Dungeon Raider System-Chapter 777: The black knight Part 2

Running low on flux energy in the middle of a battle was no joke as it usually meant getting slaughtered by the enemy. In a sense, it was even worse than being physically exhausted since hunters would experience painful cramps and their heads would ache so bad most of them would throw up. In short, it was the single worst experience most hunters could go for, but for Uriel things were different.

Having experienced the pain of death on many occasions without the sweet relief of his life ending made him resistant to the physical pain caused by flux exhaustion. On the mental side, if being deprived of flux energy was bad, the opposite was a thousand times worse.

Back on Chichén Itzá when Water warlock shared his flux energy with him, he felt like a water balloon filled with too much water. Understandably, this feeling far surpassed the mental numbness and dizziness that came with flux deprivation.

But more importantly, Uriel was also able to enter what he called the 'power saving mode' in which he was able to temporarily downgrade from the heavenly rank to the ascended to diminish his flux consumption.

As soon as Nika failed to kill the cryptid even after selfishly consuming most of his energy he realized he needed to do something about it, but despite being able to move normally the problem still remained.

He had no flux energy to activate Dash even for a second and albeit temporarily, his physical prowess had been reduced to that of an ascended which wasn't nearly enough to even get near the nimble black armor that would surpass him in normal circumstances.

Thankfully for Uriel, he had an ace up his sleeve, or rather, more than a dozen. Uriel's artifacts had always played a huge role both in his fights and in his daily life which allowed them to deepen his understanding of them to the point of turning them into his most powerful weapon.

Unfortunately to him, while summoning his artifacts was extremely cheap using them sometimes came with a high cost attached.

For instance, his Swiss army knife only required a small amount of flux to summon and had no other costs to use it, while the lewd magazine had a slight flux energy cost tied to using its active ability. There was also his Magnum, which he now knew fired more powerful projectiles the more flux he spent when reloading the revolver.

It meant that he could adjust his firing rate to the amount of flux energy he channeled. This was the reason why at the beginning it took him so long to recharge a single bullet, while now he was able to maintain a very fast firing cadence for about a minute without even getting tired. But that only applied when he had enough flux to do so, which he did not.

He raked up his brain trying to figure out how to intervene before the black knight made his move, but the only answer that came to mind was one he felt would make his entire trip to Europe worthless.

Nevertheless, when the black knight asked Nika to say her final words he realized the moment for hesitation was already past and he summoned the book of the dead from his trait while whispering.

"By the power of the book of the dead I summon you, Scoundrel." His hushed words echoed as he spoke those words, but only on his own ears, and the result was a lean shadow appearing seemingly from the ground.

Uriel attempted to command Scoundrel to become invisible, which he knew he could since Shadows still had access to their traits, but Scoundrel's soul panicked after failing to become invisible.

Had Medusa been there she would have explained the physical phenomenon that explained why it was impossible for a shadow to become invisible, but with Uriel's limited knowledge in physics he only understood it when Scoundrel's soul shrugged in reply.

Uriel was now annoyed, but he wasn't going to take out his frustrations on the shadow of one of the few people younger than him to ever gain his respect in every sense of the word and he decided to simply ask Scoundrel's soul what he could do to help.

Scoundrel's soul scanned his surroundings and quickly noticed Nika being in trouble. Had it been anybody else Scoundrel's soul would have probably done nothing since it wasn't technically an order but a question instead. However, it was Nika the one in trouble and even after passing away, whatever remained of his personality made his shadow turn to action and he entered Uriel's own shadow.

At that moment, Uriel instinctively knew he was able to become invisible and as exhilarating as it felt, it was the first time for him to experience such a thing.

Unbeknownst to him, it was the way most traits worked, but since his trait was different it caused a deep impression on him, though it lasted for a brief second until he composed himself and gestured at Nika to distract the cryptid that neared her.

Thanks to Uriel's ability to conceal his energy signature he hadn't just become invisible, but perceiving him in any way had become impossible even for a cryptid such as the black armor which is why he almost had a stroke when Nika asked the cryptid to look behind.

'This idiot.' Uriel inwardly cursed, but he couldn't argue with the results as the black armor remained with his guard down. Because of Uriel's deep knowledge on archaeology, he knew the weak spot in any full armor was always in the armpit since covering it without disabling movement was impossible.

When medieval footmen fought against people in full armor, there were only two ways to defeat them. One was to hit the armor with blunt objects until it battered enough to cause damage, but that was proven impossible by Nika who despite attacking with more power than Uriel himself could muster didn't so much as put a dent in the armor.

The other alternative was to attack through the armpit directly into the heart, but since Luna warned them that Alice remained inside the armor Uriel chose to attack the right side.

It caused some damage to the host, but the armor seemed much more affected as it was forced to retreat and find a new host, leaving a wounded Alice on the ground. Luna rushed in to help with her medkit and applied some serum while attempting to stitch her wounds.

"Finally, a challenger." The black armor bellowed in the same deep voice that came from Alice not five seconds ago.

Uriel was greatly impressed by the ability he just gained to become invisible, not just by how effective it turned to be but also because it costed him absolutely no flux energy. But still, after losing the surprise effect he had no point in keeping Scoundrel's trait active anymore and his figure slowly reappeared for everyone to see.

"Are you truly a knight?" Asked Uriel.

"Do I look like a handmaiden?" The cryptid armor asked in a mocking tone.

"Great, so it turns out sarcasm wasn't invented in the modern era, but I still don't believe you. A knight would follow the code and would only fight in single combat after introducing himself." Uriel grunted.

"I am indeed a knight, the lord of these lands you're stepping on, but my name I can't remember. Do with that information what you will, now introduce yourself and prepare to die." The black armor replied.

"My name is Uriel, son of Sage, archaeologist of the university of Texas, CEO of the Dungeon Raiders, tamer of the mighty Ocelotl, bane of the skinwalkers..." Uriel blabbered whatever made up titles he could think of and, while his intentions were more than obvious, that didn't apply to Nika who couldn't believe what was transpiring in front of her eyes.

"What on earth is he doing?" She gasped.

"He is buying us time," Luna explained without losing focus on her task for a minute. "it seems he found out that cryptid's weakness. He's a knight and can't break their moral code, which means he needs to sit there and listen to whatever Uriel's titles are before starting the match."

"We're saved!" Nika exclaimed, but Luna didn't share her excitement.

"Not really, he's only stalling for time. Besides, I think it would be safe to assume it's at least a horror level cryptid which means what Uriel is doing is actually pretty dangerous. You see, by challenging the cryptid to a duel he's committing to a fight to death. Trying to retreat from the fight might end up activating one of the cryptid's abilities.

Like what happens when you fail to follow a horror level skinwalker rules." Luna explained.

"Dumpster diver, iconoclast, grave robber...," Having spent most of his creativity on made up titles, Uriel now recurred to listing the titles he did actually possessed as the system had bestowed them upon him. He was somehow able to keep a straight face and continue spouting titles like he was reading a grocery shop the entire time, but things changed when he mentioned the following.

"hopeless virgin." This caused Nika to broke into laughter, briefly cutting Uriel's concentration short and allowing the cryptid to move on with the ceremony.

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