Chapter 44 The Territory of the Lizard Boss

I stood at the entrance of the boss monster's territory. My heart was pounding in my chest with excitement and nervousness. The boss monster is a massive lizard with a span of nine meters in length. Its dark blue eyes glowed menacingly; in its head there were three glowing silver rubies, and its scales shimmered in hues of silver, blue, and black. Six tails lashed behind it. Surrounding it were over 300 lizard monsters.

"Ughh. What the fuck are they doing? The timing was bad." I said, as I was disgusted by the ongoing activities of the boss monster. "How the fuck is it possible to mate with so many monsters? Sigh—lets focus"

Crouched behind a rocky outcrop, I surveyed the place before me. My mind is racing with strategies to defeat the horde in front of me. After thinking for a few seconds, a plan formed.

The plan is simple. Eliminate the lizard's subordinates before confronting the boss monster. Use the terrain to my advantage. And after fighting for a few days in the cavern, it became easy to take advantage of the cave.

I flexed my nano-mechanical hands, feeling the mana-infused power coursing through them. With a deep breath, I activated my Perfect Copy skill.

「Perfect Clone」

"Let's do this right." I murmur to my clone, giving him a mental command.

In perfect sync, we threw water bombs into the densest group of lizards.

Tik! Tik! Tik!

The bombs explode, soaking the creatures and affecting their fire element. I activated gravity modulation, lightening my body, and activated the dash to move with ethereal swiftness. Darting through the cavern, we set compressed water strings across strategic points.

"Time for the mist."

「Mist」

We activated the Mist skill, filling the cavern with a thick, obscuring fog. Mixed within the mist are bombs filled with paralyzing poison, creating an invisible, toxic haze.

Moving silently through the fog, we set compressed water strings across the cavern, nearly invisible traps ready to slice through any unaware lizard that stumbles into them. Taking out a bomb that makes a deafening sound upon explosion, I activated it and threw it into the fog.

SCREECH!

A deafening sound resonated in the cavern as the bomb exploded. The disoriented lizards, blinded by the mist and slowed by the heavy water, began to panic as they heard the loud sound.

Slice! Slice! Thud!

They run blindly through the mist, finding their demise as many of them are sliced apart by the compressed water strings. The mist works its magic; the paralyzing poison taking effect, causing lizards to collapse mid-step.

'There are more' Thinking that, I influenced myself with an emotionless Jadel's influence. My mind becomes clear, and my body and mind remember the precise movements of a perfectly trained assassin.

We move from group to group, methodically taking down the lizards. When we encounter larger groups, I use ice bombs to freeze them in place, followed by lightning bombs to shatter the frozen lizards. The clone mirrored my actions, ensuring no lizard was left standing.

Kacha! Slash!

SQUEEE!

The monsters' pained cry echoed as we hunted them. Hearing its brethren's cries, other monsters breathed fire here and there, not knowing where the enemy was. Even if they wanted to move, they couldn't move their bodies as they inhaled paralyzing poison, making their movements sluggish. All they could do was wait for their deaths.

Kach!

'Not enough'

Kach! Kacha! Kach! Kacha!

'Good… Mmm, the mist is clearing' I thought as the mist started to clear.

As the mist cleared, I saw a group of lizards still guarding the boss monster.

"What loyal females!" I took out more mana bombs. 'Not good; it's about to over'

I signal my clone, and together we launch another synchronized attack. Ice bombs immobilized the lizards, and lightning bombs finished them off.

Using gravity modulation to increase my weight, I arrived at the lizard. Amplifying the attacks I received, I gave devastating punches to the lizards while my clone grabbed the attention of the boss monster.

"Move"

Tik-tik-tik Kaboom! Boom!

I threw the more and more explosive bomb I made with the core of the lizards, but it didn't take much damage.

'As I thought, the corresponding element won't work on you, but it's taking slight damage'

SQUEEAKK!

"Shit!"

The monster roared fiercely as plasma beams shot from its mouth, scorching the cavern floor where I stood moments before.

As I saw the monster was ready to unleash more plasma beams, I activated Lost Gem. I saw the trajectories of the plasma beams as lines connecting to my body. With minimal movements, I dodge the beams using gravity modulation to lighten my body and enhance my acrobatics. My clone mimicked every move flawlessly, even better than me.

We flank the beast, hurling a barrage of mana bombs—water, ice, and lightning. The water bombs explode, soaking the beast. The ice bombs follow, freezing the water around the beast, and the lightning bombs electrify the frozen water, sending shocks through the monster's body.

「Core Release 60 percent」

In its stunned state, I saw an opening. Launching myself into the air, I used gravity modulation to increase my weight and amplified the mechanical hands to the fullest until there was no absorbed energy in them. With the core release, I delivered a ground-shaking punch.

BAM!

The impact shattered one of the silver rubies on the monster's head. The monster's eyes flare with rage as its attacks grow fiercer and more powerful, as one of the rubies shattered.

'Fuck, I thought the punch would instantly kill the monster' The more the ruby breaks, the more powerful the monster will become.

The monster's plasma beams become relentless, and its tails lash out with terrifying speed. My agility begins to wane as fatigue sets in. My movements become slower, and my breaths become heavier. The battle is taking its toll on me slowly.

Swoosh! Grab!

"Shit!" I cursed as one of its tails grabbed my legs and pulled me, causing me to lose balance.

Kacha!

"Cough!" I felt a metallic taste in my mouth as I coughed up blood. The monster's tail had pierced my chest. As blood flooded out of my body, my consciousness started to slip.

"Cough! Cough!"

With blurry vision, I saw another tail approaching me.

With no time to spare, I deactivated my clone, and as the second tail pierced my chest, I reactivated the clone. My real body split from the clone, leaving all the fatal blows and all the injuries accumulated during the battle on the clone.

It's a loophole, or maybe a hidden trick. It all started with the sudden thought, 'If my clone was perfect, wouldn't it be the same as me, a perfect half of mine? So it's like I'm splitting a body' and with that I formed many theories but it didn't work well, but I saw a possibility, and with that I created this trick. Instead of creating a clone within the space I created with my body, so with that, when splitting the body I could leave all of my injuries to the clone. As long as I don't die by instant death I could use this trick and I don't know the limitation of how many times I could use the perfect clone, but I'm sure I can use it more than 80 times.

Freed from the imminent danger, I land on the ground, my body rejuvenated and unharmed. The clone, impaled and battered, dissolves into mana particles. I use this moment of confusion to my advantage, activating Core Release. I used compressed water string to immobilize its tails.

I launch myself at the monster with renewed vigor, absorbing and dodging the plasma beams with the help of the Lost Gem. I Delivered a flurry of powerful punches, each one glowing with absorbed energy, I shatter the second ruby under the onslaught. The monster's roars turned fierce again, but this time I didn't give it a chance.

"Not so fast, fucker." Activating gravity modulation I took out the dagger and jumped at the monster. With a precise move, I pierced its jaw, opening it.

"I didn't want to use it, but you gave me no choice." Taking out a blue box, a powerful bomb I created using 200 mana cores, E rank to D+ rank, I put in its mouth. With a punch to the bomb, I made the monster swallow it.

Without wasting time, I threw all the remaining ice bombs, immobilizing the monster, and ran as quickly as possible.

'It's going to hurt badly'

「Shadow Monarch」

「Core Release: 60 Percent」

「Gravity Modulation」

「Dash」

After creating a long distance between the monster and me, I took out a button and clicked. After five seconds, a large explosion resounded in the cavern.

BOOM!

I still ran without stopping, since I knew how powerful the explosion would be. feeling heat slowly rising on the cavern, I knew it was approaching.

'Shit! Shit! Shit! I shouldn't have made it this powerful. Seeing a small gap in the wall, I instantly jumped.

Swoosh!

"Arghhhh! ... Huff–Huff–Huff" Lifting my head, I looked at my legs, seeing they were missing as they got burned. I laid on the ground.

「Perfect Clone」

I activated the perfect clone. My body split, leaving all the injuries to the clone. "Sorry buddy," I said as he got dissolved into mana particles.

Slowly standing up, I looked outside. The place was scorched, and I still felt heat from the ground. I activated the perfect clone again.

"Let's do mining before we go and make some money" I give him a pickaxe "we have 90 minutes before the dungeon clo–"

Ding!

With a sound, a system interface came in front of me.

========System========

[ Dungeon Cleared ]

[ Rank: C ]

[ Dungeon: Mana Cave ]

[ Boss Monster: Lizard Queen (Defeated) ]

[ Reward: Title ]

[ Title: ■■■■■■ ■■ ■■■ ■■■■ ■■■■■■ ]

[ You lack the strength necessary to read the title ]

[Claim the reward]

=======================

"I will take it from here."

Suddenly, I lost my consciousness.