Eden froze on the spot, looking at the medieval knight in the eyes as he thought of something to say. If his name and title were not ominous enough, his eyes were more red lights than anything, making him look demonic.
He was also holding a giant sword in front of himself, the tip resting against the ground.
Eden tried to think of something to say, to defuse the situation, and stayed as still as possible. Unfortunately, the Guardian of the Underworld was not interested in civilized conversation as he raised his sword and, without a word, leaped at Eden.
The large knight was deceptively fast, crossing the room in an instant and swinging down his giant sword on Eden.
His danger sense flaring like never before, not even with Jason, Eden's perception of the world slowed down to a crawl, the sword nearly coming to a stop. This gave Eden a moment to weigh his options.
He had his trump card, Dark Bolt, but not only would he have to take out the Necronomicon from his coat's pocket, which might seem insignificant in a normal situation, but was not in a fight, but even then, using it would only leave Eden with 10 MP.
But most importantly, Eden doubted it would have much of an effect.
The problem was not with the spell, but his opponent. The closer he got to this room, the more concentrated the necrotic energy became, so much so that the room appeared to be covered in a thick black fog. Were it not for his Talent, it would only take seconds for Eden to die under the oppression of the necrotic energy.
Yet, this knight, the Guardian of the Underworld, had been standing in the room for an unknown amount of time and seemed to be just fine. He had an extreme resistance to necrotic damage, which considerably reduced the usefulness of Dark Bolt in this situation.
Of course, there was also the secondary effect of lowering all of his enemy's stats by 5, but there was also the possibility of the Guardian being able to resist the debuff.
Unfortunately, Eden's four other spells were not much better. They were Strengthened Fireball, Demon Claw, Dark Pool, and Evil Possession.
[Strengthened Fireball (2nd Circle): Condense a ball of fire and send it flying, making it explode at will. Explodes on contact, deals 60 fire damage to every target within two meters of the explosion. Cost: 180 MP.]
[Demon Claw (1st Circle): Conjure a large demon's claw to deal 10 necrotic damage. Cost: 80 MP]
[Dark Pool (1st Circle): Conjure a circular, 5 meters wide circle on the ground that lasts 10 seconds, lowering the movement speed of anyone standing within. Cost: 85 MP.]
[Evil Possession (1st Circle): Summon an evil spirit to possess an object which the user is in contact with. Once activated, lasts 60 seconds. Cost: 90 MP.]
Demon Claw was not even an option, for the very same reason Dark Bolt was problematic. Dark Pool was a little better, but if he had to apply a debuff, Dark Bolt's effect of lowering all attributes by 5 would have much better results.
As for Evil Possession, it was the spell Eden was the most proud of, and was very good for disrupting a fighter. However, it needed preparation. The way it worked was that by touching an object, Eden would be able to hide an evil spirit inside. But he did not have to activate it right away, or even have to touch it to activate it.
He could place it in an object and leave it in there for days before suddenly activating it. The evil spirit would then do its best to help him.
But the most important part of the spell was to prepare an evil spirit. It had to come from somewhere, after all.
Creating an evil spirit was rather tedious, as he not only had to kill someone using necrotic damage, but they also had to have strong resentment and hatred in their hearts to be turned into an evil spirit. The stronger the resentment, the stronger the spirit.
At the moment, Eden did not have any available, but even if he did, it was a spell that needed to be used with preparation. Here, the only objects he could use it on would be the Guardian's weapon and armor, which he would much rather not touch.
So, for damage, Strengthened Fireball seemed to be Eden's best bet, but with the Guardian right in front of him, not only would Eden not have the time to use the 2nd Circle spell in time, but he would also be caught in the range of the explosion, and would probably suffer bigger damage than the Guardian in heavy armor.
But Eden could not exactly afford to go for a clean victory. If he wanted to have a shot at even surviving, Eden would have to take risks.
Strengthened Fireball would thus most certainly be Eden's only way to win this fight. He knew he was not strong enough to damage the Guardian with his machete and his meagre strength. Considering the power of this guardian, who felt far more dangerous than Jason despite Eden's enhanced attributes, using his machete or gun on the Guardian would do little more than sticks and stones.
So Eden had three choices here: One, tank the incoming hit and use Strengthened Fireball right away, hoping it would deal enough damage to kill, while not finishing Eden off.
Two, manage to get the Necronomicon out and use Dark Bolt on the Guardian to deal a little damage and debilitate him for ten seconds, and last long enough to recuperate 170 MP and then use Strengthened Fireball to finish him off.
Three, use Dark Pool to hopefully slow down the Guardian for one minute to recuperate 85 MP and finish it with a well-placed Strengthened Fireball. No, 55 MP, actually, since taking out the Necronomicon would give him 30 MP.
He could not just swap it in and out of hand to recover MP, of course, but since he had been at full MP the last time he had it out, the 30 temporary MP would be added to his total if he took it out.
Honestly, Eden did not like any of the three options.
At face value, the first was suicidal, the second had the best chance at giving him a fighting chance, but only for ten seconds, which was not enough for him to recover 170 MP, and the third had big chances of failing to apply any debuffs to the Guardian, which would then land him back in the first option, but with even less MP.
There were also two Minor Mana Potions and four Minor Health Potions to take into account, which would give him 50 MP and 100 HP if all drunk, but Eden doubted the Guardian would just allow him to drink them up.
This was a tough choice to make, no doubt about it. But among the three, the one that gave Eden the best chance at landing that Strengthened Fireball was option three. Option 1 was just not viable; Eden did not even know if he could dodge this first strike, not to mention position himself to launch his Strengthened Fireball. Option 2 might give him ten seconds of respite, during which he would be able to drink his two MP potions and recover 50 HP, but that would still leave 120 MP to recover, which would take more than 10 seconds.
Without focusing on his ember, even in an area with such concentrated necrotic energy, it would take far more than ten seconds to recover this many MP.
So that would send him back to option 1, except that he would have to last long enough to recuperate his mana, which would make the situation even more dangerous. In other words, option 2 might be the most dangerous of the three.
Had Eden been stronger, for example, if he had taken the Strength Potion Morgan offered, maybe that compounded with the debuff of Dark Bolt, he could have crippled Guardian, though he doubted it. They would probably be matched in terms of Strength, but Guardian would remain more agile, tougher, and better with his weapon. And better equipped, too.
So, even with hindsight, Eden would still have chosen the notebook on alchemy.
This left him with options 1 and 3. Both were bets. One would test his physical capabilities, the other his magical capabilities.
Eden knew perfectly well where his talent resided.
So, as the world regained its normal speed, he lowered his body, while his palm faced the ground. 2nd Circle spells took some time to activate, but 1st Circle spells were extremely easy to activate for Eden.
Following his gesture, a pool of darkness appeared on the ground. Tendrils emerged and encroached onto the legs of the guardian, but Eden did not even bother checking for the results, taking a dive to the side instead. If the spell failed to slow down the guardian, the sword would undoubtedly hit him.
Yet, as he crashed into the ground, the only pain Eden felt was that of his fall.
Using his momentum to roll, Eden stopped against the opposite wall, looking over his shoulder at the knight. The room had a radius of about six meters, while Eden's Dark Pool had a radius of five meters.
Since he had cast it at the very center of the room, only by standing on the edges of the room could one not be affected by it.
As for the Guardian, who was right in the middle of it, he had tendrils of darkness crawling up his legs. They were faint and looked like they were just about to break, but the fact of the matter was, they did not break.
The Guardian ignored them, lunging for Eden, but the dark tendrils slowed him down. It was only a slight debuff, but it mattered, as it allowed Eden to dodge to the side, fishing for one of his Minor Mana Potions from his inventory while he took out the Necronomicon with his other hand.
But he was faced with another problem. He had dodged the first strike, but another was following, and this one was a wide one that could only be dodged with a roll. It was not that it was impossible to perform, but he definitely would not be able to drink the potion and roll away at the same time.
Making a split-second decision, Eden threw the whole vial into his mouth. It was a glass vial, and thus hard, but as Eden grabbed his machete, and strength filled him, he managed to crunch it, the glass shattering into his mouth.
The pain was horrible, but
Eden knew that if he swallowed the glass along with its content, then the knight might not even need to do anything to finish him off, so he did his best to ignore the pain, biting the glass firmly, and pressing his tongue against his palate to stop the glass from going any further.
The glass cut deep into both his tongue and palate, but he did manage to stop the glass, allowing only his blood and the potion's contents to pass.
Eden's problems did not stop there, as there was still the incoming Guardian's greatsword. Eden knew he stood no chance of blocking the strike, so instead of blocking it, he aimed to redirect the strike about to bisect him.
But even then, the difference in strength between the two of them was so great that the moment the two weapons collided, there was no contest of strength. Jason's Machete was instantly sent flying, and Eden felt all the bones in his hand and his forearm break from the impact.
And that was only the impact of the weapons. Fortunately, although it was slight, Eden did manage to slightly deviate the strike. Instead of cutting him from shoulder to hip, it cleaved his hand in half instead.
He lost his left pinky and ring finger.
The worst thing was that, for once, Eden's Talent worked against him as his perception of time had once again been slowed down at the prospect of danger, which only prolonged the pain. It had even allowed him to feel the pain of broken bones before half of his hand was slashed off.
Eden, who usually was silent in his fights, could not help but cry out in pain, throwing up blood, bits of flesh, and sharp pieces of glass.
This was by far the worst pain Eden had ever felt. Still, his will, or perhaps his soul, if it made any difference, kept him anchored in as Eden saw the ruthless Guardian never stopping in his attacks.
But as expected, he had run into a problem. His MP was recovering fast in this room, but he had only been able to swallow down one potion, and he would not be able to swallow a second. Both because the Guardian would not let him, and because his mouth was messed up, and he would not be able to crunch anything even if he wanted to.
A potion recovered 25 MP, meaning there was still a gap of 30 MP that needed to be bridged. But even in this environment, Eden knew it would not be fast enough.
His opponent was intelligent because this follow-up attack might be slower than the one before, but it trapped him. He could only dodge in two directions, one would lead him into his spell, and the other would have him get even closer to the Guardian.
This was a bad situation, but one Eden had expected. His odds were not very good in the first place.
It was all or nothing now.
Grabbing the Necronomicon firmly with his good right hand, it opened by itself as Eden leaped at the Guardian. But unlike what the Guardian assumed, Eden did not try to escape. Instead, he latched onto him, tying his legs around his waist, and thrusting his mangled left hand in his helm.
Eden did not have enough MP to cast Strengthened Fireball; he could feel it. But back when he had offended the Holy Order, he had also learned that the cost of spells could be lowered through mastery.
So, Eden ignored the missing MP and started casting Strengthened Fireball.
All the mana in his body surged toward his mangled left hand, while the Guardian let go of his greatsword. But with the way Eden had latched onto him, his armor made things awkward for him. He tried to grab Eden, either to crush him to death or to throw him away, but the heat gathered faster in his face.
Despite still vomiting blood, Eden grinned despite himself as he immersed himself in the situation. He felt his mana gained a fiery nature, losing its neutrality as it exited his body, and the knight's helm gained an orange hue.
At the same time, the Guardian stopped trying to throw off Eden, understanding he would not manage to do it in time, and anchored himself down instead as his body started giving off a metallic aura.
It had to be a defensive spell of some kind, which was bad news. But as the Guardian was in the process of casting his spell, Eden suddenly did something unexpected.
He spat in his face.
Blood, flesh, and some leftover glass shards got into the Guardian's eyes, interrupting his skill. Eden's spell, on the other hand, was not.
And there, against all odds, despite the missing MP, the spell was still formed to completion as a fireball formed in front of Eden's hand. That is, onto the Guardian's face.
Then, it exploded.