As my surroundings done change I see myself in circular arena like stadium. And in front of me is ice shaped like a cross. I feel something ominous from this ice cross.

Just as I take my first step toward it I explodes, in its place now stands lizard like creature like the one from before but with ice incasing its huge claws and other parts of its body.

It is just standing there observing me. Now the feeling I was getting only got stronger. I start to charge my gauntlets and greaves. Preparing for a fight. And as soon as I start to charge my gears the frost lizard lunges at me with its icy claws in front.

It is much faster and precise than the lizards from before. Even before I know it, it is already before me. As it gets in range I block its claws with my gauntlets, putting my arms in front to protect my chest.

CLANG!

BOOM!

After metallic collision sound, my gauntlets explode outward to the lizard, pushing it back. Unfortunately, it seems it will take more than that to kill it.

After being pushed back, it starts to create ice spears by freezing moisture in the air and throws them at me. As those spears get in range I do a roundhouse kick crushing the ice spears with my greaves’ explosion.

After crushing the ice spears, I focus back on the ice lizard and it is gone. Left no, right no, behind no. So, this only leaves above. As I look above I see it falling from above me. I jump forward with all my might.

BOOM!

My greaves expel its pent-up power to aid me in my evasive action, propelling me forward with powerful inertia. As I get thrown to the ground from my failure to control my direction, I hear a ripping sound from behind.

As soon as I land I turn back and see a giant ice-shards protruding out from ground around the ice lizard.

“HOLY SHIT.”

A second late I would have been shashlik. DAMN.

After seeing its attack failed it turns to me and starts to float and disperse. And before I know it I get a tingling feeling behind my back. I try to dodge to my left but its claws manage to pierce my right shoulders before I can get out of its attack zone.

“Shit, that hurts.”

In my anger I do a back-kick to its stomach throwing it away with explosion. It stops only after hitting the arena’s walls. Its stomach singed to cinders.

It barely manages to stand up. If I was alright I would love to take this chance to finish this fucking lizard.

But, even though my shoulder is healing fast it takes a little bit more time. As I was focusing on healing my shoulder, ice lizard starts to covers itself with a thick layer of ice. I can see its stomach being healed.

“Hey, that’s cheating.”

Fucking lizard is getting even harder to kill. And just as my shoulder finishes healing, the lizard comes out of its ice cocoon as good as new.

So, I suppose round two huh. But problem is my mana vessel is starting to run dry. So, I need to finish it off with my next move or it is goodbye.

I start to charge my gauntlets and greaves to their full and conjure up as many elemental sparrows I can. and make them float above me. After almost using all my mana I manage to make eight sparrows.

After watching me prepare for a while it starts to disperse again. Not falling for that again. As soon as it starts to disperse I jump to my left and turn around and see it materializing behind where I was just a moment ago.

Just as it finishes materializing I jump into action and try to kick it in the chest, but it manages to raise its ice claws and block my kick. But my kick still manages to shatter its ice claws and throwing it back.

But while being thrown back it fires the ice shards on its other claws at me. After doing my best to dodge them I still get one of them in my left thigh.

Ooh, it hurts, it hurts a lot. Still my thigh starts to heal as soon as I get the shard out. While my thigh heals my opponent starts to materialize more shards over its claws.

As soon as its claws finish being covered by ice it takes first move and makes an ice spear from moisture in the air and throws them at me. Just before spears impale me I pump my little leftover mana into my left arm and make it branch out to shield myself.

Spears almost pierces my pathetic excuse for a shield only stopping just before my nose. And as my shield blocked my vision I can feel it displacing itself behind me again. But this time instead of turning back immediately I wait a single moment before dodging to my right evading its claws and spin around getting in closer and punch it in its chest squarely.

BOOM!

After resounding boom, it gets thrown back like a ragdoll. At the moment it hits the walls and fall to the ground and struggles to stand up and start to cover itself with ice I will my sparrows to land on it before it manages to cover itself again in its cocoon.

And after its finishes covering itself I will my birdies to explode.

BOOM!

With another resounding boom, my birdies explode with great fire and destruction. Shattering fucking lizard’s ice cocoon. After dust settles I see it barely standing. But still with a breath in it.

“You’re as tenacious as cockroach, aren’t you? But have no worry I will end your misery soon enough.”

As I was spouting nonsense it starts to cover itself with ice cocoon again, albeit little bit slowly than before. As soon as I see this I propel myself with my remaining charged greaves getting closer to the lizard and this time I punch I across its jaws with my last charged gauntlet.

BOOM!

Again, with boom its head disintegrates. Following that its body disperses too.

“WHOO.”

That was dangerous. I got in touch with death more times than I can afford to. But still feels good to win. And this fight showed me what can I do with my new gears and my mana conjuring. I got great many ideas to try after getting out of here.

After lizard vanishes I come back to the crystal hall with circles and dice.

“Just as I suspected purple platforms were cursed platforms. Luckily I landed only on one of them.”

Still this was a good experience. I think I got a little bit stronger after this encounter.

Now let’s finish this game.

I hit the dice and