| Author: Starving Wind | Original Source: Joara | Word Count: 2942 characters |
| Translator: Anonymouss | English Source: Re:Library | Word Count: 1651 words |
| Editor(s): Silva | ||
As opposed to the mighty appearance it first had, now that the Bone Dragon had crashed to the ground, it looked utterly pathetic. The once-imposing skeleton body had been smashed nearly into bits, and the skeletal wings had been torn to shreds.
But the two bright red burning lights inside its eye sockets didn’t show any signs of dimming.
On top of that, it was still able to use the breath skill whenever, so I slowly approached the Bone Dragon with care and caution.
Once I reached a certain range, the Bone Dragon raised its body and started to attack with its relatively unscathed tail. As the area of attack was much wider than its claw and foot attacks, the tail was extremely dangerous.
If I had not kept up the Wind Walking skill that allowed me to walk 1.5 times faster the whole time, I would have been rolling around on the floor round about now.
“I can’t continue like this.”
Even without saying it aloud, I felt like my body was shouting it at me. As I was too busy escaping its attacks, it was near impossible for me to damage the Bone Dragon. In order to attack, I needed to destroy the tail.
I disabled the Wind Walking and the Bone Dragon’s tail swung directly towards me. I gave up trying to dodge it, and instead I prepared a powerful active skill called ‘Grand Slash’.
It was a tactical attack that only two-handed swords can activate, which is more powerful than normal attacks but in turn destroys a portion of the durability of your equipment.
Although it was an S tier skill, considering its usefulness I would say it is around P tier.
The tail straightened itself, before swinging in a predictable manner towards me. Although monsters usually attack randomly, they always attack at least once or twice in a predictable arc, and this became valuable information for me as I had often studied the monster’s attack patterns.
I made sure I didn’t waste this chance. I kept the length of the Excalibur in my mind as I swung it down before the tail could reach my body.
Slash!
Wham!
With a hefty thud, a dull shock ran through my body.
Even though my attack landed, it was like striking down a whip that was already in motion to attack me, so even if the tail were to be completely severed from my attack, I wasn’t able to avoid getting hit by it.
My body flew backward from the powerful blow. While I flew, I stabbed Excalibur into the ground and dragged it to a stop. By doing so, I had successfully minimized the damage and stopped being flung any further.
Although I did feel the huge blunt force that landed on my body, I looked dazedly at my HP gauge and saw that 70% of my HP was gone. Although I did land a critical strike on the Bone Dragon, the damage I received in return was definitely not something to scoff at.
After drinking two high grade potions to refill my HP gauge, I looked at the Bone Dragon that had now lost its most effective form of attack.
“Give my flesh, and take your bone, huh?”
I recited an old Korean proverb to the Bone Dragon as I recklessly attacked it with my Excalibur.
The claws, the body, the legs, anywhere my Excalibur could land on, I attacked without mercy. As the tail which helped it find its center of balance was now gone, the Bone Dragon couldn’t help but flail around, showing how effective destroying core parts of the body is.
-Roaaaar!
I wasn’t sure whether its roar was one of pain, but as the Bone Dragon had lost most of its means of attacking me, it wouldn’t be able to do anything against me, so why would it bother attacking m…
Feeling a shiver run down my spine, I studied the suction force that the Bone Dragon was making. I slowly backed away. This was the first part of the obvious pattern that it was going to use a breath attack.
I regretted standing around like an idiot1, and quickly climbed the Bone Dragon’s body. The breath attack was definitely a huge threat to me and was its ultimate attack.
But that only mattered if you were hit by it, and even though the area of effect was wide, it was mainly effective in large groups within a certain range. Of course a dragon would usually fly up to maximize the effectiveness of its attack, but Bone Dragons cannot fly without having access to magic.
Therefore the fact that it was going to use a breath attack at this state meant that it was practically self-destructing. Since the Bone Dragon’s AI was about the same level as your average undead, it seemed like it was prioritizing destroying me instead of its own safety first.
I had to act fast. Bone Dragons have either acid breath or sound waves, but more than anything I’ve never experienced being hit by a dragon’s breath directly so I didn’t know how badly it could damage me.
If I get one-hit-killed, all the effort I’ve spent today would be rendered completely useless.
While the Bone Dragon showed a humorous act of smashing its own body as I moved between its rib cage bones, I had no time to look as I climbed up and saw that the skull was slowly starting to become red.
This was proof that it was about to use its breath attack.
Calculating the time I had left, it meant that I only had time to execute one last skill. A skill that would be best towards a single target. Unfortunately, most of the skills that were inside the skill screen of my character were area of effect skills. It looked like it was set up to suit hunting normal monsters more than going on raids…
‘Skill combination!’
And with that, my fading hope suddenly sprang back to life with the new information. I looked at all the skill books that were left in my inventory. Although it was difficult to keep dodging its attacks while climbing to the head with my limited vision, it didn’t mean that it was impossible.
Two P tier skill books, two S tier skill books. The only skills that were perfect for single target attacks were those. The probability of successfully combining two P tier skill books and executing it was 10%. If I were to combine an S tier skill as support on top of that, the probability of success drops below 10%. Meaning that if I were to combine two S tier skills, the total probability of success was about 0.1%.
The problem is that there were only four slots in my Skill Combination Slots. Who would ever imagine that someone would use skill combinations while hunting?
It was a gamble with 0.1% chance. As I saw the skull coming near, I pressed the ‘Start Combining’ button.
I had already passed the rib cage area and reached the shoulders. The only remaining area was the neck bones, as it craned its long neck I was able to see the Bone Dragon’s skull. It opened up its wide jaw with its two red eyes burning bright.
A spheroidal cluster of energy spawned within the depths of its jaws, so it seemed highly likely that the attack was a sonic breath rather than an acid breath. If so, there was no chance for the bone dragon to succumb to its own attack since a sonic breath aimed to destroy the internal organs of its target, and the bone dragon had no internal organs at all.
[Four seconds left.]Please… Succeed.
“Ugh!”
I barely caught myself losing my balance, as I once again quickly refilled my empty mana gauge with a potion.
[Three seconds left.]
I’m now within attack range. [Two seconds left.]
It was too late to run away, and at this extreme close range, I would immediately die if this were to fail.
[One second left.]Meaning there was no second chance.
[You succeeded in combining skills.] [You generated a skill, ‘Requiem’.]2“Nice!”
After letting out a light cheer, I lightly pressed my lips against the hilt of the Excalibur.
Soon, a golden aura expanded outwards. It was enormous in size.
[Your attack power increases.] [Your accuracy increases.] [Your critical strike chance increases.]Numerous system messages appeared. As it did so, the Bone Dragon’s jaw suddenly flew open wide, the only thing left was to shoot its breath at me.
[Requiem!]My skill activated, and a golden light covered sword cut down the Bone Dragon’s head.
The breath that it shot towards me was blocked by the golden light and could no longer reach me. As my golden sword cut deep into the skull, the red aura it emanated was soon gone.
Like a puppet with its strings cut, the giant being stopped moving. I then retrieved the Excalibur that was buried in its cleaved skull and I slid down the backbone down to the tail.
With the feeling of sliding down a playground slide and wind caressing my cheeks, I slid down the Bone Dragon.
Afterward, I lightly landed on the ground and looked behind.
Crumble!
With a cloud of dust, the gigantic figure of the Bone Dragon crumbled. It was an epic sight, equivalent to watching a building fall down.
- Artoria has completed the SSS tier quest, ‘The Forgotten Dragon’s Revival’.3
A server-wide notice triumphantly rang out.
And followed by an endless torrent of system messages that flowed one after another. This was certainly befitting for a victory, wasn’t it?
This will be an experience I’ll never be able to forget.
