BXBX NOVEL Chapter 489 488: Field Test (3)
It wouldn't do a lot of damage, but the surprise puncture wound made the Magma Wyrm roar in anger, turning towards us and beginning to swim to the shore as quickly as it could.
Remaining just above the surface, the monster gave its position away, allowing me to continue pelting it with arrows as I tried to keep its attention, all whilst the others bolstered our defenses and prepared to meet the monster head on.
Anput constructed a platform around us and lifted it out of the shoreline, placing us a few feet above the magma and giving us some room to face the monster when it reached us.
Jahi shrouded the platform in a giant sphere of golden light, protecting us from some of the attacks the Magma Wyrm might unleash, before switching her focus from defense to offense, joining me in pelting the monster with projectiles as we dealt as much damage as we could before it entered combat with us.
Leone had drawn out her giant multi Ritual Circle behind her, the large set of red runes and lines behind us adding to the illumination of the magma.
With the amount of pain Jahi and I had caused it, the Magma Wyrm roared before leaping up into the air, trying to bathe us in magma as it crashed back down into the lake, splashing the orange liquid all over the place.
The Vampire just waved her hands, the magma redirecting itself away from us and leaving the golden dome unscathed, much to the monsters annoyance as it breached the surface once more.
Now that it was closer, I hurled a long, barbed lance towards its body, sinking the ice deep into its flesh before shattering it, eliciting another roar that was swiftly silenced as a large chunk of rock crashed against the monsters jaw, snapping it shut.
Two whirling discs of condensed golden light slammed into either side of its neck, scoring deep gashes as they tore away scales and churned the meat beneath.
"That should be the first stage done! Now it really begins!"
We all nodded at Jahi's words, preparing another host of spells as we watched the monster transition from a simple scaled worm into something else.
Two arms sprouted from its upper torso, ending in three digit hands that had enough reach and dexterity to wield a weapon, which it summoned from the earth, brown mana coiling around its hands.
It's red scales gained a silver luster, each of them growing spikes that threatened to wrench any weapon from your hands whilst also being a large threat in case it got closer.
Ash spilled from its jaws, which were now illuminated with a dull red glow, and two new eyes opened just past its original set, all four now glaring down at us as it coiled its body and 'stood' up, wielding a giant blade of stone.
"NOW!"
Having waited for its entire shift to occur, we unleashed a flurry of spells against the monster, peppering it with attacks that it tried to defend itself from.
It's sword sliced through my lances and blocked Anput's sharpened stones, whilst its now silver mana blocked the deluge of flames that Leone tried to drown it in.
However, the golden discs that Jahi loved to much shattered the screen of silver mana and cut into the monster once more, making it shriek as the discs scored deep gashes alongside its new arms.
Glaring at her, it raised the blade high and slammed it down, forcing Jahi to release the discs and instead reinforce the shield, with Anput encasing us in a dome of earth as well.
A loud crash rang out from the blow, the sheer force behind it making us wince as the noise threatened to rupture our eardrums, whilst also making our knees buckle from the pressure.
Thankfully, the dome remained intact, though Anput's barrier was shattered by the stone blade.
Seeing that we were alright, the monster snarled as it began to transform the sword into one of metal, while its maw opened wide as it bathed the shoreline in noxious gas that blistered the air, turning an already insanely hot area into one that even monsters couldn't stand.
Lizardmen that had been watching from afar shrieked as their scales began to peel off, their flesh bubbling for a moment before contracting, the moisture inside them now gone.
Leone summoned her own flames around us, which I strengthened with a sphere of wind to supply them with more fuel so that the gas wouldn't reach us, all while Jahi's fingers danced in front of her, a complex Ritual Circle forming.
Distracting the monster with a barrage of attacks, Anput battered the monster with dozens of metal spheres and lances, puncturing through its hardened scales and making it hiss in agony as she disrupted its concentration, stopping the monster from transforming the stone in its hand to metal.
Joining her in distracting it, I pelted its scales with bundles of frigid air, adding to the previous wounds and helping spread the frost further, slowing down its movements as much as I could before Jahi unleashed her attack.
With Leone combatting the noxious gas that lingered in the air around us, Jahi had the most potent magic after her to deal with the Magma Wyrm, Light Mana outclassing all of our mana on its own.
The monster growled and halted the transformation of its blade, slashing it back down as it tried to stop us from casting more magic against stand damaging it more, only to hiss as the blade crashed against a stone pillar, slowing down its swing.
With the weapon trapped, it tried to open its maw to breathe out more gas onto the golden dome, which had begun to flicker slightly as Jahi put her mana into another spell.
Before it could, Anput and I closed its jaws by smashing the lower jaw with a large chunk of stone before I stabbed a large lance of ice up into its mouth, pinning its jaws closed.
The ice was already melting from the heat of the magma, but now that it was coated in the Magma Wyrm's sticky blood, that process was expedited.
As the monster tried to free its jaws from that icicle, Jahi completed her spell and raised her arms, dozens of small spheres of compressed light flickering into existence around her.
Clapping her hands in front of her, the spheres streaked forwards and made their way towards the monster, exploding against its scales and ripping out large chunks of flesh, dealing an incredible amount of damage.
A good amount of the spheres targeted the monsters neck, chewing through its flesh and eventually severing the bone, causing its head to fall forwards and sink into the low tide of magma.
The rest of its body followed quickly behind, slamming down into the shoreline as the monster died, making us all grin.
[Magma Wyrm - 144,780 XP]
My grin was rather wide as well, considering that wasn't the only thing that popped up...
[Defend Mistress Anput / Leone / Jahi from the monster threat!
Reward : 30,000 XP , 10,000 SP
Bonus : Each Mistress is unscathed! Good job!
Bonus : 15,000 XP , 5,000 SP]
The real totals for experience were double that thanks to [Growth], and joy overcame me as I stared at the sheer amount of experience I had gotten today; just over 300,000 XP from just a simple outing into the Caverns, and I still had more to go with my other Daily Quests.
Besides that, I got a large amount of SP to spend as well, making this singular outing one of the most lucrative things I had ever done...
To say I was ecstatic as we began to butcher the Magma Wyrm would be an understatement, and our journey back up to the surface with our goodies was spent feeling giddy, each of us discussing the various things that we observed during the fight.
Specifically, how often we wanted to try and locate a monster like the Magma Wyrm; monsters that shifted from one stage to another, making them far harder to fight.
Attacking them during that transition from stage one to stage two, or - Goddess forbid - stage two to three would only make the fight harder, as instead of the 'base' stage two, we would have been fighting stage 2+, with far more potent mana and a larger increase in strength.
It was something to do with how the monster responded to the increase in danger, its body going into overdrive to keep it alive and absorbing nearly double the amount of mana it needed to shift.
That was what the Magma Wyrm was, and once we slipped past the Gate of Hades further inside the caverns, we would encounter more monsters with the ability to shift; monsters that were far harder to defeat and much more strenuous to plan for.
Some of the base monsters might be able to shift as well, making everything past that Gate of Hades to be far more lethal, but far more rewarding as their materials made for some really good gear if handled correctly.
For now though, we were all looking forwards to returning to the Palace, where we could begin looking into how to improve further while Anput and Leone would start enjoying the fruits of our labors as they began to craft and concoct things from the materials.