Chapter 143 - 143: Journey Continues

Multiple runs of the dungeon had given Ezekiel plenty of loot to sell, he had obtained over five hundred platinum dragon coins and with less than half of his target remaining he selected the next difficulty of the dungeon.

When entering the hard mode Toxic Swamp dungeon the first thing he noticed was that the poison mana density had obviously increased, simply being near so much mana was making him feel sick.

Amaru seemed completely unbothered by the mana in the air while he used his mana sight to hunt down their first target.

After his Ojos de Dios skill had been unrestricted he noticed that the range of his sight had increased significantly.

He stalked a massive spider while watching the area around him, he had to avoid the fine threads lain by the spider if he was going to ambush it.

As he watched the creature he suddenly had an idea.

He pulled out the bladed wand that acted as the weapon of his unique set, he infused it with void mana and focused on the distance between himself and the abdomen of the spider before he slashed the air with his blades full of void mana.

Activating the Void Travel skill didn't take any mana but as he walked through the space he felt the spider immediately turn, as if the creature had sensed the tear in space.

He infused his arms and his wings with the destructive properties of void mana as the constructs took shape over his limbs before lashing out to stop the spider from striking him.

His large wing arms kept the beast from biting down on his chest but the legs of the creature were dangerous as well, he kept the limbs pinned by it's body while his claws worked to try and rip the limbs away.

His instincts had grown to the point of using each limb with such precision that no matter how dangerous the creature was he would find an opening to exploit.

In this creature he saw the weakness was the bottom of the body where it could not see, weaving mana around his tail until it was covered in shards of void mana he stabbed deep into the creature's body.

Stab after stab with the creature making strange noises as air escaped it, he could feel the spider trying to pull away but that was when he dug his mana infused claws into the creature to keep it there.

'You aren't getting away you little freak, I don't plan on letting Amaru miss your experience~'

As he pushed down with his stronger limbs he felt the creatures limbs cracking under the weight, that was when he felt the mana in his body flowing into the spider.

His mana was slowly dropping and he could feel the mana enter the spider through his claws as Amaru snapped out and bit down on the abdomen of the spider with her fanged maw.

His mana flowed through the spider like a toxin until the combined damage of his attacks and Amaru biting to drain it of life managed to weaken it for the consumption effect to take hold.

But he did not gain anything from this.

He looked down at Amaru and saw that her fangs had been covered in shadowfire, a trait he had not seen on her stats panel.

"Well if I got your skills it makes sense if some of mine are given to you, how about we take advantage of these creatures to feed your growth as far as we can take it?"

He smiled at Amaru as he began hunting the next creature he detected.

If he was going to give Amaru the kills so her consumption could absorb their stats then he would use this opportunity to train some minor skills he had thought of getting but never dedicated time to.

'Ok warrior skills... if I remember correctly the most basic warrior skills were related to the chosen weapon of the warrior, for slashing weapons like what my claws can do I should focus on the skills Slash and Rend.'

He was thinking about when he and his allies had trained together with the figures sent by Lucretia to bring him to the city.

Slash was a skill that boosted the damage of cutting damage attacks while rend was a skill that had a certain level of armor penetration while causing significant bleeding damage.

The rend skill even had a chance to cause the hemorrhage effect which would just stack more damage over time.

With this in mind Ezekiel sought out the largest and slowest target he could see, a toxic plant monster by the looks of the mana inside of it.

When he got near the creature the first thing he did was launch himself using his wings while his hands lashed out to cut across the body.

The skill did not activate but he did feel something new.

He had tried to remember how the skill had been described when he heard the martial players learning it, specifically how the skill should feel when it's being done correctly.

'Don't focus on pushing the blades in too deep, the Slash skill uses power applied to the cutting motion of the blade.'

He attempted another Slash but had to dodge as the plant lashed out with a whiplike vine.

He didn't infuse his claws with Frenzied Void like before as he did not want to kill this one too quickly, instead he infused his raw mana into the attacks to increase the sharpness.

When he slashed the plant he could feel that his claws sank deeper and cut more cleanly when he focused on following through with each attack.

First he would Slash across the stem of the plant while his wing arms would gather more mana to act like greatswords that could block, parry and cut the attacking vines.

The edges of his wings were like a well honed weapon by now after using them this way for so long so he was able to keep the plant from attacking him thanks to this.

Eventually he saw that the health of the plant was falling dangerously low so he gave Amaru the signal to start attacking with her shadowfire.

He used his stronger wing limbs to push the plant down as hard as he could while his hands cut away every vine that tried to harm him or Amaru.

The goal was to make the target easy for Amaru.

Her small needles hit the plant which caused it to spasm even harder than his attacks had made it move.

He kept it pinned down until the kill notification sounded and the plant faded into ash from the consumption.

"Well Amaru, looks like we have a long farm ahead of us."

The serpent simply rumbled in her throat as he hunter for his next target.

~

Hope had gotten very skilled at using her life mana to create constructs that were dense and powerful.

When War God and Shade fought with enemies as vanguard and assassin he had to use her skills to fill the role of mage.

She had learned to conjure floating blades made of mana that she could fill with earth or wind mana to add extra effects to them.

Earth blades were sharper when made through her constructs and even stuck inside of the enemy causing severe bleeding, the wind element infused blades could be used to cause internal damage from the wind bursting with power inside of the enemy.

The closer they got to the infernal city the more they noticed people flying nearby.

Eventually they came across their first devil, a beautiful blue woman who stood tall with a grimoire in hand and scales across her torso.

She turned to look at the group and after taking each of them in she completely disregarded shade in favor of speaking to the demoness and beastfolk.

"You, demon, have you registered your pets with the city? They are not dressed properly nor do I see proper tags."

"PETS?!"

Shade got ready to approach with a look of indignation before Hope grabbed him with a look that very clearly told him to think of another method.

"They are not pets, we are otherworlders and we were sent to the infernal capital to continue our journey with our friend."

Hope had stepped between Shade and the devil woman before speaking to explain their goal.

The woman did not acknowledge Hope but stared pointedly at War God.

"Does she speak the truth? Are you not one of our original kin?"

War God simply nodded in response before looking at the distant horizon through the trees.

"Our friend is a devil, can you just give us directions to the capital so we can meet back up with him?"

The devil stared at her for a few beats before laughing.

"Oh I see, you brought your pets with you to reunite with your mate? Well I guess I can lead you back to the city but you must put those two under proper tags as the law requires."

She turned to motion for them to follow as the trio saw what the spread wings of their new companion had hidden.

An entire pack of demonic wolves frozen solid and slowly crumbling into pieces.

'One of those packs takes all of us working together to take them down, how did she kill a whole pack alone? These devils really are insane mages.'