Chapter 489: Atlach-Nacha
After resting overnight in the waterfall cavern, the first thing we do in the morning is to take a light stroll to hunt for a solitary fenrir. Before facing the exploding clay guardians or the ball of fleshy tentacles shub niggurath, I want the newly-evolved nightmare (now atlach-nacha) and the glittering-gold magiatite-jii to be out of the early levels.
Since we have a clear objective, everyone other than the atlach-nacha and magiate-jii hangs back and sticks to a support role this time.
I end up helping a little from the side, but the battle is over almost instantly. As expected of an A- monster, even though the atlach-nacha is only level 1, she’s already a match for the nearly max-level fenrir.
Her new magic skill, [Abyss Field], strings up a web in a sphere around her. I was a little worried by the name, so it was a relief when it didn’t summon a swarm of abysses. The web it creates covers a wide area, so it was even able to catch the speedy fenrir. The [Magic-Draining Sticky Thread of Darkness] is as sticky as the name suggests and it easily absorbs physical impacts, so the fenrir was unable to break free. The thread also continuously drains HP and MP as long as it’s in contact, so it’s an excellent technique.
The fenrir ended up burning it off with [Scorching Breath], but the web more than fulfilled its purpose by temporarily stopping the fenrir’s movement, and it even caused it to take some backlash from its own flames. The skill can already cause a lot of trouble in its current state, and it’s only going to get stronger from here.
It was a tough matchup for magiatite-jii due to the level difference. His new [Stealth] skill allows him to bend the light around himself or around anything with a coating of his metal. Had it been a one-on-one fight he would have been spotted immediately, but as the fenrir was distracted by the atlach-nacha, he was able to attack from a blind spot.
Another of his new skills, [Metal Balloon], allows him to create low-density gasses in his body and float up like a balloon. He can also apparently combine it with other skills to create remotely detonated grenades, or bombs that blow up after a set amount of time. It can even be combined with [Stealth] to create invisible floating mines, apparently.
From what I can tell, [Metal Balloon] is an excellent attack skill, but against the evasion-specialist and higher-level fenrir, it’s wasn't able to do much damage. Still, it was enough to gain some of the experience.
The battle only lasted a few moments. The atlach-nacha has risen to【Lv: 29/102】, and magiatite-jii has risen to 【Lv: 24/92】.