Swordsman's Regression: Reawakened as a Necromancer-Chapter 98: Battle in the Muck (2)

First, there was silence. An absolute silence. A vacuum that sucked the sound from the world.

Then, like glass, everything seemed to shatter.

Mercius’s charge met the Dragon’s ⸢Abyssal Gloom Breath⸥ head on, like a declaration of absolute defiance.

After clearing the distance, he took a great stance, planting his greaves into the sucking soil. Then, he activated a Skill, causing the Paragon Shield on his arm to erupt in a radiance that was the antithesis of the swamp’s decay.

⸢Aegis of the Light⸥

⸢Description: An ultra defensive Skill that can only be activated with a shield graded A or above. It transforms a shield to a giant wall of light to protect any amount targets⸥

⸢S-Grade Knight Skill⸥

With golden light, the Skill flared to life. The Paragon Shield was no longer a mere piece of metal; it became the concept of a bulwark, a golden wall behind which oaths were kept.

It protected not just Mercius, but more importantly, Percival, who was fast asleep by a rock, oblivious to the battle before him.

The Dragon’s breath—a torrent of black, light-absorbing liquid shadow that corroded space itself—crashed against the golden wall of light.

BLASSTTTTT!

Mercius grimaced, pushing centilitres of mana into the shield. The light dimmed but did not even threaten to break. As powerful as the Dragon’s breath was, this was an S-Grade Defensive Skill.

The corrosive gloom of the liquid shadow sluiced around the edges, carving canyons into the petrified mangrove pillars, but Mercius stood immovable within the eye of the storm, his boots sinking deeper, his spectral form vibrating with the strain.

He glanced behind him, making sure Percival was unarmed. Once he was certain, he returned to the Dragon, just when the breath ceased.

In the heartbeat of recoil, Mercius exploded from behind his shield. He executed a half leap, and just when his feet was about to touch the ground, he activated ⸢Vanguard’s Onslaught⸥.

⸢Description: A Skill that turns the user’s advance into a short-range, unstoppable teleport of pure force⸥.

Mercius reappeared in the air beside the Dragon’s neck. He had the surprise element, and decided to execute an offensive attack before the Dragon realized.

He activated ⸢Sundering Cleave⸥.

⸢Description: Cleave that shatters defenses⸥.

⸢A-Grade⸥

The Paragon Blade came rushing down in a brutal, overhead chop.

However, the Dragon was still faster. Its tail, a whip of muscle and scale thicker than an ancient tree, lashed up from the black water to intercept.

Before Mercius’s blade could connect, the lizard had struck him on the midsection. The Descending Steel Lotus armor took most of the damage, but the force was still enough to send the Brackenbutcher flying.

Mercius was batted aside, spinning through the air, but he twisted, landing in a crouch that skidded across the water’s surface before sinking to his knees in the shallows.

The Dragon pressed its advantage.

"A MERE SLAVE YOU ARE! YOU CAN NOT DEFEAT ME! YOU DO NOT COMPARE TO THE STRENGTH, THE RESILIENCE, THE POWER OF THE LIZARD!"

It weaponized its domain. With a guttural chant in a tongue older than language, it summoned ⸢Grasping Depths⸥.

Mercius took steps backwards as he witnessed the lake come alive. Weathered hands with green, disgusting skins, vines of razor-edged fungus, and tentacles of pure suction erupted from the water.

They coiled around his legs, his waist, his arms, seeking to drag him down and drown him in the abyssal mud.

Mercius fought back against them. His Strength was high enough to allow him to snap out of their grasps.

But for every one he freed himself from, two more took its place.

They dragged him, straining against his own muscle, pulling him deeper in the abyss of muck and moss.

Furious, Mercius roared. A pulse of pure, golden-white energy exploded from his core.

⸢Divine Retribution⸥.

It was an S-Grade Skill that punished wickedness, that burned away impurity. The grasping appendances of shadow and rot sizzled and vaporized where the holy light touched them.

Mercius surged forward, now chest-deep in the hostile water, but a free man. A free dead man.

The Dragon roared, enraged.

"PERSISTENT! SO PERSISTENT, YOU GHOST!"

It dove. Not to flee, but to attack from below.

Using its wings, it navigated the green lake. The surface bulged, and Mercius watched closely, following every movement, waiting for the attack.

It came.

The water erupted as the colossal beast surged upwards beneath Mercius, its maw gaping wide for a swallow that would end the fight.

But Mercius did the unthinkable. He dropped his guard.

As the head erupted from the water, he jumped down, directly into the rising gullet. At the last possible second, he crossed his arms, shield above, blade below, and activated ⸢Bastion’s Rebuke⸥.

He became an anvil. An immovable, infinitely dense object in the path of the Dragon’s strike.

The Dragon’s jaws clamped shut on him.

CRUNCH-GRIND!

The sound was of worlds colliding. Teeth meant to shatter islands met the Paragon Shield and the S-Grade armor of a legend.

Several of the Dragon’s own stalagmite-teeth splintered. Mercius was engulfed in darkness, pressure, and corrosive saliva, but he was not crushed.

Inside its mouth, Mercius thrust his blade straight up into the palate.

He activated ⸢Purging Thrust⸥.

⸢Description: A burning beam of concentrated holy mana that tears through low-mid level defenses⸥

⸢C-Grade⸥.

The beam lanced from the tip of the Paragon Blade, burning a searing hole through flesh and bone.

All eight eyes of the Swamp God Dragon widened.

AARRRRKKKKKKKKGGHH!!

Its shriek of agony was a physical thing, muffled and terrible from the inside. It convulsed, hurling its head sideways and vomiting Mercius out in a spray of ichor and broken teeth.

Mercius flew through the air, a comet of blue spirit and golden light, and slammed into a petrified trunk.

He slumped, his form flickering violently. He was finally feeling his properties reducing. His Mana and Health bar had suffered reasonable depletion.

But he was nowhere close to running out of any.

He surged forward and slashed his sword at the Dragon’s face.

FAAARRKKK!

The beast’s head swung to the left.

Another slash.

FAAARRKKK!

To the right.

He fell, landing on the muck before pushing himself up, an upper cutting the beast with a ⸢Thunder Cut⸥.

The Dragon roared in pain as its head snapped upwards. And with terror, it watched with all eight eyes as Mercius lowered from the sky and executed a ⸢Falling Slash⸥.

KRAAAKOOMM!

The scales around its nose burst apart, and the sword found purchase to flesh, punching through so deep that blood splattered on Mercius’s face as he fell.

He landed with a splash on the ground, holding tightly on the hilt of his blade and shield. He watched the notification float off the beast’s head.

⸢-3071 HP⸥

The Swamp God Dragon reared back, blood and black light pouring from the roof of its mouth.

One of its eight eyes had gone dark, ruined from the internal blast. Its intelligence was now burned away, replaced by primal, wounded fury.

"ENOUGH!" it bellowed, and the Oubliette obeyed.

Mercius looked around him, witnessing geysers of acidic mud erupting in the close distance.

Other smaller beasts that Percival had fought from former Encounter Zones rose. The Mire Crocs, The Draconian Stalkers, and the Swamp Wyverns.

The poison already in the air became thicker. Because Mercius was a ghost, an undead, a Soul. He had no real body to suffer the internal effects of the miasma. But now, he could feel a certain tug.

Everything was changing.

The fungus on the walls shot out barbed, spore-laden tendrils. The Dragon itself began to glow with an incandescent green fire, its wounds knitting with furious speed as it drew upon the very life-force of the Gate World.

⸢Apotheosis of the Swamp⸥.

It was becoming more than a beast. It was becoming a natural disaster.