'Blitz Storm.'
A violent flash of lightning tore through the vines as Ronny kept on approaching his opponent. His speed had been decreased due to AoE requiring time to destroy the vines approaching him. But he had stopped running around. He ran straight in the hobgoblin's direction with his daggers gripped tightly in his hand.
"Rarara"
The hobgoblin swung his heavy weapon towards Ronny as soon as he came in its range. But the tongues of lightning made contact with the weapon first and ran through it. The tingling sensation the monster must have felt was enough for him to lose the force behind his attack sharply.
The hobgoblin's entire body then came into contact with Ronny's AoE. He dodged under the trajectory of the swung weapon and came only a few inches away from him. Ronny threw his right dagger in the air and used his now-free hand to grip the wrist of the monster that he had used to swing his weapon with.
'Blitz Bolt.'
Ronny executed his offensive spell while he was in close combat with his opponent. That direct contact allowed the E-Rank spell to inflict maximum damage to the target. As a result, the hobgoblin lost his grip on his weapon.
Thud!
The weapon created a thud sound as it was dropped on the ground. Ronny cast the time-element spell as soon as he realized his opponent was weaponless.
'Sedated perception.
Stunning Speed.'
With the time element spell, he enhanced his perception, doing away with discarding the AoE and switching to the personal offensive. He missed wielding the punching daggers at this moment. But in the next moment, he tightened his grip around his daggers and started hacking through his opponent.
"Rarararara!"
The hobgoblin whined in pain as Ronny started giving him dagger wounds all over his body without any rest. With his vines, he tried to limit Ronny's movements, but Ronny would use every tool at his disposal to inflict more wounds while avoiding the vines.
So the hobgoblin gave up on restricting Ronny and concentrated on covering his body with the protection of his vines. He secured his limbs and torso with the vines and lifted his weapon again. By now, Ronny had inflicted a considerable amount of damage to the hobgoblin's body. It was the vine armour that held the monster together.
A long-drawn battle ensued, depleting Ronny's mana reserve at a massive rate. But he persisted by making efficient use of all the tricks up his sleeve.
"Rararara!"
The monster finally let out his dying shrills as Ronny delivered the last blow to his head. He had plunged his daggers into both of the monster's long ears, piercing the eardrums before twisting them hard. As a result, the brain matter was drawn out from both the ear wounds as the monster's eyes bulged post mortem.
'Sururururu.'
The monster's lifelike apparition disintegrated into a thousand light particles after Ronny confirmed his kill. He let out a sigh of relief when he found out he had one less opponent to worry about.
"Ronny, don't dilly dally. Help Jules up quickly."
Lady Zee's voice was heard just when Ronny thought he could continue with his breather. He sighed internally before looking in the illusionist's direction.
Julie had carried herself very well. She had inflicted enough damage on her enemy while ensuring her safety. But unlike Ronny who prioritized speed, the illusionist prioritized stability in her battle style.
So she couldn't land a finishing blow to the monster. As a result of which, the monster would use healing spells once in a while on himself, turning some portion of Julie's efforts into a big fat zero.
"Jules, support me."
Ronny announced his intentions as soon as he joined another battlefield. The latter looked at him and couldn't help but marvel how fast he had taken care of his opponent before coming for her aid.
Jules snapped her fingers and two more Ronny-like mirages appeared by his side. The mirages were created by the light reflection performed by the surface of clear ice sculptures. One would have to look hard and use their mana sense constantly and minutely to differentiate between the fake and real deal.
The illusion also had a way to interfere with the ranker's mana sense. Due to this delay between identifying the mirages and the real self, the attack worked as a way to confuse your opponent. Ronny understood what he should do as soon as his mirages appeared on either side of him.
Jules was battling a hobgoblin with wind element spells at his disposal.
He would create compressed air bombs on top of his palm before hurling them towards his opponents. The compressed air bombs had a radius of around 20 centimetres. And they also had wind spikes all over them.
The spikes would shoot like projectiles when the air bombs were made to go off under the monster's influence. Spikes like these acted like wind bullets. The difference was in the area of impact they covered. Since the wind spikes were larger, blunter in size than the wind bullets, they would penetrate less but inflict more surface-level damage.
Ronny couldn't use his time-element spells if he wanted to use the mirages as decoys. They couldn't keep up with his increased speed after all. So he decided to experiment with another combo.
'Blitz Shield.
Blitz Bolt.
Blitz Steps.'
A layer of lightning armour appeared over Ronny's body as he cast his defensive spell. Unlike the undefined layer of F-Rank, the defensive spell of E-Rank had reshaped the layer into a spectral armour that fit Ronny perfectly. The mirages that ran with Ronny also had the same level of armour detail worn by them as soon as the original finished making changes.
The wind-element hobgoblin saw three new rankers joining the battle. It seemed to have known that the two out of three entities that were approaching him were the mirages his earlier opponent used to confuse him.
"Rararararara."
The wind-element monster increased the number of air bombs he could send flying around him.. He hurled some of them at his three opponents as they levitated all around him.