45 Conquering the Water Palace IV

"Yet another powerful skill . . . What the hell are ya doin' to get these all the time!?" Loki shouted.

"This one is even quite dangerous soundin'!" She added.

Nox just shrugged and proceeded to explain how he got the skills by permanently changing his body with a powerful spell first before leveling up, which seemed to integrate that power into him and make it into either a skill or make it part of one he already had.

"Sure, sure why not? How about studyin' gods and makin' a spell to become one?" Loki mockingly suggested.

"No worries, I'm working on it." Nox replied.

"What!?" Loki screamed.

"Jeez! Chill out Loki, it was just a joke." Nox said.

"Oh! I can never really tell with you." Loki responded.

"Or was it?" Nox added.

"I hate you." Was all he got.

"I love you too Loki!" He said with a killer smile before escaping the room, leaving a blushing Loki behind.

"Careful who you playin' with Noxy. I might just eat up up . . . In the fun way of course . . ." Loki said to herself after Nox had already left.

His level up complete, Nox returned to the dungeon to find the Monster Rex of the Water Palace, the Amphisbaena for a final showdown before he moved deeper into the Dungeon.

The Water Palace was made up of an entire three floors from the 25th to the 26th and the Amphisbaena could freely move through all of that space so finding it took some time despite it being a huge twin headed dragon that was over 20 meters long.

A good while later though, Nox finally managed to find it hunkering down of the 27th floor. It made some sense as even though the Amphisbaena could move through the entire Water palace, it mainly stayed on its lowest floor, the 27th.

Nox analyzed the beast from a good distance with his Spirit Pulse and it was quite intimidating indeed. Specially since one of its key abilities was a crimson mist its right head released in a breath attack which could surround its body or be released in a stream and actually diffused magic.

In other words, Nox's worst nightmare. An ability that could not only allow the monster to protect itself from Nox's magic but also rid him of his own magical enchants and protections.

Not to mention that the Amphisbaena was rated as a Level 6 which was far beyond Nox's means, even after he had leveled up to Level 3. Despite this, it was only rated as such due to the environmental advantage and its power was actually around Level 5.

For this particular opponent, Nox was planning of being rather unreserved in terms of trump cards since it wasn't a monster he could afford holding back against.

In other words, full use of Sanguinare Vampiris, opening the battle with a powerful sneak attack to deal maximum damage and most importantly, unrestricted use of Level Boost magic to place Nox at Level 4, thus leveling the playing field a fair bit.

Bringing up his Archon skill to full power and fully activating his Sanguinare Vampiris - The Bloodcurse of Vampirism, Nox slowly approached the Amphisbaena, careful not to be detected.

He cast the Blood Art, Blood Buff to temporarily increase all of his attributes and then cast Bloodlust to further increase his abilities at the cost of triggering his curse bloodthirst.

With Prometheus in hand as it was his best weapon, even if most of its abilities were completely useless underwater and pointed his free hand to the monster in the shape of a palm strike.

Finally, Nox used the Blood Art, Blood magic to fuel his spells with his blood pool rather than his Mind, not only giving him access to a much bigger reserve of energy but also strengthening all of his magic at the same time.

The Invictus Undine surrounding Nox's body became tinged with the crimson color of blood as it grew in power and massive amounts of blood energy gathered in front of his extended palm as he cast the most powerful version of his Aqua Shot spell.

'Aqua Decimator'

From Nox's palm, violent currents of water started spreading at blinding speeds, the danger those currents possessed was hard to see since their violence wasn't obvious through its contained forms but the pressure within them was sufficient to tear apart anything in its wide area of effect.

The Amphisbaena realized the danger and turned to face it but by then it was far to late as the fast approaching blood tinged water was far too fast for it to mount a defence using its anti magic crimson mist.

As such, it was forced to tank the spell with its own body, just as Nox had intended for the first blow. The monster's scales were torn, smashed, ripped and dented, creating a several exploitable gaps in its defence, part of Nox's desired effect for the Aqua Decimator.

Unfortunately, the internal damage it suffered was not quite enough to hamper its combat ability and so, only its defences had been decently minimized.

Before it could recover and defend itself with its anti magic crimson mist, Nox fired a barrage of shots with the Aqua Gun spell, aimed straight at the most damaged areas of its body so as to avoid the monster's hard scales.

Alas, the Amphisbaena was no slouch itself and slightly dodged, just enough and at the last moment so that the shots could only impac areas still tightly guarded by its hard scales.

Activating the Searing Pain curse of his Prometheus bastard sword and using the Blood Art, Blood Edge to enhance its power, slashing and piercing abilities, Nox charged in to fight it up close.

As he did so however, the Amphisbaena's two heads gathered power, while the right one breathed out its crimson anti magic mist to cover itself, the left one unleashed a breath of blue flames that burned enven underwater.

Nox was forced to abandon his charge in favor of using the power of his blood empowered Invictus Undine to rapidly shift the direction of his charge and dodge the incoming breath weapon.

At the same time, he combined his blood charged Invictus Undine with the Blood Art, Bloody Fand to sent a powerful flying slash in the monsters direction, before charging once again.

Understanding it as magic, it foolishly didn't dodge as it prepared to attack its enemy with another blue flame breath, such actions were its undoing.

The flying slash split the anti magic crimson mist and directly struch the Amphisbaena with full power, opening a large gash in its body and causing its attack to fail before it was even released.

Taking this opportunity, Nox had already approached the monster with his quick charge and furiously delivered the exact same combination except for the fact that this time, it was at point blank range and directly over the gash, the previous slash had opened.

The result was a massive and deep wound on the Amphisbaena's huge body, tained with the curse of Searing Pain from Prometheus unfortunately however, it was not enough to finish it and Nox who had put his all into the attack, was left defenceless for a short moment.

In the very moment, the monster, rampaging from pain, smashed Nox with its huge body, breaking through his blood enhanced Invictus Undine, shattering his rib cage and even rupturing several of his internal organs.

Never had Nox been so seriously injured since his coming to this world, mostly due to his careful selection of the enemies he faced and even more importantly he meticulous preparations for each and every battle.

Alas, this time, it was just not enough and he was sent flying with an utterly broken body. He had underestimated the power and vitality of the Amphisbaena. Even with all his advantages, it was not an enemy he could currently defeat in straight up combat.

Nox had defected Level 4 rated monsters as a Level 2 in the past and that had led him to believe he could fight the Amphisbaena using the Level Boost to put himself at Level 4. What he greatly underestimated, was the gap between a Level 4 and a Level 5.

As the levels get higher and higher, so does the gap in power between each level. That is why Ottar with his Level 7 status, occupies an invincible and unassailable position in Orario.

Regardless, despite Nox's terrible condition, the Amphisbaena wasn't any better. The strike it had delivered to Nox was its final defiance as the wound it suffered was quite fatal. Still, with its draconic resilience, it had yet to die and even show signs of slowly healing.

Meanwhile, the barely conscious Nox was mocking himself for his overconfidence while his body healed slowly.

'Guess I still have a lot to learn and do before I reach the apex.' He chuckled internally to himself.

Despite his prodigious healing abilities form his Archon and vampiric skills, the damage was far to extensive and it greatly hampered his natural healing abilities. But only his natural ones . . .

'Blood Heal'

As soon as this Blood Art was used, Nox's body rapidly regenerated back into a pristine state.

'Hehehe.' He internally laughed.

'I wouldn't be me if I hadn't made preparations in the eventuality that I'd be seriously injured . . .'

And so, fully healed, Nox put his mightiest opponent yet, out of its misery.

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