Chapter 109 – 31. Reserve Platoon Strength Assessment (4)
An area full of deep black. The feeling that came through his feet was definitely different from other terrain in the dungeon.
Although the exterior was earthy, the ground was soft like castella or sponge. It feels like a place you should never enter. In order for the demon to come out, I had to step in.
The moment I stepped on the ground, a red notification window popped up on the system.
—————–
[Passive has been activated.]
* All-inclusive
: Immune to all poisons. Poison-based status ailments are grasped with the Understanding Poison effect.
* List of active status ailments
: Poison Centipede’s Acid Poison
—————–
As expected, there is a demonic beast, Poison Centipede, below this. The key subordinate monster in this dungeon raid.
This centipede is a very cumbersome subordinate who is in charge of berserk among the buffs applied to the boss.
In other words, if you can kill only this guy, the boss attack is not difficult anymore.
‘Chloe’s genealogy was very useful.’
On the way to this point, I also dealt with other major monsters. Especially since I mainly killed monsters with tricky buffs like this one.
Kill this guy and head straight to the boss area.
Just then, a dangerous greenish liquid spewed towards me from the ground. I reflexively raised the imperial sword and cut through the liquid.
Chaaaaa-
For a moment, the runes glowed, and a shield of divine power was activated around my body. The powerful poison of the demon.
Its poison did not affect it in the slightest because of its poisonous sting, but the acidic liquid containing demonic power was dangerous if it was hit as it was.
‘The performance is amazing.’
But Cecilia’s imperial sword. The sword body’s runes were activated through my mana, creating a shield of divine power. The runic ‘will’.
Not only did Cecilia want to rely on me, but the imaginary meaning of wanting me to rely on her came through the runes.
The shield completely blocked the acidic bodily fluids.
Gurrurr-
At the same time, the ground shook like an earthquake, and a poison centipede jumped out of it. A ghastly appearance that looks more than 5 meters long.
There are bloody legs attached to each of the body’s joints, which seem to have dozens of them. Each of those legs was like a sharp-edged sergeant.
Kwak Kwa Kwa Kwam-
The guy who stood up immediately attacked my seat. I dodged it by quickly backing away. The mushy ground right there was hollowed out like a meteorite pit.
And at the same time as the attack, the acid attack from before was emitted from between his mouth and the joints of his body. He was a guy who didn’t look as easy as he looked.
‘I don’t know about poison. Because that acid attack has an effect. It’s not good to go long term.’
Even if I have Reinhardt’s body, it is different from the durability of my body.
The armor they are wearing now is the magic metal armor provided to the members of the golden platoon. The defense itself isn’t bad either. There are some limits.
In a fight against a monster, too thick armor gets in the way of mobility. My armor was fairly thin and light.
I moved my foot quickly and stabbed one of his hideous joints with my sword.
Caen-
With a dull metallic sound, my imperial sword bounced back.
‘How hard is it?’
Although I deliberately didn’t put mana into it to test its durability. Contrary to me, this guy’s joints were like very hard armor.
‘I’ll have to finish it with one night shot.’
If that’s the case, the answer would be to pierce his armor with one big one and cut it in half. And it’s not good to waste time.
After some time the guy goes back into the ground and he pops out. Then it becomes luminous
I dodged his attacks one after another. Fortunately, this centipede was not very fast because of its huge size.
It’s just that the bad soil this guy created. The soil gradually turned into a liquefied form and sank with each movement. If you’re not careful, you’ll fall into that place and you won’t be able to avoid his attack.
I instinctively used compensatory mana. The alchemy activated quickly changed the surface of the soil.
Papa pat-
I stepped on the hardened surface and avoided all of the centipede’s attacks.
“Kyaaaaagh!”
The centipede got even more angry when I didn’t fall into the swampy soil. That way, I can’t fall for his number.
“A worm head. It’s just annoyingly loud.”
I calmly dodged his attack and concentrated my mana with my mana heart. Lionheart’s blood boiled to the brim, and more wild mana rushed into it.
From the heart, or from the mana heart, a surprising amount of mana acceleration was made. The veins present in Mana Heart’s polyhedron.
In that mana road, mana of high purity and high destructive power incomparable to ordinary mana is instantly refined.
As I held the hilt with both hands, I injected that mana into the sword.
Woo woo woo-
The imperial sword resonated with that mana and made a sound. My Imperialsword longsword. Mana is deposited on the long sword and a blue mana blade is created.
Kyaaaaa
Once again, an attack from the centipede, as strong as the soil pile, ensues. I dodged immediately and quickly went back behind him.
According to Chloe’s genealogy, the 7th lower leg from the head of the centipede is the centipede’s weak point. In other words, it is the place where the Mahon Stone is contained.
With that location clearly in mind, he slowly moved the tip of his sword. Although it looks slow, it draws strokes in the air with movements that are never slow.
At the same time, 1 Lion Heart Sword. All descriptions from meal 1 to meal 5 pass through my head. Unlike the other swordsmanships of the Empire, it is a powerful swordsmanship that focuses on destructive power.
And there is one image that passes through my head when I penetrate the description at once.
White night.
Midsummer, the day that never ends even when night falls. Like the sun still showing its presence over the horizon.
I swung the blade straight over my shoulder in an oblique line. A slash made with a pure white flash.
The slash tore Poison Centipede in two.
***
“Whoa…”
I took a deep breath, calming the mana that fluctuated in my mana heart for a moment. The descriptions and images of the midnight sun had been familiarized in my head even earlier than today.
In addition, Reinhardt’s pure-blooded natural talent of nothingness. That talent bloomed even more on the battlefield where life comes and goes like now.
‘It wasn’t bad for the first time I used it. As expected, lineage is important.’
So, I was able to learn the Oui directly on the spot. The system also recognized that ritual as a skill and guided it perfectly.
I watched the end of the gigantic centipede wriggling in two before my eyes. Rather than the expression that it was broken in two, it seems more appropriate to say that it exploded with its body intact.
The centipede in front of you is at least 3 types of weight of demonic power that you can feel even if it is an illusion. No matter how hard he aimed for a vital spot, he was very satisfied with the power enough to send him flying in one shot.
Although it was a skill that consumed a large amount of 50MP refined mana.
“Is it all over now?”
A place where the body of a giant centipede was crumbled. The ground collapsed beneath it with a thud and a ringing sound. A dark hole was revealed beneath the charred ground.
It was a burrow made by this giant centipede.
‘If you pass through this centipede. I’ll be able to enter the boss area faster than Rosette.’
It was. How Chloe beat Rosette in the power rating.
Through the genealogy, I quickly dealt with only the monsters I needed, and used this centipede as a shortcut to enter the boss area at once. I intend to use that method as well.
Through the system, I checked the time that had elapsed since entering the dungeon. About two and a half hours.
In Demon Lord’s Slaughter, it usually takes Chloe 4 hours to fully clear the evaluation dungeon. Rosette took about 10 minutes later than that.
Then, the time left for the first place is up to an hour and a half. This centipede hole was quite long, so we had to hurry. Still, it’s a much faster shortcut than moving to the ground.
‘Because if we move to the ground, those two will have already finished clearing the boss.’
I quickly moved through the centipede’s lair. There was a small cave where you had to lower your head a little to get there. Like a burrow dug by a centipede demon, poisonous puddles were created everywhere.
It doesn’t seem to be as toxic as the previous body. Still, it was enough to pose a threat to an ordinary cadet.
‘Is Chloe passing through such a dangerous cave?’
It’s me, because I’m not a fan of poison, so I don’t have any problems moving except for a little discomfort in my neck and back.
Do you think that the noble Marquis’s daughter took such a short cut in order to somehow defeat Rosette? Without realizing it, I burst out laughing.
Of course, Chloe is also an alchemist who handles poison very well. So if it’s this much poison, it will pass by immediately detoxifying it.
So the maze-like path continued. An underground labyrinth where it is difficult to find the exit. However, with the help of alchemy, I changed the terrain to my advantage and moved quickly.
Then, using the sylph, he found an exit as soon as the wind escaped.
“Phew. The air outside is much better.”
After all, it is a virtual space created by fantasy and hallucination. The reproducibility was high, so the air above ground was much better than underground.
And I finally entered the boss area. It took 1 hour to pass through the centipede.
For the first place in the power rating, I only had 30 minutes left.
***
Entered the boss area. Mountainous terrain still covered in fog.
A mountain peak was visible on a hillside in the mountainous terrain. I can feel the strong demon power beyond the wall.
‘The boss must be over there.’
Using alchemy, he quickly climbed the outskirts of the wall. Although the gates were wide open. I wanted to see the boss’s condition in advance.
The boss was visible under the wall. A gigantic knight mounted on a disembodied ghost horse. It was an undead knight.
Black armor. Two eyes exposed under the helmet of the same color were full of evil energy. And, like the Cyclops from the previous mission, sparks of pitch-black demon power were swaying wildly.
‘As expected, he’s much stronger than a normal type 3.’
The reason why the strength evaluation was strengthened this time was because of such unusual species as monsters. It’s not surprising that the boss looks like that.
Of course, despite its intimidating appearance, I don’t think it’s very dangerous. The dangerous buff was released by removing his subordinates.
20 minutes left now. There might be variables, so it was better to leave 10 minutes more than Chloe’s clear time. That means, in reality, there are 10 minutes left.
Time was running out, but I was in no hurry.
If you attack him clumsily and time drags on, it will be a headache. So it’s better to blow that guy’s head off in one shot with the midnight sun.
I didn’t rush at the boss right away, and calmly used the mana technique. Right now, I have 40MP left, which is half of my natural mana.
Mana, which originally had 30MP remaining, recovered to some extent after passing through the centipede’s lair…
’10MP is not enough to use Midnight.’
However, if you use the mana-sequencing method, you should be able to recover 10MP in 10 minutes.
The mana training method I am currently using is the most basic form of mana training.
There is also a higher-level White Night Knight ritual practice method. Her body, whose awakening of mana was late, was rather burdened by the practice method, and she learned the basic practice method from Yuriel and used it for a while.
‘Now I’m going to have to raise the level of the practice method. I’ve reached the third tier.’
I hid as much as possible so that the undead knight would not notice me using the technique. His eyes were bright red, but he didn’t seem to notice me.
‘Undead. That too is an undead night. The central religious sects of the Empire and the professors of the Pantheon must be frightened.’
During the intermission, I remembered the theory lecture of Pantheon that I had recently learned. The name of the lecture is Advanced Monster Studies and Mathematics.
As learned in that theory class. Most monsters mimic the bodies of monsters. In particular, witches preferred to turn the monsters they ate into undead.
‘That’s why it became more difficult when a native undead monster turned into a monster.’
The professor of the theory class shuddered as he explained that he was a very wicked creature of evil. That’s why it wasn’t strange to have that corpse knight as the boss of the strength evaluation.
But in fact, even those monsters are creatures created by two main gods, Jedin and Unir. Just as the demons were also the children of Unir, the monsters were separate beings from the demons.
Even the monsters were very good food for the monsters.
Perhaps the purpose of the Witchbeast is to kill and absorb all of Jedin and Unir’s creatures, and imitate them. Actually, the truth is not perfect because it is a piece of rice cake that can only be solved after going to the second part of Demon King’s Death.
‘Besides me, no one has cleared the second part. I can’t help it.’
The end of the Demon King’s Slaughter is that Island is destroyed by the Demon Beast with that ambiguous rice cake unresolved.
In other words, it meant that if I wanted to survive in this harsh world, I had to find out the truth about those monsters. Even if you use all the information you know from the demon slaughter.
The moment I was lost in thought for a moment. 10MP of mana is full. The time consumed was 10 minutes, as expected.
I moved.
The undead knight was attacked with the senses that had been heightened by the mana training method. The magic trick cast again, White Night.
In one blow, the boy’s head fell to the floor.
