"What the–" He was surprised by the small damage, but his hand didn't stop as it did a follow-up slash which produced damage of 13.
'Crap, the buff it gets is for its defense.' Jack came to a realization. No wonder it had thrown away its round shield. With such sturdy scales around its body, it didn't need the shield anymore.
As he continued to trade blows with the monster, he was more sure that he would run out of his Godly Might boost before he could whittle down the Lizardman's remaining HP. He looked at the boost stats and found that it had less than five minutes remaining. He started to panic.
He was thinking that maybe it was time to make an escape while he still had the speed attribute increase from the Godly Might buff. He could worry about getting ambushed by the Lizardman later. If he stayed, he would surely die once the buff was off. A pity, he was so close to defeating this boss. When he was about to break off, a stern voice was heard from behind him.
"You dumb ass! I really can't stand looking at you. Are you forgetting that you still have a skill that can turn the situation around?"
Jack didn't turn around to find out the source of the voice. He recognized the voice was from the sulky fairy companion whom the Goddess had bestowed upon him. He just wasn't expecting the fairy to still be able to communicate with him from her hiding place. It took him just a moment to realize what the fairy was talking about. It was his new weapon's active skill, Overlimit. He had completely forgotten about it during this high adrenaline fight.
Now that he had remembered it, he immediately activated the skill with a thought. He heard a clang from the sword he was holding. The golden lines along the length of the sword burst out with dazzling light and expanded. He could feel strong vibration on his sword hand as the sword transformed.
The sword appeared to be broken into 4 parts; the hilts he was holding, two parts of the blade which were separated side by side, the last part was the tip of the blade as it extended outwards. These parts were held by golden light with a black core at its center. He could see the core occasionally discharging black color electricity that ran along the four parts of the sword. The size of the segregated sword made it seemed like he was holding a greatsword instead of a longsword. However, it didn't make the sword heavier. Instead, he felt it was lighter than before, with a surge of primeval power that aimed to destroy.
The lizardman seemed to be able to feel the sword's power, and was seemed to be rather intimidated by it. The monster became sluggish and no longer as aggressive. In fact, it had even taken a step back. Jack took this moment of lapse and lunged toward it. He thrust the sword forward. As its range had increased, it easily reached the monster. The sword impaled right through the monster's chest.
The lizardman screamed out loud as an impressive number of 72 appeared above. It was just a basic attack, but it had caused damage even greater than before the Lizardman's applied its defensive buff. When Jack pulled the sword out, he could see a crack spreading out along the Lizardman's scales. The scales seemed to have slightly lost their dark red tint. It was the effect of the Overlimit skill, it caused the monster to lose a large part of its defensive ability.
The Lizardman collected itself and let loose an angry roar to counteract the intimidation effect from the imposing sword. It charged forward and intended to get even from the last hit. It slashed out with its two scimitars.
Jack didn't bother to block or parry, he was short on time, the Overlimit skill had a short duration of 80 seconds. He needed to make the most of it. he swung his sword, meeting the monster's attack with an attack of his own. The shining sword collided with the two scimitars and produced a loud clanking noise. The clash threw both parties backward.
Jack didn't waste any time, he immediately cast Energy Bolts as he sprang back towards the Lizardman. The four magic bolts hit the monster and kept it off balance as he arrived and executed Power Strike. The monster received a whooping 123 damage from it.
Jack followed up with continuous attacks without bothering to defend. The Lizardman was fast, so some of his attacks failed to connect. But still, with his recklessness, he forced the monster from getting away while he himself suffered an equal number of hits.
When the Overlimit skill was about to run out, the Lizardman was already a thread away from 0 HP. He could see the monster was panicking in its eyes. He didn't let it break away as he jumped forward and let his body crashed onto the monster. He suffered two slashes on his head for his suicide approach and got critical damage for it. His HP had fallen to less than a third of his health due to successive wounds even with the outstanding defensive and regenerative abilities from the Godly Might buff.
Ignoring the two slashes to his head, he counterattacked with Power Strike. The move took out the monster's remaining health. It roared with unwillingness as his body broke apart and degraded to dust. Finally, the intense battle came to an end. The Overlimit skill duration expired and his sword shrank back to its original appearance.
He let his body collapse to the floor. He was exhausted. This kind of reckless fighting style really took out a lot of his energy. He heard the sound of notification which was as sweet as the loveliest melody.
"Congratulations on winning the battle. Receiving 742 experience points."
That was a very generous amount of experience, but he deserved it. After all, that Lizardman was a whole grade higher than him. If not for the Goddess' boost and the powerful Overlimit skill of his weapon, he would not have been able to win this fight.
The experience brought his Magician class to level 10, while his Fighter class was closed to reaching level 11.
He inspected the floor where the Lizardman used to be. There were three items and a bunch of coins. Either the new increase to his Luck stats had increased the drop rate, or it was due to the Lizardman being Special Elite grade. He approached the stuff on the ground. The items were a weapon, a scale, and a piece of paper. While the coins were 16 copper coins and 2 silver coins.
"Those are quite a harvest," Peniel's voice was heard as she appeared out of thin air. She floated above him as he picked up the coins and then inspected the items.
Guard's Scimitar, level 12/20 (uncommon one-handed sword)
Physical damage: 54
Attack speed: 3
Dexterity +2
Durability: 50/50
Red Scale (rare material)
Scale armor Recipe (Blacksmith recipe)
Forge uncommon medium armor
Material: 1 Scale, 2 Iron ore, 1 Steel ore
Rare material! Jack was amazed by the find. He immediately stored it and then looked at the weapon. It was the scimitar used by the Lizardman.
"It was a level 12 weapon. Go ahead and feed it to your weapon," Peniel suggested.
He agreed to it and immediately did so. He inspected his weapon afterward. When the scimitar was done being absorbed, he was presented with the option to choose which skills to apply. There were two options, increase movement speed by 10% or increase dexterity by 2. He was divided on the choice.
"Just pick any one," Peniel said impatiently. "You can change it later."
"I can change it? So the skill was not gone if I choose the other one?"
"The sword has its own database, as long as it had learned it before, you can change to that skill anytime you want."
"Great, that's mean if I upgrade it to a Rare weapon, I can use both skills then!"
"That's right. But if you managed to find a Rare weapon to upgrade it with, it would have come with an even better skill yet. So you would still end up having to choose between them."
"That makes sense." He nodded, then decided on the new skill. He then inspected his sword.
Storm Breaker, level 12 (uncommon one-handed sword, growth weapon)
Physical damage: 59
Attack speed: 3
Cannot be destroyed
Bound to Storm Wind
Passive skill: Dexterity +2
Active Skill: Overlimit. Release the weapon's hidden power that adds an additional 100% damage as chaos damage, increases weapon range by 2 feet, and decreases target's defense by 60%. Duration: 80 seconds. Cooldown: 8 hours.