“Crimson Blade Torrent!”

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Empowering his magic to the fullest, Valyr went ahead and conjured a large array of blades made out of crimson blades, making sure to consume as much mana as he could during the process. Naturally, he still saved a small portion for himself just in case things went south.

‘I’m seriously going to be out of options if this doesn’t work.’ Inwardly muttering these words to himself, the young man soon took in a deep breath as he willed all of the blades to head in the serpent’s direction, hoping that a portion of them would land on the serpent’s body and end its life altogether.

“Hiss!” However, just as Valyr thought that the serpent had no way to defend or retaliate against the magic bombardment he had conjured, the Juvenile Shadow Serpent raised its tail all of a sudden before waving it back and forth.

Faintly wondering what the serpent was doing, Valyr’s mind went blank once he noticed the tail being covered in Shadow Energy… as well as another type of energy he was incredibly familiar with.

“Oh, come on!” shouted Valyr in an exasperated tone, putting more willpower into the blades in response. “You even have magic?!”

“Hiss!” As if responding to the young man’s question, the serpent let out a loud hiss as the Shadow Energy and mana accumulating around its tail swiftly transformed into a giant ball. Then, with all of its strength, the serpent flung the ball towards the direction of the blades, only for it to explode in midair the very moment one of the blades made contact with it.

Bang!

Appearing like dark fireworks, the giant ball of combined Shadow Energy and mana burst into multiple droplets, all of which had made contact with the blades Valyr had sent out to injure the serpent. Surprisingly, even a single droplet making contact with the blades was more than enough to dispel them, causing the barrage of blades to disappear within seconds as a rain of dark droplets appeared before the young man.

“Serpentine Sprint!” Activating one of his movement speed boosting skills, Valyr swiftly ran away from the dark rain’s area of impact, barely dodging most of the rain by the time he had left it. Nevertheless, some of the droplets had still made contact with the young man and his armor, corroding a considerable portion of it, as well as dealing a substantial amount of damage to the young man.

“Ngh…!” Enduring the sting the dark droplets gave him as it made contact with his skin, Valyr swiftly took out a health potion from his spatial bracelet before consuming its contents. Then, as he felt his health gradually return to a stable level, he circulated all of the remaining mana in his body throughout the surface of his skin, preventing the dark droplets from doing more harm to him.

“Shadow-attribute magic, huh.” Going through his treasure trove of memories as he deduced what type of magic he was fighting against, the young man could not help but click his tongue once he found out what it was. “Definitely not the best type of magic to experience on the receiving end.”

Though Shadow-attribute magic seemed like it would act similarly to Dark-attribute magic, the attribute actually acted more similarly to magic that leaned towards corrosive attributes, such as Poison-attribute magic, or Acid-attribute magic. The only between those magic types and Shadow-attribute magic was the fact that it still contained a trace element of darkness to it.𝗈𝓥𝐿xt.𝗰𝓞𝓜

Which only made it all the more devastating whenever the magic hit its mark.

“Now… how the hell would I fight against something like that?” Seeing as the odds were stacked against him, whether it be in physical stats, in combat style, or in magic attribute, Valyr scratched the back of his head as he took a brief look at the serpent’s stats, letting out a low sigh as he noticed that the damage he had dealt to it so far had not even exceeded 20% of its max HP.

“Hmm…?” Fortunately, while reading through the monster’s status screen, the young man eventually noticed that the serpent had not moved at all after sending out a counterattack against the barrage he had sent towards it. Thinking about it for a bit, it seemed like it had roughly been a minute since the serpent made its move.

“Wait a minute…” Feeling as if a light bulb had gone off in his head, Valyr moved the serpent’s status screen to the side as he sent a single blade of mana towards the serpent, putting a decent amount of energy into it. Unfortunately, instead of the serpent remaining immobile like it had been so far, the serpent retaliated with a bit of magic of its own, sending out a ball of Shadow-attribute magic to combat it.

In fact, one could consider the serpent’s retaliation to be overkill for the magic attack that was heading its way, seeing as it had conjured an orb of energy similarly sized to the orb he had sent out earlier. However, whether or not the serpent’s retaliation was overkill, what happened after that was more than enough for Valyr to confirm his suspicion.

‘Looks like the heavens have still given me a way out of this.’ Letting out a chuckle as he halfheartedly avoided the serpent’s counterattack, Valyr swiftly removed the dark droplets corroding his armor and body with a small burst of mana before retrieving both a health and mana potion from his spatial bracelet.

“Man, it must be nice to have control over such a strong magic attribute.” Consuming the potions he had retrieved to recover his condition to an acceptable level, the young man took in a deep breath before charging forward, extending both of his hands outward as orbs of crimson flame manifested on his palms.

“Hiss…!” Unsurprisingly, the serpent already knew what the young man sought to achieve, trying its hardest to retaliate against the attack, or at the very least, move out of the way. Sadly, with it having cast magic in retaliation earlier, its entire body was currently paralyzed, the reason behind Valyr’s renewed confidence.

“Crimson Blaze!” Overcharging both orbs of crimson flame he had manifested to their very limits, Valyr jumped into the air before throwing it at the immobile serpent. In response…

Bang!