“I suppose I’d be taking this one by myself,” Ludwig muttered, his voice tinged with regret the moment the words left his lips.
Van Dijk, who had raised an arm to prepare a spell, paused mid-gesture. His crimson eyes gleamed with amusement as a faint smirk tugged at his lips. “Now that sounds interesting,” he mused, stepping back with exaggerated nonchalance.
“I should have kept quiet shouldn’t I,” Ludwig sighed.
“No, no, I need to do my job as a teacher, so far I’ve only given you a couple books and some minor advice, I need to see how you fight with my own eyes to have a better understanding of where we should be focusing. We need to know where you’re lacking first to know what to improve, go on now Ludwig beat the crocodile,” he said as he took a more relaxed position on top of one of the tree branches.
Ludwig pulled out one of his two remaining scimitars from his storage ring.
Though he thought about using the fragment of the cursed sword, it was not something he could wield right now, the base of that shard was too wide. Though it’s cracked in a way that would still allow it to be used as a sharp blade since it looked like it broke from the sharp edge and the other size though was jagged it still looked sharp, he couldn’t hold the weapon with one hand as the base of the shard was too big. If he ever got someone to make a handle for this shard he could probably use it as a sword. But for now, all he had was the scimitar.
The crocodile moved forward, hissing and growling at Ludwig.
Its main head, the middle one looked the least damaged, while the other two, one was missing the brain section and only had the jaws, while the other side had more teeth on its jaw than a leech’s mouth.
The crocodile moved out of the lake toward Ludwig, its tentacles flailing and its jaws snapping at Ludwig.
[Inspect] Ludwig muttered.
Name: Tibarian Crocodile
Type: Undead Creature.
Level: 35
HP: 3500
Status Effect:
[Pseudo-Chimerism]- Currently suffering from a malicious curse that would cause growths to appear on its body.
[Gluttonous Curse] Cursed with Eternal Hunger, sourced by the Gluttonous Death.
[Curse of Undeath] Cursed by Undeath. This creature is terribly weak to all matters of holy and fire magic.
Abilities:
-Passive- [Dissolving Membrane]: The membranes on the Tibarian Crocodile act as a second set of hands and feet, it can use them to hunt and defend itself. They are composed of highly corrosive substances that could melt even steel.
[Barrel Roll] Once the crocodile clamps one of its jaws on a prey, it will spin its body in a barrel roll rapidly tearing off anything that was locked inside its mouth.
[Corrosive Slurry] The Tibarian Crocodile can shoot out a globe of corrosive matter that would melt off most organic and corrode most metallic matter in seconds.
[Lesser Hardened Scales] The body of the Tibarian Crocodile can periodically harden to protect it from sharp objects.
Addendum:
The Tibarian crocodile used to live in the rivers of the land of Tibari, it was a dangerous creature to meet before it was corrupted and cursed, but now it has become much more. After suffering under the curse of gluttony it became an avid eater, who would try and consume any and all matters. A ceaseless hunger guides it to consume and devour all that it can.
***
Ludwig took note of all the creature’s abilities and prepared to fight.
[Enfeeble!] Ludwig said as he pointed his palm forward.
Sigils of dark power manifested from the ground, lighting up right under the crocodile, cursing him with sigils of weakness.
“[Galvanize]” Ludwig added.
Van Dijk Perched above, raised an eyebrow. The casual air around him shifted slightly as he watched with more interest. “Already comfortable with your spells, are you?” he muttered, jotting down notes.
Ludwig buffed himself and caused a Debuff on his opponent, allowing himself a better starting position when fighting.
But there didn’t seem to be much change happening to the crocodile, maybe it was already slow. But that didn’t mean it was not dangerous.
The crocodile hissed once more and two slime tendrils shot up at Ludwig’s face. He was caught by surprise but managed to bend his body backward. The two tendrils shooting past his face.
Ludwig fell on his back, and the two tendrils slammed down on him. He rolled to the side, covered in grime and muck, but dodged the blow that blasted the terrain, splashing all sort of scum all over the place.
The ground looked as if it was boiling when it came in contact with the tentacles. And once the crocodile removed its tendrils, Ludwig was able to see the damage they had done. A few pieces of stone had actually melted off.
Ludwig rushed standing back up, still thinking of how to deal with this creature. It was able to fight at long range, and with its jaws and [Barrel Roll] ability, it could also fight in close range, not to mention it had an armored body which improved its defenses.
This wasn’t a simple fight to take. Ludwig needed to think his moves through before he could go in again.
‘I need a plan,’ he thought to himself.
Usually, he would go for the eyes, but here, the creature had three set of eyes, that’s six, the moment he blinded two, he’d probably get bitten and torn apart by the other eyes.
A swing of a tentacle rushed to his head. Ludwig hastily struck at it with his scimitar. Though it felt like he hit a metallic rope at first from the force of impact, he managed to deflect the tentacle.
But the damage was already done, his scimitar was affected by the corrosive matter and began melting off.
[Your Sand Scimitar has been destroyed.]
“That’s not good,” He said.
Ludwig’s eyes darted to the blade, now melting into a useless lump of metal in his hands. He tossed it aside, cursing under his breath.
Above him, Van Dijk chuckled, still lazily jotting notes. “Good effort so far,” he called out, his tone laced with amusement.
Ludwig didn’t expect the corrosion to be this powerful, he lost his weapon the moment it came in contact with that corrosive membrane, and from the look on the crocodile, Ludwig could almost swear that it was grinning at his misfortune.
More tentacles shot up his way to which Ludwig simply dodged back.
He took a quick glance at Van Dijk and saw him writing on a note, in a rather bored manner completely oblivious to Ludwig’s strife.
Ludwig sighed, he wasn’t going to get any help from his master, not that he needed it.
“Aight, fuck it,” Ludwig said as he pointed his palm forward. “[Fire Ball]!”
The moment the flaming ball formed on Ludwig’s palm, the crocodile who seemed rather slow at first immediately turned tail and dove into the lake.
“Seriously?”Ludwig said confusion filling his eyes as the crocodile peeked with all three of its heads at Ludwig who stood there like a fool with a flaming ball in his hand.