Shadow Leopard

Chapter 25 – Shadow Leopard

The duo rested lightly for a bit, mostly so Laurene could recover a bit of her magic power before they continued their exploration of the dungeon's fourth floor.

The second and third floors of the dungeon were basically walks in the parks for the trio as they barely encountered any monsters, which was quite strange in itself.

Evan suggested that they go down to the lower floors and find stronger monsters rather than searching for weaker monsters on the higher floors.

Stronger monsters meant more experience, after all.

As they continued exploring the dungeon, they discovered a group of adventurers struggling against a leopard type monster, one clearly larger and stronger than the brown bear that they had just defeated.

Upon arrival, they were met with the scene of the leopard swinging its paw and striking a mage floating in the air down on the ground.

Hearing the sound that the mage's body made upon hitting the ground, Evan highly doubted the person was still alive.

'Was that person from a race that can fly or was he using flight magic?'

While Laurene was questioning how the person was even airborne in the first place, Evan was thinking that it looked like he was watching a monster movie.

'This is reality though…'

Evan at this time, the adventurers, mostly F and E ranks, who were confronting the monster were still desperately fighting, and were making quite silly decisions.

'The 'Arrogance' status effect, huh?'

The status effect of this dungeon was one that got stronger in the same form as the monsters, the deeper the floor, the higher the effect.

So, for powerful more people like Ralphie, he could barely even feel a thing.

But for the E and F ranks, they had been consumed by the status effect, and all that constituted it.

'Impaired Judgement, Disrupted Teamwork, distorted abilities, Vulnerable defences, Weakened Resilience, and the one that's most obvious in this case.'

Looking at the adventurers who were clearly outmatched, but were still somehow convinced they could defeat this monster that was beating the shit out of them, Evan spoke in a low voice.

"Haunting Overconfidence."

It was the reason why even though they obviously could not beat it, they refused to run.

'Even though they know about the dungeon's status effects, its as if all the measures they took against it simply don't work.

No doubt, it's Pride's special ability at work.'

"Laurene, Magic support please."

"You don't have to tell me that."

The Princess spoke as she channelled magic power into her staff while Evan just chuckled lightly and activated his concealment skill.

He kicked off the ground and dashed forward, breezing through the adventurers—the ones shouting urgently or the ones getting smacked by the leopard's paws.

Nobody noticed him.

That much was expected as he was currently concealed.

The Leopard monster swiped its claws and released the default attack of all clawed monsters; a three-pronged slash of condensed magic power that sliced through the armour of two tankers who had taunted it with magic.

A mage's fireball was knocked away with a flick of its tail, crashing on the ground near a few archers and exploding with a bright flash of light.

The smell of burnt flesh wafted through the air signifying that they were either in critical condition, or had gone over to the other side already.

Most of the adventurers with long-ranged magic were okay, but the warrior types who had gotten in close to attack were all tattered.

A few of them had already died.

'Mehn, when the opponent is just overwhelmingly stronger, numbers become meaningless. Getting strong enough that any number of demons would be useless against me—that's the goal.'

The young hero made that conviction to himself as he activated his appraisal skill on the monster.

|Name- None

Race- Shadow Leopard

Level- 55

Existence Level - Bronze

Titles- None

Class - None

Health – E+

Energy – E+

Strength – E+

Agility – E+

Durability – E+

Intelligence- E-

Condition- Angered

Magic Tiers- All Attributes Tier 0

Skills- Body Enhancement, Shadow Pounce.

Unique Skills- None. |

'Level 55? That's a bit too high levelled to be on this floor.

I guess it had probably been biding its time and killing tons of adventurers to level up and reach that level.'

Evan deduced the reason why the monster had such a high level when compared to its counterparts on this floor.

'As for killing it, that's doable.'

He thought as he kept running through the adventurers, taking care not to hit any one and break his concealed state, while infusing his magic power into his sword subtly.

As soon as he got close to the leopard, he kicked off the ground and jumped high into the air, creating foothold by condensing ice magic on his feet to jump higher into the sky.

Even if his ice magic was only tier 0, it did not mean that he could not use it for simple things like creating footholds to propel himself into the air.

He repeated this several times until he was tens of metres into the air, and no one had noticed him—at least until he ignited the magic power in his sword and coated it with flames.

At that point, the leopard seemed to realize something was wrong but Evan was too high up and it was occupied with the adventurers in front of it to properly analyse what was off.

Evan then let gravity do the rest of the work for him.

While he fell towards his target, he pulled back his sword in mid air and activated his paladin skill.

As if seeing one mage get swatted out of the air like a fly wasn't a lesson, another mage had gone airborne, whilst charging a giant ball of lightning that the Leopard would be dumb to ignore.

It opened its mouth wide and revealed its sharp fangs, intending on biting the mage while, and it was in that moment that Evan reached it.

His flaming sword struck the leopard's left eye, with the full power of Evan's paladin boosted strength behind it.

"KraAAaaarghAA!!!!"

A guttural, pained roar erupted from the monster's throat as it writhed in torment, from the pain of having its eye burst, and with a flaming weapon at that.

Its anguished roar made the air tremble, and the flames on Evan's sword spread out to burn the area around its eyes before being doused by the fluids that splashed out of the punctured eye.

And after such an attack, no way Evan could remain concealed.

Gasps of surprise escaped the lips of the adventurers who saw Evan suddenly appear on the monster's head with his sword stabbed into its eye.

"It's a kid...?"

The Leopard who had climbed onto a small rock could not withstand the burning pain and slid down, its huge body squashing an unfortunate mage who could not get out of the way fast enough.

To make matters worse, the person who had been charging up the lightning shouted at Evan whilst tossing it right sat the monster's wounded eye.

"Get outta there, kid!"

'Oh, he still has the cognition to take advantage of such an opportunity.'

Evan thought this as he swiftly pulled out his sword and jumped off the monster's head, just in time to see the lightning ball hit the wound and exploded, blasting apart the monster's flesh and sending blood splattering everywhere.

"GRAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Its second scream snapped the others back to their senses and they launched all their magic attacks at it, blasting it from all directions.

The monster hadn't even come to its senses from the pain due to losing one eye, and now it had to deal with magic coming from everywhere.

Individually, the damage was small, but when they call piled up, they were able to deal substantial damage.

"GROARR!!"

The monster let out a magic infused roar that released a small shockwave, knocking the other adventurers away, but in that moment its mouth was opened, Laurene struck.

"Lightning Arrow."

The princess' calm voice rang out as a short blade tipped projectile of lightning shot right into its mouth and hit the back of its throat.

At this point in time, the poor leopard felt like going crazy.

Blood dripped down its lips as it fell to the ground, but still had its eyes glued onto Evan who was the root cause of its pain.

Well, it had its 'eye' glued onto him, filled with the desire to kill.

Even though Laurene's magic had dealt a lot of damage to it, Evan's flame infused sword still took the cake, and it was not so stupid to forget the situation due to pain.

This also meant Evan could not conceal himself again, but this didn't really matter as Evan was sure he could beat this guy head on.

"Everyone! Use magic! Aim for that blasted eye!"

The majority of the adventurers here had probably met each other for the first time today, teaming up temporarily to explore the dungeon.

But despite this, they all matched their breathing with only the desire to kill the leopard in their heads, a 'One track mind' mentality that they all temporarily possessed due to the dungeon's status effect.

Then again, it was only possible for them to even concentrate their attacks as Evan's appearance had allowed them to have some breathing room, an effect higher than the boy had expected, though he did not care.

Of course, this was only possible as Evan appeared to allow them time to breathe, but the effect was larger than Evan had thought, although he did not care.

"GRRRRRR!"

♧ ♧ ♧

Hey y'all, it's your friendly neighbourhood author, _michael here asking for Feedback!

What are your thoughts on the past 25 chapters?

What aspects do you want me to improve on going forward? 

Please let me know in the comments.

Thanks for your understanding and I look forward to you continuing on our Reincarnated Hero's journey.

This has been _michael.

Over and Out!✌🏽