SWNOVELXO Chapter 116: Benefits of Variety
As the voice echoed through the air, Adam felt the space around him distort.
His surroundings blurred.
He was being isolated!
The sensation was subtle at first... a slight weightlessness in his limbs, the dampening of outside sounds.
Then it settled.
A complete disconnect from the others!
Adam frowned, his gaze sharpening.
'Kareth Zul can be fought...?'
A thought he hadn't expected.
In his past life, that name was nothing more than background lore...
An ancient warlord who'd died attempting to harness the power of the Tower of Yxthar.
His death had sparked the corruption that plagued the fourth floor.
The only true-body boss ever encountered there had been the Leviathan, a massive parasite that fed on the residual energy of Kareth Zul's corpse.
But no one had fought Kareth Zul directly...
Not even once!
The fact that he stood here now... alive, speaking, targeting him— meant something was different.
Drastically so.
'Is it because of my specialty as a time traveler? Or does it involve the strange viewers...'
His fingers curled slightly.
'Should've let Cael mark me beforehand.'
Adam thought in annoyance.
If he had the mark, Adam could just grab hold of the floor boss before letting Cael teleport both of them out of the isolation space.
Before he could think further, the figure ahead stirred.
Kareth Zul, looming and clad in decaying armor, let out a low, humorless laugh.
"Haha… just a mere Stone Rank."
The warlord said, voice like grinding chains.
"Come. I shall take what little specialty you possess that drew the gaze of the outsiders."
As he spoke, the corrupted energy around him surged.
Thick pulses of magic leaked from his body, seeping into the ground like spilled ink.
Adam's instincts flared.
The earth beneath his feet rumbled.
Then, in an instant, vines erupted upward.
Towering trees shot from the soil, their bark twisted and blackened, leaves dripping with rot.
The forest grew unnaturally fast, encircling him in a matter of seconds.
[Warning! Blight Meter is increasing rapidly!]
[Warning! Blight Meter is increasing rapidly!]
[Warning! Blight Meter is increasing rapidly!]
The system alarms blared in rapid succession.
Adam reacted instantly!
Without a word, he activated [Crimson Dominion].
Blood surged from his pores, coiling around him into a dense cocoon.
The barrier pulsed faintly, filtering the air and holding back the miasma pouring from the trees.
Within the crimson shell, his mind sharpened.
'It's corrupting the mana that's surrounding my environment...'
Even within the cocoon, he could feel its influence.
He closed his eyes for a breath.
Then opened them again... steady, focused.
'So it's not just an illusion or possession. This is the real Kareth Zul.'
'If only I had enough power over the [Authority of Disconnection] to cut myself off from the Blight Meter status...'
He thought to himself, but there was no time for regrets or hesitation.
[Surreal Creation]
Through Kareth Zul's vision, he saw a giant beam of light come towards him.
Immediately, Kareth Zul stirred the environment once again as numerous large trees grew in front of him to shield himself from the beam of light.
However, to his surprise, there was no sort of explosion of that clashed against his shield of trees.
'An illusion...'
Kareth Zul thought.
Just then, from the crevices of the tree shield that he made, he saw a large amount of blood seep out...
The blood then jolted as they formed into blades which aimed towards him!
Kareth Zul didn't panic as he let the blood hit his giant body.
Just as the blood was about to pierce his body, it suddenly changed into a gas-like form before being absorbed into Kareth Zul's body.
Kareth Zul was absorbing the power that was in the blood!
Seeing this, Adam halted his attacks as he hopped off from the Giant tree shield and landed on the ground.
As Adam landed on the thick, tangled roots below, a sharp sensation crawled up his legs.
Something was being drained from him.
His eyes narrowed.
He could feel the absorption...
His mana along with his energy was being siphoned straight from the soles of his feet.
The roots beneath him were alive, feeding off him like parasites!
Without hesitation, he activated [Crimson Dominion].
Blood ripped out from his back, flowing upward in thin streams before solidifying midair.
The blood hardened, reshaping itself into two pairs of long, sharp wings.
Each one was crafted from tightly packed veins of blood, stretched and refined through instinct and control.
The wings looked rough around the edges but sharp enough to cut through air.
This wasn't the first time he'd tried it.
Back on the second floor, after watching his blood summon take fly off to the floor boss using wings, Adam had started experimenting.
Every moment when there was free time, he worked on improving his control...
Testing different ways to shape his blood, to make wings that could actually fly instead of just look like they could.
Some attempts had failed.
Some drained too much mana or tore apart mid-flight.
But he kept at it.
He adjusted the structure, changed how the blood folded, even timed the way it solidified.
After enough trial and error, he'd found a way to keep them stable.
Now, with a single flap, he lifted off the ground and rose above the roots, getting out of their range before they could pull any more from him.
But the roots weren't done....
They started twitching as they stretched upwards like long fingers trying to grab him from below!
They followed his movement, growing faster, wilder, and thicker!
Adam clicked his tongue.
Then he activated [Surreal Creation].
In an instant, copies of him scattered in the air, moving in different directions.
They moved like him, carried the same mana signature, even cast proper shadows!
The roots paused, confused, swaying from side to side.
Then they stopped moving entirely and began retreating back into the ground.
Adam floated above them, watching closely.
He frowned as he actively used his mind to think of ways to kill Kareth Zul...
After a moment's pause, he activated another skill.
[Temporary Copy has been activated]
In moments like these, his best option wasn't brute force... it was variety.
Throw everything out and see what works well.
As someone who could copy skills from his viewers, he had more tools than anyone else in the tower.
[Temporary Copy has been activated]
[Select a viewer to copy]
Weaver of Forgotten Names
[Select between two skill options]
Memory Pull
Beyond Silence
[Beyond Silence has been chosen]
[Reducing Beyond Silence to its E-tier version...]
[Beyond Silence has been reduced to Blank Thread]
[Blank Thread] : The target will lose access to one skill temporarily. Duration is dependent on the target's existence level.
Before activating the skill, Adam first activated [Surreal Creation] as he disguised himself in a layer of invisibility.
After doing so, he made the fake illusions of him scatter as they each approached Kareth Zul.
Hoping to fool him of a fake attack...
"Petty tricks…"
Kareth Zul tilted his chin slightly, his hollow gaze locking toward Adam's actual position.
Despite the invisibility, despite the illusions, the warlord's perception was far too advanced.
'He's using the blight. The rot itself is sensing me through the mana contamination...'
A moment later, the ancient warlord opened his mouth wide.
From the depths of his decayed throat, a surge of corrupt magic roared outward... an obliterating blast of dark green essence arced toward Adam!
But Adam was already prepared to dodge.
He spiraled midair, twisting to the side, narrowly dodging the searing energy as it exploded through a massive mountain behind him, reducing it to ash in a heartbeat.
His momentum carried him into a low swoop, trailing behind one of his illusions.
'Good. Keep watching the real me.'
Even as he dodged and ducked between blight-infested branches, his mind moved ahead—planning, strategizing, setting the board.
He was never the kind of fighter to brute-force a win.
He was a tactician and a leader.
And now, he needed a distraction.
In a swift dive, Adam sent another illusion higher above him...
A glowing bright red, mimicking an energy surge!
As expected, Kareth Zul's focus shifted momentarily, tracking the bait.
"Now."
While his enemy's gaze followed the decoy, Adam dipped low and descended to the forest floor, far from the warlord's line of sight.
He crouched beneath a tangled canopy of thorned vines, shrouded in half-light and rot.
There, he unfurled his hands and poured mana to the blood around him.
[Crimson Dominion]
The ground pulsed.
Crimson tendrils slithered from his body like serpents, feeding off residual blood from the environment... leeching it from corrupted roots, decayed carcasses, and even his own veins.
He wasn't building a shield this time.
He was creating a weapon.
A massive, compressed lance of hyper-condensed blood began to take shape...
One designed not for defense, but to pierce.
But that alone wasn't enough.
He still needed the warlord to stop absorbing attacks...
Only then would it work.
He raised one hand toward the dark canopy and aimed through the gaps in the trees.
[Blank Thread has been activated]
A thin, silver line of mana laced with red light flew from Adam's fingertip, weaving through the branches in a barely visible arc.
It struck Kareth Zul dead in the chest.
[Blank Thread activated successfully.]
[Target has lost access to Passive Skill: Mana and Energy Conversion]
[Duration: 4.6 seconds]
Kareth Zul visibly tensed.
The surrounding blight seemed to pause for just a second—
No longer siphoning and cycling energy into him...
This was the chance!
Adam clenched his teeth, finished charging the lance, and threw it with everything he had.
The air tore open with a high-pitched shriek as the blood-forged weapon hurled across the forest.
It struck Kareth Zul square in the side... this time, it wasn't absorbed!
It punched through!
A spray of corrupted ichor burst from the wound, sizzling as it hit the air.
The warlord staggered, growling... not in pain, but in disbelief.
"You dare... wound me?"
Adam was already preparing his next move.
"Damn right I do."