Chapter 571: Blackflame Ice Flower
Chapter 571: Blackflame Ice Flower
Marcus checked the Iceflame Black Serpent Man’s HP: 240,000 remaining.Thank God the ambush had worked. It had stripped 360,000 HP from the serpent right from the start, and without that opening advantage, Marcus doubted he would have lasted long. His ordinary damage was pitiful compared to the monster’s defenses, while the serpent’s attacks were powerful enough to tear through his health in only a handful of hits. If he hadn’t caught it off guard, running for his life might have been his only option.
"Go!" Marcus barked the command, urging Blackie toward the serpent as he loosed another Mountain Fang Shot. At the same time, he began changing his equipment.
The Iceflame Black Serpent Man hit far too hard. Marcus had three choices: kill it before it could kill him, switch to the Adamant Shield and try to survive, or give up and run.
He chose to fight. There was no point holding anything back now. He would throw everything he had at the creature and bring it down before it had the chance to do the same to him.
Blackie covered the twenty-meter gap in only a few seconds. When Marcus was roughly ten meters from the serpent, he switched weapons. The Twin-Winged Ice Owl Bow vanished from his hands, replaced by the seemingly unremarkable Mist-Tear Spear of Purity.
"Mistform Illusion!" The spear’s active skill immediately took effect. A shimmer of blue light gathered beside Marcus, rapidly taking shape until it became a perfect copy of him. The clone possessed 80% of his stats, and for a brief moment, Marcus found himself fighting alongside his own double.
Marcus, Pebble, and the clone were now less than ten meters from the serpent. Perfect timing.
"Desperate Strike!" All three attacked at once, hurling their spears like javelins.
Whoosh! The Mist-Tear Spears tore through the air and slammed into the Iceflame Black Serpent Man. -11,000. -10,000. -5,000.
Now that was more like it. Both Marcus and Pebble had landed critical hits. Desperate Strike dealt five times the weapon’s base damage, and a critical hit doubled that result, effectively giving them ten times their normal damage. That was why their attacks were finally breaking past the ten-thousand mark. The Sea Demon Souls’ debuff was helping as well, reducing the serpent’s defense by 20%. Without that reduction, Marcus would probably still be staring at those miserable 800-damage hits.
Between Desperate Strike, Mountain Fang Shot, and the Royal Sorcerers’ continuous barrage of magic, the Iceflame Black Serpent Man’s HP had already fallen below 200,000.
’Not bad. Keep it coming.’
Marcus immediately reached into his bag and pulled out the Ice-Fire Twin Dragon Hoe, equipping it in place of the Mist-Tear Spear. But just as he expected the clone to disappear, something completely unexpected happened. It remained.
Marcus froze for half a second. The clone from Mist-Tear Spear didn’t vanish simply because he had switched weapons. A flash of blue light passed through its hands, and another Mist-Tear Spear materialized in its grip. The clone then spurred its own copy of Blackie forward and charged the serpent, preparing to use the spear’s debuff skill, Mist Vortex.
’Wait... what?’ Marcus distinctly remembered that during the trial, switching weapons had caused the clone to disappear. This time, however, the situation was different.
His eyes immediately landed on the Mist-Tear Spear he had thrown earlier. It was still embedded in the ground a short distance away, and the weapon was technically still participating in the battle.
So that was it. As long as the Mist-Tear Spear remained in active combat, the clone it had created would remain as well. The clone itself, however, was bound to that weapon. Unlike Pebble, it couldn’t freely change equipment whenever Marcus switched his own gear.