Chapter 147 - 147: Frenzied Mana Burn

Upon the final wolf being slain the group continued with their path to hunt and level up.

"I cannot believe those things had such awful defense, hey Zeke were they actually easy to throw? You made it look like they weighed nothing."

He flexed his wings in response as he remembered the feeling of throwing a wolf nearly as large as himself like it was a rag doll, the way he could throw one just by grabbing it's skull.

"They were heavy yeah but I think my wings might be the most muscle dense area of my body, like your legs should normally be the area where so much lifting power comes from? My wings feel like they're just as strong."

This caused a heated debate between Layla and Keith about proper lifting techniques and how they applied to battle, the pair arguing from the perspective of strength based characters and real world body building.

Eventually Ezekiel was forced to shush them as he noticed a large creature nearby with very dense mana inside of the body.

"Huge scorpion looking monster, it's the size of a truck and it's just sitting nearby."

Keith began to stealthily move closer to get a view of the monster and when he turned back to the party he had a serious expression on his face while making a hand signal towards Layla.

"It's an elite, we need to be careful."

As she spoke those words and the group began to move closer they heard the sickening sound of a wet, meaty thump and then of air escaping a wet bag.

Looking up at Keith again they saw that a meter long stinger was poking out of his chest as the scorpion had impaled him from behind.

"Dammit! Hope heal him before he dies!"

The others rushed over as the stinger was removed from Keith, Layla and Ezekiel dashing last him with skills being activated while Hope stopped at Keith to heal the critical injury.

"I'm not taking any chances with this freak so be careful Layla, I'm fighting with spells against it."

She quickly glanced at him and what she saw gave her a small chill.

His wings, horns and tail were wreathed in flames that made her mana senses scream for caution over the volatility she could feel.

Black flames that flickered with gray and purple moved along his body until the mana burn skill was fully activated.

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Alert! Skill (Mana Burn) is consuming void mana, effects of skill (Mana Burn) are being altered.

Frenzied Mana Burn (S)

Consume 1%/s of void mana to increase the power of spells and mana enhanced attacks by 50%

The user may increase the consumption of void mana to increase the effect. (Every 1% additional increase provides an additional 50% power bonus)

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With his claws and his wings covered in mana like he normally chose to do he carefully monitored his mana consumption to see how long he could sustain the ability.

Luckily it appeared that even with the original mana regeneration rate he had before his mana condensed into void mana was still enough to sustain the Frenzied Mana Burn indefinitely.

He smiled to himself with his eyes glowing purple in the shadows of the swamp.

Activating void step he appeared beneath the massive scorpion and slashed with all four limbs targeting the weak underbelly of the elite.

He expected to cause a large impact but was shocked when he saw that his mana infused claws had simply scratched the chitin of the monster.

He began to laugh to himself as he cast a spell while moving away from the underbelly, he had to flap his wings as hard as he could to get significant distance before it struck him but he had left the creature a gift.

Beneath the scorpion a Frenzied Void Star exploded, shredding away large portions of the carapace and causing heavy damage over time while he flew back in to slash at one of the legs.

Each slash made by his claws left streaks of flickering mana over the shell that slowly ate away the defensive armor, if he did not have the damage to harm the creature then he would reduce the defense enough for Layla or Keith to harm it.

He watched as Layla used a dash skill to close the distance while it was distracted by Ezekiel so she could deliver a heavy blow to the side of the scorpion.

Her blade sank into the armor but did not cause much damage to the creature.

When Ezekiel saw the stinger turn towards him he created a barrier using the skill of his robes.

'I didn't have much mana because of my stupid decision but thanks to the titles I got from the god of shadows I can use these abilities again!'

The barrier had a very dense feeling as the stinger stabbed into it, the tip penetrated deeply but not enough to break the barrier completely or reach his skin.

He smiled to himself and cast another star right at the back end of the scorpion as it took the time to pull the stinger back from the barrier.

When it felt the explosion at the base of it's tail the scorpion must have been annoyed because it suddenly rose much higher off the ground with a claw swinging around to try and snap him in half.

Layla took this as a chance to use her upgraded slash skill (Cleave) to attack the weakened underbelly, her blade sank into the armored underbelly with gleam as the skill activated.

Her attack opened a deep wound in the scorpion making it creak and hiss before swinging around with unexpected speed to crash a claw into her body.

She was able to bring her blade up just in time to block the brunt of the force but she was thrown back, as she hit the ground she prepared another skill to prevent the attack she assumed was coming behind the blow.

Her years or experience saved her when her parry skill succeeded in forcing the stinger away.

"Be careful Zeke! It will try to make openings for itself to sting you!"

When he heard this he nodded and began to burn more of his void mana until he reached six percent consumption for a three hundred percent increase in his magical damage.

He attacked each leg with his claws while his wings repeated the strike on the void mana weakened joints.

Deeper wounds forced the corrosive magic in deeper while he fought to avoid the attacks of the scorpion that was alternating between himself and Layla.

As they fought the elite their friends were behind them, Keith being healed while Hope poured her dense life mana into his wound to fight back against the venom.

His health had been sheared off by nearly three fourths and the venom effect was ticking for thousands of health every second, her healing was powerful but she could not fully restore him until the venom timer was gone.

While she healed him she watched with horror as he pulled out a weak dagger and used it with a powerful rend skill to slash across his own chest.

"What are you doing! Stop it!"

"It's ok Hope, listen! Different damage over time effects interact with eachother, some make effects worse while others remove certain effects!"

She watched as the hemorrhage effect he caused on himself did something she did not think would be possible.

She watched as the timer of the venom effect below his health bar rapidly drained to zero while he bled himself out.

The only thing keeping him alive was her healing but now that the venom was gone she could restore his wounds completely.

"Hemorrhage removes poison from the blood, it's risky but the method works in an emergency."

"You better tell us all about this when we finish this dungeon! Now let's go help them kill that thing."

When they arrived at the fight they saw that the scorpion was covered in many flaming wounds while other places had pock marked chitin covering the area, Keith knocked an arrow and released a powerful shot at the dangerous elite.

The arrow struck deep into a weakened portion of carapace while the newly improved Reaper's Mark hovered above the wound.

Hope used her life mana constructs to help block extra hits from the beast, she could practically feel the impact as she was forced to create denser and stronger constructs using more and more mana.

'These things have as much defense as my own magic power, it's dangerous.'

She turned to looking for wounds on her friends while Keith circled the creature looking for angles to hit weak points.

Ezekiel was glad for the help in reducing his mana expenses through barriers but he saw something that made him wary, the creature's mana was flowing in a way that implied it was about to cast a skill.

"Hey watch out! It's using a skill!"

He and Layla moved back as the creature unleashed a massive nova of poison mana from it's body that left behind a powerful aura of poison, with his warning they managed to avoid the attack.

He could see the creature using mana at a constant rate to fuel this aura so he knew they likely wouldn't be able to attack anytime soon if they waited for the skill to end, with this thought in mind he charged in for another attack with the vampiric strikes skill active so he could mitigate the damage as much as he could.