Lightning Still Hurts

Taking inspiration from Aurelia, I also try to develop a new attack at the same time, on the surface at least. Using my Element Creation & Manipulation, I use what is essentially one of my breath attacks but force it into a beam structure and fire it from around my eyes. Fire from my mouth, Ice from my left eye, and Metal from the right. With my three-pronged attack with each one shooting in the Liger's general direction but on different trajectories, he isn't able to dodge them all being hit by thousands of small shards of iron. Finally landing a direct hit, it takes a little over 1,300 damage, knocking it to the ground as well as its health down to 17,187.

Despite the direct hit, I only dealt that much, while Aurelia just clips the tail and does over 3,000, I'm just glad she's on my side. But I think I found a nice little loophole. Seeing its stats, there is no way a single hit should be doing more than the absolute minimum damage, yet I dealt far more than I should be able to. If my little hypothesis is correct then each individual shard of metal counted as a separate attack, I need to test it out again.

Taking the chance to attack while the Liger is trying to get back up, I repeat the same three-pronged attack but instead of using three different Elements I only use metal. But just before I think I'm able to get a nice direct hit with all thee attacks, several large boulders and trees are thrown at the Liger by Aurelia. Sure she hit, but she also blocked all but one of my attacks. I see my attack did just 1,982 damage more than before. Considering I hit the Liger's underside I still did a decent bit of damage. But looking at the total health of the Liger, it has 11,995 HP left. Aurelia just throwing out the random stuff she finds lying around on the ground still does more damage than I can. No, wait, if Aurelia hadn't gotten in the way, my attacks would have probably dealt more than hers.

"Could you have not waited for me to finish my attack first, this fight could have been much easier if you let me complete mine, you could have just read my mind to see what I was up to!"

"I don't have the luxury to do that right now! I'm spending a lot of my effort on suppressing the Liger with my Telekinesis, I don't have any spare processing power to see into your head right now! If it wasn't for me slowing it down, how do expect your first attempt to have even hit!"

Now that she mentions it, the Liger had been moving much slower when I hit it compared to before.

"I'm going to shoot again, so wait before throwing!"

So I say, but before I get a chance to make a move, the Liger releases a gust of wind, blowing back all the random stuff Aurelia threw. Seeing the lack of threat from this, Aurelia only puts up a small barrier around herself, while I just take the hits from the boulders and eat the trees that come flying my way to restore any lost health. But as the winds disperse the clouds of dust surrounding the Liger, a bolt of lightning rushes towards me.

Aurelia rushes to put up a barrier, but being caught by surprise, she isn't able to get a strong enough barrier up in time as the golden screen shatters. During this, I don't remain idle either, as I hurriedly shift to my humanoid form to reduce the chances of getting hit while also putting up all the defensive magic walls I possibly can. But much like Aurelia, I didn't have enough time to stabilise the walls as the lightning punctures thorough them one by one. The walls buy just enough time for me to dodge a direct hit but it still grazes my foot, tripping me and dealing a massive 6,347 damage, leaving me with only 1,731 HP. The passive healing from my Air, Light, and Dark Absorption begin to heal me up, but the rate of healing for passive regeneration is far worse than taking a hit from the Element or actively seeking a source from the other Elements.

"Here," Aurelia says, stretching her arm in my direction as my body is soon bathed in fire.

My clothes quickly begin to burn alongside my body, so I make the choice to return to my true form as my health quickly begins to rise. The Liger tries to send out another lightning bolt, but both me and Aurelia are ready for it this time as we are fully protected by Aurelia's golden barrier.

With my health having jumped up to 5,000 by the time the fire dies, Aurelia sends another wave my way, reigniting my body and restarting the healing process. Something about this feels like I'm cheating the system, but I pay it no mind as I'm fully restored to full health.

Seeing all of his efforts go to waste, the see that the Liger has entered the enraged state. True enough, everything I fight always has to be enraged, some things truly never change. But that's not all I noticed, its health has also climbed back up. Although the amount is a little over a thousand, bringing its health up to 13,195.

"Can you see the reason behind it jump in HP?" I ask.

"Yeah, just like you, it has Air Absorption, and in addition to that, it also has Lightning Absorption. Brace yourself, another strike is coming."

Putting the barrier back up, the lightning is once again deflected, the barrier is also brought down along with it. Through my long history of fighting enraged enemies, I know full well the extra power that can be brought up in that state, but it comes at the cost of its sense of reason. Without its fully thinking and reasoning capabilities, this fight might actually have gotten easier, although if we mess up again the extra strength will probaly kill me a single hit if it so much as touches me.