Chapter 182 An Uphill Battle
The scene before him was very much like the arcade games from his previous life.
Except now he was the one playing the part of the villainous Boss.
His three Lava Shields were two meters tall, one meter wide, half a meter thick and made of countless molten rocks that still burned with patchy flames. Red-hot lava was still dripping out of the gaps between the stones.
The spellbreaker knights that leapt in succession were all swinging the runic sword in their hands with all their might. Knight battle techniques rained blows of varying colors, crashing onto the Lava Shield and whistling through the air as they did so, shattering the magma, causing lava to splash everywhere.
The spellbreaker knights could only dash past Greem and try to hit the Flame Fiend with their most destructive attacks at the moment his back was to them. This was because there weren’t many ice crystal shards left around Greem's Flame Fiend body that could be used as a foothold.
Greem, on the other hand, had turned into a an ungainly giant. He used the Lava Shield to block enemy attacks, while savagely attacking the weak opponents before him; with his fearsome hand shrouded in blistering flames, with his five-meter long flame whip formed from concentrated flame Elementium, and with fire spells that radiated terrifying Elementium flux.
Some spellbreaker knights were able to bend their bodies or leap to dodge Greem's terrifying attacks with their agile bodies. But there were always some who failed to dodge. Faced with a whip that was cutting through the sky, they could only cower and maximize their shields to mitigate the opponent's attack.
Faced with Greem's Strength of 20 points from the Flame Fiend Transformation, the spellbreaker knights' pitiful average of 14 Strength was not even worth looking at.. They only had to have minimal contact with the whip, and they would turn into Angry Birds, blown away far off into the sky.
But the most troublesome attacks from Greem weren't his slightly clumsy physical blows, but the Ring of Fire that was everywhere.
Greem, who had a Flame Body and had transformed part of his body into Elementium, successfully mastered the Ring of Fire once he advanced to a flame adept. This was a domain-type fire spell!
When Greem bellowed and activated the Ring of Fire, a light red Elementium barrier shaped like a sphere enveloped a hundred square meters area around him. Everything in this area started burning!
The ground was burning, the grass and the trees were burning, even the sky was burning……
Everyone that entered Greem's Ring of Fire had to endure a astounding 13 points of fire damage every second. This level of energy damage was equal to a single offensive spell he activated back when he was a beginner-apprentice!
There was a lava pool below, and Greem with his vicious attacks from above, along with the continuous fire damage they had to endure every second……
Only the spellbreaker knights, that had some elemental resistance, were able to endure such devastating battle conditions. If it had been a witcher-knight, they wouldn't even need to be attacked by Greem; just the elemental damage within the Ring of Fire was enough to reduce most of them to ashes.
The spellbreaker knights had fought with adept-level casters countless times, across several centuries’ history of exterminating heretics. But if one wanted to discuss the difficulty or mysteriousness of a fight, the terrifying flame humanoid before them could easily outclass ten normal heretics added together.
The spellbreaker knights rode on their magic colts, leaping on the bobbing ice crystal shards and slashing at Greem's Lava Shield with various angles every so often. In the blink of an eye, two of the three shields had been destroyed. Even the only one left was badly damaged and couldn't hold up for much longer.
On the other hand, two of the nine spellbreaker knights had been hit by Greem's melee attacks, and were sent flying out of the lava pool, screaming in pain. The magic colts under them also fell into the lava.
The lava pool below Greem looked like a dark red patch. It wasn't very flashy, but everything in the pool was terrifying half-molten magma. The moment the magic colts fell in, oily black smoke started rising from their hair, skin, blood, and flesh. Their skin and flesh sizzled as they burned, a sound so terrible no one could bear hearing.
The colts had no time to even whinny in pain, and had already been devoured by the roiling magma, leaving only a cluster of bubbles on the surface of the viscous dark red liquid.
There were a sizeable number of witcher-knights at the shore, enduring the flame damage from the Ring of Fire, shooting ice arrows into the lava pool with all their might to create ice crystal footholds for the spellbreaker knights. After shooting three to four waves of arrows, they had no choice but to swiftly retreat out of the area covered by the scarlet barrier. But just those short ten seconds inside the barrier had already caused all of their exposed skin to be covered with horrifying blisters. Even slightly touching those blisters sent pain straight to the heart.
They suffered so much even though they were only on the edge of the barrier; the spellbreaker knights surrounding Greem and enduring his attacks had to endure ten times the punishment that they did.
The two spellbreaker knights that were blown out of the battle were indeed courageous men. Immediately, they got fresh mounts from their witcher-knight subordinates and immediately charged back into the lava field.
Since the start of the battle, Greem had only suffered inconsequential and insignificant injuries, having used the many protective layers of defensive fire spells. Now that most of his defensive spells were about to be broken, he finally started to retreat and swap positions with the Fire Lord.
This was actually a very common sight in fights between casters and close-ranged melee fighters!
With the protection of defensive spells, casters could bring about intense elemental damage to their opponents without suffering even a single bit of damage, as if they were the mightiest beings alive. But the moment their defenses were broken, they would almost certainly be killed in a flash by their opponents if they chose to continue engaging the opponents at a close range.
So the moment things were turning sour, Greem threw out two Flame Shockwaves, blasting back the spellbreaker knights around him. Then, he retreated with large strides, trying to get to the center of the lava pool.
However, Ninther had been waiting for an opportunity and would never let him escape at this critical juncture. Once more, he drove his magic colt forward, leaping from shard to shard and finally jumping towards Greem.
Greem laughed twice, grimly and chillingly. He waved the Fire Lord’s Scepter in his left hand several times, and four lava pillars rose from the lava pool in one go, sealing Ninther's path forward.
But it seemed as if Ninther had given up on any thoughts of retreat. He was not forced backwards. Instead, he stepped on top of his magic colt and leapt from it with a shout, amazingly leaping over the lava pillars that were blazing into the sky.
He was able to leap over, but his magic colt could not do the same.
Thus, following pained and tragic whinnies and howls, the magic colt crashed straight into a lava pillar, its entire body quickly engulfed by the bone-melting lava. The colt's whinnies stopped. Only some hair, flesh, and charred bones scattered about the black smoke and cluster of flame, before finally settling down and sinking into the lava pool below.
In an instant, even this last shred of the colt's existence had vanished!
Greem had no time to pay attention to the valiant way in which the colt died. All of his attention had been drawn by the shape that was leaping across.
What was it, did Ninther want to duel him one-on-one? The hero against the demon king?
Greem halted his retreat. His empty right hand instantly turned into a terrifying large hand, shrouded in onyx smoke and intense flames, and grabbed towards towards the flying Ninther.
Ninther might be able to resist the Ring of Fire’s damage with his body's magic resistance, but the overbearing heat from Greem's body went up to three thousand degrees. If it was converted to fire elementium damage, it would go up to 110 points. Let's not talk about a human. Even a metal pillar would turn to putty in three seconds if it was gripped tightly by Greem's flame hand.
But before the large hand could close its grip, a flashing cerulean blade sliced through the palm and cut Greem on his broad chest that was bereft of elemental protection.
Greem jerked his head back and let out a pained roar that rang throughout the woods.
"I'll kill you, Ninther!"
Ninther, who had activated his Evil-Killing Slash at a close distance, should theoretically have fallen into the lava pool at this point. But he had already prepared for a situation like that and suddenly threw out an odd flying metal claw, which attached itself to Greem's arm. With a slight jerk of the rope, he leapt towards the sky once more.
Greem loudly roared as his two hands smashed against his own chest. The flames from inside the Flame Fiend's body followed the cracks on the surface of its body and blasted through in terrifying streams of flame.
These kinds of indiscriminate radial attacks were the scariest!
The spellbreaker knights were adept at trading blow-for-blow, as well as using their concentrated knight battle techniques to shatter their opponent's single-target elemental attacks. However, when faced with this kind of unreasonable and indiscriminate attack, their expressions would sour as they could only hide their bodies behind the energy shield, that covered an area of one square meter, and resist this wave of flames.
Even with Ninther's rich battle experience and skillful fighting techniques, he could only endure the attacks of his enemy at this moment.
Boom. A muffled blast rang out.
Ninther was like a tiny boat thrown about in a violent storm’s surging waves as he was blasted far away by the ferocious shockwave and streaming flames. The metal claw that connected him to Greem didn't even lasted two seconds. Already, it had turned into a pool of red hot slag, blown and scattered all over the place.
Ninther was blown twenty meters away. It almost seemed like he would fall into the edge of the lava pool, but already a swift spellbreaker knight had already driven his horse close, skimming the lava's surface as he caught Ninther and successfully bringing him back to their side.
Greem loomed at the center of the lava pool. He raised his left hand and looked at the wide gash on his chest. He could a feel an intense pain that pierced his heart.
After his Flame Fiend Transformation, this elemental body was mostly filled with molten rock and swirling magma; yet it was also filled with potent flame energy that had been steeped in Greem's will and Spirit.
At this moment, that flame energy was an extension of Greem's consciousness, and the places where the flame energy extended to was Greem's body. Thus, even though it was burning lava that bled out of the large hand and chest wounds that Ninther caused, the one that was hurting was still his consciousness that was suffused throughout this form.
Greem plunged his left hand into the lava pool below him. After a short while he removed it, and this badly wounded left hand was as good as new again. Once more, he bent his body to scoop up plenty of lava and spread it on his chest. His injury there healed instantly as well.
The unexpected injury triggered Greem’s rage. He roared loudly as he launched a new wave of attacks!