“Damn it, who is that?!”
“There’s a strange monster, and it’s very powerful!”
“I can’t detect him.”
“Look out! The boss is charging up an attack. Interrupt It, Rudra!”
*Smash!*
“I think that strange monster disappeared.”
“He was a human or rather humanoid. He…saved me from that AOE attack,” Finn said as he gulped. “I have a strange feeling Almond is related to him.”
Adrian wryly smiled and nodded, “I think the same.”
“…”
The same situation happened in other parties where Asura made trouble for them, taunting their mental process during the boss fights and putting them on edge.
By the time Almond returned, everyone had defeated the boss and were resting. On the other hand, the two groups in other areas killing monsters to level up had not done so yet.
Almond teleported the big boss areas one by one and brought the parties together at the floor boss spawn area.
“Almond, the one making trouble for us was you, right?” Natalia immediately said. “Was it your Spirit Wraith?”
“Your summon had quite some tricky skills. They were utterly powerful and high in the realm. I only have two skills of that level,” Admiral Rudra narrowed his eyes. “But he displayed many skills of Mythical-rank.”
Everyone looked at Almond.
Almond chuckled in response and said, “It wasn’t a Spirit Wraith.”
Waving his hand, Almond summoned his first-ever Spirit Lord.
Everyone saw a six-foot-tall humanoid with demonic horns and a cloak of energy streaming with dim black, red, and blue whirling around him, hiding most of his body.
Only his face was visible, and that too only by half as his mouth was covered with a dark red, shining, metallic demonic mask.
His eyes looked balefully black with red pupils, a strange design woven within.
“He is a Spirit Lord. A new species was created based on one of my source powers—Spirit Animation.”
Almond shared Ashura’s status with everyone as shock coursed through their eyes upon reading it.
[Asura the Immortal Slayer]
-Lifeform rank: Epic (Immortal-King)
-Bloodline: Requiem Black Infernal Star (Immortal-King)
-Ability Power: ####
-P-###
-####
-Stats:
— Physical:
↳ [Strength: 800 | Health: 800 | Stamina: 800]
— Mental:
↳ [Mana: 800 | Focus: 800 | Perception: 800]
“His Bloodline is also suppressed, but even so, he can gain quite a boost from it once activated,” Almond smiled. “And he has a big arsenal of skills. Anyone who fights him will most likely lose.”
“Allow me to have a spar,” Arjun said, a battle intent gleaming in his eyes. “Let’s see how powerful he is.”
“Sure,” Almond grinned.
Everyone quickly distanced themselves and stood around the huge magic circle where the floor boss would be spawned.
Almond created a barrier in the center, roughly around 100 meters in radius.
Holding his bow, Arjun stood in an aim stance while Asura stood fifty meters across from him.
“Start,” Almond said, commencing the battle.
Asura vanished right off the bat while Arjun’s aura surged, and a fiery maelstrom covered him, within which Arjun shot up in the sky and released his bowstring.
*Swoosh!*
Out of nowhere, Asura cut through the storm with his beastly claws that had long, sharp talons, slashing his destructive fiery tornado, going for Arjun’s chest.
Arjun reacted promptly as he was expecting to receive an attack fast. Turning into a stream of flame, he dodged, but when he materialized, three gnashes were still on his chest, tearing through his armor.
But at the same time, the fiery tornado scattered, creating a beautiful scenery briefly before a hundred arrows formed and shot at Asura.
Ashura’s cloak vanished as his six arms moved blindingly fast, deflecting and destroying all deadly arrows coming at him.
“Damn!”
“Arjun’s flames are most destructive, but that summons is using a direct water elemental counter of a variant of Mythical-rank mastery when he was using darkness just now to attack!”
“Almond’s summon has two Mythical-rank elemental masteries!”
“No…”
*Crackle…BOOM!*
Asura burst into lightning, forcefully synergizing with Arjun’s flames, creating plasma blasts, and interfering with all perceptory powers before he appeared right behind Arjun.
But right there, Arjun’s bow had an arrow nocked already as if he had predicted it.
Ashura’s eyes also shone as two flexible, darkened spears whipped out like snakes, piercing Arjun right as he released the arrow.
*BOOM!*
Arjun fell down, spitting blood, and turning dark green with poison and paralyzed while Asura was blasted down, significantly damaged, and half of his body gone, but he quickly created a skill from the sealed abilities and cured himself.
Almond also waved his hand, using the Whisper of Life to completely recover the old monster Arjun.
The old monsters and everyone watching were dumbfounded.
“What kind of power does this summon have?!” Paloma exclaimed.
“He showed four elements, and all four of them were at peak Mythical-rank,” Admiral Rudra said, completely shocked.
Old monster Arjun coughed and wryly smiled, “Yeah, even my Foresight Assault failed to defeat him. That’s my greatest talent, and it allows me to beat speed with timing and strength with precision.”
“But how did you recover me so fast? It’s like….it’s strange. It wasn’t even elemental.”
Almond told Asura to return while he dispersed the barrier and smiled, “The skill I used was Whisper of Life. Basically, nobody is dying in my presence. There’s a condition to using this skill successfully, but it’s easy.”
The condition was to have complete data of the person beforehand. He had all of their intact genetic data memory since he had scanned them with his All-Seeing Eyes beforehand, so he could regenerate their lost parts via memory to the metaphysical conversion of Spirit Animation.
“But I am impressed, elder Arjun. Haha, I wasn’t expecting you to damage Asura this much,” Almond grinned. “After all, this summons is made from very, very strong individuals and monsters. All of them have elemental masteries above Mythical-rank, but since Asura is here, his masteries are suppressed to peak at Mythical-rank.”
“He also has multiple abilities, mostly sealed, but he can create crude skills based on them and use them.”
“Yeah, he healed himself from Arjun’s attack.” Silvester nodded. “Usually, it’s impossible to heal when struck by Arjun’s flames.”
“Yeah, he just overpowered and cleansed himself of that debuff using a skill.”
“If Arjun can only do that much, then it wouldn’t be much different for me. Ultimately, I would lose,” Admiral Rudra said as his eyes glinted. “Asura, eh? He can be a good sparring partner for us old folks to improve.”
“For sure,” Almond grinned. “Don’t worry, I am going to make this trip worthwhile for everyone and make sure we improve a lot.”
…
Everyone rested for half an hour before Almond went and brought back the two big groups who had finished leveling to Epic 200.
All of them were dead tired, but Almond didn’t give them a chance to rest and directly summoned the regular Floor Boss of the 14th Floor.
It was a 300-meter-tall giant with a beastly head and humanoid figure, holding two hammers. He had 1,000,000 in Health and Mana, 6000 in Strength, and 5000 in Focus and Perception.
Normal Floor bosses were obviously weaker compared to Heroic Bosses, but they had a big size, Health, and Mana.
While only a single party could go for a Heroic Challenge at a time, normal floor bosses could be pounced upon by as many people as were present in the area.
The current lineup was strong enough to finish off the boss within ten minutes.