’Oh, to be safe I should remove—’ Escaping from the Death Knight’s attack. A spell meant to crush him beneath the rubble, dice him should he try to escape, and burn him (or boil him) if he survived. Eldrian’s thoughts were completely interrupted.

"Rude. Really, really rude." Eldrian grumbled, only barely managing to reign in Wrath to not destroy his own clothes. This was tricky, very much so. His clothes and armor couldn’t hold a candle to Willo in durability.

’But this will be my candle wick.’ Eldrian thought. Once his clothes started burning, and his armor melting, it meant he had lost control.

Eldrian didn’t know whether the Death Knight’s soul-attribute damage would do real soul damage. But Wrath would. Having something concrete as his limit was for the best.

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"Now, let’s see if I can’t change the tables," Eldrian said, dashing towards the undead. A shockwave sending the rubble around them flying.

’Ah, yes. I’m going to lose control in mere seconds.’ Eldrian commented as he slammed Willo into the Death Knight’s shoulder.

His attack caused the massive armored undead tank to stumbled. And the surrounding area to burst. Its shockwave sent cracks in everything sturdy and sent everything loose flying.

Taking a quick glance at his stats, Eldrian couldn’t help but be astonished. With all his bonuses being compounded by Wrath, he now had 2,4k strength and 4k agility.

Of course, this came at a cost several costs. But the easiest to analyze were that to his spirit and intelligence attributes.

The first had lost 300 points and the other was halved, losing over 600 points. Suffice it to say, using any normal magic wouldn’t be optimal. Not that Eldrian had the attention to spare.

It was taking everything he had to keep all the energies flowing through him in order.

’Who would’ve thought there is such a massive difference between channeling auras and activating them?’ Eldrian mumbled as he continued to whale at the Death Knight.

Eldrian now far outstripping the undead’s agility, it couldn’t block all Eldrian’s attacks. Still, it was managing surprisingly well by using spells to buy time or divert some attacks. A tactic Eldrian was extremely familiar with.

Some attacks still made contact, however. Sadly, their damage wasn’t what Eldrian had been hoping for.

In their entire battle, Eldrian had whittled the Death Knight’s HP down to 80k. And each direct hit now consumed just under 3k. This meant he just needed a little under 30 of those hits to kill the dungeon boss.

’It must know I am on a time limit.’ Eldrian thought. The Death Knight was folly focusing on defense. Using all the tricks that Eldrian so loved to buy time.

Worst of all, it wasn’t like it was an inexperienced fighter. The Death Knight was a master of the blade. It couldn’t quite close the gap in their current agility values. But it might have managed had the difference been half what it was.

Saying that, Eldrian had managed to whittle down almost 20k of HP without taking a direct hit in return. Though he would argue it was less that he is a master of his weapon and more that he is simply used to battle. _{Google search 𝙛𝒓𝙚e𝚠𝐞𝚋𝙣𝚘𝐯𝗲𝚕. c𝚘𝓶}

After all, Eldrian faced Ancient monsters who could wield some aura or another every week. And, when he felt up to it, he would go out on his own to get some more experience.

At the same time, he spent the rest of the time recuperating (studying) or training. Luckily, after healing his right arm, Eldrian hadn’t needed to go through physio or anything of the like. Which he had thought would be the case, given that his arm hadn’t given him any problems IRL.

Weaving around the Death Knight’s sword, Eldrian switched Willo to a one-handed mace and struck at the undead’s armpit. The attack did little, even here, armor covered every inch.

But it did manage to throw the undead off balance. Moving to its back, Eldrian attempted to strike at the back of its knee, extending Willo to its two-handed form for extra reach and leverage.

As if expecting this, the Death Knight struck its sword into the ground. And for the first time, it directly ordered the green flames surrounding its sword to attack Eldrian.

’I knew you could do that! Let’s see what wins! Soul-eating green flames, or soul-eating wrathful flames.’ Eldrian shouted internally, giving a roar as he struck with all his might.

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Naturally, flames couldn’t stop a physical weapon. Perhaps it was channeled and had a massive amount of velocity and a focused funnel to push through. But that wasn’t the case. Nor was there a chance that these flames would be able to melt Willo when Wrath did nothing.

So, when Eldrian’s attack landed, the undead fell to its knees with a massive crash. The sound was reminiscent of a tree being felled.

As for the green flames, they had been devoured by Wrath.

’I see. Yeah, those are some strong flames.’ Eldrian noted.

In all his duels in the Core, he had learned how to recognize the strength of other auras. Specifically when Wrath consumed them.

Indeed, Wrath was capable of this. Though only if Eldrian’s control of Wrath was better than his opponent’s control of their own aura. If that wasn’t the case, the auras would simply clash and the one with the most power would win out.

"Take this!" Eldrian shouted, slamming Willo into the back of the Death Knight’s head. Hoping to send its helmet flying.

’Figured it wouldn’t.’ Eldrian grumbled, continuing to hammer away. He couldn’t afford to let up now. It was do, or die...?

"Dangit!" Cursing, Eldrian noticed that his clothes were being consumed.

In a panic, he stored away his armor before Wrath could consume them. Keeping on the bare minimum to refrain from ending up nude.

’Shit, shit, shit!’ This dungeon raid was being streamed live. No way in hell was Eldrian going to end up naked in front of everyone.

"Just die already!" He shouted in sheer panic. Desperate, Eldrian reached out for the taboo. For time magic.

’Faster, faster, faster. Slower, slower, slower.’ Eldrian chanted, drawing more and more power from his soul.

By now, Eldrian could do this easily enough with his auras. But his bloodline had stayed as elusive as ever.

That didn’t mean Eldrian hadn’t made any progress. With all the knowledge Ziraili had crammed into his head, Eldrian had been forced to learn about relativity and the interconnectedness of reality. Be this time, space, energy, matter, or existence itself.

’Lifeforce at its core is the essence of making the metaphysical reality.’ Eldrian repeated the words that Ziraili had imparted to him a few weeks ago.

Magic might sound similar, but it used the will of a user and mana. Will acted like a magnetic field, attracting and repelling mana depending on the user’s thoughts. Allowing them to manipulate it into different forms (aspects and elements) to produce magic.

While this made magic possible, it had far too many limitations.

When channeling lifeforce, however, you could reach out to the UE. To the energy of existence itself. To magicules. Whatever you wanted to call it. It meant you could change the rules.

And, right now, Eldrian wanted time to stop, to slow, or for himself to move so fast that the next second could count for a hundred.

’Come on. Take your cost and happen!’ Eldrian shouted, realizing somewhere in his panic that what he was channeling was no longer lifeforce as he knew it from his auras. But his literal soul.

This realization allowed him to calm down for a second. Just long enough to realize that all the dust and rubble flying in the air seemed to have stopped. ’No, their still moving. But...’

’Oh crap. Oh, crap! Oh... Crap!’ Recalling what had happened last when Eldrian had done this, his panic hit levels never before reached.

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