Zeke felt suspicious about it but he insisted on walking forward, his sword placed in front of him. He hadn"t lowered his vigilance as the entire situation was just very very weird for him. He cast [Divine Sense] and enveloped the whole room. However, he couldn"t find anything besides the fact that the yellow b.a.l.l.s were formed from mana and that the whole room was filled with dense red-colored mana. Zeke guessed that either his comprehension of [Divine Sense] is abysmal, or the room was just too advanced for his meager skill to pierce through.When he got to the middle part of the room, the light suddenly turned into light red as wails and cries resounded all around Zeke. It was loud and filled with an evil presence that made Zeke"s expression ugly.
Suddenly, a hand as big as Zeke"s whole body appeared from the ground in front of Zeke as it smashed towards him in full force.
Seeing this, Zeke immediately dodged to the side while also striking the gigantic hand with a fireball. He tested the hand"s defense first to get a rough estimate of its toughness. However, to his surprise, his fireball couldn"t even make a single dent! Even though it wasn"t his full-powered strike, it still contains the strength of a standard Tier 2 Magician. Yet, it didn"t even leave a single dent on the stone hand. It was enough for Zeke to realize that he couldn"t afford to underestimate this.
As he rolled backward and made some distance from the giant hand, Zeke saw the giant hand recede back to the ground. A second after, a figure emerged from the ground itself. It had the figure of a human taller than Zeke but its whole body was made of stone. It didn"t possess any facial feature except for a small hole in the middle of its head. It flickered with red light as it stood there motionless while facing Zeke.
Although the figure laid there motionless, Zeke couldn"t help but feel a tinge of fear when looking at it. He didn"t know if it was because of the difference in strength or if it was innately exuding a fearful aura. He didn"t wait for it to initiate as he conjured an arrow made of fire above each of his hand. After a second, the fire arrow launched towards the stone figure with astonishing speed, as if it was fired from a bow. Zeke saw the figure did not even budge an inch after seeing his arrows, and he couldn"t help but furrow his brows due to the peculiar situation.
Sure enough, Zeke really guessed it right. The figure, instead of dodging, held his arm in front of his body. It planned on directly defending against the two arrows with just his one arm. Soon, when the arrows landed on the figure"s palm, it was as if they hit a brick wall as the two arrows just struck something impenetrable. It crashed while slowly dissipating after it landed on the figure"s palm. When both arrows dispersed, Zeke could see a burnt part of the figure"s hand but instead of feeling joy, Zeke frowned. He didn"t expect that a [Fire Arrow], a spell suitable to unleash the full prowess of a Tier 2, couldn"t even deal significant damage to the figure. Although its palm was burnt, it was insignificant and it didn"t reduce the figure"s combat prowess at all.
While Zeke was pondering, he felt a chill in his right. By instinct, he moved to the left slightly. Unknowingly, he influence the flow of mana around him, vaguely a.s.sisting him in moving to the left. This shocked Zeke since he didn"t expect [Sorcerer King Ziva"s Mana Manipulation] to be used like that. He wanted to experiment it again but he knew it was not the right time. When he looked back, he saw a palm-sized rock deeply lodged on the wall. Zeke knew it was what caused him chills. However, besides getting serious, he felt shocked inwardly by the strong force behind the rock to be able to pierce through the room.
He didn"t dare dally anymore as he raised his vigilance to the limit while condensing a fireball in his left hand. When it formed, it suddenly became black as he launched it towards the figure. He hoped that by using his Heavenly Flame, he could deal much more damage than using a common fire.
The outcome pleased Zeke. When the black fireball landed on the figure"s palm, it suddenly burst into smaller fireb.a.l.l.s as it clung on the figure"s whole arm. The black flames then enveloped the entirety of the figure"s arm. Before it could reach the figure"s body though, the burning arm suddenly detached off the figure"s body. To Zeke"s horror, the severed burnt arm got swallowed by the ground beneath the figure, who didn"t even move nor react. The lost arm then started to regrow at a visible rate.
Zeke didn"t wait for it to happen as he immediately conjured a black fireball again. Due to having practically no experience in using Dragon Force, Zeke still struggled for a bit before properly utilizing it, hence he could only form one Heavenly Flame Fireball at most. As he gets proficient in mixing it with mana, he could naturally form more and more.
Seeing the incoming black fireball, the figure didn"t hesitate and received it with its other arm. As its burnt arm fell off, the other arm was already back. Zeke frowned and was even slightly surprised by how fast the figure"s recovery is. He couldn"t afford to continue using the Heavenly Flame"s power again as he already expended 30% of his Dragon Force just for the two fireb.a.l.l.s earlier.
He then switched to the Battle Dragon"s power, [Keen Judgement]. Suddenly, Zeke felt his entire body fill with intense battle intent that enveloped the entire room. Right now, if there was someone looking at Zeke, he/she would definitely be intimidate by Zeke"s current imposing aura if his soul is weak.
Suddenly, a thought projection appeared in Zeke"s consciousness. In it, there was multiple illusory figures that heavily resemble the figure Zeke was currently fighting. Right now, there was only two moving projections with one of them launching a giant stone hand towards the illusory Zeke. The other one seemed to control countless small rocks as it hit straight towards another illusory Zeke. While watching the scene unfold, Zeke felt his mind lighten up as his gaze towards the figure changed from that of slight fear to a calm and deep gaze. He was currently fighting the figure in his mind while he was currently dodging the rocks that the figure was launching in reality.
After a few more seconds, Zeke already consumed 50% more of his Dragon Force. He couldn"t afford to lose more as he immediately stopped using [Keen Judgement]. However, even though he already stopped it, Zeke seemed like he already knew the figure like the back of his hand. After multiple attempts inside his mind, Zeke had already found a way to deal with the figure.
He immediately cast [Divine Sense] and soon enough, [Keen Judgement] didn"t fail him. In his illusory world inside his consciousness, he vaguely realized that although the figure seemed invincible and indestructible, it definitely had a weakness. Sure enough, when he sensed the whole figure, he could see it covered with dark red while there was a small part inside its body that shone a different shade of red. Instead of dark red, that small circle exuded a light red color while his sense could feel a hint of uneasiness whenever he tried to sense it. Based from the Battle Dragon"s experiences, he knew this kind of enemies. It was exactly like the Undying Lion that Zeke fought in the outskirts! Although they looked invincible and unkillable, they had a glaring weakness which is their source of energy. Zeke didn"t know what exactly it is but he concluded that it must be like a mana core that supplies their whole body, keeping it intact as well as regenerating the damaged parts. In the case of the undying lion, Zeke didn"t know why the lion didn"t recover its previous appearance, but he guessed that the two demons he killed earlier must"ve tampered with it, causing its appearance and behavior to warp into that of a mindless undying.
Without hesitation, Zeke held his sword as his body suddenly became slimmer and slimmer while a surge of power erupted from his whole body. Zeke had activated the Mad Dragon"s skill as he executed [Jaguar Step]. Using his physically enhanced body, Zeke felt it became easier to do as he hurled himself towards the figure in a blur. Then, faint traces of fiery red mana coated his sword as he swung it towards the figure"s head. He had utilized his Formless Style"s Firebreath Sword combined with Dance of Death, making his attack not only possess a sharp aura, but it was also fast and with the intent to kill. As the circle of light red mana was located in the figure"s head just behind the hole in its face, Zeke planned on severing the source of energy so the body would not recover.
However, to his surprise, the figure actually reacted to his strike not by defending or blocking, but by moving the hole in the middle of its head towards its body. When the sword pa.s.sed through the figure"s head, the light red circle had already moved to the stomach. Although the figure"s head got cut off, it immediately started to regrow as the head on the ground got slowly absorbed back to the ground.
Zeke was surprised about the monster"s self-awareness. It could actually devise such a plan like that?
However, he didn"t have time to waste in applauding it as he immediately swung his sword many times in just a span of a few seconds towards the figure"s upper body. With the Mad Dragon"s increase in explosiveness in strength, Zeke"s speed and strength right now was beyond what he could do before. It clearly surpa.s.sed Zeke"s normal stats as it was just so fast that even Zeke found it hard to adapt to such a change in his body. Although he felt weird, he was ecstatic to find out about the potential of the Mad Dragon"s skill. It seemed to boost his melee prowess by quite a lot considering compressing his muscles actually gave him a huge boost in strength and speed.
The dogfight between the figure and Zeke lasted for a minute before the figure was forced to retreat due to the impending danger of the core. It seemed to have sensed that Zeke already knew of its weakness as it fled and ran around the room while waiting for its whole body to regrow. Due to Zeke"s overwhelming amount of attacks, the figure could only retreat for some time before fighting again just so it could regrow the parts cut or damaged by Zeke"s flurry of sword strikes.
After a minute, Zeke felt his muscles go sore and tired but he paid no attention to it as he forcefully pushed his bodies" speed to the limit. The figure was now currently panicking. It couldn"t fend off Zeke while it received injuries more than what it could recover. At that rate, the figure would really be doomed after a few minutes. However, it didn"t leave. Or rather, Zeke didn"t know if it could even leave considering the entrance he went it was not a simple door but actually a kind of teleporting formation.
After another minute, Zeke finally severed all of the figure"s limb and other parts. The light red core inside was still located in the stomach after all that"s happened so Zeke immediately tried to pierce through and destroy it. However, before he could even do it, the light red circle inside the figure went out and without hesitation, it charged towards the chest. Zeke furrowed his brows and was about to chase it off when he suddenly became shocked by what he saw. The "mana core" of the figure actually gradually vanished as strands of it went straight to the chest!