Chapter 195: Not The Big One

Julius was doing great. He had a big smile on his face as he decapitated another wolf. He was having more fun than he thought he would. These undead monsters weren’t that strong, but he did see them progressively getting stronger as they made their way down the labyrinth. The wolves were now putting up some resistance to his will.

Instead of being completely frozen the wolves could now slowly crawl toward the two of them. If they weren’t still trying to eat them, he would have given them all medals for their improvement.

He was also glad that his perception skill at least allowed him to detect the traps. And because of that, they were able to avoid some really nasty ones. Julius had sensed a particular trap that collapsed the entire hallway with spikes. Then there was another one that had the roof fall on their heads. Of course, there were smaller ones, but the scary ones were always the ones that he wouldn’t be able to escape easily.

Thankfully, because of his awesome skill, they were able to make their way pretty safely with only the frequent monster group encounters.

There was a problem though.

“Could you let some of them through next time?” Reinera asked hopefully. Her previous self-defeating behavior was nowhere to be seen. Instead, she was getting antsy.

“You want me to keep some alive so you can practice your skills?” He asked as he created a large slash against the wall, to indicate that they had been in this area before.

“If that’s not too much trouble.”

He shook his head and laughed lightly. “No, it’s no trouble at all. But why the sudden change? I thought you would still be moping around.”

She gave him a dirty look. “Never mind.”

He put his hands up apologetically. “Sorry. How many would you like to try?”

“It would probably be safe to start with one,” she said thoughtfully.

He nodded his head in acceptance and waited for the next group. The actual navigation of the labyrinth wasn’t that hard. He had just been following her advice and heading toward the nearest group of monsters. As long as the monsters felt like they were getting stronger, he was pretty confident that they were at least heading in the right direction.

Soon enough the next group of undead popped up in his perception. There were only five of them this time. However, unlike the other wolves, there was one that stood out. This one was much larger and exuded a much more dangerous aura than the others.

He turned to Reinera. “So which one do you want?”

“Um, maybe not the big one,” she said timidly.

He nodded his head and proceeded to send four large spikes of condensed mana at the four smallest wolves. He locked them down with his kinetic energy and Inexorable Resolve so that they couldn’t avoid them in time.

The spikes speared them through the chest and let loose a small explosion that killed them immediately. The largest and remaining one froze in place even though he hadn’t used his ability on it.

It had seen just how easily Julius had handled its brethren and must have felt very hesitant about engaging him in a fight.

“I said not the big one,” he heard from behind him.

“Oh? My bad, I thought you said you wanted the big one.”

He felt her staring daggers into his back but easily ignored it. He just stepped to the side and motioned to her toward the undead wolf.

This seemed to confuse the wolf even more and before it could react, Reinera sent a powerful lance of light at the thing’s face. To its surprise, it took it straight onto its nose, but it was much more sturdy than its friends, taking the blow with only a small wound to show for it.

Its confusion didn’t last very much longer. The wolf decided that she was a much less scary opponent and threw itself at her.

Julius smiled amusingly as the girl let out a soft exclamation of surprise and used a movement skill to dodge out of the way.

That’s a pretty good movement skill, it actually leaves a mirage behind for the opponent, he realized as he observed the skill in action.

Instead of just continuing to blast the beast with more lances of light, Julius watched as she sent an interesting gathering of mana at the wolf. He couldn’t quite tell what it was supposed to do, but the wolf suddenly started to thrash around.

Her initial panic must have worn off because Reinera was much more poised as she sent several large ropes of light at the monster. These ropes ended up strapping the wolf to the floor. The beast tried to break free of the bindings but was seemingly having a difficult time doing so. Then Julius sensed an incredibly large amount of mana formed underneath the now captive wolf. It was very similar to a ritual circle, but it was slightly different.

It seemed more like a medium that could focus and concentrate mana that was channeled into it. The skill reminded him of Joshua’s and James’s large scale attack.

Julius didn’t have to wait long to see what it did, Reinera quickly activated it and a pillar of light formed around the monster. Runic symbols stacked on top of each other and detonated with a powerful pressure of mana.

What was left after it was over, was a half dead wolf that was struggling to stay alive. Or dead. He didn’t quite know how that worked for undead monsters.

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The skill must have taken a lot out of Reinera because Julius noticed that she was breathing much more harshly. He wasn’t surprised either, that amount of mana was a lot for a Tier 2. He didn’t expect most people to have the reserves like he did.

Still, she had enough juice left within her that she was able to send one last lance of light at the wolf, putting it down for good.

He gave a hearty applause, but she didn’t seem to appreciate it. A quick glare at the four monsters he had easily slain and back to the single one she had managed to take down with much more effort made him suspect she thought his clapping was more belittling than he meant it to be.

To her credit, being able to take down a pretty strong Tier 3 at only Tier 2 was an impressive achievement.

He even sensed that the wolf had touched upon a Concept already. It wasn’t that developed, otherwise she would have had a more difficult time, but it was outstanding nonetheless.

Regardless, being able to fight across tiers was a very difficult thing that only the most elite fighters could do.

It was something that he had been taking for granted since he had been taking Tier 3s on for a while. Admittedly, it would have been much harder for him if he didn’t have such a large mana pool. Otherwise, he would be tired after dealing with a few of them just like Reinera was at the moment.

That last attack took a lot of mana, even by his standards.

“Well, what did you think?” She asked suddenly when she regained her breath.

“Huh?”