Only Wisdom Awakened - Chapter 58

Exhaustion
The next day, was spent by Hans meditating, trying to get in the best possible condition before challenging himself.

When the sun was about to disappear from the horizon, and the empty streets of Chicago city were covered in a golden veil created by the setting star, it was finally time to try once again.

‘The first time I wiped out all the scorpions,

The second time I didn’t find anything,

And, the third time I almost bled to death.

With this it makes four right?’

Thought Hans counting on his fingers while entering the gate..

‘This time, I’ll make sure to kill it.’

In the gate, the sun was still a couple of minutes away from setting, and Hans took that time to analyse his previous clash with the monster.

‘Last time, while I was trying to escape, that monster’s leg hit me, I’m sure about it.

There is a problem tough, it supposedly didn’t have a physical body.

Even its status didn’t show any endurance.

Could it be.. he can decide when to have one and when to not?

No no no, that would be totally insane, and he would’ve used such a move earlier.

What is it? Come on Hans think.’

However, before he could find a conclusion, the sun had already set, and darkness had taken over the gate’s land.

The once hot and scorching air transformed into a cold and freezing breeze that woke Hans up from his thoughts.

‘Here he is’

Hans’ shadow, that opposed the moon, once again started moving, gathering to form a humanoid creature.

This time, there weren’t any items in the surroundings, and the monster couldn’t condense a single weapon.

In theory, like this, the monster was the same as nonexistent.

“However” Hans started casting spells like {greater fireball}, continuously shooting them forward, that passed right through the shadow, not even moving it.

‘I know sometimes he becomes real, and when that time comes, I’ll hit him!

It doesn’t matter how much it takes’.

And so, Hans spent almost an hour continuously casting low tier spells.

Now that he had advanced to fifth tier, the mana required to cast those spells had greatly reduced, and with his incredible mana pool, it wouldn’t have been a surprise if he could’ve continued like that all night.

But as the timer from the start of the battle almost reached 90 minutes, he started alternating between his various spells out of curiosity.

{fire burst}

{ice spear}

{fire javelin}

{water cannon}

Even {lighten} and {load} were uselesss against it.

Even if the white moon in the sky shone quite bright, the vision still wasn’t clear, and Hans thought of casting a {lume} every few minutes to change that.

{lume}

{fire burst}

{earth projectiles}

However, the moment he launched the ball of light in the sky, the shadow moved, avoiding the other spells that were coming towards it.

Hans remained baffled by this.

Why would something invulnerable need to dodge, could it have been that…

{mystic insight}

[boss monster

race: shadow walker

Name: none

Lv: 187

Strength:253 dexterity: 196

Endurance: 146 wisdom:159

Blessings:

{void blessing (currently active)

your body is eternally pitch black, you are able to absorb light, you can only live during the night, you are able to shapeshift.}

Race skill (hidden):

{shadow substitution

Description: the shadow walkers are immortal being who can’t be hurt nor injured under normal circumstances, the only possible way to make them materialize is by illuminating them with light magic, light artifacts, or the sunlight, when illuminated, they’ll become killable, but will still have this regeneration ability.

Effect: when injured, sacrifices a bit of their shadow to heal, how much the shadow shrinks depends on the seriousness of the healed injury.}

Skills:

{shadow manipulation (B-rank)

Description: you have complete control over shadows of non-living objects, you are able to manipulate them and use them at your wish.

Effect: manipulates the shadow of non-living being, to either attack or defend.}

Description: a creature born from the shadow of living beings, the larger the shadow, the stronger the creature.

Holder of the blessing of void, he does not exist during day time.

His body is made out of nothing but shadow, making him untouchable by physical attacks.

Evaluation:

Currently-low rank A,

Max-low rank S]

‘Endurance: 146,

And… {shadow substitution}

This finally clears it all up.

The reason why he could hit me last time, and the reason why he’s normally immortal, now I know it!’

“It is time for you to die”

Under the light of his spell, the once invulnerable monster took hit after hit, parrying the spells he couldn’t avoid.

{blizzard}

{fire arena}

{fire burst}

{fire javelin}

The shadow, slowed down by Han’s blizzard and other spells, didn’t manage to stop the fire javelin, that bursted through its chest, holing it.

But a few seconds was all it took for the monster to fully regenerate itself, coming back to its original form… almost.

The only difference was in the height, he was standing just about one centimetre below Hans, and its former self.

A smirk appeared on Hans’s face, it was killable, he just needed to continue injuring it until it disappeared.

He continued, spell after spell, he launched hundreds, thousands of them in a couple of hours.

Even if lower tier spells weren’t much of a problem, tier-3 spells and above took quite a tool on his mind and mana, that were both deteriorating with time.

The shadow had also changed, taking the dimension similiar to those of a kid, but with the body of an adult, just like its body, its status had also undergone various changes

[boss monster

race: shadow walker

Name: none

Lv: 187

Strength:118 dexterity: 268

Endurance: 146 wisdom:159

…

With the reduction in size, it became faster, so much that Hans could barely follow it with his eyes.

But luckily, its strength decreased, allowing Hans’ ice armor to completely block its hits.

The shadow was continuously changing position around Hans, and attacking as soon as it could.

Hans tired body couldn’t keep up.

He just put up his arms in a defensive stance, and covered them in ice armor, hoping to parry most of the hits and receive the least damage possible.

Under the relentless pressure of the monster caused by its quick attacks, Hans was thinking on how to turn the situation around.

‘I can’t continue like this, If I don’t do something right now I might not be able to do it anymore .

Let’s try this’

{water cannon} {water cannon}

an incredible amount of water was shot by Hans in the sky, heavy and massive, it was falling down a few seconds later.

It covered all the area around Hans, obviously comprehending the shadow, once it landed, and broke into a large wave, Hans jumped in the sky, standing above it.

{blizzard}

{blizzard}

{blizzard!}

Not once, not twice, he cast the spell thrice, freezing all of the water previously created, and creating a lump of ice big enough to compose an iceberg.

Trapped inside of it was the monster.

Hans’ mind almost went blank from how much mana he used, his panting became heavy, and he kneeled on the ice beneath him to recover a bit, however, he still had something to finish.

With his hands on the ice, and his last bit of mana, Hans cast: {fire javelin}

As predicted, the ice shattered into a thousand pieces, and so did the shadow.

However, all the little shards of shadow were reunited forming an even smaller monster.

[boss monster

race: shadow walker

Name: none

Lv: 187

Strength:32 dexterity: 308

Endurance: 146 wisdom:159

…

It was the same size as a small peluche, and had incredibly high dexterity, in other words, it was almost impossible to hit it.

A blink was all it took for the monster to dash away from Hans, and just five seconds later, it was almost out of his field of vision.

‘No!’

The exhausted man reached out with his hand, trying to grab the figure in the distance.

He tried to follow right behind with his body, but he couldn’t even take ten steps.

‘Sh*t’

The long night was passed solely hunting this monster, and the day after, the gate count would’ve been done, Hans needed to clear the gate today.

But that little beast was too fast, if he lost it now, it would’ve been impossible to find it in the vast desert before sunrise.

‘After all night… I won’t… let you.. get away!’

Draining his mana down to the last drop, an ice spike formed in Hans’ hand {ice spear}

‘This, won’t be enough’

{lighten}

“Aaargh”

the excessive mana usage hurt his mind like a powerful migraine.

His strained body charged up for one last action.

‘The monster must be confident in losing me with its incredible speed, so it must have been running forward without changing direction.

Based on the speed it displayed before..

And the powerful wind that will have more power because of lighten, it should be about… here!’

“aaaah” Hans screamed, like all the muscles in his body, when the ice spear left his arm and started flying towards the monster.

About one thousandth of a per cent, that was the probability of the last attack hitting.

Hans waited a couple of seconds that felt like hours.

‘It should be about now’..

“Tch” ‘as expected… it misse-”

[congratulation for killing the gate boss: shadow walker]

[you have cleared the B-rank gate: scorching desert]