Luckily everyone understood John’s instruction. The spells of Arcane Turbulence were placed around the drake, with the center part had multiple layers of the spell on top of each other, creating a massive amount of energy torrents. Still, the damage inflicted from each energy torrent was only 1 or 2 damages.
The drake tried to leave the area of the spell, but because the spells were laid a bit away from it and around it, it covered a very large area. The spell also caused the Disorientation effect. Although the effect was reduced due to the drake’s resistance, combined with the slow effect from Trinity’s ice spell, it took an effort to move under the turbulence.
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Jack also sent one of his copies to distract the drake. It slammed onto the copy and puzzled to find out his feet just passed through the human. But it was not dumb as well, it soon knew that the one in front of him was only an illusion. It ignored him and looked for the real one.
It saw two of them just outside the area of the spells. It tried to rush over. One of the copies headed towards the drake into the spell area while the last one ran in a circle outside of the spell area. It smashed at the one rushing at it, only to find out that it was another illusion. It turned to the one that was running outside.
It made a forceful lunge in an attempt to break out of the spell area.
“Magic Bind!” John shouted, “target its limbs!”
Every mage in the party was already level 25, except Bitter Rain and Jack. Four of them cast the Magic Bind spell which they acquired once they reached level 25. Although Jack had not yet learned the spell, he possessed magic scrolls of that spell. He took out one of them and activated it.
Five Magic Binds landed on the drake, four on each of its limbs while one on its neck. It bound its movement for a second, then one of the magic binds started breaking. The drake roared with annoyance and the remaining binds broke rapidly. If the spells were all cast on the main body, all five would have been shattered at the same time. The spell just bought them a bit of time, but every second was precious now as they waited for the poison to devour the drake’s remaining life.
The magic bind managed to hinder the drake till the full ten-second duration of Arcane Turbulence expired. Once the torrents of energy disappeared, Jack activated his Storm Breaker’s Overlimit and rushed in to meet the drake. The drake welcomed him as his open jaws lunged at him.
The drake’s jaw snapped shut as it bit at Jack, the others were horrified as they did not see Jack evade.
The drake itself did not feel any satisfaction. In fact, it did not feel like it had bit anything at all. It lifted its head in confusion as it saw Jack was just fine. All three were illusions? The monster thought with puzzlement. Then it felt a cold feeling at its feet, followed by a stinging prick.
Jack had switched bodies with one of his two doppelgangers. Since his Body Double skill already had 1 star, it could be switched without deactivating the spell. He could do another switch one more time. He had cast Ice Ring immediately after switching, then sent a slash at the drake’s feet. The Ice Ring unfortunately did not produce much slowing effect on the large drake.
Once the drake felt the attack, it swiped using the leg that was attacked. Luckily Jack did not take too much risk as he had already run away after that one stab.
The drake tried to turn around, but a large ice spike suddenly fell down from the sky, nailing one of the drake’s feet to the ground. Seeing the opportunity, Jack returned and sent a rapid three-slash combo. Each of the slashes devoured around 30 HP. Although the damage was still low, it was much higher than the others. The Chaos damage from the Overlimit skill proved efficient enough to add the rate by which the drake’s life was reduced.
Jack chose to stay close to the drake’s immobile rear foot that was nailed by the ice spike, the drake had difficulty attacking him either with its tail or its front leg.
The spell that immobilized the drake’s one foot had been cast by Trinity Dawn. Jack assumed it must be a special skill she had learned from a technique book. There was also a possibility that she had upgraded said skill using an ice seed. Peniel had previously explained to Jack that skill with an elemental property was very rare below Elite grade. Most advanced spells with elemental property were gained by evolving them using a seed, just like his Ice Ring spell.
The drake roared with rage and pull his rear leg with force. Jack saw the ice spike cracking. He immediately fled the space, not daring to stay longer. His decision had been right, as the spike shattered soon and the drake’s foot stomped down repeatedly at where he was a moment ago.
His two copies danced around the drake, creating distractions. The drake swung its tail in a large area but it only passed by the two copies. it looked at the third one that was supposed to be the real one, but it remembered the last time it thought the third one was real, it turned out as an illusion as well.
Frustrated, it chose to ran forward to the other players, instead of chasing after Jack’s real body.
“Oh, shit!” Jack exclaimed as he watched the drake rushed over to where his friends were.
“Disperse! Disperse!” John called out while he had been the first one to run.
Everyone ran around chaotically. The drake was confused to pick a target. If it could use its yellow dust attack, it could have blasted them all with just one breath. It randomly chose one that was the closest, who were Jeanny and Giant Steve. The drake was too fast and its steps too wide, it made a large jump. Its strong forelegs stomped down to flatten the two.
The two were not amateurs, they saw as it was impossible to outrun the drake, so they waited for it to make its move. The instant the drake initiated its attack. The two jumped and rolled away from their initial position. The drake’s feet stomped heavily on the ground and created a small earthquake.
Despite they escaped the stomping, they knew that this trick only worked one time. It only bought them a sliver amount of time. The drake’s follow-up attack would still end them. As they felt despondent, they heard a yell, “no worry! The Man is here!”
The Man did indeed appeared, jumping from a nearby high ground, and used his rare-grade axe with Power Strike skill to cleave at the head of the drake which was coming forward to bite at Jeanny. The attack did almost no damage, but the knockback effect from both the skill and the weapon’s ability caused the drake to stop its biting motion.
Everyone that saw the scene could not deny the guy’s embodiment of his name. Everyone would admit that at this moment, no one would dare to say the guy was not manly. Even the drake paused its assault and stared at The Man who landed next to Jeanny and Giant Steve.
As if the display of manliness was not enough, another figure jumped out from the same high ground, screaming all the way, and hit the drake at the same spot by the side of its head, then landed next to The Man. It was one of The Man’s underling. The same character inspired the same action.
The drake could not believe it, two ants dared to show such disrespect! Its head dived down with lightning speed and chomped at the last person who had hit its head. The guy’s HP instantly plummeted to zero.
It then lifted one of its forelegs and swiped sideways at the other three ants. Knowing that they could not evade the attack, Giant Steve went in front of Jeanny and The Man, then put his large shield to the front. His large shield shone with prismatic color.
Before the drake’s claw hit the shield, Jeanny thrust her spear forward from behind Giant Steve. Her penetrating stab skill struck the drake’s wrist just as the claw crashed into Giant Steve’s shield. Although the stab was minuscule, she hoped it could reduce the pressure on Steve’s shield even by a little. The impact threw the three of them flying away.
They crashed far away. Miraculously, all of them survived despite being in critical health. Giant Steve’s defensive skill had soaked up much of the damage.
While the drake was dealing with them, Jack had arrived and jumped to the drake’s back. He slashed at it a few times while it was still unaware. Then he stabbed his sword onto the drake’s back. The Overlimit skill of the sword allowed it to penetrate deep into the drake’s flesh.
