Ludwig’s body was exuding flames and heat like a torch in the darkness of the bog. The crocodile which was arrogantly toying with Ludwig earlier had a different air about him all of a sudden.
“Fire Ball!” Ludwig chanted, releasing a more imposing flaming orb of flame that shot up toward the pool of water.
The crocodile had no intention on taking it head on so he dipped down. But Ludwig hadn’t finished yet, he sent another fire ball, and another and kept going.
Each fire ball he threw was more significant than the later one. Growing in power and might.
Van Dijk kept noting down what was going on, scribbling at his notebook, but a deep frown never left his brows.
Ludwig on the other hand was adamant on what would look like boiling the crocodile.
Steam began emerging out of the puddle and soon, it began boiling. Ludwig’s fireballs continued to grow more and more powerful, but something seemed to change whenever Ludwig would cast a spell.
The volatility of his fireball became more and more uncontrollable, some overshot their target and some blew up far too close for Ludwig’s comfort.
Ludwig grimaced as he finally realized that just because [Flame Bringer] made every fire spell of his more potent, that doesn’t make him a master of flames. Fire ball was a level one fire spell, the most basic of basics, but with [Flame Bringer] active, it became harder and harder to control the more powerful the buff grew and at the same time, he noticed that some of his fingers had been singed and burnt from his own fires.
His flame pool was rapidly depleting, which was good since he would receive an incredible amount of damage if he still had any mana left in his flame pool before he exhausts it. But due to the volatility of his own spells, he was fearing that something wrong might happen.
Fifty or so seconds had went by, and the pool had already been dried up leaving the crocodile desperately defending against the flames using his tentacles. Good progress Ludwig thought.
Just as he believed that he had the crocodile cornered, something under his feet moved.
Too late to even notice it, one of the tentacles burst out from the ground and grabbed at Ludwig’s foot, yanking him from his position.
[You’re suffering from minor corrosion]
You will lose 20 hp over ten seconds!
[You’re suffering from minor corrosion]
You will lose 20 hp over ten seconds!
….
The notification kept going up, but that wasn’t Ludwig’s worry, because the problem was that the crocodile had grabbed him mid cast.
The fire ball in his hand was about to blow up in his face, to which he rapidly hurled it forward, only for it to blow up right between him and the crocodile.
[-360 hp]
[You are currently suffering from [Burn] effect]
You will lose 60 hp over 10 seconds!
Ludwig cursed inwardly, the damage from the fire ball had blasted both him and the crocodile, and from the look of it, the crocodile took the worst of the damage as it began screeching and rolling on the mud.
Thankfully the explosion separated the tentacle that was attached to Ludwig freeing him form the grab, but that wasn’t enough, he was suffering from fire damage and corrosion.
Ludwig immediately did the same as the crocodile. He marred himself in the mud, rolling all over it and removed the corrosion by wiping his foot with more mud.
The timer for the flame pool was still dropping hard and fast, he needed to clear it as fast as possible or he’ll be in deep shit.
“Fire Ball!” he shouted once again as he stabilized himself on one knee from the ground.
The crocodile also opened his mouth and spat a massive ball of acid toward Ludwig.
The two balls collided and blew up creating a massive fume cloud that spread outward.
[You’re inhaling toxic fumes!]
[As an undead, Poison and Toxin is ineffective against you]
Ludwig was thankful for the undead passive here, as it helped him stave off the debuff. But the fight was far from over.
He stood up, and rushed at the crocodile who was panicking as it saw a creature that should be running away from it, rushing toward it.
It shot two of its slime like tentacles at Ludwig who by what he would believe to be a miracle dodged and lunged his body forward at the crocodile.
He landed on top of the creature and gripped at its back using his legs. He saw this in a crocodile documentary once, and wanted to try it out.
This made Van Dijk stand up, something was wrong Ludwig thought, but he didn’t have the opportunity to think of what.
He pulled his last remaining scimitar and shoved it right at the head that was leaking brain matter and then began scrambling what was inside.
The crocodile reacted in a wrathful manner as it was feeling its brain being turned to slush. Its tentacles began swatting erratically everywhere, one of them even struck Ludwig square on the back, but he just tided through.
Just as he was about to pull the scimitar and stab at its other head, he noticed that most of the metal on the weapon had began melting and corroding.
‘Even its brain has corrosive matter?’ Ludwig cursed. How was he going to deal with this thing then? If anything he used would just corrode and melt off.
Just then he remembered the shard of the Cursed Sword.
That thing was said to have been made by hammering down a black hole. Would it survive the corrosion?
No time to think things, Ludwig immediately grabbed the shard in a reverse grip and slammed it down on the central head.
Surprisingly for Ludwig, the weapon that should do between 1-2 damage pierced through the skull as if it was made of jelly. And dove all the way until it dug itself into the ground.
[Critical!]
-1200 hp!
“Huh?” Ludwig had yet to understand what was going on when the crocodile began spasming and then rolling on the side.
If Ludwig was thrown off, he’ll become prey for the crocodile, but if he kept on hugging the crocodile, he’ll probably be crushed.
This is what they say about riding the back of a tiger. Only it’s an undead chimera like crocodile with tentacles.
-60! Hp!
-50 hp!
Ludwig’s health pool was dipping rather fast. In that second Ludwig pulled a vial in his hand, a red one. And instead of wasting time drinking it, he threw it in his mouth and bit on the glass. Breaking the content in his mouth.
[-12hp!]
The health potion instantly began recovering the damage that Ludwig had received, while Ludwig spat out the shards of glass out. If it was anyone but Van Dijk who was watching this, they’d be horrified at the sight. Who the hell drinks a potion like that?
But Van Dijk couldn’t help but smile at Ludwig’s audacity and risk taking factor. He had no time to open the vial and then drink its content, there was also a risk of its breaking since the crocodile was mid barrel roll.
The best option was actually to bite down on the thing, and since Ludwig was an undead, who cares if a few pieces of glass were stuck inside his mouth.