Chapter 1009: Icefire
Suddenly, two energy orbs on the Moonlight Deer's antlers vanished one after another. A ripple of light swept instantly across its body, and in that moment, all the Moonlight Deer's wounds healed, its four broken legs restored as if nothing had happened. As a second wave of radiance flashed, a crystalline armor of moonlight reappeared over its hide...
Just like that, the Moonlight Deer was back in peak condition. The cost? Merely five energy orbs. And even as those five orbs faded from its antlers, new ones were already beginning to form, making Leon Merlin's eyelids twitch involuntarily at the sight.
This time, the surprise attack with the meteor from beyond had worked. Next time, there was no way the Moonlight Deer would let its body be dragged in place for three whole seconds...
The fight fell into a deadlock again. And with the Moonlight Deer thoroughly enraged now, the pressure ramped up dramatically. Leon Merlin gritted his teeth and cast spells—not just suppressing with torrents of lava magic, but adding in the recently refined Four-Element Bombs.
The terrifying speed and explosive power of the Four-Element Bombs dealt even more damage than the spell torrents. But the Four-Element Bomb was an eighth-level spell. As powerful as they were, even with Leon Merlin's arsenal of magical artifacts and reckless mana expenditure, he could only conjure two at a time.
In theory, if he could conjure dozens of Four-Element Bombs at once, their combined force would rival that of a ninth-level transcendent spell.
If he just kept boosting the power of a single Four-Element Bomb, he'd basically turn into a walking nuclear launcher...
Just imagine a sky full of Four-Element Bombs, each with nuclear-level force—pure destruction. The devastation would be on par with the annihilation energy orbs of a Sky Rank magical beast, turning him into nothing but a landscape destroyer...
The battle was at a stalemate. Strictly speaking, the Moonlight Deer was a bit weaker than the last one he'd faced, since it couldn't unleash annihilation energy orbs at all.
But with lower killing power came even more tenacity—the Moonlight Deer’s endurance was terrifying. As long as the wounds weren’t fatal, even if all four legs were broken at once, it could recover instantly. At this rate, the only outcome would be to wear the enemy down to death...
The battle dragged on, everyone’s strength pushed to the absolute limit, their potential squeezed dry.
The Mage Legion was driven by mortal danger to pull off mass Blink spells. Reina had joined the melee, casting spells even as she fought up close.
Hubert, under the crushing pressure, unleashed the power hidden in his bloodline, breaking free just as his body split with countless cracks.
The Alchemical Golems’ parts grew scorching hot from the overload, billows of white steam rising from their bodies.
On Anderson’s Wheel of All Arts, the mana core was so drained by prolonged high output that it was running a deficit, its glow dimming visibly.
As for Leon, his potential was pushed to the edge. He threw everything into the fight—spell scrolls, summoning elemental dragons, the Book of Death, the Book of Ten Thousand Curses, Theo. If Lord Shaun hadn’t been stationed at Radiance Fortress, he’d have been dragged into the battle too...
Suddenly, Leon’s arcane armor detected a subtle shift in the surrounding energy.
That faint change made Leon’s expression shift, and even in the heat of battle, he couldn’t help but glance at the Mage Legion.
There, the Mage Legion kept casting mass Blink in midair, spears of fire raining down on the Moonlight Deer like a storm. Reina fought fiercely, spellcasting and melee at once.
Even the Moonlight Deer was getting fired up, abandoning evasive maneuvers to cast spells and brawl with Reina, eyes blazing red.
That faint shift just now had come from the Mage Legion’s spell colliding with Reina’s magic.
Scarlet-gold Inferno Fire spears and Reina’s Absolute Zero ice javelin struck the same spot on the Moonlight Deer’s crystalline armor. Instantly, the moonlight crystal shattered, and even the magic covering that area grew chaotic. The armor’s regeneration slowed, and everything seemed to move in slow motion there.
The subtle change vanished as quickly as it appeared, but Leon’s arcane armor caught it in full detail.
Leon’s mind raced. He didn’t have time to analyze the phenomenon—he just wanted to amplify what had happened.
"Kurum, Inferno Fire! Reina, Absolute Zero Breath!"
In an instant, Leon issued orders to the Mage Legion and Reina.
The Mage Legion and Reina received the commands and executed them without hesitation, as if by instinct.
The Mage Legion’s United Chanting Formation was already set up—groups of ten mages, fifty in total, began chanting the Inferno Fire spell.
In a flash, five scarlet-gold magic runes appeared beneath the Moonlight Deer’s feet. The dazzling patterns spread rapidly, covering over thirty meters in less than two seconds.
A terrifying wave of heat surged from beneath, every rune and magic pattern blazing with scarlet-gold light.
Boom...
The ground trembled. Inferno Fire erupted like a volcano—the five spell arrays combining into a single, massive pillar of flame, over thirty meters thick.
On the Moonlight Deer’s antlers, another energy orb vanished, and a new layer of protection shimmered over its body. In an instant, half its form burst free from the Inferno Fire’s reach.
But right then, Reina—transformed into a frost dragon—unleashed a blinding beam of icy blue light.
A chilling aura spread out, snow began to fall, and the light struck the Moonlight Deer’s body. The half that escaped the Inferno Fire was instantly coated in frost, which spread rapidly across its form.
(Irrelevant system message skipped.)
In an instant, Absolute Zero Breath collided with Inferno Fire. The flames from the infernal spell were pure, top-tier heat, while Reina’s breath delivered the coldest frost magic imaginable.
The two forces collided—one side of the Moonlight Deer was scorched by extreme heat, the other frozen by unbearable cold. It screamed in agony as the magic within its body spiraled out of control.
An energy orb vanished from the Moonlight Deer’s antlers, but no magical effect appeared on its body...
In less than three seconds, three energy orbs vanished from the Moonlight Deer’s antlers, but still no spell effect appeared on its body. Its magical fluctuations plummeted, and its mana grew more chaotic, its aura dropping rapidly...
From afar, Leon calculated in less than a second: in just a few seconds, the Moonlight Deer’s aura had dropped by half, and its chaotic mana had cut its combat power in half.
Leon caught the whole process, and, combining it with earlier battles, arrived at a conclusion.
Extreme fire magic—high temperature flames—or extreme frost magic, either could inflict maximum damage on the Moonlight Deer. But when the two collided and fused in strange ways, the effect was even greater, drastically weakening the beast and causing the most harm.
Recent battles with other magical beasts flashed through Leon’s mind...
Against the Ice Ape, pure fire magic and extreme heat drove it into retreat...
Against earth-type magical beasts, frost and fire spells still proved most effective. He’d overlooked that before, thinking fire magic was simply the most lethal...
Suddenly, Leon’s mind was flooded with information—countless calculations whirled by. In less than a second, he shouted:
"Use fire and frost spells—fuse both powers together! Best if they collide head-on!"
At the same time, Leon dispelled his strongest lava avatar, switching instead to a dual-element ice-fire avatar.
Half his body blazed with fire, the other half shrouded in icy mist. Even his spellcasting split—fire magic on one side, frost magic on the other.
In theory, the ice-fire avatar was nowhere near as strong as the lava avatar. But when both powers struck the Moonlight Deer, the damage far surpassed anything the lava avatar could do!
This abnormal effect—Leon realized at once—was the Moonlight Deer's weakness!
No, it was the weakness of these strange pseudo-Sky Rank beasts. The Moonlight Deer itself didn't have this flaw!
Half frost, half fire. If you just measured spell strength, it was only seventy to eighty percent as strong as before—but the actual damage doubled.
Suddenly, an ice javelin and an Inferno Fire spear collided—by chance, their powers were perfectly balanced, and at the point of impact, a hint of annihilation force appeared.
The tips of the frost javelin and Inferno Fire spear vanished simultaneously; in a space the size of a fist, all elemental energy was snuffed out.
That fleeting annihilation space blasted a hole the size of a human head in the Moonlight Deer’s hide, and the moonlight crystal armor around it shattered in a chain reaction, breaking apart a seven- or eight-meter chunk.
The Moonlight Deer's mana was thrown into utter chaos, its spellcasting ability instantly cut in half.
Leon’s eyes lit up—he ramped up his attacks, mixing in low-level spells: a basic ice ball and a basic fireball collided on the Moonlight Deer’s body.
As Leon had calculated, when the ice ball and fireball met, both elements vanished, and another small annihilation space flickered into existence.
The Moonlight Deer’s mana had barely stabilized before it was thrown into chaos again.
Combining frost and fire spells was like a breeze stirring ripples across a lake. But when annihilation space appeared, it was like a stone smashing into calm water, violently disrupting the Moonlight Deer’s mana.
Splat...
One energy orb on the Moonlight Deer’s antlers was wiped out by the violent surge, its stable form collapsing and disappearing completely...