Chapter 352: Dragons, O Dragons! Part Seventeen

[Correction: Bloody Ideology's evolved skill was Full Spirit Awakening, not Bloodburn Burst, so part of the text has been changed accordingly.]

Even a worthless, tiny insect — if it carries a hornet's jaws, venom, and stinger on its body — must be treated with the same caution as a hornet. Isn't that right?

Now that I'm borrowing the full intimidating power of the ominously named R.I.P., the Great Red Devourer has apparently decided I'm worth treating as a hostile threat. The red tornado writhes as if bulging from within, birthing a red bull packed with excessive muscle. It raises a roar — like an utterly inorganic entity clumsily imitating organic movement — and charges straight at me.

Sunraku: "Nicely packed with meat... Perfect for a punching bag."

Activate Hecaton Edge. I slam Areadbhair Rebuild into the red bull — probably red all the way down to the muscle fibers.

Sunraku: "That's one hit!"

Then I swing Blue Predator, and two hit effects burst on the bull's hide.

Sunraku: "And it just keeps going up!!"

Another slash from Areadbhair Rebuild, four hits. The follow-up thrust from Blue Predator, eight hits. Then sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four. The cap is a hundred, so it won't reach a hundred twenty-eight, but... the next strike is guaranteed to be an off-the-scale single swing of a hundred hits. But I'll hold off on using it for now. This skill's true worth shines when combined with another skill. At least, that's my conviction.

Sunraku: "Come on, the matador's waving a fluttering cloth, see?"

I pinch the hem of my skirt and flutter it. Seems it worked pretty well as a taunt. The red bull's entire body starts swelling further, as if pumped full of air — and with that near-bursting strain as its propellant, the red bull charges me.

Its speed catches even me off guard, despite keeping my distance and staying alert. I'm surprised it can reach that speed in this slowed-down world, but I still dodge with room to spare and move in to finish it.

Quantum Gaze has nearly identical performance to Moment Sight, but of course, that's not all.

Sunraku: "Future sight... no, that's not what it is, huh!"

A bright red "wave" reflected in my field of vision. Like seeing the wind given color — a wind of hostility blowing from the red bull's hind legs toward me. That's the "attack wave" made visible by Quantum Gaze. To put it simply, I can now see — if only just beforehand — what range an enemy's incoming attack will cover and how it will strike.

Even seeing it, against attacks that'd kill you either way, it's not a hugely meaningful added effect. But against simple physical attacks like this, even if the timing is slightly delayed, you could call it future prediction. I'll choose not to worry about what mechanism makes this skill work.

Sunraku: "Alright... face this way. I'll make a kebab out of you."

My stamina's nicely drained, and Hecaton Edge's effect still resides in this blade. And right now — this moment — there's a thrust that truly shines!!

The red bull turns. Its eyes, solid red, hold no emotion... and that's probably why it feels no fear in the instant of death.

Sunraku: "Sharpening Completion!!"

The evolved form of Mind Over Mountain: Sharpening Completion. Its predecessor raised power through multiple thrusts, but this one raises its firepower the closer the action is to its end... meaning the more stamina you've spent, the higher the damage.

Now, a question: what happens when you drive a hundred-hit combo — boosted to its absolute limit — into a bull's head all at once?

Let's see for real.

The strike, honed to its extreme, pierces the red bull's forehead. In that instant, a damage effect blooms like a great flower from the point of impact. Having just turned around — poor footing and all — probably worked against it. As if some massive force is pressing down on its head, now invisible beneath the damage effect, its literally muscular giant body is hurled backward.

Sunraku: "That's what happens when you neglect evasion."

Its HP apparently ran out mid-flight, its body collapsing into a red mist for just a moment. But without stopping, all of the mist vanishes, accompanied by an effect different from damage.

And in this moment, my hypothesis becomes certainty.

The Great Red Devourer is, in short, the same type of colony monster as the Crazed Horde of Blue. How HP is defined for colony monsters varies by game, but usually, if you beat the main body, the small fry die along with it. But this game is called Shangri-La Frontier. A game that refuses compromise to a disturbing degree — there's no way it would water down a raid monster, a major piece of content, with gamey compromise.

So here's the thing. The individual insects that make up the vast colony monster known as the Great Red Devourer — even if that's not exactly right — the copies it spawns... do they also have a "death judgment"? That was proven when R.I.P.'s effect activated.

Sunraku: "Revising my evaluation. You're something else, R.I.P....!"

Given SLF's nature, fighting a colony monster lets you secure an absolute advantage. Yes — for example, right this very moment!!

Sunraku: "Send out the next one! It's still not enough!!"

R.I.P. applies stat bonuses based on kill score. Even with STR and such boosted from being level 136, I still need to kill ten more... no, seven... six more.

Sunraku: "Or... if I crush that head of yours, will it count toward my kill score? Hmm?"

Oho, oho, oho, Tail-Head-kun... I still haven't paid you back for that, have I...!!

Sunraku: "Time for thinning!!"

I'll tear that tail off like a lizard's!!

I start moving to close the distance created by the fight with the red bull. I activate them in succession: Secret Art of Mount Kurama, whose recast is finished; Limit Maximize, evolved from Riot Axel; Wolf Fate Sign, evolved from Mánagarmr Pride; and Atlas Toughness, the higher-tier skill of Melostic Foot.

To summarize: get super fast and super strong, but burn through HP at high fuel consumption. I see — so basically, business as usual, zero risk!!

Sunraku: "Alright!"

I step forward in sync with an attack from "Scarred," who's already leveled up to solid combat-buddy status in my head. As ever, the tail head is dying to deal with me... Fine. I'll come to you.

Sunraku: "Too slow, too slow, tooooo slow!!"

In the end, lasers and bullets are nothing but linear motion! No ricochets, no reflections — just tilt your head and you can dodge. After all, I've seen your attacks more than enough!

Sunraku: "Patterns, timing... I've got it all figured out."

And that's exactly why I deliberately take scratch damage. My body's base defense is trash, but I use R.I.P.'s defense to fine-tune the scratch damage and activate Full Spirit Awakening. The higher-tier version of Bloody Ideology, Full Spirit Awakening is an insane skill that takes the HP value lost from damage and adds that exact number to either STR, AGI, or VIT.

Meaning, since my current HP is 80, if I take 79 points of damage, one of my three stats — temporarily — gets 79 added to it. Though since it's random, the shadow of bullshit RNG always hangs over it, and the higher the added value, the shorter the effect duration... Put another way, if you stack scratch damage, it becomes an effective enhancement method.

Sunraku: "Gh... alright, AGI came!!"

Crimson light sears my left cheek. But the burst blood-red damage effect transforms straight into Full Spirit Awakening's effect, giving me even more speed. About one-fifth of my total HP — roughly 16 points — gets added to AGI, pushing my back with further acceleration. Ten meters left!

It seems my threat level's been updated at this point... but fool. Ignoring "Scarred" and turning your aggro toward me — that's the height of stupidity.

Sunraku: "Yo."

The distance is already under five meters. Both within attack range — and I'm faster. Here's a one-point lesson. Listen close, Great Red Devourer.

Sunraku: "A single instant."

Tap. I strike the amber on my right chest. The attack skill whose overwhelming instantaneous firepower comes at the cost of a long recast time — its cooldown is halved by mystic power.

And in that single instant, I stack several skills and activate them all at once...

The next moment, I'm already behind the Great Red Devourer, and its entire body erupts with damage effects as if detonating.

Sunraku: "First time pulling this off for real... This thrill is something else."

A smile rises on the face now exposed as my veil flips up in the wind. I speak to it.

Sunraku: "From here on, it's the climax. Go ahead and die first, though."

So saying, I skewer with Areadbhair Rebuild the tail — severed from the main body by the hundred-hit thrust, its tail head still glaring at me with killing intent.

Alright. Every last one of them is a backline job. No helping it — I'll solo tank, then.

[Beheading (Ass)]

[Next time: Tottori (Yamcha) POV.]

[What did the protagonist do? In principle, it works on almost the same logic as Lutia-san's Sangeki Muzan: a super-three-dimensional 227-hit passing slash unleashed from absolute initiative.]