Chapter 431

431 – Knight of Nightmares

“I have no intention of letting this drag on any longer! I’ll clean you up in an instant!”

Having transformed into a bizarre knight, the slime shouts while charging towards me. Its lower body is in the shape of a scorpion with wings, its four arms each clutch a sword or shield, and an owl’s face is in embedded in its chest, with eyes that peer around restlessly.

The part that I’m most concerned about is the owl in the chest. The [Enthused Wisdom Owl] activated four stat-boosting magics within an instant. The fuel efficiency of doing full strength buffs like that should be bad, but if it can use attack magic too, then it’s a terrifying monster even by itself. I’m going to have to constantly keep an eye on it.

…The next part that I need to pay most attention to is the arm that is holding the shell shield. If what the slime said is true, then that’s a recreation of the shell of the [Cursed Millennium Turtle]. It almost completely nullified the power of my [Dragon Punch]. Piercing through it with a normal attack is probably impossible.

Both of them were in its title skills. Probably, whenever it takes in a high-ranking monster, it gets reflected in its title skills. If so, then each of its powerful forms has a corresponding title skill. I should be especially cautious of the forms that have title skills.

From that theory, six title skills to correspond to powerful forms: [Cursed Millennium Turtle], [Enthused Wisdom Owl], [Hideous Dragon], [Eight-Legged God of Death], [Giant Insect Mass], and [Fallen Phoenix].

I still have yet to see [Giant Insect Mass] or [Fallen Phoenix]. Ideally I’d like to end it before they’re used, but… Before that is the question of how to deal with this no-holds-barred form.

As the slime charges towards me, I raise my forelegs and push my rear legs out to dodge by jumping backwards.

The slime swings a sword down and cuts deep into the floor. It easily extracts the blade from the ground.

I-it’s an incredible display of power… In speed too, I’m no match for it while its stats are enhanced.

In this sort of situation, I’d ideally aim for the gap between when one buff expires and the next is applied, but… Amazingly, it can apply four at once. As soon as one buff ends, it’ll be immediately reapplied by the [Enthused Wisdom Owl], all while three other skills can still be used, so there’s no gap for me to exploit at all. If it was a game, it’d be considered as a massive cheat. There’s no balance here at all. In addition, its body is fundamentally a slime, so even if I brake its posture it’ll immediately right itself. There’s no openings at all.

I spread my wings to fly away, staying airborne. From above, I shoot a barrage of [Wind Slashes] towards the slime.

It calmly raises the shell shield, completely blocking the [Wind Slashes]. The blades of wind disappear as though absorbed by the mesh pattern of the shield. The floor is cut up by the [Wind Slashes], but slime doesn’t budge.

“How long do you plan on doing such small attacks?”

As I stop the downpour of blades of wind, the slime sweeps an arm holding a sword. A huge slash flies towards me. It’s the swordsman skill, [Shockwave]. I lower my altitude, lowering my head to dodge. As it grazes past me, I feel my scales peeling off. At the same time, I hear the sound of the ceiling cracking.

N-nasty… I never would have thought an opponent that could use close combat, attack magic, and buff magic skills would be this troublesome. Until it runs out of MP, isn’t it just invincible?

“…Ri~ight, even with my stats enhanced, it’s still like this?”

As the slime speaks, it raises the three arms holding swords… H-hey, that’s a joke, right?

The slime swings the three swords haphazardly. Close to ten [Shockwaves] shoot towards me.

I hurriedly close my wings, tucking my head down to rapidly fall. But, I can’t completely avoid the tempest of [Shockwaves].

I can’t afford to be hit directly. I somersault in the air to prepare myself, curling my body into a ball and holding my wings in front of my body.

A flash of pain runs through my wings. No, it’s not just my wings. A portion of the [Shockwaves] pierced through my wings to reach my chest.

Guuh!? Cheh, it’s more damage than I expected. But… Can I repair the damage to my wings with [Autoregeneration]? Then I can still fight.

Riding the the impact of the attack, I allow myself to be blown backwards. This way, I can reduce the damage as much as possible, while also taking my distance from the slime. In the meantime… I’ll try and recover as much as possible with [Autoregeneration].

Splattering blue blood as I tumble through the air, I spread my emergency-repaired wings. My wings catch the air, and I come to a stop just above the ground. I sigh in relief. I was able to avoid getting dashed against the ground or walls.

But, should I try running for now? With my current status, just surviving moment-to-moment is my limit. There’s no way I can last until it runs out of MP.

No, but… It’s doubtful whether I’ll ever get another chance to defeat it. Certainly, even if the slime evolves, I might be able to catch up with it by evolving myself. If I cooperated with the Saint better, I might be able to fight in a situation where I have a better chance of winning.

But if we both evolve, the scale of the next battle will be even bigger. The slime will also gather even more followers and level them up again. When that happens, the number of humans that get caught up will increase a lot.

Is there any way I could drag the slime outside? It’ll throw Alban into chaos, but it should cause Lilixira to step in. In the first place, Lilixira said that she didn’t want to clumsily rampage in the castle of another country, as it would cause misunderstandings with Ardesia or create a weakness to be exploited by her political opponents within the Holy Country.

Based on her current inaction, she might not act at all until I drag the slime outside. But if I’m obvious about leading it outside, it’ll just flee out of fear of a confrontation with the Saint.

I know from our previous battle that it’s incredibly cruel and ruthless, and will do whatever is necessary to achieve its goals. But at the same time, it’s awfully timid. I can’t imagine it would willingly follow me outside. It might be a good way to interrupt our battle, but it’s not a way to win.

I stretch my legs to land on the floor, and look up to check the slime’s position… Ah?

“Did you think you would be able to take your distance from me just now?”

It’s already caught up to right in front of me. I-it’s that fast!? Certainly, it has 【Quick (major)】, but this is still far too abnormal. Now that it’s this strong, it’s questionable whether this is even a battle.

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