Chapter 431 - 431 - Once the numbers hit the mark, Rose changes completely

The monster horde in front of Rose stopped dead, and time seemed to freeze.

The next second, a string of sharp tearing sounds burst out, and a dense mist of blood gushed from one monster after another, staining the ground and the waterway a harsh dark red.

Then came a run of wet thuds as bodies hit the ground.

Whether it was the Blue Crabs with their metal shells and heavy defense, the terrifyingly fast Raider Fish, or the Light Quartz floating in midair, everything inside that fan-shaped zone in front of Rose came apart and collapsed at the same instant.

Iri's eyes went round, her small face blank.

Laurier faltered and nearly took a hit from the monster in front of her.

Kureha, locked in a fight with a Lv.4 monster, felt her sword falter despite herself.

Persephone lowered her head, glanced at Margaret in her arms, still hazy and with traces of Potion at the corner of her mouth, then looked up at the battlefield that had been cleared in an instant, and couldn't quite keep a straight face.

Even Leon's pupils shrank and his eye twitched.

"Holy shit, Rose is this brutal now that she hit Lv.4?!"

"What kind of swing speed is that? Even with skill bonuses... isn't that a little ridiculous?"

Steel Knight

Strength and Endurance increased

In close-quarters combat, abilities related to blocking, parrying, deflecting and evading increased

When counterattacking from defense, attack power and attack speed increased

Everyone knows the Falna does more than raise the holder's Basic Abilities through training and combat, or dig out a Development Ability through professional skill and repeating the same work. It can also grant Magic and Skills.

But what most people do not know, including Lower-Class Adventurers who have never leveled up and those with no Magic or Skill, the so-called blank slates, is this.

Magic and Skills are not fixed and unchanging.

As the holder's Basic Abilities grow, as their level rises and their "vessel" keeps expanding, both Magic and Skills gradually strengthen. Some abilities are passive in nature or have effects that stay hidden, so they are hard to notice. But others are strikingly obvious, the most typical example being the fairly common enchantment magic.

Take Rose's Pure White Kite Shield.

At first, that layer of pure white light could only cover the surface of the shield, and its defensive range was quite limited.

But as Rose herself grew, the area the pure white light could cover became far more than that small patch of shield surface. In the campaign to subjugate the Two-Headed Dragon, she could even extend the light across the entire battle line. Steel Knight grew along with Rose too, getting more solid by the day.

The stat boosts Steel Knight granted could not be seen directly.

But the increases to evasion, blocking and defense were visible to the naked eye. That explained why everyone saw Rose as so unbreakable. Holding out against that many monsters for that long, she not only never gave an inch, she barely took any wounds either, as though she were running a health-lock hack. No matter how the enemy attacked her, she stood like a boulder at the very front of the line.

In plain terms, the quality of Rose's health bar was very high, and it drained very slowly in a fight.

Add to that the counterattack-from-defense property her skill gave her...

That was why the moment Lv.4 Rose made her move, everyone was stunned.

In that moment her attack speed far outstripped Kureha, a swordsman known for her Agility. Forget human eyes, even the monsters with their special senses had no time to react to Rose's blade at all.

"That kind of power has a beauty to it, raw numbers and mechanics at the same time."

Leon watched, gaping, while Rose carried out a slaughter along the line. Those vicious monsters were like paper under her sword, with no chance to block or dodge, no time even to react before silver light blurring into afterimages tore them apart.

Watching Rose's flawless evasions and parries, precise enough that not a scrap of stamina was wasted, it clicked for Leon. He suddenly understood why she could keep triggering Steel Knight's counterattack-from-defense effect, an effect so broken it was practically a bug.

"The more monsters swarming her, the more attacks come and the faster they come, which means... as long as she keeps completing defensive actions, her counterattack property just keeps refreshing and triggering without a break!"

Leon's eyes narrowed.

"Doesn't that mean... Rose with that skill is basically a battlefield queen built for group fights?"

"As long as there are enough enemies, her skill never goes on cooldown...!"

"Holy shit, you can play it like that!"

When Leon first learned Rose's skill set, he thought it was simple, direct and blunt, full of a pure kind of beauty in the numbers.

But he never imagined that as her level rose, she would take it as a foundation and build a combat system this far beyond normal reasoning.

"So the reason it didn't show before was that the numbers weren't there yet."

"Not enough numbers, so her body wasn't solid enough. And also because of the numbers, gaps opened in her defensive actions, so the skill loop couldn't link up perfectly."

"But now Rose has stepped into Lv.4..."

"Against enemies at her level or below, with those monstrous stats and mechanics, she runs the whole system without a flaw."

Thinking this far, Leon couldn't help picturing the future. When Rose's "numbers" swelled further, who could truly break through her defense in a one-on-one close-quarters fight? Forget dealing effective damage, even stepping into her defensive radius would get you ground into serious injury by that endless chain of counterattacks.

"A system that attacks by defending and takes down enemies with counters..."

"It really does work along the same lines as Ottar's absolute defense, the kind built on pure technique..."

Just as Leon was studying Rose's whole setup, thoughts stacking up in his head...

"Leon! What are you muttering about over there?!"

"The Blizzard domain is weakening, Laurier and Kureha can't hold out much longer! Get your head in the fight right now!"

Jeanne's scolding jolted him, and he snapped back and looked at the battlefield.

Sure enough, with the Blizzard's slowing effect weakening, the two swordsmen weaving through the monster piles were visibly bogging down, nothing like the smooth flow they'd had while the Blizzard held.

"Huh? Com... coming!"

Putting his focus back on the fight, Leon raised a hand and put a shield on himself by reflex.

"Frost Armor!"

Then, without another word, he brought out the real thing.

"Secret Art: Transcendent Magic Circle!"

"Blizzard!"

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