Chapter 108: Discovering New Things

The attack doesn’t end with Typhon’s punch — she essentially used three attacks. The first severed Nio’s arm, the second struck her from behind, and along with Typhon’s punch, she applies the third spell.

Black marks cover Nio’s entire body as she is cursed. The marks resemble flames and try to drain Nio’s magic, and with the punch she’s nearly knocked out, her eyes going dark for a fraction of a second before she retreats backward with the beating of her wings.

But Typhon doesn’t give Nio time to recover. She uses her Deviant class to swap their positions, landing a kick to Nio’s back while she still maintained that same backward retreating motion. She swaps their positions again, landing a kick to Nio’s jaw and breaking two of her teeth.

Typhon thinks it’s a shame she physically lost her horns, otherwise she’d impale Nio’s body with them.

She repeats the swap, striking Nio from angles she can’t defend against with only one arm. Typhon is always exploiting the side where Nio no longer has an arm, where she couldn’t turn fast enough.

The position-swap ability of the Deviant class mainly boils down to swapping positions to dodge attacks, but Typhon uses it offensively, and starts leaving magic bombs that explode across Nio’s body. The bombs spread toxins, applying negative effects to Nio.

"!!?" Typhon leaps backward, retreating as she looks down and realizes her panties have been stolen, exposing her intimacy to the heat of the environment. Nio used her [Thief] class while getting beaten, also stealing the Tiara.

"Hahaha..." Nio laughs, breaking a healing potion over her own head, the red liquid running down along with her blood like a mixture. Doing this reduces the healing efficiency, but accelerates the healing and the use of the potion, which is good for Nio, who wouldn’t have to waste a long 2 seconds drinking it all.

"Haaa... much better. Looking at you was making my eyes burn." Nio stores the stolen items in her inventory, somewhat relieved now that her vision stopped hurting. In the game, you could never steal items in PVP, much less items from a Boss, but reality is truly different.

"...Clever girl." Typhon smiles, unbothered by the exposure. Nio had also been carrying a spell this whole time.

"[Original Sin]"

[Original Sin] Releases the black flames of sin that consume all that is impure. It is a Special spell from the Special Class Dragon of Madness. Everything that comes into contact with the Black Flames receives the [Madness] debuff until the battle ends. Madness generates hallucinations, confusion, and cerebral hemorrhage randomly during the battle period.

An immense sphere of black flames falls upon the flattened battlefield, striking Typhon, who — having the Corrupted Saint class — takes nearly five times more damage from these flames.

"B-" Typhon tries to use a defensive spell, but Nio interrupts her using [Omni-Trax] in a Level Three explosion, throwing Typhon against the ground. The flames cover Typhon’s body, applying Madness to her, though she doesn’t feel the effects yet.

"[Guillotine of Divine Execution]" Typhon also had a spell saved for use.

[Guillotine of Divine Execution] Dismembers the arms, legs, and head of any enemy that has remained in her field of vision for a full minute.

Nio is "decapitated" and "dismembered" instantly. However, as a Saint, various passives activate to [Defend] against this attack, making it so the limbs aren’t effectively completely removed. The strike on Nio’s body ends up looking more like a deep cut rather than a complete loss of limbs and head.

Quickly, Nio uses a low-level spell that doesn’t require verbal incantation to form a wall of earth and drinks a healing potion to heal all her wounds.

"[Horizontal Black Hole]"

[Horizontal Black Hole] A spell that generates a mass of infinite flattened pressure, like a board. This black mass crushes everything it touches, attracting, absorbing, and spaghettifying.

Nio dodges by leaping upward while realizing that Typhon practically bypasses casting time because of her [Abyssal Arcanist] class.

"Urgh!" Nio is struck in the head by a punch from Typhon that shoves her to the ground. Though Nio wouldn’t notice just from the name, Typhon’s attack was a literal black hole molded and flattened. It continued moving forward, leaving the battlefield and shredding a large part of a forest, growing dangerously before dissipating due to lack of magic.

If that thing had enough magic, it would grow and escape the "containment," returning to the form of a black hole that would grow with mass, absorbing the entire planet. Typhon wanted to kill Nio with that and even spent the effect of her gloves to use that spell.

"..." Nio spins her staff quickly, shaping the air current to push away spores she intuitively senses in the air. She parries a strike from Typhon, spinning her around while Typhon twirls lightly in the air, landing on her feet after missing her kick.

Nio, confident, tries to use another spell, but her mouth hangs open in shock as thorns grow from inside her chest outward, opening holes in her ribcage while Typhon lands a punch to her face — she hesitated again.

’H-How...’ Nio tries to beat her wings, but their bases have been deeply damaged by the thorns, which begin to curve inward, growing roots throughout her body.

"You look confused." Typhon grabs Nio’s throat, who begins to produce nightmare flames.

"The spy class I have is useful for much more than just spying. For example, hiding things in places without anyone noticing." Typhon speaks like a teacher instructing someone naive. Nio, instead of firing the flames, swallows them, which makes them explode inside her, killing the roots and thorns.

"???" Nio retreats backward, opening her status to check her HP, and to her complete shock and dread, it has dropped to 30%, and she doesn’t understand how she lost so much HP. Even though she has less max HP and less defense because of her item set and potions, this number is abnormal.

"Silly Nio, you look scared. Did you forget that we have real bodies here? You think having your organs destroyed isn’t physically costly? HP... that number doesn’t indicate our life like in your silly little game. You could be at 0 and still be alive. It largely indicates our capacity to keep fighting. If it hits zero, it normally just means your body has taken so much damage it can’t continue."

"Of course, most die in that state, but I could stay alive, and I think you could too. So don’t trust that number so much... but hey, I think you’ve noticed now, right?" Typhon grabs Nio’s tail while her fist covered in black mass strikes Nio’s chest, breaking her ribs and crushing her lungs, making her vomit blood.

’S-She sacrificed Defense and Damage for Life Drain!!’ Nio is astonished by this suicidal play from Typhon, which she noticed thanks to her abrupt HP drop. The worst possible Build that existed in the game — she sacrifices total damage, HP, defense, and even Mana. In exchange, she drains enemy HP super fast and converts it into energy for the user.

Of course, energy isn’t HP, so it doesn’t serve to heal herself, which is why Nio considered it complete garbage, since everyone who used it died very quickly without being able to do much.

’T-That’s why the Deviant class and this brutish fighting style!! D-Damn, this class that was garbage before — now that it’s real, it’s better than it seemed.’ Nio cuts her own tail off with her staff and uses teleport to gain some distance.

"I-I can’t get hit anymore. If this continues, she’ll kill me." Nio didn’t want a long fight, but a genuine fear arises from how quickly she could die if she keeps taking damage, even small hits. Because Life Drain works off total percentage and not how much HP one currently has, so even if she only has 30% of her total HP, the drain would count based on 100% of her original HP.

Nio opts to be more cautious, using the distance to prepare spells to attack her.

’Unfortunately, the healing potion doesn’t regenerate much HP... if Typhon chose to focus on life drain in our fight, it’s because she also wanted to end it quickly...’ She feels Typhon approaching fast, very fast.

"S-She’s also a glass cannon like me. That’s why her armor is strange — she must be using a percentage-boost set... so she can also die easily..." Nio mutters to make herself more confident as she can already see Typhon.

Nio’s panties activate their full effect, purifying Nio of the curse effect Typhon placed on her with the punch and of all other negative effects she gained from Typhon.