuously spawn until the boss was defeated.

(Tch! This is bad.)

It was a good thing I didn't hold back and used a whole jar of blood for this. The blood was being consumed at a pretty quick rate as it was being converted into fresh mana to continue fuelling the spell.

I had hoped to have been able to cancel the spell, but it seemed like that wasn't an option. It would have been nice to be able to beat a new boss efficiently and quickly for once, but it looked like that wasn't destined to happen this day.

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All of the sudden, my eyes were attracted by movement much closer than the distant cannon fodder being torn to shreds.

"Tch!"

The boss leapt towards me, swinging down its sword.

I immediately kicked the ground, the stone tiles fracturing under the force as my body was thrown to the side.

Unfortunately, I had chosen my direction poorly as the boss didn't neglect to thrust its massive shield towards me as I fell into its blind spot.

"Kuh!"

I warped the space around me, furiously expanding the space between me and the enemy weapon while shrinking the space on my other side. While the emergency dodge did manage to allow me to avoid impacting the enemy shield, I was sent away from the boss far faster than expected with such an impromptu act.

My body slammed into the dome shaped ceiling, dust and stone particles fell all around me as the stonework cracked from the impact. I shook my head to clear it of the jarring collision.

Hopefully I didn't just give myself a concussion.

When I opened my eyes again, the image of the boss stopping on the ground, breaking up the floor tiles reached me.

As my body started getting taken in by the gravity's nearly inescapable allure, I rapidly used [spirit form], [materialize], and [alter silhouette] in rapid succession to grow wings from my back, denying my body from taking up the planet's mass as a boyfriend.

I continued to watch the boss as it leaned down to pick up the stone fragments it had just created, only to flap my wings in panic as it started to throw them at me.

(Ugh, geez, this guy!)

It wouldn't even give me a moment to rest.

Giving up on trying to make a bit of time for myself, I instead dove towards the boss, my scythe reared for a heavy strike.

As expected, it raised its shield to defend from my attack. But rather than try to break through the shield again, I stretched my arms a bit and hooked the blade onto the edge of the proffered shield and through my weight into my swing.

Unfortunately, my full strength wasn't enough to tear the shield out of the giant monster's grip, but it was enough to lift the boss up into the air a little, breaking its stance. Seeing that, I closed my wings and relaxed my brace, allowing myself to be flung through the follow up of my swing.

Zooming underneath the huge monstrosity's shield, I flicked open my hip flask. Returning my offhand to grip my weapon, I rotated and swung my scythe upwards. With a bit of luck, I managed to catch the monster in the elbow, right between the large plates where the defences were thinner.

But despite how nice the cut was, in a sense it was too nice.

The blade went right through the joint, almost like it was made of paper, meaning I couldn't use my weapon to control my enemies movements. It was only then that I realized my mistake, and I should have used a different part of my weapon.

Even then, the monster's lower arm was only connected by half of its incredibly thick elbow, making any act to manoeuvre its shield, or even lift it off the ground, a fruitless venture.

But that didn't stop it from trying to attack me with its sword, dragging its half useless arm without letting go of its shield.

I sidestepped the swing, and carefully watched the follow-ups. All the while, the small amount of blood in the flask flowed out as if it had a life on its own while I imbued it with mana. It swam through the air before splashing on the monster's right greave.

Wrapping around the boss's shin, the blood solidified while changing shape. Parts of it became a spiked vice to hold on, while the rest into a circle of blades, racking against the solid adamantium trying to cut through.

The boss ignored my little magic and concentrated on its true prize, while I felt frustrated at how slowly the blood was doing its work. It seemed like without the additional momentum to start up its attack, the magically imbued blood wasn't capable of doing much damage quickly.

That fact was made worse in that I was quickly running out of blood, being that the scarlet fluid of life was what fuelled my magic in the first place, and was being consumed as it tried to cut through the monster's armour. The same could be said for the blood that was keeping all the adds at bay.

The unwelcome attempts at lodging a long and hard shaft into me had grown annoying, so I swung my scythe, but in reverse. With the way the boss was moving, it was much easier to get it in its left arm, the spike scratching along the surface until one of the hooks caught a small gap in the plates.

When My hands registered the slight difference in feel, I stopped pushing and pulled. The point where the bladed hook caught on the armour jerked towards me, and the boss's next swing went completely wild.

A grin cracked on my lips, and I changed the magic I had been using on the boss.

Instead of continuing its fruitless efforts of cutting through the monster's leg armour, what little blood was left started to squirm along the boss's leg until it reached a gap in its thick plates. Then turning into a needle point, it plunged itself between the tiny gaps of the underlying chain mail, before changing again into a thick bristled spine as it wiggled up through the gaps in its internal structure.

The spines easily dug into the much softer material as the blood quickly made its way up, all the while I continued to alternate between pushing and pulling, keeping the boss completely off balance.

But it wasn't like the boss didn't try to resist. Pretty quickly once the blood was making its way up the monster's thigh, the thing swung its sword right down on its own leg!

Since it wasn't resisting against its own movements, its short sword easily got in between the large plates and severed its leg at the hip.

As surprised as I was at the act, I managed to push the spiny blood spike further up before it was split into two. Only a tenth of the original amount was able to pass the severed thigh, with the remaining amount unable to jump the junction before the boss flicked its blade, sending the severed leg too far away for the blood caught inside to be useful.

I redirected my focus on the little bit of blood that managed to stay with the main body. It quickly inched its way to the boss's chest while I continued to distract it, jerking my scythe this way and that, keeping it off balance. It didn't take long before the dozen millilitres or so of blood had reached the centre of the monster's chest.

Bracing the blood against the inside of the chest plate, I had the small globule compress its body, striking out a thin spine of solidified blood straight through whatever passed for the automaton's sternum.

Just as I ran of out material to extend the tiny crimson spike, the boss jerked its body, as if it was having trouble controlling it. Beyond the fact that I was doing my best to keep the giant off balance, that was.

Seeing my chance, I used up the last of the blood to expend the tip of the spike, inflating it while losing it of its length.

But unfortunately, that only lasted for a few moments, as the very act of trying to expand the tip of the blood needle consumed the last of its fuel.

"Tch!"

My brows creased as I started to work my mind on a new tactic when I noticed how sluggish and uncoordinated the boss's movements were.

A few seconds later, the entire thing crumbled to the ground as if its strings were cut.

The sounds of metal being torn apart by my spinning blood blades along the walls of the room also abated. When I checked for presences, I was able to confirm that there weren't any, so what little blood I had deployed was brought back.

As I had broken the container the blood was being carried in, I opted to simply drink what was left. It was my reward for a job well done.

There was a part of my brain that screamed about how dirty it was to eat something that basically touched all sorts of dirty things, but my [blood magic] only manipulated blood. There was a high chance that nothing else was picked up. Though there was the possibility I was a little wrong and something that got mixed up with the blood ended up being considered a part of it according to my skill, I couldn't tell such a thing from the taste nor texture of the blood I enjoyed.

Of course, I also enjoyed the seeping essence from the broken unliving monsters as I sucked it out from the remains of their cores. The adds tasted like some fine liqueurs, the same as the floor's monsters. Raspberry sour to melon liqueur, I enjoyed this feast I was was given. The boss itself though, was nicer. A mint julep. I only had one once before, and I didn't exactly like it back then.

Maybe because my tastes had changed drastically, but supping on the boss's essence made me want to do it from a fine glass as I enjoyed the classy flavour.

Not like formless energy could fit into a solid container like a wine glass.

It was unfortunate though. Energy like this was great as a snack and filled my MP quite well. In turn, its formless nature meant that it was a pain to store, and even worse, it tended to disperse if not infused inside of something secure, which meant that it was quite difficult to preserve for later.

It was just easier to hunt more prey to enjoy a nice snack than to to bother preserving them.

There was the possibility of bringing some home for Alicia and Fate, but frankly, when I was still having trouble making them drink blood, distracting them with something not very nutritious like these essences was a bad idea.

It was a thought for the future, but nothing else.

By the time I finished enjoying the monster essences, most of the add remains had disappeared, returning to the dungeon. They left crystals and other material which I gathered and put away for potential future use.

Aside from that, I opened the large gleaming chest that had spawned after the boss had been defeated.

What contained inside was a bow and a large collection of divine coins. The bow was quite densely packed of mana, but I had little will to actually find out what sort of enchantment was on it. I couldn't use bows despite having quite a high skill level for it.

The last time I even tried, I was rubbing my chest for quite a while later due to the backlash. There were ways for me to make it work, but it wasn't worth the effort. Not when I could just use a different form of attack that might even be more effective in the first place.

While my prizes weren't particularly things which I had much use for, they weren't that terrible at the same time.

With my business on this floor over, I took the exit to arrive at the next fountain room before leaving the dungeon entirely. It would be night soon, so I needed to get back to my babies.

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