Linfeng’s Boss Battle

They moved to a plain where the grass was short, with Linfeng remaining on guard the entire time. According to Yen’mila, only one person had intruded upon Natucor whilst the portal was being forced open, meaning that Anoteros was truly the only enemy around, but this somehow failed to reassure Linfeng and only made him more worried.

‘Something feels different compared to last time…’

His lust for combat is much stronger than last time…

The system didn’t say anything else, but Linfeng clearly understood that this meant Edrick hadn’t been going all out last time, and that this time… He intended to fight for real.

Anoteros stretched his arms casually. The smile on his face kept hovering between suspiciously normal and horrifically abnormal, but it finally settled on a satisfied expression, which seemed to be what focus looked like on the scion’s face.

A smile crawled upward.

“Ready?”

The ground shattered, and grass was reduced to shreds as the scion lunged forward. The spot where the protagonist had been standing a mere moment ago was utterly destroyed by a stomp from the noble, making the ground shake violently.

‘Can I… Even afford to blink against this guy?!’

Linfeng didn’t hesitate to go all out immediately. If he didn’t do so, he would definitely be undone by his opponent's sheer strength and speed…

The script holder had had the occasion to absorb his Alrinir’s powerful Yin in great quantities. Right now, he was quite thankful for how lustful she was. His current strength had far surpassed what he had been capable of during his last confrontation against the Elt scion, and he had also trained so that he wouldn’t have to rely on the system for certain things.

Linfeng seemed to become surrounded by a dark fog, the physical manifestation of his Primordial Yang as he coated himself with it. Right now, it was flowing throughout the entirety of his body with frightening efficiency, enhancing his capabilities to a level that would leave his past self in the dust.

Without allowing himself to be frightened by Edrick’s own impressive power, he surged forward with a burst of Yang. Delivering a punch that went undodged, the scion deflected the strike with his forearm.

‘He has some kind of defensive spell…’

Linfeng strengthened his posture as the surge of energy that had knocked him away last time came. He was unmoved and instead immediately struck Anoteros in the stomach, but he was once again met by that powerful defensive spell.

Linfeng was unaware of what it was, but the truth was that Anoteros was using the crown jewel of defence created by the Magus-King Daladerium.

Enchanted Biological Armour was a specialised variant of Primal Augmentation that allowed its user to increase their defences to a truly dire level… Whilst Linfeng couldn’t know its name or origin, the system was able to analyse it after just two interactions with it.

Just keep hitting, Linfeng! This spell is costly, and he is only using it locally instead of across his whole body. Change your way of attacking. He can predict your attacks right now!

‘I’ll burn through some more Yang, then’

He had increased his reserves, so he didn’t fear using some of it. 

The protagonist didn’t take a single step back, focusing on enhancing the speed of his strikes. Even if they ended up weaker, the point was to strike as much against Enchanted Biological Armour as was possible to force the scion into spending as much of his inner energy as possible.

Anoteros wasn’t too impressed by this strategy.

“Linfeng! Catch!”

The script holder oddly found himself blanking out for a split second, well enough time for Edrick to drive his empowered fist into Linfeng’s chest, sending him straight to the ground.

Linfeng stopped his momentum by clawing the dirt, quickly standing up as though the punch had dealt no damage whatsoever, but the scion was quite perceptive…

“Oh, you can even heal on the spot now?”

He licked his teeth.

“You and I will have lots of fun!”

“Keep quiet!”

Linfeng expanded much Yang into a short burst to close the distance once more, driving his elbow right into the center of the scion’s mass. He could feel that he dealt damage, but his attack was instantly punished as Anoteros punched him right across his temple.

The protagonist was knocked back a few steps. The hit hurt, but he was constantly healing. The problem was that the noble didn’t stop there.

Spell incoming. You’ll be blown in half if you don’t dodge or use excessive Yang to defend

‘Damn it!’

Linfeng narrowly threw himself out of the way of a Wild Missile. The ground was utterly destroyed by the spell, but Anoteros immediately followed with a spell he had never used outside of training.

Lucid Orbs. This was actually the signature spell of Paraceratherium Magi. It was the first spell any of them would innately learn to cast, manifesting orbs of their mana that floated around them and would automatically target any enemies. The strongest Paraceratherium Magi even had their Lucid Orbs capable of targeting enemies even they themselves hadn’t yet noticed.

This was one of the main reasons why even approaching one of such beasts was so dangerous.

Of course, Linfeng was unknowing of this spell or even the beast it belonged to, but he definitely sensed the danger.

Without wait, Linfeng began running in a wide circle around Anoteros. Whilst the Lucid Orbs were definitely dangerous, their lucidity was also a weakness. They acted on their own and fired directly at their target. They simply couldn’t be made to shoot ahead of their prey’s position. 

Linfeng quickly realised this, thus making running in a circle like this a perfect counter, but this simply didn’t work when the caster was also in the fray and had many more spells that he could cast.

‘Can I endure getting hit by the projectiles of these damned orbs?!’

You can, but be careful. It will cost some Yang. Edrick isn’t simply manifesting them out of mana. He is using all of the inner energies available to him to form his spells. That’s part of the reason why they are so powerful. Defending against a mixture of countless types of energy is difficult unless your defence outclasses his offence

‘How is that even possible? Aren’t there literally hundreds, if not thousands, of energy types within the human body?!’

His inner energies are abnormal. It seems like they have a mind of their own. Circulating all energies is simple, but actually wielding them all is nigh impossible… Unless the inner energies have a semblance of life and fully submit to their owner, of course

‘Fuck…’

He narrowly dodged a kick aimed at his legs, but in an attempt to also evade the projectiles of five Lucid Orbs, he made a mistake.

A spell manifested behind him, striking at his side powerfully, cracking several ribs on impact and sending him flying–But once again, he rapidly stood up as if it was nothing. Unbothered that his left lung had been pierced by his own bones for a few moments prior to healing.

‘I won’t be able to keep up this healing forever… What the hell hit me?’

When he checked, the spell had already dissipated, but the system had seen it for him.

It was a tail

Spiritual Tail Swipe was a spell unique to the Magus-King. The tail of a Paraceratherium Magus wasn’t a weapon at all. It was quite short and feeble, so the regular member of this species would never think about creating a tail-based spell.

Edrick wasn’t clear on the details, but the tail looked a lot like that of a large snake, or maybe that of some kind of dinosaur.

It wasn’t the most destructive spell, but it was quicker to cast than most and didn’t emit much danger until it actually started moving. Making it excellent to catch someone off guard.

More importantly… He just cast this using ambient energies, not his inner energies

Indeed, all spells had been fairly telegraphed on account that Anoteros was their source, and even if he could project his energies away from him to form a spell, this was something Linfeng would normally notice. Naturally, if the ambient energy itself had suddenly been controlled, this was something he couldn’t expect. Coupled with the properties of Spiritual Tail Swipe, it had basically been an unavoidable attack.

Nearly…

“Oh, you have good instincts. I was aiming for your head at first”

Edrick smiled, taking a pause purely to provoke Linfeng.

“Do you not take me seriously, Edrick?”

“Please, I take you very seriously, Linfeng… Hey, what do you think about the name Linlin? Fenglin, perhaps?”

“What?”

“Don’t worry about it. I understand that this was a weird thing to ask…”

With these words, Anoteros rushed forth again, but right before Linfeng’s eyes, the scion turned invisible.

“Shit!”