Level Eater-Chapter 228

When Tatsuro extended his arm, the giant ray must have been twenty-five meters. After dropping it on the water surface, they turned their attention to the raft.

It was already being submerged, buried under swordfish.

Feeling that this must be serving as a guide to their destination in this dungeon, Tatsuro hastily blew away the swordfish.

Then, while evading the swordfish's charges with wind magic and Ai's shield, they approached the corpse after recovering the ten-meter-class great swords from both arms of the giant ray.

However, despite having both arms torn off, its mouth mangled, and poison entering its body, it was still breathing.

"It's still alive? This thing is incredibly tough. Might as well get some SP while we're at it."

"Oh yeah, let's get it!"

Hearing Ai's words, Tatsuro used [Level Eater] on the dying monster.

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Level: 81

Skills: [Cutting Pincers Lv.12] [Cutting Enhancement Lv.8] [Speed Swimming Lv.3]

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(Level 81!? And the skill level is 12 too... Even though the dungeon level only went up by one, how much has it been strengthened? No wonder it was dangerous.)

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Level: 81

Skills: [Cutting Pincers Lv.0] [Cutting Enhancement Lv.0] [Speed Swimming Lv.0]

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After absorbing all skill levels and consuming the black sphere, Tatsuro gained 120 SP.

"Alright. I left the level intact, so Athena, who has the lowest level, should deliver the finishing blow."

"Got it. I actually had a technique I wanted to try out, so this is perfect."

Saying that Athena stood before the giant ray that couldn't move due to the poison, readied her scythe, and enveloped it with dragon power.

Here, like releasing spirit power, it was possible to release a slash wave by releasing dragon power.

However, since she already knew that was possible, that wasn't what Athena wanted to do this time.

After imbuing half the amount of dragon power that would likely break the scythe, Athena began mixing in dragon power with lightning and wind attributes.

Then, as the dragon power serving as spirit power and the dragon power serving as magic power mixed together, although not quite at the level of Tatsuro and Ai's spirit-magic combination, a similar power took residence there.

"Here I go───haaaaah!"

And when she swung it horizontally and released the dragon power, a slash wave carrying wind and lightning power flew forth, cutting through the giant ray's flesh.

[You have reached "Level: 48".]

"Wow! I went up two levels at once! What level was this thing anyway?"

"It was level 81... but what was that attack just now?"

"81? That's quite a big catch right from the start~ Um, well, about what I just did... Since dragon power can be used as both spirit power and magic power, I thought maybe we could combine martial arts skills with magic skills."

"So you mean that was like a combination attack of scythe technique's spirit slash and lightning and wind magic?"

"That's right. Well~ I mostly did it by intuition, but it worked surprisingly well."

While Athena was saying this casually, originally this was something only beings among the upper ranks of dragon-kind could do.

That's because it requires mastery of both magic and martial arts at high levels.

However, neither Tatsuro nor the others who didn't know this, nor Leah who wasn't that knowledgeable about dragon-kind, thought much of it and just accepted it as normal.

"Neigh, neigh?"

"Huh? If you can do it too? Well, if I can do it, then of course Jean-nee can too."

"Peewee?"

"Can I do it as well?"

"Cal-nee and Nana-nee can too. Once you get the hang of it, it seems pretty easy to do."

"Peewee!"

"Neigh!"

"That sounds interesting!"

After trying out the new technique, Tatsuro stored the giant ray's corpse in the [Infinite Item Field] and looked at the raft that was still swaying and spinning while peeking out from Jeanne's back.

"Still, will that spinning continue forever? We can't even get off at this rate."

"Yeah~ If we stay on that thing too long, we might get motion sickness."

"I agree."

While Tatsuro was the type who didn't get motion sickness, perhaps due to having dull semi-circular canals, Ai and Leah weren't like that.

So while sighing at the fact that they would have to follow the raft while staying on top of Jeanne, as they were dispersing the swordfish with wind magic -- monster reactions appeared again.

"...No way, you've got to be kidding."

"What's wrong?"

"Three more of those huge ones are coming."

"Three of them? That's a lot. What should we do, Tatsuro?"

Earlier, they only had to gang up on one, so while there was some exhaustion, they still had room to spare.

But this time it's three at once. Moreover, their strength is about the same as before.

That combination of [Cutting Pincers] and [Cutting Enhancement] skills was not only quite dangerous but also had a wide range.

So if they got hit by [Cutting Pincers] from all three at once while clustered together, it would be extremely troublesome.

"Let's split our forces into three. I'll take one with Ai. For the rest, we should probably spread out Leah and Athena who can't fly."

"Then Car-nee and I will take one."

"Peewee"

Cardina seemed to have no objections to that, nodding largely.

That leaves Jeanne, Nana, and Leah as the remaining three.

"Aren't those three sufficient as fighting force? Besides, whoever finishes first can go reinforce wherever looks dangerous."

"Yeah. Fighting three at once in three separate groups would be one thing, but if it's one-on-one, we should be fine if we're careful. Alright then, everyone begin operations!"

Simultaneously with Tatsuro's command, six ten-meter-class sword arms shot out from the water surface, trying to strike down at Jeanne who was flying above the raft.

However, before that could happen, Jeanne dodged by quickly ascending to a height they couldn't reach, and from her back, Tatsuro and Ai, along with Cardina and Athena, jumped out.

First, Ai jumped out holding Tatsuro, then brought out a flight board ahead for them to ride double, gliding with wind magic as they headed toward one of their targets.

Then Cardina, carrying Athena, headed toward another one.

Finally, Jeanne with Nana and Leah remaining on her back headed toward the last one.

Tatsuro and Ai, flying through the air, charged toward the giant ray-type monster that was furthest away on the left side.

First, to separate it from the other two, they decided to get its attention.

"Over here--"

"Come this way!"

"-----"

As they passed through above the middle of the monster's body from the front to the back.

While maintaining the wind magic keeping the board afloat, Tatsuro fired a laser downward with all his might, and Ai poured a large amount of spirit power into her gem sword, extending five red lion claws ten meters long from the blade to tear through its back.

This created six streaks on the giant ray's back, making it writhe in pain.

"This alone isn't enough, it seems."

"Yeah. But we need to worry about the others too, and the raft will sink if we don't deal with this quickly. Now that we have the title effect too, let's finish this in one go."

"Roger!"

While controlling the board, Tatsuro guided the enraged monster chasing after them away from the other two to gain some distance.

Once that was done, first, Tatsuro took out seeds of the tough spring-like stem plant called Spurac that he had collected before from his [Infinite Item Field], and began improving -- or rather, modifying -- them using wood magic and dark magic.

He attached wood spirit magic to the handful of seeds he created, made his request, and then created five more sets of the same.

Then Tatsuro embedded these five sets of seed clusters inside sharp three-meter ice harpoons he created with ice magic, and further attached fire spirit magic with a request.

With this, preparations were complete.

"Well then, here we go."

"Yeah!"

Tatsuro fired five ice harpoons like bullets toward the giant ray's back using a combination of explosion and wind magic.

They all deeply pierced different locations across the ray's wide back, and the fire spirit magic attached to the ice harpoons began to act, melting the ice and burning the flesh while giving off steam.

At this point, the ray tried to dive underwater in pain, but that level of action couldn't extinguish it.

Eventually, the ice harpoons melted, and seconds after the seeds inside came in contact with the monster's body.

The wood spirit magic that had been attached forcibly acted on the seeds, making them start to sprout roots.

"Should be about time. Ai, get ready to deliver the finishing blow."

"Aye aye!"

When the roots that emerged from the seeds touched the monster's flesh, they burrowed and spread through the flesh as if taking root in soil.

And these roots, instead of absorbing water, light, or carbon dioxide, absorbed the monster's spirit power and magic power to grow rapidly, further invading its body and extending numerous giant spring-like stems toward the sky.

Their growth knew no bounds, extending like the beanstalk from (Jack and the Beanstalk), and the amount of power they absorbed from the monster kept increasing.

Even if it tried to cut them down with the giant swords on both hands, it was meaningless as they would continue to grow from where they were cut as long as the spirit power and magic power nutrients didn't run out.

And so the ray-type monster, with several spring-like plants growing from its back, surfaced weakly.

"Heave-ho!"

And at that moment.

Ai braced herself on an air-walking foothold, grabbed the spring-like plants, and threw them upward.

The large body then flew through the air like a hooked fish and began falling.

If it had any energy left, it would probably attack by swinging the great swords on both arms while gliding, but unfortunately, it had no strength now as plants roots were spread throughout its body using it as nutrients.

Toward such a monster, Ai poured spirit power into her gem sword along with all the hands of Gundari Myoo.

Then bright red spirit power overflowed from the blade, creating a cross-shaped blade composed of giant lion claws.

"Here I gooo!"

And jumping off Tatsuro's board, she passed directly under the falling ray using air-walking.

At that instant, the ray was cleanly quartered in a cross pattern and lost its life.

[You have reached "Level: 61".]

"That's a huge increase! -- Oops."

While surprised at the level-up and falling, Tatsuro caught Ai after collecting the monster's corpse in passing.

"That's great. Well then, shall we head to the next one?"

"Okey-dokey."

Looking toward the two groups still in battle, since both seemed to be doing fine, they first blew away the swordfish on top of the raft.

Then when they went to where Cardina and Athena's pair was, as they had fewer members, they found Athena just running through from top to bottom on a dragon power path, creating a large hole in the ray-type monster. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

And looking more carefully, the giant ray was in tatters from Cardina's dragon wing blades causing lacerations and Athena's dragon power paths creating perforations all over its body.

However, the fact that it was still moving energetically despite all that showed just how extraordinary this monster was.

"Since there's already a hole, shall we plant seeds there?"

"Oh, that thing from earlier? I didn't know you could do something like that."

"Maybe because dark magic reached 12, the power of transformation seems to have strengthened considerably."

While saying this, Tatsuro took out seeds of the previously harvested spring-like stemmed plant called Spurac from his [Infinite Item Field] and began what could be called breed improvement -- or rather modification -- using tree magic and dark magic.

He attached tree spirit magic to the handful of created seeds, made his request, and then created five more sets of the same.

Then Tatsuro embedded these five sets of seed clusters inside sharp three-meter ice balls he created, attached fire spirit magic with a request, and handed them to Ai who was in front while still riding the board.

"Wow, it's cold! Should I throw this?"

"Yeah. Put it in the hole."

"Got it!"

With Tatsuro supporting her by holding her waist, Ai raised her right hand and threw the ice ball toward the hole.

It was beautifully sucked into the hole and embedded itself inside the body.

After just a few seconds, the fire spirit magic began to act, melting the ice, and it began to grow with the tree spirit magic.

Once that happened, just like before, it began to grow rapidly using spirit power and magic power as nutrients.

"This should do it now! You can leave the rest to us!"

"Understood! Then we'll head over to Jeanne's group!"

"Do your best!"

"Peewee!"

So when Tatsuro and Ai went over to where Jeanne's group was, the battle had already been settled.

Nana and Leah had torn off one of its sword arms, and Jeanne, wearing a tree magic power suit, grabbed it.

Then swinging the great sword nearly as tall as herself, she cut down the ray-type monster in a single stroke.

"Neigh!"

"We did it!"

"We succeeded!"

"Looks like they're fine here too -- ah, the raft's spinning has stopped."

"The swordfish aren't charging at us anymore either."

"Yeah. Let's collect the corpses and return to the raft."

"Yeah!"

And so Tatsuro stored the corpses of the three giant monsters in his [Infinite Item Field].