Chapter 36: Stuck
"So, what's the plan?" Asked Serena.
The death knight was preparing another orb to fire at any second, so John had to think of something quick...
"Honestly, we're already at a huge disadvantage by not having a priest, the only thing we can do now, is to weaken it," John replied.
The two girls nodded at his reply.
"I'll go fight in close and fight it, you two prepare strong range attacks to hit it. Weak ones won't have any effect." John said.
"Huh?! Are you crazy? That thing's strength is on par with A-Rank monsters! I'm sure even Rose had difficulties fighting it!" Serena said.
"I agree with Serena, I don't think you should enter his range. I can feel it from here, he's a lot stronger than the spider..." Ariel replied.
"It's fine, I may not be stronger than Rose, but I can use magic at close range. Now the problem is his armou-"
John was interrupted by a bigger version of the previous fire Orb heading his way. It was twice the size of the previous one.
"Furtim, Velox!"
With Velox, John managed to propel the three of them to the other side of the room so that the blast wouldn't reach them. He also cast Furtim in hopes that he wouldn't notice.
"Anyway, that's the plan," John said.
John could tell that despite being invisible, the death knight could see or sense them. It didn't charge another orb, instead it faced their direction as if it was waiting.
John deactivated furtim and descended to the ground along with Serena and Ariel.
"If it gets too dangerous, we'll retreat. Velox!" John spoke.
John put a lot more power on Velox and increased the wind pressure to increase the speed and distance of when it would propel him. After it was ready, John propelled himself straight at the death knight with him daggers at hand.
The Death knight, who saw John coming, pulled out his longsword from the scabbard on his back. The sword was shrouded in black flames.
While midair, once John was finally 3 meters away from it, he simultaneously swung both of his daggers diagonally at the death knight. He easily blocked both swings with his sword and with a single push, he sent John back 2 meters.
Despite being pushed back, John remained balanced, but he had lost all his momentum. Seeing it as an opening, the Death knight swung at him diagonally, but John dodged it by taking a jumping back.
John was sweating heavily due to the pressure and with his gloves, wiped a bit of it off his face, In the corner of his eyes John noticed a bit of red on my gloves.
"Blood?" John muttered.
He hadn't been able to completely dodge his swing. If John was a second slower, he could have died.
"If I keep holding back, I might die. I'm not sure I want to kick the bucket yet so..."
John looked over at the death knight and he stood there as if he were waiting for his next attack.
"Triple Cast: Ignis, Glacies, Ventus."
The instant John cast that, the magic stones on his glove began to glow and 2 ice spikes, flames and wind blades were formed around him.
"How about we start round 2?" John asked as he lept at him.
He swung his right dagger vertically, and the death knight parried it by swinging his sword. The parry made John lose his balance and sent him back. Faster than before, he took the opportunity John had lost balance to slash him in the air.
The moment he was about to swing his blade, John propelled one of his ice spikes at his shoulder. He easily broke the spike by swinging his fire sword. The swing was heading straight at his head, but before it reached it, John propelled himself straight to the ground and aimed at its open torso.
John propelled all the of the Spikes, blades and flames he had remaining at his torso in an attempt to blow him off, but because of that, John was open. Before his attacks reached him, he had already swung his sword vertically at John.
Death, that was the only word that could come to John's mind. He was confused as to how he could change the directions of his swing that fast. As his sword was aimed with the intent to kill him, approached his head, John could feel time slow down once more.
Even if time had slowed down, there was nothing John could do. He was going to die.
As John saw his sword slowly getting inches closer to his head, he noticed him slow down after getting hit by his magic barrage. A small frozen hole was formed on his chest-plate and John could see his magic core inside of his skeleton's rib cage.
The second he slowed down, a thought went past my head. 'Not yet', and at that moment nearly all his magic power subconsciously burst out as if it were trying to protect him. Everything within his radius was frozen.
The death knight and his sword were completely frozen. A split second later, a flaming wind spear came flying out of Ariel and Serena's direction and pierced the Death right in its core.
The core's colour changed from red to purple, and the glow in its eyes died out.
Seeing this, John let out a relieved sigh and walked up to Ariel and Serena.
As John got closer, he noticed that both Ariel and Serena had tears flowing down their faces.
"Idiot! I thought that you were going to die! I told you that it was a bad idea!" Shouted Serena with puffy eyes as she lightly punched John.
"I thought we weren't going to make it..." Said Ariel as tears continued to flow down her face.
"Hey, It's fine, you were able to make it and that's all that matters," John said.
"Only because you managed to freeze it. Since when did you have a spell that strong?" Serena as she wiped her eyes.
"I don't know. My magic subconsciously burst out," John replied.
"What? How do you-"
"More importantly, I was able to save up a fair amount of magic thanks to the magic stones, but they completely ran out of juice. How long until it resurrects?" John asked.
"According to what I've heard, it's 5-10 minutes it gets longer the more you kill it. However, it'll be significantly weaker after it resurrects itself." Serena said.
"Weaker... When we were fighting, I wasn't even able to enter a proper clash with it. It blocks every swing I threw and whenever it parried I would either get flung back or lose my balance." John said.
His strength was definitely higher than the B-Rank adventurer John fought. If John wanted to beat him, he'll have to transfer even more magic to his body.
"It's strong, It's a bad idea to try to take him on without a priest, I believe we should retreat." John suggested.
"20 minutes is enough time... We're retreating."
"Okay, but before that, I wasn't sure how to bring this up but..." Serena said
"Your hair, Look at your reflection," Ariel said
"O-Okay..? Aqua."
A ball of water was formed in front of John and he used it to stare at my reflection.
"What!?" He shouted.
His recently short spiky blonde hair had turned a mixture of black and white.
"When? How?" John asked.
"It happened right before you froze the death knight, I've heard side effects when something happens to your mana pool, or when a sudden event occurs. This might be one of the effects of your magic bursting out at once..." Serena said.
"So I'm guessing the reason why its colour is partly white because the element I used was ice?"
"Probably..." Serena said.
"Nevermind, Lets just get out of here," John said as they walked to the entrance.
The giant door which led to the boss room had closed itself after they were all inside. He pulled at the door with magic strengthening and it wouldn't budge. He tried cutting it open with his blades, but there was barely a scratch.
"Yep, we're stuck inside," John said.
"I thought as much... I'm guessing the only way to open the door is by beating the boss or if someone opens it from the other side." Said Serena as she let out a sigh.
"Serena, what sort of holy spell do you need to truly beat it?" Ariel asked.
"As long as it's weakened or in the death state, any holy spell will do, even healing as it has an opposite effect on the undead." Said Serena.
"Eh? Healing works?" John asked.
"Yeah, but if you have a high level one, you won't even need to fight it." Said Serena.
"So healing works... Alright, I don't have any time to waste." John said.
John lept towards the frozen site where both the ground and the Death Knight had been frozen and in a rush, placed his arms in the direction of its core as he stood in front of the frozen knight.
The core's colour was hastily returning to its original red and fire was starting to come out of the sword. The surrounding ice began to melt.
"Percuro," John muttered.
His hand began to glow in a golden light. The Death Knight had now fully awoken and began to struggle in the ice. The light was working.
"That light... When did he..?" Asked Serena.
The ice around the sword had completely evaporated and with it his unfrozen arm, he tried to interrupt John's spell.
His movements were slower, so John was able to dodge his swings without interrupting the spell, however, with each swing he would end up hitting the ice which covered his body and eventually he managed to get out.
However, by the time he got out, he was near the point of death; John was also running out of magic himself. Percuro is a heavy spell... John created it in case of emergencies. Back when he wasn't able to heal Ariel, John realised that without a priest, the least he could do was to learn a healing spell.
Its movements were much slower than before, the fire on the sword was dim, and whenever it would swing, it looked as if it was standing still. John was also getting slower and weaker, but he had more energy than it, so he didn't deactivate the spell, even once.
As it tried to lift its sword, it noticed that it couldn't and at that moment; John increased the amount of power being poured into his healing spell and let it all out at once.
The dim purple light in its core changed to black, and the stone broke, releasing a black miasma which disappeared into the air. The Death knight's skeleton turned to ash, and all that remained was its armour.
"W-We did it..." John muttered and gave a thumbs up to Ariel and Serena before collapsing to the ground.
The Adrenaline had finally caught up. John was completely out of fuel. His magic capacity had definitely been getting bigger. And for the first time, he didn't faint after using it all up.