Chapter 393: Joining Hands
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“Grimm, you…”
Yates gasped as he watched the fight start to unfold before him. This guy’s serious about challenging a Level-2 sorcerer to battle?!
Grimm did not respond to Yates as he was frantically searching through his memories on all the magic attacks Dira had up his sleeve back during the cruise s.h.i.+p hijacking six hundred years ago.
For starters, he had the Spirit Flame. It was the attack that Dira used to fend off attacks from the Giant Cephalopod while they were at sea.
He also used an ice-based sorcery attack, which froze the Cephalopod’s tentacles rock solid, making it sink back down onto the seabed. In the midst of chaos, Lefay almost fell into the sea too, if not for Grimm pulling her back up onto the s.h.i.+p. The same type of attack was also used in his pre-emptive strike against the Fake Faceless Nilmar.
At the same time, he had some kind of mechanical system running inside his body. Removal of his black eyepatch should increase his strength by mult.i.tudes.
In addition to that, Grimm once witnessed the use of his trump card, a creature sp.a.w.ned under the Occult Code of Life and Death. It was some type of centipede, hatched from an egg pa.s.sed down through generations from the Ancient Sorcerers. It was the fatal blow that killed off the Urado Sirens that attacked their s.h.i.+p.
To say the least, Grimm had a rough approximation of Dira’s abilities.
The reason why Grimm was confident enough to challenge a Level-2 sorcerer was because he himself was a combat-trained Dark Demon-Hunter. On the other hand, Dira was just another Arcane Sorcerer.
Grimm was supported by the Sabbatic Goat Staff, as well as the Level-2 sorcerers’ Elemental Teleportation and Elemental Body abilities offered by his special sorcerer’s robe. The only significant difference between Grimm and Dira in terms of combat capability was that his opponent could suppress Grimm’s Force of Nature and could alter his own base level of mental strength at any time.
In the sky, a swirling tower of frost and mist sucked in the intensely burning flames.
The source of the Arctic Spiral was somehow connected to the sleeves of the great sorcerers’ robe.
“You…”
Dira’s expression darkened completely.
“I see, you have chosen to make the same senseless choice as I did back then. If that’s so then you must pay the price as I did back then. You shall pay for your own ignorance and stupidity as a low-level sorcerer, and for disrespecting a higher-level sorcerer’s honor!”
Thick layers of Elemental Cloud started acc.u.mulating around Dira. And with a push from his hand, the Arctic Spiral shot towards Grimm, as if the sky had opened up a great, big mouth that prepared to engulf him completely.
Even before the freezing gust of wind came near, the temperature had already plummeted drastically.
Grimm remained unfazed.
In Grimm’s current condition where his mental strength was inferior and his Force of Nature was suppressed, it would be undeniably foolish to fight a higher-level sorcerer in his own game, using high-level sorcery attacks.
Conversely, there was the Sabbatic Goat Staff, which had an impressive array of seven thousand spells and offered a basic offense power of three hundred points. At the same time, it reduces magic power consumption by fifty percent, which was incredibly convenient, especially in long battles.
In other words, the best strategy for Grimm to win this battle, is to keep using low-level sorcery attacks generated from the Sabbatic Goat Staff and to use it to its full combat potential!
This was the biggest difference between Black Sorcerers and other sorcerers when it came to evaluating a battle.
With this in mind, Grimm stabilized his magic power as he formed a low-level fireball at the tip of the Sabbatic Goat Staff, after which he fired continuously at the incoming Arctic Spiral shot after shot.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Each of these fireb.a.l.l.s were around five hundred degrees centigrade, and the amount of magic power consumed by these continuous attacks were so low that it was barely negligible. After firing a considerable number of shots into the Arctic Spiral, he no longer felt the overwhelming force from Dira’s attack. Grimm had finally achieved complete neutralization of the Arctic Spiral’s offense power by his own attacks.
In the chain of explosions from Grimm’s fireb.a.l.l.s, it was evident as to the sheer strength of his attacks. Dira was stunned after seeing how easily his own attack was shrugged off.
How could it be that the offense power of this Fireball Spell, far exceeded his own basic offense power?
Soon enough, Dira arrived at two possibilities. It was either a powerful innate talent, or from the help of an immensely strong sorcerer’s apparatus.
With a grunt, Dira suddenly burst into thousands of ice shards, disappearing into thin air. In the moment that followed, the shards started gathering above Grimm’s head. Under the overwhelming wave of magic power, a ma.s.sive Ice Pillar fell down from the heavens above.
‘Hm?’
For some reason, Grimm felt the strong attractive force of the Ice Pillar towards the surrounding Water Elements. He could also feel the blood flow within his body becoming more and more disordered.
Figuring that his opponent possessed a rare, runic Ice Elemental mutation similar to the Eternal Flame, Grimm too disintegrated into yellow sand, dodging Dira’s surprise attack. Grimm then appeared above Dira’s head, before pounding down hard with his Sabbatic Goat Staff.
Thud!
To Dira’s surprise, the magic staff in his hands as well as his own skin had galvanized into a layer of metal, and he was now sent flying uncontrollably towards Grimm’s magic staff.
Buzz!
A surge of high-frequency waves erupted from the skull of Grimm’s Sabbatic Goat Staff, as a series of “click, click” noises came from within Dira’s body. It was the sound of friction coming from the malfunctioning intricate system of machinery inside Dira’s body.
Dira widened his eyes in disbelief. Once more, his body disappeared into thin air before forming into a ball of frost in the sky hundreds of meters away.
“Explosion!”
As Dira yelled out, more than a dozen blue orbs started detonating around Grimm.
These orbs made a heavy, low rumbling noise before exploding into what seemed like a s.h.i.+mmering array of Frost Elements. The series of detonations engulfed Grimm completely. As if that weren’t enough, the s.h.i.+mmering lights started attracting rolling waves of surrounding Frost Element, gathering in large piles around Grimm.
This scene was similar to the one when Dira used the Ice Seal against the Giant Cephalopod at sea, just that this was much more powerful.
“That b.a.s.t.a.r.d!”
Dira’s face contorted in pain as he started gagging. Before long, he spit out a few intricately crafted mechanical parts. The “click-clack, click-clack” noise was no longer audible after the mechanisms were vomited out from his own body.
There were a considerable number of crack on these intricate mechanical parts.
After a wave of magic power expanded from his palms, the cracks gradually mended itself and the parts were up and running again. Upon doing so, the parts slowly sunk into the skin on his hands and returned back into his body.
“Fire Blast Spell!”
Zoom!
A dark red beam of light erupted. The immense power from this attack alone was enough to make Dira, a level-two sorcerer flinch, as he dodged the attack with great caution.
Whomp, whomp, whomp, whomp, whomp…
Ma.s.sive swarms of ice cones and ice shards shot continuously in all directions from the Explosive Flaming Frost Jellyfish. This was due to the auto-locking mechanism triggered by the acc.u.mulation of Frost Element around Grimm’s body.
Grimm was using up his magic power reserves faster than he thought. He could feel the power of the Mandala Robes gradually wearing off. After all, this was just an expendable item gifted to him by a Stigmata Sorcerer.
Forcing himself to bear with the temporary feeling of numbness and stiffness, his blood on the brink of complete coagulation, Grimm yelled out, “Repulsion!”
Briefly, Grimm expelled the extreme cold feeling from his body. And yet, beyond the bubble of repulsive force, more and more Frost Element was piling up, with Grimm as the target. This was exactly how higher-level sorcerers could suppress a lower-level sorcerer’s Force of Nature.
“Ku ku, resistance is futile!”
In a battle between official sorcerers, the one who manages to control the Force of Nature will be the one with the absolute advantage. From the looks of it, in the current race to control the Force of Nature, Grimm’s control over the force was barely a quarter of Dira’s.
That is to say, for the same spell, Grimm’s usage of magic power was four times that of Dira’s!
And in this crucial moment, Dira’s spell managed to utilize this advantage by increasing Grimm’s magic power consumption, chipping away large quant.i.ties of his magic power, driving him into a corner.
From Grimm’s perception, with the exception of the small bubble of Nature’s Force around him, the greater s.p.a.ce around him was heavily pus.h.i.+ng down on him, reminding him of his powerlessness back when he was a sorcerer’s apprentice trying to control the Force of Nature.
“Attraction!”
The battle cannot go on any longer.
Grimm yelled out loudly. In his mind, his plan was to establish Dira’s whereabouts using the attraction force before destroying him using an Anatomy Refinery Sorcerer’s method.
Poof!
Dira disintegrated into frost, disappearing from Grimm’s perception.
“To think that you took the path of refinery sorcery, hehe…huh?”
Suddenly, a Dark Elemental Cloud shrouded Grimm in its protection. This time, it was Yates’ turn to play!
“Ku ku, Grimm. I never thought that this day would come for us to join hands in battle!”
Following Yates’ proclamation, a Stone Giant slowly rose from the ground. It’s body was heavily covered by a layer of stalact.i.tes, and emanating from it was a dark elemental signal.
It was this kind of element activation sorcery that gave Grimm the inspiration and formed the basic framework for his Greedy Flame Giant.