Chapter 667 (Patreon)

Book 6 almost made top 100 on Kindle overall on release, thank you all so much! This chapter is a bit longer but I didn't want to break the fight into two chapters, have a good weekend!

“Damn it.” Ajax wasn’t quiet about his displeasure in the presence of Curse Mana.”Well lets clear the rest of the floor.” 

“Not sure that’s the best choice.” Evelyin stopped him. “I think we need to kill the satyr as quickly as possible.”

“But wouldn’t that mean we have to stay longer on the floor after the battle?” Ajax asked. “The curse Mana in the surroundings won’t be an issue for us now but after we are hit by direct curses I doubt that will remain the same.” 

In the years since his first encounter with Curse Mana Ajax had done plenty of testing, having a way to reliably summon a small supply of the same Mana on demand from [Cursed Slash] only helped him do so, he was probably one of the foremost experts on dealing with the aftereffects of Curse Mana.

Ajax knew that Holy Mana could cleanse it but the amount of damage it would leave behind to cure a curse from such a high level floor boss was not something he was sure even Aurexion would survive in one go, let alone the Mana constraints.

“You might know more than I do about treating Curse Mana but I am confident this is the first Satyr you’ve seen.” Evelyn answered. “Did you not question why nobody hounded it you all that much after you revealed another way to use Lightning Mana to create Magnetic Mana? It was already known that the same Mana type can be used for different effects. Curse Mana is one of the most versatile and dangerous to use.” 

“What does a satyr use it for?” Ajax asked, seeing where the conversation was going quickly.

“Corruption.” Aurexion took that answer. “And you’re going to want to be using [Mana Syphon] on any spell the satyr casts. Even with it drawing in some Curse Mana it's better to absorb some of it than let a structured curse hit you as intended.” 

“What does corruption do?” Ajax asked, clearly everyone else already knew about this. 

“Look at the animals closest to the pentagram.” The prince pointed out to him. 

Whereas before the animals almost always blended in with their environment with the waves of curse Mana flooding out from the pentagram the lush plant life was being turned in all different shades of purple and red and the animals stood out, now logging more grotesque as their bodies shifted unevenly in size all all over, most troubling however was that they were starting to follow in the wake of the ten foot tall satyr, and that height didn't account for the extra two feet the horns on his head added.

“The entire floor will rally behind him?” Ajax was starting to get a little worried now, even as strong as the group was and with half the floor already cleared he doubted they could fight the entire other half while the boss was cursing them throughout the battle.

“No clearing the floor actually got a lot easier.” Evelyn pointed him towards a fight that broke out between a pack of wolves and a bear, the wolves were already partially corrupted but the bear still seemed normal. “Close to the pentagram the Curse Mana is plentiful but the rest of the floor will see it spread slowly, different animals take different amounts of time to get corrupted so most of the floor will be fighting itself.” 

“Its a good thing this floor was a forest theme.” Aurexion pointed out. “Animals have an extermination instinct towards anything that isn’t filled with corruption when they get corrupted, elementals on the other hand try to spread the corruption faster. A satyr on an elemental floor is one of the few times Ascended races find it excusable to let a dungeon break and just deal with it on the outside. Most of the animals will fight each other the further from the pentagram they are, we will just need to kill the few corrupted ones that survive in the end.”  

“How do you know the corrupted ones will win?” Ajax asked out a little surprised since he saw the aggression of the corrupted animals on top of the uneven dysmorphia as a combat handicap.

“It doesn’t matter which one wins, the survivor will become corrupted even if they weren’t when they fought, it's all a matter of time.” The prince pointed out.

With that reality pointed out for them Ajax was at least happy that their next move was obvious, they had to hit the satyr hard, as soon as possible and then get out of the dungeon. 

“Take out the Holy enchanted necklace.” The prince ordered. “If your thoughts start feeling even a little fuzzy you activate it. No hesitation, the last thing we want is one of us getting corrupted.” 

Ajax and the rest of the champions all knew that those necklaces weren’t made to handle such a high floor, it was part of the basic delving over level one hundred kit the royal family prepared for them but even the little it could do would be welcomed in the middle of a battle.

“If it doesn;t seem like we will kill him quickly after the first two minutes use [Absolute Body Enhancement].” Aurexion told Ajax. “I know you haven’t had a chance to learn how to manage it properly yet and try not to push it as hard as you did last time if you can help it but it will be easier to deal with that then the after effects of purging a large amount of Curse Mana.” 

“Think we can sneak up on it?” Ajax asked as the group started to head towards the satyr.

“Not a chance.” The prince answered. “Its a caster type only based on Curse Mana, and Curse Mana is flowing through everything around it, except us. He’ll feel us actively resisting the Curse Mana.” 

Humanoids weren’t inherently resistant to passively absorbing Curse Mana, it was why staying on such a floor was warned against but people at their level had ways of holding it off for a long time if it was just passively present.

The prince’s words were proven true as the satyr let out a commanding roar once they had gotten close enough that the trees were starting to once again provide some cover for the large floor boss.

“Here they come.” The prince said. “Go for the kill or debilitating injury. They'll ignore any pain now that they are corrupted, if you can slip past them go get to the satyr.” 

Aurexion had the hardest time of them all as he had to slowly makes his way through the trees, he couldn't just take to the air or all the corrupted flyers would instantly converge on him.

“We’re close enough, Aurexion!” Ajax shouted the moment he felt the Satyr enter his [Mana Syphon] range and he started to drain the curses the floorboss was throwing at them while pointing his sword in the direction of the satyr. “Do it now!” 

Aurexion didn’t hesitate for a moment as the rest of the champions quickly cleared out from in front of the dragon as Aurexion took in a deep breath, a thousand Mana being used through [Spell Direction] and at the last moment Aurexion felt a small shift click into place as he unlocked a new Skill.

The whole forest exploded in flames, with the front line of squirrels and owls that were heading for the group being burnt to a crisp and trees were turned to ash in front of the dragon. Aurexion however wasn’t even paying attention to the devastation he had unleashed, his eyes were solely fixed on the notification for the Skill he gained.

‘How did he know?’, ‘It did feel better’, ‘Aunty was right, making this bond was the right choice’. All these thoughts passed through Aurexion’s mind as he remembered all the knowledge Ajax had tried to impart about trying to use multiple Mana affinities to amplify the breath further. He was looking at his very first Legendary Skill [Dragon’s Breath].

The plan had been to use Aurexion's breath as a way to clear a path to the satyr but that plan went out the window the moment the breath became this much stronger. The satyr was lucky three large bears had already been corrupted and had been fast enough to move behind them before the breath hit but none of the champions could get close enough due to the heat of the flames.

While the melee fighters weren’t able to capitalize on the way being cleared the same couldn’t be said about the ranged champions present. A wave of spells was hurled at the satyr, who in turn had not stopped throwing out curses.

This was Ajax’s first time encountering actual curses. Spells that target the person and couldn’t miss. Sure he could feel the Mana traveling from the satyr but it was locked on to the person, there was no way to dodge it, it could only be blocked or destroyed. 

The satyr also seemed to use curses to destabilize the spells others tried to throw at him, the Curse Mana acting in a similar way to Ajax’s [Mana Syphon] in an attempt to have it break down the spell structure. Unfortunately for the horned half-goat there was nothing no structure to break down about Ajax’s arrow as the [Mana Augmentation] infused tip hit center mass missed the satyr’s heart by five inches, yet that didn’t matter nearly as much as the three hundred Holy Mana it released on impact.

The fight had started as well as any of them could have hoped, with most of the corrupted animals gathered already killed and the Holy Mana disrupting the satyr's casting as the group moved in for the kill.

That’s when it did the one thing they were hoping it wouldn’t do. The satyr started to run away, slowly his curses started to once more come flying towards them and any remaining animals attacked them as they tried to get between the champions and the floor boss.

The chase continued for another minute and while the curses were starting to stack up on the group a little they had also managed to do a lot of damage in return. The satyr has a knife sticking out of one of its eyes, one of his horns had snapped off and one arm was cut off from the elbow down. 

Despite all this the satyr continued running, as it ran it encountered more corrupted animals that came to his aid yet despite the prince and a few other champions getting close enough to land more than one good direct strike on it the satyr had thankfully focused mainly on Ajax. 

With the floor boss clearly wary of his Holy Mana Ajax had three times as many curses coming his way as the anyone else, while he managed to use [Mana Syphon] to break them down he was careful not to rely on his ability to refuel his Mana as the last thing he wanted was to introduce Curse Mana into his Mana pool. Ajax even threw out some basic Holy Mana bolts as ways to intercept some of the curses and while they didn’t always work they did manage to block some of the curses.

The issue however was becoming clearer by the moment, despite them not actually being physically hurt they were slowing down more than the satyr was with all the hits it had taken. The curses were starting to get a solid grip on them so Ajax decided not to wait any longer.

Ajax dashed straight past the two wolves charging at him, his recklessness surprising both the creatures and the boss for a moment who seemed shocked by his actions since the move put Ajax in the center of five corrupted animals. Then Ajax activated [Absolute Body Enhancement] and his second step took him straight past the encirclement and cut the distance to the floor boss by more than half.

Having been focused on self restraint with the Skill this time Ajax still felt his body protesting the amount of force his enhancement was giving him, for now he didn’t have to start healing himself. The only downside was that his already drained Mana and Stamina were now dropping at a much faster rate. 

With [Mana Syphon] not refueling his Mana and no physical damage to fuel [Berserker] Ajax was down to less than half his resources so he didn’t have any time to wait. He trusted in his style skill focusing more on getting the proper movements down as he used [Spell Direction] together with [Mana Augmentation] to infuse his sword with Holy Mana. 

Unlike his previous holy spells that only sometimes blocked a curse headed for him this time Ajax’s sword cut apart three curses before trying to cleave the satyr’s skull in two. The floor boss managed to move his head out of the way at the last moment yet the sword still cut straight through the satyr’s body taking his entire good arm off at the shoulder. 

With no arms to defend himself, the flood of Holy Mana wrecking his body and stopping his casting and the awkward position he had been forced into to dodge Ajax’s sword the floor boss had no way to avoid the prince whose sword cut a precise strike to the neck taking the head clean off.