Chapter 340 - Flinch
"I can't believe I am seeing a slime that can take down several dragons alone," Femradiel said in amazement.
"While I am also surprised, I guess this makes sense," Ryan said.
"How does a slime this strong make any sense to you?" Femradiel asked.
"I imagined that dungeon masters have all kinds of benefits," Ryan said. "For example, what if a dungeon master can obtain all the experience and skills obtained by their minions? That would explain why that monster became that strong. While that is just a hypothesis, I am pretty sure dungeon masters have some kind of advantage over others."
That would explain why Baal and Lilith were so strong. However, they are monsters from legends. That probably wasn't the only explanation for their power. Regardless, Ryan could confirm that once he kills the slime, the question was: could he kill the slime?
"There is only one way to find out," Ryan said. "By using Power Shot… since I don't want to get close to that thing."
Ryan wasn't sure, but it looked like the slime was two hundred meters long and wide and probably fifty meters tall. Forget about defeating him in a direct fight. The monster probably could smash Ryan or at least suffocate him with that massive body. Even if Ryan survives all that, the chances of him surviving Corrosive Touch were pretty small.
"The stronger someone gets, the better their instincts become," Femradiel said. "If you want to destroy that monster in a single shot, you will have to get away more than a little bit."
Ryan could quickly solve the problem with Force. Still, he didn't want to run from a slime. While a full-powered Power Shot probably would solve the problem, Ryan was looking for a fight. It has been a while he felt that his life was in danger, and while he didn't enjoy the feeling, he needed to sharpen his instincts.
"Nah, let's fight that thing fair and square… to some extent," Ryan said. "I doubt that that thing will be the first dungeon master to arrive on Earth, but I need to get used to that level of the enemy."
"We? So you want my help?" Femradiel asked.
"No, that was just a manner of speaking," Ryan shook his head. "I like to win my fights alone. Besides, you would make things too easy."
"Can I at least kill the small fries to gain mana?" Femradiel asked. "You are going to keep using potions anyway to recover your mana so that the result will be the same."
"I guess that is fine…" Ryan said and then sighed. "You need to become more powerful to be able to do something once the fights you want to fight begin to show up."
Without wasting any more time, Ryan began to charge Power Shot. However, he made sure to make himself pretty relaxed. While he didn't want to finish the fight in a single shot, Ryan wanted to make use of his stealth skills and cause some extra damage.
In the end, Ryan managed to surprise the beast since he controlled his bloodthirst. After charging for five minutes, Ryan pulled the trigger, and the monster looked directly at him. The creature didn't have time to measure the strength of the attack, so Ryan's bolt caused an explosion and made the dungeon master tremble while the monsters on the way were utterly annihilated.
Instead of charging another Power Shot, Ryan used his crossbow like a machine gun, making good use of Firing Posture. It was time to see if the stacked poison could do anything against the creature. However, Ryan was forced to stop when the big slime spat several things toward him. Ryan thought those were some cannonballs, but to his surprise, they were slimes.
Ryan only had a few moments to see the creatures flying toward him, but some of them were emitting flames with their bodies, while others were freezing the air around them. Ryan dodged those, but when they hit the sand behind him, they exploded or froze all the ground around a pretty big radius.
"Didn't you say that you would take care of the small slimes?" Ryan asked.
"Don't talk as If you aren't surprised by that attack as well," Femradiel protested, and then she fired an Ice arrow to kill the fire slime and then an Electric Bullet to finish the other.
"I didn't think you could use anything aside from ice," Ryan frowned.
"I can, but I would rather not do it," Femradiel said. "I only did it because you didn't have any ice spell that would come in handy. Besides, I am using your skills right now since if I use any other, you will learn it."
The dungeon master continued to use its mouth like a cannon, but this time before the slimes could hit anything, Femradiel fired her projectiles and stooped the monsters.
Ryan used that chance to continue his attacks, but as expected, the big boss eventually gave up when it noticed the invaders were more troublesome than they looked like.
Despite its size, the massive slime managed to jump pretty fast. Even while in midair, Ryan kept attacking, but eventually, he had to use Flash several times to escape from the impact point. He succeeded, but the slime created some arms to grab him. Ryan kept using Flash to gain some distance, but it didn't look like the arms had a limit by how much they could grow.
"So annoying…" Ryan muttered.
Ryan hit the arms with his bolts, but he barely slowed down the monster or caused damage. All those bolts added with Power Shot's power only decreased the monster's health by fifteen percent.
"Well… at least now we know that he isn't a half-assed dungeon master," Ryan frowned. "This will last for a while, and that will only make the victory taste better."
When the slimes' arms got too close to Ryan, he reacted instinctively and electrocuted them. Finally, the creatures flinched and slowed down a little bit.