Almond knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but he was excited nonetheless because he knew one thing, he wouldn’t die.
Using the raining wave of swamp water as a curtain, the dragon attacked Almond. However, Almond instantly captured the dragon’s attack as his All-Seeing Eyes could see through the energy readings of the dragon and instantly teleported away before it even released the attack.
A moment after that, a mud bullet exploded there, blasting out shockwaves.
Almond activated his Mana techniques, boosting his stats, defense, and attack.
Stage 2 level 10 Strength Boost: +200% Strength.
Stage 2 level 10 Body Enfold: All stats +200%.
Stage 2 level 10 Fortification: +200% toughness and durability barrier equal to 200% of original vitality.
And it didn’t take much for Almond to study his new weapon with his All-Seeing eyes as he managed to successfully use Weapon Enfold on it as well, increasing its Attack by 200%!
Meanwhile, the spirit Legendary-gear set he created looked simplest, but it was the strongest.
The set consisted of four items. (Basically, the current cover’s Almond)
First, a thick black collared T-shirt with a slightly wide V-neckline, granting physical and magic defense. This granted +200 Stamina, +200 Health in perk, and had defensive effects.
Second, a golden arm guard adorning his dominant right arm, increasing physical and magic defense, same as the T-shirt, and granting +200 Strength and +200 Mana as perks. It had four effects: two active types, one passive type that increased his Strength relative to his speed, and one trigger type.
Third, black trousers with the same defensive values as the other two. +200 Focus and +200 Perception in perks, with effects pertaining to defense and movement.
And lastly, a belt at his waist with similar defensive values as the other three items while giving a boost of +200 Focus and +200 Mana.
The set bonus in each item was the cherry on top, as each one gave an elemental boost. The ingredients and spirits he used were of Lightning, Wind, and Light attributes, so he got a boost for these three elements. +100% for Lightning, and 50% for the other two.
There wasn’t a space-elemental monster, so he couldn’t get space-boost, though he didn’t need it in the first place.
On top of that, the sword he created with Godly Clay also granted him +200 Strength and +200 Perception in perk!
With these five items and Mana techniques, Almond’s stats looked like this:
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-Strength: 600 + 800 from Mana Techniques.
-Health: 400 + 400 from M.Ts.
-Stamina: 400 + 400 from M.Ts.
-Mana: 900 + 400 from M.Ts.
-Focus: 800 + 400 from M.Ts.
-Perception: 800 + 400 from M.Ts.
-Will: 200.
If he punched that dragon physically without using additional Mana to use some kind of martial move, which he didn’t have, his 1400 Strength wouldn’t even budge him.
However, with the Legendary sword with 300% scaling on the attack, a single normal swing of his sword would get boosted by 300%, meaning it would be an attack of 4200 Strength + 500 extra from the sword’s flat 5000 attack power since 5000 Attack power equaled to 500 Strength stat.
But what if he used Severance Blade of 2000 Mana by shaping and condensing space into a slash and executed it with power from this swing?
*Slash!*
Almond did exactly that, as the pitch-black slash purely made of condensed space struck the dragon’s mouth right as it was about to release another attack.
The slash struck its mouth at the same time as it unleashed its attack, causing both attacks to clash and blast at its mouth as the dragon screeched painfully.
-21% vitality!
The impact cracked its fang since Almond had aimed the slash such that it would hit the fang mainly, but it didn’t break yet while the few cracks that appeared also healed.
Meanwhile, the swamp began shaking as the dragon became angry. Pillars of thick swamp water rose all over before all of them unleashed ghastly brown-green bullets at Almond from all sides.
‘Damn, not bad.’
If it was any other Gold rank, they would have died in that mass AOE attack because Almond could see that the dragon consumed a whopping 20% of its Mana in that attack, which was equal to 20,000 Mana, and it covered all directions, and large height as well.
However, Almond simply vanished as he teleported, appearing right inside the swamp, below the dragon within a spatial barrier that prevented the water from touching him.
*Crackle!*
He immediately slashed again while injecting a Spirit Syringe to recover his Mana as the dragon’s destroyer tail streaked at him inside the swamp.
This time, he didn’t hold back at all. Harvesting 50% of its Strength, Almond made a clean slash, intending to split the dragon into two vertically.
This slash was Severance Blade again, but this time, it was 4000 Mana powerful, and with his Mana pool increasing with all the perks and Mana techniques, he dumped the rest of his 90% Mana on elemental enchants.
Golden Haze Lightning—2000 Mana!
Lumeir — 1000 Mana, boosting its speed dramatically and buffing the attack power!
Sand of Vibrant Wave — 1000 Mana, drastically boosting penetration power!
This Severance Blade was the properly strongest one, and it instantly struck the dragon, beginning to split it instantly while the powerful electric discharge paralyzed the dragon as three elements synergized and wreaked havoc inside its body.
However, the slash was abruptly exhausted when it split the dragon halfway, at its chest.
-49% vitality!
The difference in power between his pure-space attack and the rest was big. The normal Severance Blade worth 2000 Mana shaved 21% of vitality, while this second attack which had 4000 Mana worth Severance Blade, and 4000 mana worth of three other element synergy boosts, dealt 49% damage, which was just 27% more than t
This meant that 90% of the damage came from pure Severance Blade, and that was due to the crazy space boost he had.
Of course, the attack could do more if it wasn’t squashed by newfound power surging within the dragon as Almond sensed.
He felt something and quickly teleported out of the swamp while injecting one Spirit Syringe into his recovery and another into the Dragon for a refill.
The dragon’s vitality dropped below 50%, but it began healing as a powerful aura gushed out of it.
‘Bloodline power?’ Almond narrowed his eyes as his All-Seeing Eyes detected a surge of energy and power within the dragon.
Almond suddenly felt danger and quickly vanished, teleporting away. At his previous spot, a ghastly muddy maw just clamped and exploded with utter devastation in a compact manner.
The swamp burst out with water due to the explosion, and the dragon finally emerged from it, flying up.
‘Damn,’ Almond felt goosebumps sensing the attack power of that maw-clamp-explosion skill.
‘I might be able to defend against it with my Devouring Veil, but with that sudden burst power, it would shatter, and I would get hit, which would injure me slightly, I guess.’
Suddenly, two more hazy maws appeared to his side, clamping down while the dragon above him opened its mouth, standby.
Almond teleported to a new location, and the Dragon immediately unleashed a devastating linear beam at him.
‘I can read you easily, you lizard,’ Almond internally rolled his eyes as he knew this would happen, so he was ready for another instant teleport without any delay and dodged the attack while swinging his sword.
He appeared right above the dragon, his swing in motion, intending to finish it off.
Sword of Imperishable Zenith!
With this skill’s buff activated, it was over even for this Dragon who boosted himself with his Bloodline power!
He unleashed the power of Serveance Blade, similar to the last one, but this time, everything happened in a flash.
The dragon reacted swiftly, its massive tail lashing out in a desperate attempt to strike Almond. Yet, in a flash, Almond’s slash cleaved through its form with ruthless precision. The dragon’s body split cleanly into two halves, which began to plummet to the ground as its vitality dropped to 0%, the light fading from its once-fiery eyes.
Almond’s eyes glinted as an invisible space blade cut off its fang now that the dragon couldn’t support it any longer and began teleporting back to the Avantana Tribe.