Drake

A monster so big it showed up on radar … this was going to be a mess. A big one.

But at the same time, the way it stood out amidst the sea and sky, there was no way the missiles would fail to lock onto it. Assuming the monster's air attribute didn't interfere, at least.

Though missile engagements weren't his concern, as he had four battleships under his command, this time around. All four Iowas that had ever been built, all finally brought out of retirement and readied for action.

USS New Jersey, USS Missouri, fully repaired from the damage sustained at the battle of Indonesia against the continent boss, USS Iowa herself, and finally, his flagship, the HMS Wisconsin, fully overhauled by his Skills, empowered by the finest engineers of the Royal Navy, and manned by the best damn men and women this age had had to give.

They had carriers with them as well, but they were staying far back, especially as there was very little chance of their fighters being able to survive the presence of an Air World Boss.

But battleships did what battleships did. Sail right into the enemy line of fire and hammer them into scrap before they could do much of anything.

"Fire at wi- …" Drake had begun to order when Typhon plunged into the sea. The sight stole his breath away, the rising walls of water practically banishing all other thoughts from his mind … for a split second.

"Brace for impact!" he snapped and began casting Skills, all the Skills.

[Batten Down The Hatches] to keep all the water out, [Adapt Armor] to maximize protection against a single, overwhelmingly powerful, not-concentrated impact, and the omnipresent pressure that would, almost inevitably, follow when that damn wave ploughed them under. [Stabilize Platform] in the desperate hope that that would keep them from being thrown around when the wave hit, and every luck Skill he had, because at the end of the day … they'd gone past the point where human skill and ingenuity could make a difference the moment they'd gotten within a hundred miles of this monster.

And finally, [Echoed Blessings] to plant those same buffs on every other vessel in the fleet, even the far-away carriers, which were not under his command yet affected all the same.

Yet deep down, he knew that it was nowhere near enough … so why not go for broke?

Drake bared his teeth as he rose to his feet, bringing his hand up to point straight at the wall of water that was now already far too close.

"Full speed ahead, [Flank Speed], [Ramming Speed]!" he roared, then hastily sat down as the ship lurched into motion. Dying by cracking his head open because he'd been on his feet during a collision would have been monumentally stupid.

… also, more than a little embarrassing.

And less than a single second after sitting down, the world turned upside down, the Wisconsin flipping under the might of the ocean, found herself right side up a split second later, only to turn once again, rolling sideways, this time, going into another, even wilder gyration.

Someone gagged. Someone else, Drake rather pointedly did not pay attention as to who, threw up, the vomit being flung across the bridge by the wildly tumbling battleship vanishing in midair, banished by someone's Skill.

As for Drake himself, he'd stayed in his seat, hands clutching onto the armrests, fingers flattening the cushions and pressing hard enough to leave indents in the metal beneath …

After what felt like half an eternity, the Wisconsin finally settled, seawater still in the process of flowing off the window to grant them the ability to see the outside, and the vessel was still listing to the side, though that was in the process of correcting itself while the battleship's hull groaned.

They'd survived.

And yet, glancing at the large screen along one wall that indicated the ship's current location, they'd gotten blasted very far off course.

Not to mention that the only ship capable of returning to action without yard time was the Wisconsin herself.

***

Merlin

They'd prepared for a lot when the challenge had started, then prepared for some more after the battle against Cipactli had demonstrated just what World Bosses were like.

Yet an entirely new mistake had crept in, the assumption that World Bosses would stick to their own elements.

So when Typhon had hurled himself into the sea and a titanic wave had been unleashed … the only thing they had to offer against it was some lackadaisical waterproofing for the bunkers.

All that being said, this would hardly be the first time he'd matched his might against the fury of nature.

Pillars of stone burst up from the seafloor, ready to disrupt the wall of water.

Gale-force winds began to blow from inland, well beyond what he'd have dared to call upon if there'd been anyone on the surface, the spell only usable as the World Boss was still too far to interfere.

Wards began to burn themselves into the rock of the islands, arrowslits and gunports fusing closed.

Then, finally, he cast [Surpass Thy Limits], targetting [Absolute Hydrokinesis]

It was, in many ways, the lowest-scaling Capstone Skill on the record, yet simultaneously the most powerful one by an impossible margin.

Simply put, it increased the capability of any spell empowered using it by a whopping one percent for every ten Levels Merlin had, amounting to a grand total of a nine percent enhancement.

Except it was a permanent enhancement, and one that stacked multiplicatively.

And while there was a maximum level of enhancement, it was only relative to the weakest, least-enhanced spell he had. Even after he'd hit that cap, it was merely a matter of time until he could continue buffing his strongest abilities, with a limit that only existed relative to a given span of time. Given how many centuries or even millennia he likely had left on this Earth, that was no limit at all.

Even if his current efforts weren't quite at that point yet, [Absolute Hydrokinesis] was, well, absolute. As long as he had the mana and will, he could control water. Of course, what was about to hammer into this isle was far beyond what he could handle … but not so far that he could not mitigate it.

He could feel more of a burning inferno of magic burst into being somewhere to his left as Fionn Mac Cumail threw his own might behind the effort.

And to his right, an ember began to burn. Young Tristan.

Nowhere near as powerful as either Fionn or Merlin himself, yet the simple fact that he was even noticeable was beyond impressive.

Beyond that, the entire area around the bunkers began to gleam with yet more power as the trainee magicians finally began to go to work, none individually capable of registering to his senses amongst the mess that was the battlefield, yet collectively unmissable.

Even so, the power bearing down on them was not something that could be blocked. Not completely.

Yet there was one more thing they had finally managed to prepare. An old tradition, revived and integrated into the System, so it could be granted to everyone here.

According to old superstitions, one should never share one's name with a dying enemy, save they use their last breath to lay a curse upon their slayer, however justified said slaying may have been.

However, despite never having proven to work in any way a modern human would have been willing to accept, it was no simple superstition, merely undermined by a lack of magic in many of those who tried to strike down those who had slain them from beyond the grave.

Yet between Fionn Mac Cumail and Merlin himself, it had been possible to create a new version of it. It had not been simple, and had eaten much further into their available time than they'd intended, yet making it work had turned a potentially crippling waste of time into a weapon that could win them this battle single-handedly.

The [Curse of the Dead Man] had sunk deeply, irremovably, into the battlefield, and would strike Typhon the moment he set foot upon it.

For every death he inflicted, it would grow. From every small "victory" he won, the seed of defeat would sprout. With every step he climbed, the pit before him would dig itself deeper …

Even if Typhon wiped them all out, he would leave himself helpless before whoever came after them.

Though the hope was that the fight would be won a long time before the losses came anywhere near that point.

That was the last thought in his mind before the tsunami came crashing down upon their position as though the very heavens themselves had plummeted to earth.

Everything went black, all light smothered by the masses of water, the ground shaking worse than any earthquake he had ever experienced, cracks shooting across ceilings that should have been able to handle a direct blow from the monster, and capable of utterly ignoring this kind of peripheral attack …

Parts of the walls began to darken as liquid pushed its way in, the floor becoming slick while the lights overhead flickered, while the world continued to tremble.

And then, suddenly, it all cut out, the tumultuous noise of rushing water replaced by the soft burble of a placid river, as though the wave had been tamed … or perhaps its fury was simply spent, at the sea was reclaiming its weapon.

Closing his eyes and focussing for a moment, Merlin reopened the windows he'd sealed, revealing a devastated island.

Any and all surface constructions that used to be present … weren't, bushes, low trees, and grasses were gone, replaced by a muddy expanse, with the sea beyond still churning, a seething mass of seafoam and shattered rock.

And above it all hovered Typhon, arms spread, a savage, tooth-filled grin splitting his face, a shroud of wind and lightning covering each arm.

When he threw these limbs forward, the shrouds followed, transforming into massive pillars of the storm's fury, hammering into the ground and hurling mud and soil skywards while a smell like a potter's furnace spread across the isle … yet as visually impressive as the attack had been, anyone who would have been exposed enough to be struck down by that attack would already have been slain by the wave.

Rather than worrying about the results of the strike, Merlin reached out towards the magic still suffusing the land and hurled it straight at the beast.

Fireballs, a mere handful, yet each the size of a house, were the fastest projectiles, blooming across the monster's body like lethal flowers.

They were soon followed by lances of water, with enough pressure behind it, there might as well be a mountain's weight pressing down on them, yet each beam was also no wider than a pencil.

"Water jet cutter" had sounded like a joke when the concept had been described to him.

Yet watching them lash across the World Boss' body, craggy armor plates parting like paper and being torn off as though they'd been attached with a single strand of spiderweb … well, the sight did put a smile on his face, but not because his initial assessment had been anywhere near correct.

Then, finally, the [Mountain Spears] hit home, lances of rock longer than the tallest trees, as wide as any carrige, tipped with metal and sharper than anything short of Excalibur.

And he'd just thrown three dozen of them. After all, they'd known they'd be dealing with an air monster, the assumption had been that the earth element would be highly effective.

Typhon reeled back, balance lost, and plummeted from the sky, splashing back down into the ocean, though causing a thankfully far smaller wave, one that he was able to block with another wave of pillars.

Yet the World Boss rose once again, dripping both water and blood, looking utterly furious.

And with that, the real battle began.

***

Mia

[Sword Art: A Blade Across Time and Space]

A wordy name, for a simple power that she'd earned for the first time, she'd managed to catch an Ancient truly off guard, when she'd tried out the maneuver of teleporting Balmung into her other hand, and it had actually worked, even if Ogier would have handily trashed her in a real fight.

It had been worth it, in every possible way.

And then, she'd learned to create a knightly order and abuse the hell out of a combination of [Martial Artisan] and [All For One] to draw upon other people's cooldowns of shared Skills to endlessly trigger the Skill, as in, using it every few seconds, while maximizing its power with [Unity's Strength], pushing it beyond anything she could achieve herself by borrowing from her comrades.

Even down here, in the bowels of the earth, only a tiny slit granting "access" to the howling gales above, her blade could still reach the monster, not only that, but also entirely ignore the beast's armored scales, carving slits into the flesh beneath.

Fighting against a titanic beast such as Typhon, even meter-deep cuts that were each at least a dozen meters amounted to practically nothing … but "practically nothing" was not the same thing as "actually nothing," especially not if repeated several hundred times.

And by now, she could see blood leaking out from between the scales upon the World Boss' right serpentine leg, where she'd been exclusively focusing her attacks.

Mia had been waving her sword back and forth without pause for what felt like hours, and her arms were starting to burn … yet seeing the damage put a savage grin on her face.

She had done that. By herself.

Of course, it wasn't the only damage the monster had sustained, not in any way, shape, or form … yet focusing damage in a given location, let alone spamming strikes the way she had, and actually having it succeed was hardly a given.

Mia rolled her right shoulder, then rubbed at it, trying to massage the muscle in an attempt to make her arm start to cooperate again. She'd done some damage, but she'd wanted to saw through the whole damn leg before she stopped!

***

Temujin

World Boss battles were awful … tactically speaking.

Rarely had he ever seen a battlefield that so thoroughly limited his options, not counting places one would genuinely have to work to wedge one's army into, such as caves, tiny canyons, and the like.

Yet these monsters were able to force such a situation with their presence alone.

Cipactli had first created a bloody ocean covering dirt that could lunge up to skewer anyone stupid enough to be in said ocean in an instant.

And then, it had trapped all survivors in a comparatively small dome, it could chase them around until they were either dead, or it was. But it had been able to guarantee that no one would, by any method, be able to escape into the sky.

Yet this new situation was incomparably worse.

Because even if they were technically yet to be properly trapped in whatever fashion Typhon prepared, for all practical intents and purposes, they were groundbound, stuck hurling spears, bullets, and spells upwards, of which only perhaps half struck due to the howling gales tearing the sky asunder around the beast.

As tough and imposing as Cipactli had been, at least it had been possible to use virtually all Skills and spells against it, even if the battle as a whole had been a massive, casualty-filled slog.

Typhon, on the other hand … he was stiffling, his very presence ruining tactics and worsening morale with every passing second.

Even with the rain getting steadily closer to consisting of as much blood as water, the entire situation was untenable.

With a thought and a gesture, Temujin activated [Emergency Retreat] to banish the cavalry back to Mongolia.

For all the Skills empowering the horses to the point where they could outperform vehicles in many respects, precisely none of them made them any heavier, and weight was the fundamental issue here.

Those winds could have carried off a fully armored European warhorse, never mind the smaller, hardier variant his forces favored; the losses would have been far too great.

Some risks were necessary, others acceptable, and others still unnecessary yet acceptable or any other combination of descriptors, but there were also those that were simply pointless, and utterly lacking in upsides.

This was one of the latter.

There was absolutely no point to getting those people killed without them ever being able to achieve anything.

Granted, there could be situations where that kind of thing was required, but those were, well, those situations, which wholly differed from the current situation.

Even with the death curse, it still wasn't worth it.

That particular decision made, he reached down and grasped two items.

The first was a simple but massive iron cable as thick as a finger, which he wound around his wrist.

The second … well, it was a massive shard bone that had once been a part of Cipactli's body, which immediately began to warp and transform under his power, transforming into a viciously barbed harpoon made of the toughest material on the planet.

Sure, there were plenty more uses for the material, but its various properties still had the blacksmiths, armorers, and engineers tearing their hair out, it would be weeks or months before they got anything usable out of it … and the first World Boss' body had been so immense there was basically no chance of them running out any time this century.

And then, firmly anchored down via his left hand, the closest thing to a legendary weapon he'd ever held clutched in his right, Temujin marched out into the storm, [Elemental Protection] wreathing him, deflecting lightning, and keeping the rain out of his eyes.

Cocking back his arm, he drew upon the [Strength of the Horde], took a brief second to reassure himself that his attack would not be sent careening off-course by the wind with [Indirect Fire], and finally triggered [Moment of Glory] as he cast the weapon skywards.

In an instant, any rain that remained around him was blasted backwards from the force of the throw, the head of the friction of the weapon passing through the atmosphere, flashing the nearby raindrops into steam, a trail of vapor connecting him to the World Boss' gut.

A gut that blossomed into a massive spray of blood a moment later.

Temujin stared up at the beast, nodded in satisfaction, then turned and began to march back towards the bunker for another projectile.

One more issue to lay at that thing's feet: in this wind, keeping any spare weapons around, be it on the ground or in a quiver, was nigh impossible.

***

Tristan

There were two major problems with repeating the little trick of dropping Ogier onto the monster from orbit.

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Well, actually, there were a whole lot more, such as Typhon being smaller and faster than Cipactli, as well as the endlessly swirling winds that made even remotely accurately targetting him nigh-impossible, but they stemmed from the monster himself, from attributes that had only revealed themselves along with the monster.

No, these were problems that were far more fundamental.

Firstly, with a monster that started out in the ocean, there would be a far greater area that needed to be covered than had been with an earth beast that could be engaged right at the moment of appearance.

And secondly, I simply hadn't had the time to criss-cross the area the way I'd had with Cipactli.

Among the many, many things I'd done instead was train, learn spells, and use all my non-combat Skills as much as possible. [Knowledge Trade], searching for battlefield tactics, more logistics, military communications … all that stuff. But I'd also drawn up a metric crapton of wills, to preserve the acquired skills of those who fell in battle and, crappy as it sounded to say out loud, lessen the impacts those losses had on humanity as a whole.

Then there'd been [Grand Working], covering every inch of this island in pre-cast spells.

And as for [Akashic Retrieval], what I'd done was ask what it would take to make the whole "Rod from God" technique work.

At first, I'd mostly gotten a whole lot of pointless replies, such as replying with "change" when I'd asked about what would need to happen. Yeah, no shit, I needed to change something, I was asking what to change.

That was the thing about the Skill: it was always exactly as helpful as the System wanted it to be, and when it came to attempting to circumvent its rules, it really didn't want to.

But in the end, I'd managed to nail down that there were multiple things that could trigger the defensive measures World Bosses were equipped with.

Something that was too easy and impersonal in the moment would fail, such as bombs that may have been a pain in the ass to build in the past, but launching a nuke was a matter of a single button press.

And something which had a massive mismatch between ease of implementation and actual destructive capability would also fall flat, as had already been demonstrated by what happened when it came to dropping tungsten rods from orbit through a portal, because that was seriously easy.

Though the System had been so kind as to further explain that Ascendant Capstones would be able to do the same, meaning that little trick would be worse than useless against an Ancient … not that I was planning on fighting one. Still, being, rather bluntly, told that I was a hell of a lot less powerful than expected had been unpleasant. Needed, yes, but not fun.

As for the other trick I could pull with portals against any sufficiently large enemy, well, Typhon was large, but still quite a bit smaller than Cipactli, and moving around a hell of a lot more. Opening a gate within him wouldn't fly.

Still, all that meant that effectively employing my portals would be tricky. But not impossible.

And as devastating as Fionn's and Merlin's spells were, as hard as the spears hurled by Genghis Khan hit, as endlessly as projected sword blades from a whole host of sources hit, we needed those kinds of big, powerful, individual hits.

Besides, based on some conversations he and I had had in the last couple of weeks, Ogier didn't mind the human cannonball treatment.

I'd also recently learned what his Ascendant Capstone was.

It was called [Dread Nought] and borderline overpowered, as it, in the most literal of ways, gave him three extra lives. Lives he could get back, if he took revenge on the one responsible for his "death." Or someone allied to him did it for him.

And it also gave him a similar degree of protection from "easy" ways to kill him as most Ascendant Capstones did, but only after he'd once been killed by it and avenged himself.

In that way, [Dread Nought] was considerably weaker than most other Skills of its kind, yet most others, it was infinitely better, seeing as it worked against everything, including what would happen if I accidentally tossed him against a rock, or Typhon somehow blocked the attack.

So when he approached me, I withdrew a weapon I'd been given in case this stunt became necessary, and handed it over.

Ascalon, the lance of Saint George, "retrieved" by Crusaders at some point during the Middle Ages, and dug out of the cellar it had been forgotten in by Dietrich a few months ago.

In addition to being of comparable quality to the various other "legendary" weapons that were present, such as Ogier's sword, Cortaine, won from a giant in a duel, if I remembered the myth correctly, or Arthur's Excalibur.

Though there was more to it than just being a very good lance, weighted for both use on horseback and throwing. It also had its own innate magical property, namely, it granted protection from "elemental effects," which also helped explain how that dragon had wound up slain.

In this case, the hope was that it would also stop the winds from throwing him around. If it didn't, well, hopefully, we'd find that out before he was moving fast enough to get hurt if I missed a portal …

I opened up a portal and Ogier Danske stepped through, reappearing ten kilometers up, the highest I'd managed to reach on my own.

And then he fell, plummeting towards the ground until I opened a portal in his path, just outside the bunker, a mere centimeter above the ground, depositing him right back in the sky.

Repeat that a good twenty times, and he'd reach terminal velocity, though that term simply meant that he'd reached a speed where the deceleration applied by air resistance equalled the acceleration of the Earth. And with Ogier's ability to mitigate air resistance, said velocity was high.

Unfortunately, while Ascalon did help, the winds did move him a little, forcing me to carefully align new portals with his trajectory every time I teleported him skywards.

After the first couple of rounds of dropping him, the only thing that let me time the portals to open just below him was the fact that my reflexes were far above the human norm by now. And a few more after that, only the empowerment of [Magister's Mind] was making this safe … "safe." What a joke, considering the current situation …

And then I opened the exit portal, a "mere" five hundred meters up, facing the monster.

Ogier flashed through it, there was a loud crack, all the raindrops around the other end of the spatial gateway were blown away, and Typhon roared in agony as he stumbled backwards.

Holy hell … I hadn't seen even a single part of what had happened, even though I'd been staring straight at the place were Ogier had returned, slowed to more "reasonable" pace, slowly returning his right arm, extended from hurling Ascalon, back to his side as I used a final portal to return the knight down to good old terra firma, and into the inside of the bunker as well.

That was when I had a thought, one I should have had a hell of a lot earlier, and spoke it out loud.

"How the hell do we get that spear back now?"

Ogier shrugged. "Dietrich?"

As if summoned by the mention of his name, the man himself marched in and summoned the lance … or at least that was what it looked like at first glance, but it wasn't an actual weapon, just a temporary copy created by his Skill.

And then he wordlessly turned around to march back to his bunker.

Yeah … someone should have asked him to make a copy. These copies might only last for a single attack, but that was all that was needed, and instead, he'd have to go searching the ocean for the original, which Ogier had just chucked through Typhon, because he was the one with the treasure-finding Skill.

Yet before I could begin to start that, I was hurled away when Ogier's shoulder slammed into me, flinging me face-first into the nearest wall. Yet my shock at the sudden "attack" only lasted until the crack of lightning from just behind me revealed just how close I'd come to death.

It seemed as though Typhon had not only taken special notice of our little stunt, but also managed to track it back to its source … fucking hell.

And another bolt of lightning was already heading my way, even as the previous one was still crackling around Ogier.

Ah …

I opened a portal to intercept the strike, flinging it into Typhon's face from barely twenty meters away.

He flinched.

He turned his head towards me.

He glared.

And sent the bolt at me, once more aiming through the narrow window of the bunker I was in, which was still quite a bit larger than most openings into the fortification that weren't doors, simply because of how I needed to be able to survey the battlefield with my naked eyeballs to be able to use my portals.

So I tossed that one back in his face, too. It didn't do much … hell, it didn't do anything, at least not in terms of damage.

His ego, insofar as that word could be applied to a monster, on the other hand? Unless I was misreading him the most titanic of ways, that was.

But judging by how he was in the process of throwing yet another lightning bolt, a far larger one, I'd managed to well and truly piss him off.

And if he was focusing on me, he wasn't attacking anyone else.

I could do this all day … or, at the very least, until I ran out of portals. Or hit my reserve. But I did have plenty left.

Lightning bolt after lightning bolt flew down, vanished into a portal, and crashed into Typhon's face, where it dispersed harmlessly, once again proving the wisdom of not having even tried to employ lightning magic against him.

Until the World Boss finally thrust both hands skywards, still ignoring all the countless other attacks that peppered him, and dragged down a chain of electricity that could likely power New York City for a decade, arcs of power as wide as train cars leaping between his palms, getting ready to hurl them at me.

I wasn't entirely sure whether it was intentional or a "happy" coincidence for the bastard, but the bolt was too wide to pass through one of my portals and would crash the frame, yet when the lightning bolt began its inexorable journey from the World Boss' hand to end my life, I did tear open a gash in space … and stepped through, snapping it shut behind me.

I didn't care who or what was attacking me; fleeing to the literal other side of the planet was guaranteed to take me out of the line of fire.

And as for why I'd chosen Australia as my temporary refuge, there really wasn't a reason. I needed a place the monster couldn't reach, and with teleportation, zapping myself here was the exact same as running only as far as the Untersberg.

Sure, I could have also only moved to another bunker and saved myself a return portal, but I had quite deliberately taken myself out of the battle entirely.

I really should have tried this much earlier, but the previous fights had always been too chaotic.

After taking a second, I wasn't about to sit down onto a taipan or some other nasty critter, I let myself flop down onto the dusty ground of the Outback, and waited to hear the voice of the System.

And waited.

Then waited some more.

I glanced at my watch. I'd only been here thirty seconds, but I couldn't spend too long waiting … ninety more seconds. Being gone for that long couldn't possibly be the make or break of the fi- …

[Sage of All, Archmage of History Lv. 77 -> Sage of All, Archmage of History Lv. 80]

[Skill Boost obtained]

[Skill gained: Spell Fusion]

[Skill Boost obtained]

I grinned.

So I could level by removing myself from the field of battle.

This was … abusable.

Though I could afford to spend another thirty seconds just to check if my new Skills would be useful. And if so, in what way.

Spell Fusion

This is the ability to slap together any two spells and have the result function properly, regardless of the logic involved, though whether or not it will be truly effective will depend on the spells involved.

I looked at the window for a second, then threw both boosts into that Skill.

The maximum number of fuseable spells is increased to three

Fused spells may also be acquired as new and separate spells, which are then saved to your library. These spells will also be enhancable by any applicable Skills

I grinned.

That was going to be a hell of a lot of fun to throw in Typhon's face.

Even so, there was one more major boon gained from the whole affair.

I'd hit Level 80, and had my number of daily portals bumped up from 64 to 128, and, more importantly, gone from twenty-eight left to ninety-two portals left to use for the remainder of the battle. A whole lot of which I'd need just to let other people level too.

***

Dietrich

Was it time to pull out that move just yet?

An attack with all attack boosting Skills he had, [Double Tap] to recast every Skill he'd used, followed by [Second Wind] to regain use of all Skills currently on cooldown and use the overwhelmingly powerful attack a third and fourth time.

It should do devastating damage to Typhon, after all, it was what had killed Cipactli, yet the opening wasn't there now, the way it had been then.

And if he tried it, he'd be unable to use it again for a while yet. [Double Tap's] cooldown was an hour for each Skill it copied, and [Second Wind] was even worse, requiring a whole day to recover for every ability it returned to him.

Not to mention how long it took to unleash this attack, and how easily these, at least in any timespan that mattered, irreplaceable Skills could be wasted … and then a presence emerged behind him.

"Do you think you'd get a Level if you stopped fighting right now?"

Dietrich nodded.

"If I portal you out of here and wait half a minute, then the System will consider you to have left combat and get your Levels," Tristan said. "Shall we?"

Dietrich nodded again and stepped out into some kind of nighttime desert, pausing for a moment before hearing the voice of the System.

[King of Combat, Champion of Monster Hunting Lv. 92 -> King of Combat, Champion of Monster Hunting Lv. 93]

[Skill gained: All-Terrain Hunter]

A brief check of the Skill revealed that he could follow his "quarry" into any environment, no matter how hostile or inimical to his continued existence, and fight there effectively.

Typhon's ability to stay in the sky would now no longer save him.

Dietrich grinned as he returned through a portal that reappeared just in time.

***

Tristan

While Dietrich was waiting on his Level-ups in Australia, I decided to try out [Spell Fusion] for the very first time.

What would work against this monster, in the pouring rain?

Actually, [Acid Rain] combined with something that would neutralize the effect before it splashed us down here on the ground …

Nope, that would be an issue, or rather, cause them.

But if I could build a spell from several components, I might be able to create something new. Something nasty.

[Acid Rain] could turn liquid in the clouds into, well, acid, what if I instead targeted the ability on the water running across Typhon's body? How would I target that directly, though?

Well, stupid question, I could just use [Lesser Hydrokinesis] to do the targetting.

Yet that still left the issue of the acid dripping off him and splattering across the ground beneath, and all the people on (or in) it.

So what if I made it fully react with the monster's armor before that, leaving the mess that reached the ground harmless, at least in the grand scheme of things?

I mean, I might not use the spell much, or ever, but I had gotten Fionn to teach me [Catalyze] …

Which just left one thing left to do: actually try it!

Focussing on the dead center of his chest, I drew upon [Spell Fusion], splitting my attention between all three component spells and pouring mana into the aspects I wanted to use of each, and then …

[Spell registered: Caustic Shroud]

… then the monster completely ignored the attack, even as an entire layer of armor sloughed off its front, at least a meter deep, and nearly a hundred across.

No nerves that close to the surface, I guess?

I opened a portal to let Dietrich return, and then recast [Caustic Shroud] once the area I'd previously targeted had gotten properly drenched by the rain once again.

This time around, he reacted. Oh, he reacted.

***

Fionn

Things had steadily been improving, their chances of success growing as they began to learn to target the World Boss through the storm … though, privately, he felt people learning to duck at the right moment was the far more important skill.

And then, a massive circle of armor on Typhon's chest was riddled with holes in an instant, crumbling away under its own weight and cascading earthward.

How … ah, Tristan had a new trick. That boy was becoming quite impressive in his own right.

Fionn was about to try and figure out the quickest way to get that spell disseminated to the other mages when he stopped and stared upwards.

Because that was when Typhon stilled, ignoring the continuing impacts of countless attacks, and spread his arms wide.

For a brief moment, nothing happened … and then a tremendous wave of power rippled outwards, pushing away the ocean to lay bare the seafloor and keeping the water away, yet entirely ignoring the people in the path of the strike, the energy safely washing over them.

What the hell was the point of that? Another dome, something to limit reinforcements to what could be brought in through portals or teleportation, or something more complicated?

In the distance, he could see Ogier casually kick a part of the sphere that happened to be within his reach, his foot stopping as though he'd tried to kick a mountain.

A solid shell.

A solid shell that was moving upwards.

There were several possible ways that might interact with the things it passed thorough, from simply carrying the entire ground with it to … to what it proved to actually be doing when the shell emerged from the ground beenath Fionn's feet and immediately proceeded to lift him skywards … or rather towards the low ceiling that had never been more than a few centimeters above the top of his head.

Thankfully, before anything could happen, [Greater Terrakinesis] tore off the bunker's roof, leaving both him and everyone around him free to be lifted however high the titanic being in the center of the sphere desired.

And judging by the cursing and explosions around him, it seemed as though the others had figured things out as well.

Yet, at the same time, the sound of breaking bones, tearing flesh, and disgusting squelching, not everyone had gotten out in time.

Somehow, the barrier emerging clean and white afterwards made it feel all the worse.

Even so, Typhon was, at least temporarily, locked up in the effort of lifting them all skywards, unable to dodge or counterattack, and the storm had even died down in the meantime.

Then, as if this all hadn't already been strange enough, Fionn was suddenly pushed skywards as a massive cloud erupted from the sphere, one that managed to be solid enough to walk on.

All around, clouds were carrying humans away, dispersing them across the sphere, around the monster, while more and more clouds likewise appeared in between them, rapidly reducing visibility to almost nothing.

And the damn monster could move almost soundlessly to boot … hell.

***

Miller

Fighting creatures far bigger than him was how things had started, well before the beginning of recorded history, in his very first life.

Though fighting atop clouds was definitely a new experience.

From hunting mammoths to the Neolithic, to witnessing the execution of Jesus Christ, from the battlefields of Napoleonic France to reconquering that very same country in the twentieth century, as General George S. Patton, before his death.

And now, this newest life of his, the craziest yet by a country mile.

All around him, the clouds began to close up, those underfoot somehow supporting his weight, yet doing so in an annoyingly "spongy" way that left his feet to sink in slightly when he put them down and then forced him to fight to get them free afterwards.

No, "spongy" was the wrong term, but the correct one didn't matter in any way, shape, or form.

Not that the process posed any difficulty for him, but for those who weren't closing in on Level 100, it would be a slog.

It was at this point that the clouds finally closed up, leaving him in twilight, a massive cavern amidst the dark grey mist … at least these weren't storm clouds.

That was when Typhon's massive fist crashed through one side of the space, emerging from the fog wall without any warning at all and crossing the intervening space in barely a second.

Oh.

This was going to suck.

Miller threw himself backwards, triggering [Advantageous Battlefield] to, at least temporarily, nullify his opponent's battlefield advantage. Or at least minimize it to the greatest extent possible.

In an instant, the walls of fog were blasted away while the ground underfoot hardened and became rough, providing an actually useable footing.

Even with that, the World Boss arm passed within mere meters, the winds created by its passage picking up Miller and hurling him away, leaving him to tumble across the "ground" nearly fifty meters away.

With an irritated growl, Typhon pulled his arms back while the fog walls began to rebuild themselves, finding themselves held back by Miller's Skill … but not blocked completely. The monster was still visible, but it had also realized this and simply retereated further vanishing off into the gloom, where flashes of light and bursts of gunfire indicated it had met others.

Though judging by the way the human efforts were cut off after a few seconds, they were not the winners of those meetings.

Ah, hell!

This was going to be a problem in so many ways. All the protection of the bunkers was stripped away, everyone was exposed, and the titanic beast could strike from anywhere, as the World Boss could hide himself in a way nothing that big ever should have been able to.

Though this battle wasn't a complete wash, however. The monster had weaknesses.

For example, having lifted them all up into the air had also given them a much better shot at its vitals.

Furthermore, the gaps in its hide created by that water-to-acid transformation Spell were now quite easy to strike at.

The beast's armor was also severely more vulnerable to the acid spell due to its craggy nature, which allowed the water to soak deep into it before the liquid was transformed into a caustic substance that melted everything around it. And it was holding a whole lot of water still, even though it had stopped raining.

Yet taking advantage of any of that required a clear shot at it. Preferably one with a window of opportunity larger than a few seconds …

And that meant burning Skills, all of them. The ones that wouldn't be available for a month after use, the ones with the nasty backlashes, the ones that were basically a gamble that could either let you land a serious blow … or lose it all.

He took a couple of seconds to make sure that no one strengthened with [Lead by Example] was anywhere near the monster, then triggeredn [Reciprocal Boost] to pull away that borrowed strength, concentrating it in himself even as he drew upon all the additional power stored [Bloody Retribution] and finally triggered [Surge of Power] to, for the next thirty or so seconds, take his physical abilities not just to the limit, but beyond.

Except that, in this specific situation, "beyond" was based on how strong he was at the moment of activation, temporary enhancements included, enhancing the Skill's strength, and thereby his own, to the utmost.

But not the peak.

That required the activation of the third and final physical enhancements given to everyone, this one belonging to Level 90.

[Physical Limit Breaker].

Something to pull out every iota of untapped potential remaining in the human body, once again growing in power based on his already absurdly empowered state.

And then, finally, he drew a familiar weapon from his [Eternal Arsenal], because as much as he loved guns, nothing worked to leverage physical might into dead enemies like a good pilum.

A nice, heavy, throwing spear, the likes of which he hadn't held for the better part of two thousand years.

The spear throw rent the air, blasting away any clouds not hardened to form a floor within almost a hundred meters, before vanishing against Typhon's back in an explosion of blood.

And then, Miller triggered [Flow Reversal], a Skill that was far too indiscriminate for him to like using.

Because what that Skill did was reverse the flow of battle, completely, and in all respects.

If there was anyone capable of engaging the monster on an even keel was about to engage, well, they were no longer; they'd have been instead pushed back towards their origin.

And those trying to retreat, to escape the World Boss, would have been yanked back to their original position, still very much in the area of danger.

But there was only one thing that mattered here, Typhon himself.

Typhon, whose decision to ignore Miller in favor of easier targets had just been forcefully undone, their faces suddenly within not even a hundred meters of each other.

And then, Miller threw the [Pocket Sand] straight at the giant's face. Normally, it would have been a mere irritant, yet the force he could put behind it turned the little cloud of dust and grit into an honest to God sandblaster, shredding skin and sending blood flying, and most importantly, completey scratching up the beast's eyes.

Maybe he would still be able to see once he'd managed to wipe it out of his eyes and get rid of the tears, but for now at least, Typhon was effectively blind.

Which left a wide-open window of opportunity for [Clash].

A simple Skill, one that he'd literally never used, because while it granted him a guaranteed opening and had absolutely no cooldown, it also guaranteed the enemy an effectively free shot.

And he'd never found himself in a situation where directly trading blows was the right decision. Miller had always been powerful enough to do without … or the enemy had been too strong to risk that.

Yet this was the strongest he'd ever been, and the monster couldn't see.

Typhon's fist swished past, nearly blowing him across the battlefield before [Clash] caught Miller and kept him on course, flinging him at the monster's chest and allowing him to ram a massive conjured greatsword into the World Boss' hide, in a huge gout of blood and blade fragments.

The monster roared in agony and bucked, hurling him away … and then Miller triggered [Clash]. Again. And another titanic impact rent the sky.

A third time followed, then a fourth.

Yet during the fifth, the beast was lucky.

Still half blind, still flayling, but lucky all the same. And in the end, sometimes, that was all that mattered.

Typhon's fist, larger than many a house, glanced past Miller and sent him tumbling, the pain yet to hit him yet he was still keenly aware of the catastrophic damage that he'd just taken, after all, legs were not meant to bend that way, and one's guts were meant to stay on the inside, yet [Clash] continued to function irrespective of any of that, inexorably driving him forward, and one final conjured weapon shattered amidst an explosion of gore as he tore the massive wound on Typhon's chest even wider.

Miller fell, still looking up towards the sky, seeing von Bern emerging from the clouds above the beast.

He triggered one final Skill.

[Force Opening].

And the beast froze, caught in an impossible grasp, pulled into a new stance by an invisible titan, held fast in the most vulnerable position possible.

Miller crashed into the ground, the pain still not hitting him, yet going by ear alone, it was clear that he'd broken several more bones.

Above him, blood sprayed across the sky as the ancient Germanic king unleashed the same combination that had eviscerated Cipactli, and Typhon began to fall from the sky, no longer held up by his power.

[Specter of War Lv. 91 -> Specter of War Lv. 93]

[Skill Boost obtained]

[Skill gained: Mountainbreaker]

The fight was over, and the rewards were being assigned … but the thing Miller really cared about was the fact that, for a certain definition of the word, he was [Still Standing]. And therefore, said Skill began to patch him up, bit by bit.

… for some godless reason, the first thing it fixed was the shock, which was the only thing that had kept the pain at bay thus far.

God. Fucking. Damnit!

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