291. The Beetle

Ben senses a strong Etherious near him, so he goes there immediately. He arrives in a rather spacious room with some glowing crystals on the walls that illuminate the room. In the opposite location of where Ben stands, a humanoid silhouette can be seen standing.

The room is still quite dark, so Ben makes a light ball to increase the brightness. Now he can see things more clearly, including the Etherious in front of him. It looks like a humanoid beetle with dark purple color.

"Were you the one who destroyed my clones?" asks Ben, but the beetle Etherious doesn't answer.

"You can't talk? Well, doesn't matter, just come and fight me," says Ben while walking forward with a big grin.

The beetle Etherious also walks forward at the same pace as Ben, which is quite amusing. They stop in the middle of the room and stare at each other for a moment before they send a punch at each other.

*BAM*

Their punches clash and Ben is surprised at the beetle's power. It can match his punch even if it's just his normal punch, not a serious one. But it is as strong as high-leveled Mages' punches, so this beetle is strong.

Ben grins and puts more power on his attacks as they exchange more punches. He is very surprised because the beetle keeps matching his attack power. It even makes the exact same attacks as him and counters his attacks perfectly.

As they exchange more melee attacks, Ben gets more excited. He hasn't had this much fun while fighting in hand-to-hand combat. This style of battle is his favorite. He prefers exchanging fists rather than big & flashy spells.

"HAHAHA! THIS IS IT! THIS IS HOW MEN FIGHT. DON'T DISAPPOINT ME, BEETLE-GUY!" shouts Ben excitedly.

Ben uses his Martial Arts that have been trained since his past life. He used it often in his early years as a Mage because there are a lot of strong opponents for him to use his Martial Arts. But ad he grew stronger, he didn't have many chances to use it because his opponents often get destroyed in a short time or his Martial Arts weren't suitable to be used on them.

But now, he finds an opponent that can make him use his Martial Arts again. Using spells is good, but using his fists to directly hit his opponent has a different feeling. The excitement of using his body to fight directly is unmatched.

Ben enjoys his battle and keeps exchanging blows with the beetle guy. He doesn't use his Slayer Magic, he only uses his magic power to strengthen his attacks. The beetle guy can always match his power and even keep using the exact same attacks as him.

It feels like he fights himself, or fighting his shadow, so it feels very strange. But Ben ignores it for now so he can enjoy this battle. He only stops after fighting the beetle guy with just Martial Arts for half an hour.

"Phew, that's so satisfying," says Ben while wiping his non-existent sweat after jumping back, which gets copied by the beetle guy.

"I want to keep playing if I can, but my wife will kill me if I don't find her soon. So let's end this here, beetle-guy. I know you can copy my movements and even power, maybe that's your Curse. But I wonder if you can copy my magic too," says Ben as he coats his hands with Sun Devil Slayer Magic's red solar energy.

The beetle finally does something different from Ben, it tilts its head. But then, to Ben's surprise, the beetle guy's hands are covered in red-colored flame-like magic. He tries to sense it and the red flame actually has solar energy.

"Damn, you can even copy magic. You turned it into Curse because you don't use magic, but damn, this is just too much. Just what's your Curse? Is it Curse of Copy?" complaints Ben with an angry tone, but his mouth is smiling.

Ben rushes at the beetle and the beetle does the same. They meet in the middle and send their flaming fists to each other. But now, the beetle can't match Ben's attack power even though Ben knows it uses the exact same amount of power as him.

The beetle gets overpowered and flung to the wall behind, crashing onto it. But the wall is very sturdy and there's no damage at all even though the crash is quite strong. But the beetle isn't as sturdy because its back carapace is cracking.

"Heh, using the same amount of power doesn't mean your attack will be as strong as mine. Do you know how long I've been training and researching my magic? A beetle that just copies what it sees won't be able to match my years of effort. This is the importance of mastery, asshole," says Ben while grinning.

The beetle doesn't say anything because it can't talk. But Ben can feel that it's getting nervous and there's fear in its eyes even though its expression never changed. But Ben's senses are very sharp and he can sense his enemy's feelings.

"You are getting scared now? It's too soon. You haven't seen anything," says Ben before he suddenly flashes in front of the beetle and punches its body from the side.

The beetle gets flung to another side and almost crashes onto the wall there. But before he crashes, Ben flashes in its path and punches it from below. So it crashes onto the ceiling and then it falls to the floor while spatting green blood.

"It seems you can only copy what you see. That is good enough, but that's just too shallow. Maybe if you are a higher-level Etherious, you will be a very difficult opponent to fight against because your Curse will be stronger too. The stronger your opponent, the stronger you will be because you can copy their power. Too bad that your level isn't that high, so your power is limited. I doubt you will be able to copy this level of magic," says Ben as he creates a miniature red sun on his right hand.

The beetle's fear gets even clearer and it tries to run away. But Ben stomps it and uses his gravity to make it unable to move. He pins the beetle with his foot and he grins as the beetle looks at him with fear in its eyes.

"SCREECH!" The beetle screech loudly while wriggling around to break free, but it's useless. It even tries to copy Ben's magic, but currently, the spells that Ben uses are too high level for it. It can't copy Ben's spells with its level of Curse, so it gets even more panic.

Ben smirks and says, "Goodbye, beetle-guy, it was fun. Sun Devil's Version: Cruel Sun!"

Ben slams the red miniature sun at the beetle Etherious. It can't even scream before it gets burnt and turned into ashes by the red miniature sun. The very sturdy floor even melts because of Ben's attack.

He stretches his body as a lot of magic power enters his body. This beetle Etherious is stronger than all the Etheriouses he met in this dungeon, so he gets a lot of magic power after killing it. His Sun Devil Slayer Magic also gets strengthened, making him more satisfied by this battle.

His business here is done, so Ben teleports to Mira's location. Just like what he thought, she is rather angry because he didn't come sooner. She is pouting at the corner while there is a corpse of another beetle Etherious in the middle of the room.

"Are you okay?" asks Ben, but Mira doesn't answer him.

"Alright, I'm sorry, I was playing around because it was fun. My opponent has the same appearance as that beetle you've defeated. It copied all my attacks with the same power, so I enjoyed my fight with it," says Ben apologetically.

Mira gets rather surprised and stops pouting, "It copied your attacks? That beetle also did the same? Did they have the same power?"

"Hmm? Etheriouses with the same Curse? Never heard of that," says Ben confusedly.

Suddenly, a lot of footsteps can be heard approaching them from deep in the dungeon. Ben & Mira look at it and then a lot of identical beetle Etheriouses enter the room.

"Oh, shit! Here we go again."

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