-Vol 5: A New Life-

-Battle against a Dragon(2)-

While the explosion wasn’t loud or that violent, it was abrupt enough to startle everyone present. The hunters standing vigilant on the yacht hadn’t prepared for this outcome. They were all making preparations to resist the javelin, but suddenly it exploded with a fiery show of water and fire. Involuntarily, they all stared at Kenshin who still had his hand fisted and pointing it towards the monster.

“Is that your doing, Kenshin?” its Sakurai, the one who was familiar with him the most asked. He had a bizarre expression in his face as if he didn’t believe what just happened. When Kenshin came to the yacht for the first time, he couldn’t sense his magic at all. After seeing his hunter’s license, he came to know that Kenshin was a magic skill user, adept on using a very powerful fire type skill. Even so, he didn’t expect him to have an exploding type of skill.

One can use explosion by compressing fire or doing some other complex actions, but that kind of manipulation needed extreme mastery with one’ skill. For this man to reach that level, Sakurai had to reevaluate this young hunter. To use one skill to advance this much wasn’t easy at all. Take his [Light’s Grace] for example. The skill gave him the ability to generate, control and manipulate all kind of lights and their properties.

Theoretically, he knew it was possible for him to travel at a speed of light, but practically it was very hard to achieve. Till now, he had only achieved the realm of molding light constructs and make himself invisible at most. But for this man to actually use fire to create such concentrated explosions, he must have trained hard.

Alas, if only he knew the truth!

“Yes. I have stopped it from firing that javelin. Quick, take this chance to attack it.” At Kenshin’s reminded, everyone woke up from their stupor and took on various battle approach at the monster.

Standing in the back, Kenshin frowned as he looked at the dilong. Just before the javelin broke, it created substantial damage to the thing. The mouth was a delicate place, no matter who it was. The monster had received damage as the javelin was partially inside its mouth at that time. Even a red damage value floated above its head, notifying him that he had dealt 700 damage to it. But, that’s it…only 700. Normally his exploding domain should cause more than 2000 damage, but unexpectedly due to some reason, 1300+ ATK were blocked.

‘Why?’ Kenshin wondered if this thing could create such pink thin barriers inside its body too. If it was really due that, then this thing was way more frightening than anything he had seen so far, second only to that bizarre arm in North.

Sakurai conjured a long ‘katana’ out of light particles and slashed ceaselessly at the beast’s midsection. He had made a yellow platform to stand on midair so that he can attack its soft spots. At the same time, the other hunters also choose various parts different from each other to attack the beast. Joy selected the part closest to the yacht as he couldn’t fly or have a skill that could allow him to hover like Sakurai.

Nobu, created three huge crescent wind blades, spanning three meters each and thick enough to be solid and sent them at various parts of the dilong. Every now and then he would send a few flying at the beast’s eyes, forcing it to dodge again. Nobu excelled at long distance magic skills, so he stayed far away from the monster in the yacht.

Ozuru, the Salaryman used his slingshot to fire colorful balls at the beast’s face. Compared to its overall hard skin covered in scales, its face had fewer scales and also not that hard. It was easier to hurt there.

Another hunter by the name of Kenzou, who also used his sword to cut open shockwaves like him, used his superior sword skills to slash various parts of the scales randomly. His strike range was large. The other hunter whose name Kenshin hadn’t checked yet also used his skill to make his sword vibrate at high frequency and stab it some places of the monster.

The man who used the medallion to resist and diffuse the shockwaves pf the monster earlier, used his medallion again, this time a blue colored laser-like light emerged from it and went past the monster’s midsection.

ROAR!!!

The beats roared loudly as it was besieged by everyone present. The driver of the yacht had already created some distance between the boat and the beast when the hunter kept it busy. At least far enough to not create problems for hunters here. This thing was made of sturdy material from dungeons, a few crashes won't break it.

Unable to endure anymore, the beast started to roll around on the water. Suddenly, its yellow horns started to glow as sparks appeared from them. Soon, the whole sky that was filled with stars and a beautiful big moon covered by dark clouds as thunder rolled, making loud noises.

“Everyone, be careful. It's starting to use its thunder ability!” the man with the medallion shouted hoarsely. At the same time, the medallion started to glow red, as a red transparent square box like that of a glass box formed around him.

Heeding his warning, others also adopted different means to keep themselves from approaching thunder. Kenshin frowned and started to skim through his skills, searching for something that could either protect him from the eventual attack or stop it from using the skill.

First, he used his recently acquired skill, [Strurdy Body] then he used [Stone Skin] to further enhance his defense. He already had another layer of defense that’s passive called [Mirror Reflection]. After all this defense, he used his Intent to cover his body in a thick red glow. A semi-transparent closed umbrella with a sword like handle manifested above his head that only he could see.

[Sturdy Body] -> 1% damage reduction

[Stone Skin] -> 7% damage block

[Mirror Reflection]-> 50% of the damage reflected the enemy, leaving only 50% of damage.

[Shield of Gratitude] which is a trait from his sword, could increase is overall DEF by 500%, so he used it, in the end, to further increase his DEF.

A few seconds after he made all this preparation, the beast roared to the heavens as a huge pillar of lightning whose thickness would probably be a few meters fell down upon everyone. The AoE of the attack was huge, covering hundreds of meters. So pillars with that much thickness continuously fell upon everyone from the sky.

Kenshin swallowed his saliva when he saw the Skill. Anyone of that pillar could kill a hunter below level 100 and seriously injure a hunter below 150. Even with his defense and Skills, he still would receive around 500 to 1000 damage whenever the lightning would fall upon him.

“AAhhh!!” someone shouted loudly.

Startled, Kenshin looked around and found, Joy struck by lightning and fell down on the yacht while smoking like cooked beef. His clothes were all semi-burnt, while his skin was ruptured from the lightning, as he bleeds profusely. Kenshin had checked Joy’s stats earlier, he was only level 114. His total HP was 4570. When he was struck by that pillar lightning, his HP was reduced to double-digit at once.

At this time, everyone was busy with blocking the thunder strikes, with no one there to help him. Gritting his teeth, Kenshin ran towards the man and kneeled beside him. From his pocket, he accessed his [Inventory] and brought a medium [Health Potion] whose market rate was 12,000 G on hunter’s forum. Opening the cap, he poured it on Joy’s mouth.

The effect of the potion was instantaneous. All the visible wounds on his body started to recover quickly. Joy, who was wreathing in agony earlier and had lost consciousness, felt relaxed all over and tentatively opened his eyes.

“Hey!” Kenshin smiled at him while holding a bottle of [Meduim Health Potion] in his hand. At the same time, a red light like that of a flame had enveloped his body.

“Th-thank you!” Joy tried to sit, but he felt his body wrecking in pain, and gave up. Laying flat on the yacht, he stared at the cloudy sky in fright. Back there, he nearly died from that thunder pillar. He still had some lingering dread when the berserk force of nature tore apart his body like a peace of paper.

Ten seconds later, the clouds above dissipated revealing the starry sky and peaceful moon. The dragon then looked everyone present with its muddy yellow eyes, as if they were nothing more than food on its plate.