novelbest Chapter 440: First Floor of Ascension Tower—9
Chapter 440: First Floor of Ascension Tower—9
The battle intensified rapidly.
Leon spammed his most powerful techniques without restraint—Frost Fang, Sky Breaker Draw, spatial slashes, lightning strikes, everything in rapid succession.
Techniques are more versatile and powerful than skills at a transcendent rank. They cross barriers that skills can’t achieve.
His uncommon rank skills like Sky Breaker Draw and Raijin Descent were essentially small trump cards in his arsenal.
Frost Fang was a lethal primary trump card—Epic rank technique with transcendent mastery.
The creature was extremely formidable despite Leon’s overwhelming combination of abilities and enhancements.
Thirty seconds into the battle—
Leon managed to destroy four of the creature’s six limbs with a devastating combined attack.
SLASH! FREEZE! SHATTER!
But even crippled, the Abyss Crawler continued fighting with undiminished ferocity, using its remaining two limbs and that horrific vertical mouth to attack.
Its defense is absurdly high. Those limbs can actually withstand several of my enhanced strikes before breaking. That’s... surprising.
Forty seconds—
Leon finally saw his opportunity.
The creature lunged forward with its mouth open impossibly wide, trying to consume him whole.
ACTIVATE!
Arcane Shackle!
This was a skill Leon hadn’t displayed at all during any previous battle. He’d deliberately kept it hidden, not wanting to reveal this particular trump card and alert intelligent enemies to its existence.
The Abyss Crawler clearly possessed high intelligence—it had been learning and adapting throughout its fight.
But now was the decisive moment.
BIND!
Invisible chains of pure arcane energy wrapped around the creature’s body, sinking deep into its flesh.
The Abyss Crawler shrieked—a sound like grinding metal mixed with dying screams.
Arcane Shackle at Level 100 could block the flow of mana completely for a full 5 minutes—an absolute trump card that could only be used decisively.
Landing this skill on an opponent of similar strength was an extremely difficult task under normal circumstances.
But Leon had the combination of skills, strength, and tactical positioning to accomplish it.
Got it! Mana flow blocked. No more regeneration.
Fifty seconds—
Leon moved in for the killing blow, his blade aimed to destroy both the heart and brain simultaneously with a single, precise strike.
But—
DESPERATE ATTACK!
The Abyss Crawler, despite having its mana completely blocked, unleashed something Leon had never seen before.
A wave of deadly, completely unfamiliar energy erupted from its body in all directions—not mana, not elemental energy, but something else entirely.
What is this?!
This was the source of the nauseating smell. Pure concentrated corruption given physical form.
Leon’s instincts screamed danger.
He remembered how serious Liora’s mother and the Saintess of Light had been about avoiding dark energy contamination—warning him never to let it touch his skin.
What they’d described before was like a single drop of ink diluted in a liter of water.
This? This was the pure ink itself, undiluted and concentrated.
No chances! Even with my recovery ability, I won’t risk it!
SPATIAL AWARENESS! SPATIAL FREEZE!
Leon activated both abilities simultaneously.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl around him—not truly stopped, but his perception accelerated to the point where he could see individual particles of the dark energy wave approaching.
VOID STEP!
He teleported away from the desperate attack zone just as the corruption wave passed through where he’d been standing.
HISS! DISSOLVE!
The arena floor where the energy touched literally dissolved, stone turning to black sludge.
That would have been extremely bad if it had hit me.
Fifty-four seconds—
Leon reappeared above the now-completely-exhausted Abyss Crawler.
His blade descended with absolute finality.
PIERCE!
Through the skull and down through the torso in one clean motion, destroying both brain and heart simultaneously with spatial-enhanced penetration.
DEATH!
The creature’s body went rigid, then began dissolving into black smoke that dispersed harmlessly.
[Seventh Layer Cleared Successfully]
Leon landed smoothly, breathing somewhat heavily for the first time.
That was... more difficult than expected. I made mistakes.
He realized with uncomfortable clarity that he’d been too carefree, too confident.
There were still many skills in his arsenal that he hadn’t fully utilized during that fight. Defensive skills like Metal Wall and Root Bind—versatile abilities he simply hadn’t thought to employ.
And the most mysterious newly-learned skill: Hellfire Control. He still barely understood how to use it properly.
I can’t be careless anymore. Even against a normal-looking goblin, I need to go all out and use everything available.
After clearing this level, he would need significantly more training. There were still numerous uncommon-rank skills he hadn’t trained to high mastery yet.
I need to create powerful combination skills. My current skill usage is inefficient.
Ice Armor and Iron Body were both defensive skills, but they weren’t individually strong enough. Combined together, they could probably block one full-powered strike from a monster at this level—roughly equivalent to Archon Vyrra’s strength.
I looked down on these "low-level" skills and didn’t bother using them. That was a mistake. I need to either utilize them properly or develop new trump cards.
Leon also decided he would use more causality to acquire additional high-ranked techniques from the cosmic shop when he returned.
I hope my clone is doing all right. I can’t detect its movements or status since I entered the tower.
He could only trust that it would handle whatever situations arose in the outside world.
Leon decided to take a brief 3-minute rest period to recover his mana reserves fully before continuing.
The tower message warning appeared again, but he ignored it completely as usual.
The Rank 8 affinity state still has 5 minutes left. I want to finish at least one more layer—the eighth—at minimum.
Knowing how powerful the seventh-layer opponent had been, he understood the eighth would be an even greater stretch of his current capabilities.
One more layer is my goal while this enhancement lasts. After that...
After clearing the eighth layer, he would unleash his divine transformation form.
He had no one here to hide his ultimate trump card from anymore. The overseer was gone, expelled by the private trial setting.
And I have a strong feeling that the vile energy from these corrupted creatures and my divine form have some connection.
People like Seraphine and the others couldn’t smell or sense the nauseating stench he experienced. It must be related to his Divinordial race—some special sensitivity or vulnerability.
Something to investigate later.
Leon’s expression became absolutely serious as he prepared for the eighth layer.
This time, he would unleash everything he possessed in terms of conventional power.
At the tip of his blade, a small but terrifying black force began burning with concentrated destructive potential—a lesson learned from his previous near-mistake.
No more holding back. No more carelessness.