Chapter 118: Toxic Swamp pt7
"Explain this boss to me again, what makes it so dangerous... well excluding the lake of poison."
They had been describing it as a lake but by the standards of the real world it was more of a pond.
If one were to swim across the body of poisonous water it would take a few minutes at most but this was not his concern.
"The boss is a serpent that sustains this lake, the serpent has very high poison affinity and seems to be a powerful spellcaster."
"What are some spells I can expect?"
"A cloud of toxic mist, needles of poison mana, a breath weapon of poison, and it seems to be capable of manipulating the poison in the lake somewhat."
"It's a pond."
"Excuse me?"
"The body of water is a pond, it's like a smaller lake."
"Then just call it a small lake, don't make up words."
"So what are oceans just large lakes?"
"Would both of you stop it!"
The pair settled down as one of the demonesses chastised the bickering devils.
"Sorry, it's not my fault this world doesn't have the same advancements in technology to understand the world."
"Why would anyone care about such things?"
"Well a world without magic has to use more effort to understand itself, like being able to tell the difference between diamond and it's lookalike."
"Just use an identification spell..."
"My world doesn't have magic, plus if you learn to identify things yourself then you don't have to pay a mage to do it."
The women seemed unimpressed by the idea so when he let it go they moved on.
Flying into the sky he saw that the pond was a strange mix of purple and green, swirling colors that bubbles and frothed as they mixed together.
The color was deep and solid like paint and he felt it looked similar to oil floating on water, a disgusting and toxic mass covering the pond that would choke the life from anything inside.
Through his mana sight he could tell that the entire pond was a mass of poison mana but there was a serpentine blob of mana lazily resting at the bottom, thus blob was significantly brighter than the rest of the mana in the area so it was easy to pick out.
"I'm going to attack it so get ready!"
He called down to the others and created a volley of frenzy needles to launch into the toxic sludge.
The needles penetrated deep into the mass of toxic mana but they did not reach the boss.
This seemed to catch it's attention nonetheless as the blob began to move to the surface.
"The mana is shifting get back here!"
Astra called for him to come away from the mana but he had a perfect view of the rising mass of mana, he particularly aimed for the head and began to channel his most powerful spell.
He poured as much of his void mana into this frenzy star as possible so that it could have the greatest effect, even while draining his void mana he saw that his natural regeneration of it was supplying just enough to continue the spells creation.
That was when the system gave him a notification.
~~~~~~~~~~
Incomplete spell (Frenzy Star) has upgraded into completed spell (Frenzied Void Star)
Frenzy Star lv1 (S) -> Frenzied Void Star lv1 (SS)
~~~~~~~~~~
His autonomous mind had to take over when his main mind started to race with the possibilities of what this meant.
'What is an incomplete spell?'
'If shadowfire wasn't enough to complete the spell then why did the void mana do it?'
'Wait if Voidbeasts are connected to the shadow element then does that mean void mana and shadow mana are connected? If the two are connected then how does it work?'
He almost missed the purple needle that was launched at him.
A needle that was the size of a javelin flew past his body as he dodged, when he realized the serpent was staring at him from the pond he unleashed the volley of his frenzy wing needles to catch it off guard.
He had to make sure he could land the improved frenzy star.
The serpent was covered by a cloud of shadowfire that began to work it's way into the small wounds the needles caused, this however seemed to anger it as it dove back into the pond for some reason.
He watched it with his mana sight and as soon as he saw it raising it's head from the pond he let the star fall upon it.
In the moment before he let the star go he got a perfect view of the serpent.
Calling it a serpent was inaccurate, this thing resembled an eal.
This giant eal had frills that shifted in strange ways, it seemed to have swirling colors filling the membranes of those frills.
The scales were a strange silver that had tints of purple while the streams of poison ran down the sides of it's body.
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Toxic Lake Serpent- lv500
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The star fell upon the serpent with a small implosion of power, before bursting into a large ball of black flame.
He watched as the head of the creature was shredded by the explosive force, the skull peaked out beneath the flames and he began to target the wounds on it's body caused by his previous spell.
His aim wasn't good enough to hit thr small wounds on a giant target, especially a target that was flailing in pain.
The wounds he did hit were ripped open even further while the other projectiles created more.
He eventually began to target the serpent on it's body to create a gaping wound.
He noticed that the creature began to take damage from the poison as well when the lake water entered those wounds.
The damage caused by the poison was low but constant as he kept targeting the wounds to cause more gaping holes along it's body.
~
Astra watched as the devil used his aerial superiority to strike out at the boss no matter how much she screamed for him to return.
She used her own fire spells to start attacking while her coven launched arrows from massive bows they had brought.
Arrows that were significantly larger than normal with savage tips dug into the boss while her flames cauterized the wounds to prevent natural regeneration.
She hated how well the male was doing but he was certainly causing the majority of the damage.
She would use her own fire and poison mana to enchant the arrows to make their wounds greater while creating more damage over time.
Eventually the serpent lashed out with a breath weapon that spread poison around itself.
They had to back away to be safe while she saw the male continue attacking from the sky, she did not know how he could discern the boss through the poisonous mana.
Eventually she saw that the serpent struck out at the male with a loud snap of it's jaws.
She was shocked when instead of being bitten the male batted away those jaws with a wing.
Simply using his wing was enough to slap the head down while dropping a bomb into it's maw.
The serpent let out a shriek of pain as it's maw caught flame while it's head was forced down, it dove into the pond again and she used this moment of peace to start enchanting the arrows of her coven.
~
Ezekiel watched the moving blob of mana swirl through the pond.
He kept a bead on it while he created another void star which would shred the boss again as soon as he saw it appear.
He felt that his other spells would benefit from the void mana treatment so while it hid he started to create the frenzy wing with the same void mana effect.
The spell that was created also had the Frenzied Void name but he focused on getting the power right.
He prepared a Frenzied Void Wing with the needles ready to fire at the same target as his star.
He watched the serpent swim to the center before charging at the edge of the pond.
He saw that it was aiming for the coven so he flew down as well.
"MOVE! IT'S ON IT'S WAY TO YOU!"
He flew down in front of the girls as they repositioned themselves to fire when it charged them.
He kept his spells ready while creating more and more projectiles, even making another void star.
He stood in the way of the serpent with everything ready to destroy the beast but he didn't like how dangerous the next step was.
He waited with his heart beating rapidly as the serpent exploded out of the cloud of poison, with it's maw wide to swallow them whole.
It did get someone at least.
A man that kept into it's gaping jaws with every spell he held now unleashed inside of it's fleshy body.
The others screamed when he was swallowed since this was another ally lost to the dungeon.
Then they watched as the body of the serpent expanded with black fire flooding from it's orifices.
It fell to the ground with it's maw open in a silent wail as the dungeon expelled them.