Chapter 295 - Gravity Manipulation: A Double-edged Sword
"Damn, you sure smell." Bai Zemin frowned hard as the nauseating fishy breath coming from inside the great beast's maw hit his face squarely.
The only reason the snake had not attacked him so far was only because the beast could sense great danger from the being before it; otherwise, it would not have wasted its time hissing in an attempt to threaten the counterpart so as to warn it not to come any closer or it would go into combat mode. However, this snake was one of the supreme lords in this area and except for those beasts that lived in the central parts of this forest there was no one who dared to oppose it.
All who dared to offend it were devoured and those who were marked as targets, though they tried to fight for their lives without surrendering to death, the snake was simply too strong for any of them to handle. Therefore, this beast grew used to being dominant and acting powerful.
Precisely because of this, when Bai Zemin scolded the beast and even ignored it, the snake finally could no longer take it and immediately attacked.
With lightning speed, the blue-scaled snake opened its jaws again, and a second later a dense dark mist shot out from inside its mouth.
Bai Zemin narrowed his eyes and a slightly grave expression appeared on his face. The mist was advancing rapidly in his direction as it surrounded everything several meters around, and no matter if it was trees, grass, small low-level insects; everything was corroded as if they had been sprayed by acidic liquid, even the rocks began to sizzle..
He was sure that even a Second Order beast would probably suffer from this kind of attack.
However, he wasn't nervous or worried. Just slightly more alert than usual.
After consuming 5 Mana points, Bai Zemin activated Gravity Manipulation without a second thought. But instead of activating the skill to increase the gravity of an area, he activated the skill to the maximum to decrease the pressure within the range of ten meters.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
The mist that was steadily advancing and spreading out in a cone shape suddenly seemed to encounter some kind of powerful stractor as the advancing activity was immediately interrupted and it began to slowly ascend into the sky.
After decreasing the gravity of the area 10 meters in front of him, each extention of poisonous mist that came into that perimeter was expelled into the atmosphere as the loss of gravity was kept constant thanks to the fact that Bai Zemin never deactivated the skill.
The blue-scaled snake hissed in amazement at such a sight. This was the first time the wild beast experienced such a failure as in the past regardless of whether the enemy was large or small in size, they were always defeated by its active skill obtained after successfully evolving to First Order.
However, the instincts of the beast were truly worthy of a beast after all.
Seeing that the poisonous mist it was proud of was useless against the human in front of it, the blue-scaled snake erupted with a speed of roughly 18 or 19 times the speed of a normal human before the apocalypse and closed a fifteen-meter gap in the blink of an eye.
A giant body with a length of fifty meters charging towards you was a sight that probably no one in their right mind could look at with indifference and a smile. However, Bai Zemin's expression remained unperturbed by the colossal enemy's attack compared to his insignificant stature of less than even two meters.
"Really, what a stinky smell..." He muttered under his breath and stretched both arms forward.
Although his movements seemed slow, they were actually very fast and what the blue-scaled snake was seeing were indeed remnant images left behind him. With an Agility that was easily over 300 points adding up his treasures, the blue-scaled snake could not compare to Bai Zemin in terms of speed!
Boom!
Bai Zemin's hands were like two relentless steel pincers as just as the large beast's head loomed over him, he used both of his hands to cling with unfathomable strength onto the two huge fangs of the blue-scaled snake.
The ground beneath both beings cracked unable to withstand the sudden pressure and the nearest trees shuddered fiercely as if threatening to fly away at any moment while the movements of the huge blue-scaled snake whose body could be compared to a mythological beast were stopped in their tracks by a being whose physical size was more than twenty times smaller.
The fluorescent eyes of the huge beast met the young man's black eyes for a second as if they were communicating with their gazes. While the first's eyes glowed with madness, anger, and wonder, the second's eyes were bone-chillingly indifferent; it was as if he wasn't the least bit surprised at what he had just realized.
Before the blue-scaled snake could expel its toxic mist taking advantage of the close proximity, Bai Zemin jumped slightly and used his knee to fiercely strike the beast's chin while releasing his grip over the two large fangs.
Bang!
[Critical Hit!]
A loud explosion rang out as the body of the blue-scaled snake was sent flying back fifteen meters distance, stopping only after hitting a large tree and splitting it in half.
As wood splinters flew everywhere and the tree fell in a loud crash, the blue-scaled snake writhed in pain as it hissed and spat toxic mist everywhere. Red blood began to spurt uncontrollably from inside its mouth and a large wound appeared at the bottom of its maw through which the red flesh inside could be clearly seen.
"The armor spines work well." Bai Zemin clapped his hands after using some dirt to remove the saliva that had been left on his gloves because of the monster's fangs. "Look, even criticals are starting to come out more often."
Lilith, who was watching everything with an indifferent expression from the shadows. rolled her eyes at his comment.
With 350 physical attack damage coming from the protruding thorns of the different parts of his Bloodthirsty Wolf Full Body Armor Rank 2, plus a total of almost 360 Strength points, plus a critical hit; if not for Bai Zemin holding back a lot, the blue-scaled snake's head would have already exploded into flying chunks of flesh and blood.
Seeing the poisonous mist approaching towards him once again, Bai Zemin activated Gravity Manipulation again. But instead of doing it like the previous time, this time he caused the gravity of the area ten meters around him to suddenly increase explosively by 15 times!
Rumble!
The ground rumbled for several seconds before it began to sink as cracks spread like earth dragons far and wide. The only being, regardless of whether it was alive or not, that was unaffected by the increased gravity, was naturally Bai Zemin himself.
As for the smog, its propagation speed slowed greatly, and instead of floating around it, was practically slammed to the ground as if its gaseous state had suddenly become too heavy to float across the air of Earth's atmosphere.
Bai Zemin carefully observed the behavior of the mist, studying every action and movement in detail. Meanwhile, the wounded blue-scaled snake seemed to go into a frenzy as its eyes became bloodshot, and ignoring all pain it swung furiously forward and lashed its tail in a mighty swing.
However, just as the large tail with a thickness of two meters was about to hit Bai Zemin, something that shocked the beast again happened.
Bang!
The heavy tail suddenly seemed to be out of the beast's control as its weight increased horribly to the point where its speed was affected so that it seemed to have entered into a swamp or quicksand area.
This also caused the trajectory of the attack to deviate accordingly at the sudden change of situation so that instead of hitting Bai Zemin's body, the monster's tail struck and shattered into pieces the ground more than five meters off.
"For magical attacks in a gaseous state, it's better to use gravity in reverse..." Bai Zemin muttered, completely ignoring the blue-scaled snake's previous attack. All his attention focused on the toxic mist.
"I should move on to the next beast and check if it also works with elemental attacks like fire and other types instead of poison." He reasoned aloud when he suddenly saw out of the corner of his eye as a large scaly tail lashed towards him.
Although the blue-scaled snake was infinitely close to becoming a Second Order existence, at the end of the day, it was still a First Order being. Therefore, not only could its strength not compare to a real Second Order beast, but its intelligence had not reached that milestone either, or else it would definitely have tried to flee after realizing that victory was basically impossible.
Because the physical attacks needed to precisely approach to hit the enemy's body, the blue-scaled snake's movements had become approximately 30-40% slower than usual as a result of the increased gravity. In fact, were it not for the fact that beasts had an innately stronger and more powerful body than humans, the beast's speed would have dropped by 70-80% with ease.
In itself, the blue-scaled snake's Agility was already considerably lower than Bai Zemin's Agility. Therefore, the snake's already slow movements from Bai Zemin's point of view only became much slower after falling under the effect of his Gravity Manipulation skill.
Bai Zemin took a large step to the side, evading the attack by a small but sufficient margin. The heavy tail of the beast slammed into the ground and the earth shook violently with cracks up to ten terrifying meters wide spread everywhere.
Since the gravity had increased by 15, while it was true that the speed of the attack had decreased, the power behind it was much more powerful! Weighing 15 times the normal weight, which basically added 150 Strength points to the beast's already horrendous Strength, if that attack hit Bai Zemin even he would be seriously injured despite having his Rank 2 armor on!
"This skill is a double-edged sword..." Bai Zemin sighed, glad that he decided to invest time in carefully studying the details of his newly acquired fifth skill.
If this sort of thing happened in the middle of close combat against an existence capable of threatening his life and he was taken by surprise, then it was highly likely that his life was in danger because of not knowing the effects and extent of his own skill well.
Just as Bai Zemin was thinking about this, he noticed that the tail of the blue-scaled snake was rising again, which made it clear that the beast was preparing to strike again.
"Enough of you." He stated casually before pointing his hand towards the beast that was glaring at him in fury over twenty meters away, and as he activated Blood Manipulation, he muttered, "Die."
[Critical Hit!]
[Critical Hit!]
[Critical Hit!]
[Critical Hit!]
...
The blood that had soaked almost the entire body of the beast suddenly took on a slight demonic glow and before the enraged monster could realize what was happening, more than thirty-three-meter long spears with their tips inverted inward pierced its body!
Although many spears failed to penetrate very deep into the scales, Bai Zemin's blood attacks were really powerful! More than 80% of the spears pierced the scales and flesh of the snake from side to side, impaling its body and turning it into a sieve riddled with holes.
Several green messages flashed in Bai Zemin's retina informing him of critical hits activating again and again. The beast could not even let out a roar of pain before collapsing heavily on the ground and raising a large cloud of dust.
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