novelGorgons, Part I
| ← Ch.070 | Ch.072 → |
Gorgons had low DEF for magical monsters and as such, there was no need for tanks to soak up damage for a party. A shield mage's Reinforced Shield was enough. Shield mages also lasted longer in a gorgon battle than fighter tanks due to their high WIL and MDEF. All they had to do was be careful with their MP usage.
Since Gorgons' attacks were all magic-based, there wasn't much need for melee fighters in a party. They would just end quickly losing their HP because of their low WIL and MDEF. Many of them would just become a hindrance.
The best way to hunt Gorgons was to have a shield mage with the proper skills lead the hunt, with ranged attackers dealing damage from a distance. It was similar to hunting Tyros, except for needing a shield mage.
This method also required more than a few party members, removing the need to worry about Petrification. It was also safer and cheaper to have a healer/mage with a Remove Curse spell, removing the need to buy Cure Petrification Scrolls.
"I was envious that the nearest place with Gorgons was all the way in Japan, but to think that they're in Korea now..." The magic snakes Gorgons spawned also yielded experience points. They had low HP and could be killed easily. Hunting Gorgons to level was easy with a decent party. The three best monsters I preferred to hunt in the past were Tyros, Golems, and Gorgons.
I watched the party hunt a little more before continuing my way north. After a few more minutes, I lost sight of parties hunting Gorgons.
"Good. This should be far enough." I took out my trusty greatsword from my inventory.
"I really wanted a spear, but I guess I'm stuck with this for now." With the golden rings I had now, I could more than afford at least a Rank 4 or Rank 5 spear, but for some reason, I wanted to wait. I defeated the Bukhan dungeon boss on my own, and managed to snag the Seorak dungeon boss. Both bosses dropped some nice items and found a Rank 7 and a Rank 8 item from the twelve random chests. I could only dream about finding them during my past life.
"I feel like I'll find a nice spear, sooner or later."
There was also the fact that I mowed through all of monsters I came across with just a Rank 3 greatsword!
"But the time has come for me to switch to a better weapon." Armor and accessories were good and all, but weapons had better traits. I needed a better weapon than the greatsword to unleash my true power.
There were weapons that increased STR alone by 300-400 points. Of course, they were mostly Rank 6 or higher weapons, but still.
"I should still start off with hunting some Gorgons first. I need to become strong enough to easily take whatever the Hitman Guild tries to throw at me."
There were coils of five to ten Gorgons roaming around. I headed to the nearest coil. They noticed me as I got closer and began hissing menacingly. I ignored them and charged in.
My fighting style was going to be different than that of my past life, but I was confident that I could take them on easily right now. The closest Gorgon's eyes flashed red. It was a sign that it was casting Petrify. Normally, I would have avoided its eyes once I noticed the red light because if I didn't, my body would start turning to stone. That was the normal way to fight Gorgons, but I continued to charge straight in and stared back into its red eyes.
"Petrifying Glare!" the Gorgon hissed.
——
[You have been attacked by Petrifying Glare. You are now afflicted by Petrification. ]
[Petrification prevented by status immunity effect. ]
——-
I smiled as the message alerts came up as I had expected.
"Chaaa!" I jumped high right above the Gorgon that just cast Petrifying Glare and slashed at its face. The Gorgon's head was left with a deep gash that seemed to nearly split its head open. Some of the Gorgon's snake-hair fell to the ground dead, but the Gorgon was still alive. If I couldn't kill it with one attack, then I would just attack it again, just like I'd done so far. I raised my sword and chopped at the Gorgon's head like firewood.
"Gaaak!" After two more chops, the Gorgon fell dead with a croak. It only took three hits! Gorgons had low DEF and low HP, but the fact that I could kill such high-level monsters in just three hits encouraged me.
"Summon: Black Snakes!"
"Summon: Blue Snakes!"
"Summon: Giant Red Snake!"
"Petrifying Glare!" The other Gorgons began to react when they saw their comrade fall after just three hits. They were still only normal monsters, however, using Petrifying Glare even after seeing that it didn't work on me.
The same message alerts appeared, notifying me that my status immunity prevented Petrification once more. This was way too overpowered!
The most annoying part of hunting Gorgons was their Petrifying Glare. It was extremely difficult to avoid it in the middle of battle. This made it nearly impossible for melee fighters to deal with the attack, causing many of them to outright avoid Gorgons. However, this mattered little to me and to any other Unrivaled out there.
I ignored the Gorgon that had just cast Petrifying Glare and focused on the summoned snakes. Besides their normal attacks, Black Snakes also had magic attacks that also sharply raised the fatigue of anyone they bit. Fatigue lowered on its own over time, so I doubted my status immunity would prevent the effect.
Blue Snakes also had magic attacks that drained HP and MP from anyone they bit, and returned the points to the Gorgon that summoned them. Blue Snakes also had a Leech skill. Once they latched onto someone, they were practically impossible to get off. These attacks probably wouldn't be prevented by my status immunity, either.
Red Snakes only had physical attacks. However, while Red Snakes didn't have magical attacks like their black and blue counterparts, their physical attack was much higher.
I could see that the Gorgon that summoned the Red Snakes was much higher level than the other Gorgons. The Blue and Black Snakes were about as thick as a man's arm and about a meter and a half long. The Red Snake, on the other hand, was as thick as an average woman's thigh and at least four meters long. During my previous life, I had seen a few summoned Giant Snakes, but none of them were as big as the ones before me now.
I remembered what the gate guard back at Pocheon told me. The area between Chuncheon and Pocheon had lizardmen and Gorgons fighting over territory until it ended with the Gorgons' victory and the lizardmen being pushed back all the way north past the nation's border.
"How many lizardmen did this Gorgon kill?" This was one of the traits of field monsters. Killing devas or other field monsters granted them experience points, just like devas. Underestimating these field monsters ultimately resulted in death.
The Summoned snakes slithered towards me. I raised my sword and stabbed into the faster Black Snakes. The Gorgon had fallen to only three attacks. All it took was one slice to cut the Black Snakes in half. Their dead bodies dissolved into a cloud of black smoke before disappearing. At that moment, the Blue Snakes surrounded me and began slithering up my ankles and bit into my calves. All I felt was a slight prick.
My VIT was over 2100 and my total HP surpassed one million points. My VIT seemed low compared to my STR and AGI, but it was still worth at least 210 levels. A level 600 warrior couldn't afford to have a VIT as high as mine. Of course, a tank with the right items could come close, but my innate VIT was definitely unrivaled.
——-
[Blue Snake's attack will drain HP by 115 points per second and MP by 9 points per second. ]
——
The message that appeared before me confirmed my suspicions that my status immunity wasn't going to help me here. In just one minute, I was going to lose 6900 HP and 540 MP. It was an iffy amount; not a lot and not a little amount of damage.
"Raging Lightning Strike!"
"Dispersing Lightning Strike!"
Two of the Gorgons cast Lightning spells at my direction. Raging Lightning Strike was a Lightning spell that inflicted massive amounts of Lightning damage with one strike, while Dispersing Lightning Strike inflicted weak AoE Lightning damage over time.
"I...don't have any way to block them." I didn't have a specific method to block the incoming spells; I would have to just take them head on, just like the way I'd been doing so far. It was the same fighting style I had against the Hitman Guild and all of the other dungeon monsters. I never imagined I would use this style back when I was a fire mage.
It got worse after waking up to a bunch of Stat points. No matter how many times I got hit, I could endure all of it. Now, I thought that it was better to get one more attack in than to waste time dodging.
I ignored the incoming Lightning spells and turned to focus on the giant anaconda-like Red Snake. The Red Snake reared back with its jaws open and lunged in to bite my side. At the same moment, the Lightning from the spells enveloped my body in electricity.
The spells were weak enough that I was able to brush them off, and I stabbed my sword at the snake's open jaws. I felt a slight jolt as the shock intensified, but I kept my eyes on the snake. Once my blade sank into the snake's jaws, the snake wrapped itself around my waist. I quickly held my sword in my left hand and reached down with my right to try to stop the snake, but I was too late.
The snake completely wrapped around me and began squeezing. I felt an enormous amount of constriction from the snake's body. This was dangerous!
"Ugh...what a drag." It was dangerous for other devas, not me. I could still breathe even with the increasing pressure. Had my STR and VIT been significantly lower, I would have received quite a bit of damage by now, but there was not even a single scratch on me.
I let go of the sword the snake still had in its jaws and worked my right hand out so that my right forearm was in between two folds of the snake's body. The snake continued to constrict, but I still had some room to move around.
"Raah!" I grabbed my right wrist with my left hand and pulled towards me. I had the snake's body in my elbow like a chokehold and squeezed. The snake's body was slowly being crushed with sounds of bones grinding and cracking.
The snake spat out my sword from its jaws and raised its head.
"You wanted a contest of strength, right? Just to let you know, I haven't lost yet. Let's see who will yield first. Raah!"
I felt the snake loosen its hold and begin to squirm under the pressure, but I squeezed even harder. Its skin began to tear. That part of the snake's body was now about as thick as a textbook. After squeezing for about three more seconds, the Red Snake burst apart into a cloud of red smoke.
"That's what you get for trying to bite off more than you can chew!" I said into the red cloud.
"By the way, how long are you guys going to hang around there?" I asked the Blue Snakes that were still biting into my calves. I grabbed both of them by the tail and pulled. They were really stuck onto my legs, thanks to their Leech skill, and I pulled hard, like I was pulling something off that had been Super Glued. With my STR, the snakes came right off.
"Did you guys have fun leeching off of me like that? I suppose it's time for you guys to pay up!" I gripped their tails tight and whipped their heads to the ground. Their heads exploded on impact, and they burst into clouds of blue smoke.
"Petrifying Glare!"
"Petrifying Glare!"
The remaining Gorgons flashed their red eyes at me once more.
"It won't work on me; why do you keep trying?" I picked up my greatsword and charged the Gorgons. With no snake summons to slow me down and their Glares not working at all, they raised their claws to shoot more Lightning spells at me, but I was faster.
With one swing, I sliced all four remaining Gorgons across the waist. Using my momentum, I spun around and slashed at the rightmost Gorgon.
"Raging Light..."
"Dispersing Light..." I slashed at the three lower leveled Gorgons three times consecutively, killing them before they could get their spells off. The Gorgon that summoned the Red Snake took two more slashes, but still fell.
In three minutes, I killed seven Gorgons and one higher leveled Gorgon. The summoned snakes were just the icing on the cake.
——
[You have gained a level. ]
——
"Nice. Going up one level from killing only eight Gorgons is more than enough." I happily picked up the dropped golden rings and as I was about to check the dropped items, I saw a message come up.
——
[You are currently under a dungeon blessing. (Time left: 27 days 11 hours 22 minutes)
Granted skill 'Create Safety Crystal' for 30 days. (After 30 days, this skill will be removed. )
The 'Create Safety Crystal' skill does not consume skill points.
Hunt field monsters for 30 days and a Safety Crystal will amass experience points. On the 1st, 10th, and 30th day, the crystal will take form and you will be able to receive the Safety Crystal.
You will be restricted from entering another dungeon for 30 days. ]
——-
"That's right. I had that too. Open Create Safety Crystal Table!"
——-
[Create Safety Crystal Table (Currently crafting Day One Crystal)
Day 1 Safety Crystal: current EXP 0. 47%
In current possession: 0
Day 10 Safety Crystal: current EXP 0%
In current possession: 0
Day 30 Safety Crystal: current EXP 0%
In current possession: 0]
———-
I had received a blessing after defeating the Bukhan dungeon boss, but wasn't able to create a Safety Crystal as no field monsters had spawned at that time. This was my first time seeing the Table!
"So that's what it looks like. Awesome! It's always nice to have Safety Crystals." I became even more fired up at the thought.
"Let's go for round two." I held my sword in my right hand and headed towards the other Gorgon pits. I was itching for more!
| ← Ch. 070 | Ch. 072 → |