บท 119: Double Trouble
The Old Hadal King was once more at a standstill, cautious even more than before.
Back then, when the venerer had come out of the right, the king had reacted quickly, using his tremendous firepower and abyssal magic to instantly restrain and extract all of the beast's Abyss, there had been no actual confrontation.
It had been a swift takedown, as most fights tended to be.
As such, he had no idea what the venerer was truly capable of.
All he could see now what that the great amount of Abyss he held within him was constantly oozing out, deconstructing and corroding mana with ease and putting the king's zone in jeopardy.
He still managed to hold it together without much strain but the effect of his magic was still lessened around the two monsters, making the pressure worthless.
He wasn't worried about his barrier though, the faceless beast was most certainly capable of getting through with some effort but that was if he didn't pay attention and allowed his spell to be broken down.
The spell imbued in the zone and his barrier were much different, the later much denser and complicated, the Abyss was also trying to destroy everything else within reach but it seemed like the creature was focusing on mana constructs.
It had already understood what was his main way of attacking and geared up to combat mana.
"Hadal Zone, Swamp From Below" he spoke in a low voice, switching the spell of his zone as the eyeless monster charged toward him, the jaw that was splitting its head vertically gone and replaced by a more traditional maw.
The venerer had seemingly no organ and every single fiber of his body was under his full control, meaning that he could form whatever he wanted wherever he wanted.
Though, the king didn't know whether this could include additonal limbs and such.
It tried to pierced right through his chestplate but its claws and hands were ground to nothing before doing so, being that it was mere flesh wound, everything was nearly instantly back to normal for the beast as it continued on launching strikes after strikes.
Unfazed by the repeated loss of its limbs, as mud rose up from the ground.
'Swamp From Below' was fairly similar to 'Pressure' in application, it slowed down the movements of enemies within the zone, although Pressure could easily kill, the same wasn't true for this spell.
It was more adept at restraining movements but not everywhere, only for those on the ground, the mud was simultaneously soft and slippery, but also dense and sticky.
It was much like being stuck in quicksand, the more one tried to break, the more they would sink in.
There was nowhere to sink further here but the feeling was similar, the king could still glide through like nothing but not the venerer, which couldn't rush him down.
The reason why he had chosen this spell to replace pressure was because the mud created through it was much more dense in mana that the invisible pressure, the Abyss couldn't break it down quickly enough.
And since the spell was constantly active, it didn't matter whether or not Abyss was in play, the faceless monster was trapped nonetheless and made into an easy target.
However, the king didn't take this as an occasion to attack the creature, instead he searched for Axiolypito, who had used the venerer's thin but still big frame comparatively to slip away.
This was the problem with his choice of switching the spell of his zone, Pressure was a spell active in every single particule of mana within the zone, meaning that finding anything was a piece of cake.
The mud was focused on the ground however, meaning that the mana above was active and thus, less sensible to movement.
The Old Hadal King knew that Axio could easily escape his senses with this configuration where he to stop moving and shrink himself.
Which was why he had put some focus on the inactive mana.
With a swing of his staff, he brought down all of the pillars and the venerer's head as well, Axio dodged the flurry of slashes used for the demolition to jump onto the ceiling, sticking to it with his feet.
Standing straight as though he wasn't upside down, he stood ready to dodge what was coming next.
Axio had thought of swimming in the mud to hide but didn't go through with it, it was created by magic entirely, it couldn't be a good hiding spot.
In the end, there had been no good place to conceal himself with the king wary of him.
He was quite satisfied with his plan working out however, even if victory wasn't in the bag at all, he was impressed with the venerer's regenerative abilities and aggressive abyssal matter.
Unlike him, whose Abyss was so weak that the even were he to actually land a shot straight in the king's eyes, the king's abyssal magic would be enough to protect himself from any issue or damage.
Having a good view of the wretch, the Old Hadal King moved right up to the venerer, midway through his movement, he had placed his free hand on the mace head of his staff and a glow had envelopped his limb.
Suddenly, appearing in a small cloud of drops, a trident had materialised itself.
Without hesitation, the king thrusted the spiky end of his staff and the trident at the venerer's arms and formed spell from his Abyss magic in front of his chest, appearing a whirling dark portal.
He was once again attempted to drain the venerer of his Abyss to put him back into the state he was before, planning on drowing the innert body in the mud to prevent Axiolypito from reanimating it again.
This was if Axio didn't intervene, if he did, he would have to touch the venerer to prevent that from happening, the king had already set up spells to catching him in that instant.
Of course, those were only two possibilities and as the king had expected, Axiolypito chose neither.
The Old Hadal King had hoped that the risk of losing his best chance would make him panic and rush in, but the monster obviously didn't fall for it, nor did he worry at all.
Instead, he took the occasion to finally manifest something without being interrupted.
The king pulled his weapons out and glided back, avoiding the tower coming his way and swiftly crushing its seed with a single spell.
'He is planning on dragging this out...'
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