Chapter 612

A/N : Merry Christmas!

As much as Ajax wanted to use Life Mana and see if he could regrow his arm he knew he didn’t have the time, let alone the Mana for it. A quick application of Magma stopped the bleeding and would hopefully not be too bad of a fix that would hinder him from regrowing the arm later.

Ajax didn’t have time to consider any of the implications of the werewolf change in his arm. A brief hope in the back of his head that he could simply regrow his arm and this would be the end of it but all he could focus on now was a brief check to ensure the spread didn’t get restarted by the loss of the arm, which it thankfully wasn’t. 

The hulking red monster was starting to rise once more and Ajax knew he didn’t have time to waste; he needed to do more damage. Pulling out another poison soaked bone axe he swung the blade towards the troll’s back. Ajax felt things going wrong from the moment he swung. 

The loss of his arm had messed with his center of gravity, his body was off balance as he swung the axe, thankfully the blow was still powerful enough to break the troll's skin and add more poison. 

The troll didn’t take this lying down, it roared its rage as it swung his arm towards Ajax who was barely able to avoid it by jumping as high as he could from his awkward position. Seeing that the fight was in its final stage Ajax didn’t hold anything in reserve as he tossed a dozen vials of poison towards the body of the troll soaking it in poison. The numerous open cuts the troll sported got a fresh dose of poison right as its healing factor was slowing to power its increased speed and strength. 

Ajax could barely retain his balance as he landed on his feet and his eyes met the eyes of the troll. Both of them knew the troll was done for, this last dose of poison was too much for even a troll to recover from now that it had weakened its regeneration. From the looks in the floor boss’s eyes Ajax also knew it was looking to make sure it didn’t die alone.

The ragefueled charge was something Ajax expected but the speed and power still managed to put Ajax on the back foot. Ajax  pushed his body as far as he could, dodging out of the way and bringing out a bone shield that shattered from the troll's wide swing creating some more distance between the two. 

It wasn’t enough, Ajax could see it and he knew he wasn’t fast or strong enough to keep up with the enraged troll right now. He needed to push his body further, he needed to be faster and stronger. [Mana Syphon] gave him the option for that power but his own body would break itself apart if he fed the Skill more Mana than he already was. 

Ajax knew he had no options, he hoped his [Athleticism] and [Limit Suppression] Skills would be enough to hold his body together as he willfully forced [Mana Syphon] to empower his body beyond the natural barrier of the Skill and into the dangerous territory. 

The extra power in his muscles helped him make a clean dodge out of the way of the trolls second charge, the sharp fingernails on its right arm flashing within inches of his face as he managed to put enough distance this time that even a glancing blow didn’t connect.  His leg on the other hand felt the pressure as pain seared into his thighs from what he suspected was a torn muscle.

That’s when it happened. Ajax felt like a dam had broken and his Stamina and Mana started draining faster than he had ever seen. Ajax went to move only to find himself slamming into the stone wall of the ziggurat, oddly enough however he didn’t feel any pain from the impact. The troll was clearly as confused as Ajax was as it stopped its third charge and looked confused in Ajax’s direction. 

Ajax took the moment to glance at his Skills for an answer, an answer he found at the bottom of the list. [Last Stand], the same Legendary Stamina based Skill one of Gryndor’s champions had. The Skill that burned through Stamina in exchange for reinforcing the body. The Skill was a perfect compliment to [Mana Syphon] as it not only increased the strength and power of the body but also its endurance meaning [Mana Syphon] could be pushed even further safely while under the effects of [Last Stand]. 

The one down side to the combo was that Ajax was burning through both his Mana and Stamina faster than even when he was training his multi casting. With no time to waste Ajax carefully tried to get a handle on the power of his body as he moved, his Perception having a hard time keeping up with the speed of his movement as the world blurred for a split second as he moved.

Ajax knew he didn’t have the time to get a real handle on his newest Skill, his time was slowly running out as his Mana and Stamina both dropped under six hundred. He needed to put the troll down. Pulling out another bone axe Ajax took a split second to shift his body and account for his missing arm before he charged the troll. 

Thanks to his new increased speed Ajax didn’t charge in one smooth motion but rather in short bursts of extreme speed, the technique reminded him of his old life on Earth and the video games he played there, where the running animation went from sprinting to an instant stop once you pressed the attack button.

The odd movement was enough to confuse the enraged troll however, getting it to swing its club while Ajax was still outside of its range and giving Ajax the perfect opening to approach and perform a perfect vertical chop on the troll’s head with the axe. 

Ajax’s newfound strength was so high that the axe broke on impact. It was still a bone axe so it wasn’t as sturdy as its metal forged counterpart but it was a dungeon weapon from a level one hundred and twenty dungeon floor, to watch it fail under his strength in such a way was outside of Ajax’s expectations. 

Thankfully the axe braking didn’t put Ajax in danger as most of the blows power still carried slamming the troll into the ground face first, its horrible hunched posture meaning the blow to the head put him on his knees as its head created a small crater on the floor from the impact.

Not wanting to waste a single more strike Ajax took out the axe Nina had made for him and infused his next blow with Magma Mana, draining his dwindling resources even faster as he swung aiming for the already open wound in the troll’s skull.

The blow took the last of Ajax’s strength. With both his Mana and Stamina under three hundred Ajax could feel his consciousness starting to fade as he dropped to his knees right by his downed foe. The last thing he could feel with his [Mana Sense] being the troll’s regeneration trying and failing to combat the Magma Mana boiling its brain inside of its Skull.

It was twelve hours before Ajax woke up and even that was only because of the increased regeneration while sleeping he had gotten from his latest Achievement. His body hurt all over as he made to stand but Ajax welcomed the pain. It told him he was alive, that he had won, his eyes taking in the rotting body of the troll next to him and his nose filling with the putrid smell of rotting flesh only drove the point home.

For the next two days Ajax healed himself and recovered. The only thing he didn’t attempt to fix was his left arm, he healed everything up to the stump but he held off on doing anything more. His plan once leaving the dungeon was already to search out the elemental hawk and depending on the impression he got from the Ascended being he would seek its advice on how to go about trying to fix his arm. 

Before leaving the dungeon Ajax found the floor’s obelisk and triggered it, using the less than ten remaining cultists that showed up over the next two hours as a way to practice his newest Skill. [Last Stand] was different from the boost from [Mana Syphon], Ajax had skipped it the first time since he just fell unconscious following the fight but after the boosting Skill was turned off it was followed by a period of weakness. It wasn’t something he could just turn off and on at will like his [Mana Syphon] but the boost in power was also bigger.

With the floor cleared Ajax made his way back to the exit arch, he took a moment to make sure he wasn’t taking anything else besides the priestess’s staff with him as he stepped through the arch and exited the dungeon.

On the outside of the dungeon the elemental hawk had been getting more and more restless. “If this is a way to start some sort of diplomatic conversation between the sidhe and the elemental hawks it won’t get you anywhere and I insist that you leave. We have been standing here for almost three weeks with nothing happening.” 

The sidhe on the other hand were interlining cursing both Ajax and the hawks' patience as they had all stayed there watching over the dungeon for so long. “We are not…” Elduin’s father trailed off as he felt a change in the dungeon and Ajax emerged. 

Before any of the sidhe could move or Ajax could take in his surroundings the elemental hawk was already next to Ajax looking at him closely. “Are you… an Ascended human?”