Chapter 493 - Nearly a Dragon (1/2)

Teleporting the Shadow ant out of the arena was a last ditch attempt. If they were going to die anyway, then Ray at least wanted to annoy the Shadow ant a little by making it harder to achieve its goal.

He had never expected what was to come from teleporting the ant out of there. As soon as they entered the swampy area, both of their feet sunk in the strange water-like mud up to their knees, then a message appeared in front of Ray.

[252/1000 tasks complete]

[New skills have been acquired]

It was the system. The system only completed tasks when he saved a life, and in return he gained a new skill every time he did. There were times where he saved people's lives and he never received a new skill from it. This was because the system was originally created by Bliss who could see the future.

For each life he did save, the system could already tell whether or not Ray had affected their future enough to know they had survived.

In the arena itself there were thousands of people watching. If the Shadow ant was able to continue to fight, then the others would have done their best to try to defeat it to allow as many people from the arena to escape as possible.

If Ray's theory was right, then he quite possibly had just saved the lives of around two hundred people by simply teleporting the ant away.

A smile appeared on his face, it was only a quarter of the skills he used to have when he was a dragon, and his body was still in a humanoid shape, but he was slowly getting back to what he once was.

For a moment, he thought everything was lost and he was sure he was going to die. However after realising this fact, he had a new energy and once again was ready to fight. Standing opposite the ant, he was still in his human form.

”Let me just make myself a little more comfortable.” Ray said. His transformation was cancelled and on his arms, the scales were starting to appear.

”You are not human?” The ant said, but it wasn't spoken. The voice was sent straight into his mind.

”What gave it away.” Ray replied, and before the ant knew it, two water like serpents had appeared from the swamp and lashed towards the ant like a whip. Two of its hands smashed into them, getting rid of them, but when his eyes were focused on what was in front of it, the area around the ant was already starting to freeze.

Moving out of the way so that the ant wasn't stuck in one place, it seemed to step on a part of the land that started to light up and a giant explosion had appeared soon after.

Ray, now behind the beast, gave it a strong kick and several more glowing lights in the swamps water started to light up, blowing up one by one.

When the water fell back down and the mist started to settle the ant looked fine. It's strong armour was still not broken or cut anywhere, just a few marks here and there.

”You can never-”

”Shut up!” Ray said, firing a fire ball into its mouth and continuing the barrage of attacks. Although nothing was hurting the shadow ant, at the same time, the number of different skills being used, was making it nearly impossible for the ant to fight back. It could never get its footing.

Whenever the ant would come up with a strategy or a way to combat Ray, he would switch it up to something else. What was surprising was how much magical power Ray was able to hold.

This was because of a new skill, called Mana nature. Similar to mana steal, it allowed Ray to steal the mana from living plants around them, and the swamp had plenty of green life. It wasn't as effective as mana steal, but he had a clearer conscience doing this rather than affecting those he cared about.

However, even if Ray had tried to use mana steal, he wouldn't be able to at that point and he would realise that later on.

The fight between the two seemed to be going nowhere, and the shadow ant soon realised this as well.

Creating a larger distance between the two, the ant stood on top of a large boulder in the swamp.