Gregory [shadow melded] us toward the entrance of floor 7. So far everything is going well. The only concerning factor is that the higher numbered floors have more area. It could be an advantage since the bosses won''t be able to find us easily but since we are on a time limit and have to cover more area, we’re more prone to mistakes. The only mistake the bosses can make is allowing us to escape the prison. I’m wondering if there’s a point in laying traps here since this isn''t the only way to go up to layer 7. Maybe I should sabotage all the entrances in this area so that the bosses are forced to appear quite far from us on the next layer. I decided that this would be my game plan.


    I made 2 shadow clones and started to head out and sabotage the staircases and elevators. The only problem is that these traps would tell them exactly in what area we are on the upper floor. I have to make sure I get as many as possible to make it less obvious. Starbolt made a useful skill that zaps the memory of those caught by the traps causing them temporary amnesia. It’s only for 30 minutes but good enough. He could only put it on 5 traps so I put those in the traps closest to where my buddies went up. These support spirits are quite overpowered.


    I am curious though; I haven''t encountered any minor or medium spirits that are focused on dealing damage or preventing damage. Only Isi, Ira, and the spirits guarding that temple but those were all major spirits or higher rank. I asked Starbolt and he said that I just probably got unlucky and didn''t encounter offensive or defensive spirits.


    According to Starbolt, there is about a 40%-40%-20% split with support spirits occupying the 20%. I’m starting to wonder if I’m unlucky, in the situations these spirits helped me out, I don’t think offensive or defensive spirits would be of much use. My mana hit a certain point and I decided to head up.


    “Oh, look who we have here Quack! It’s time for payback! How dare you trick me into that trap! Using a tuna sandwich is unfair, quack!” Ok, maybe I am unlucky. I dodged a swing of a baseball bat but my right arm got grabbed by one of his wings.


    Hey! That’s cheating! Wings are for flying not for grabbing! He started to freeze my arm and I countered it with frost magic and managed to break free but not without consequences. My right arm hurt from some frost burn. I could still use my arm but it hurt enough for it to cause my arm to lose dexterity which is a problem because I’m right-handed. I dodged a [Frost blast] and teleported for 2 meters to dodge another grab from his cheat wings. I used [Mirror] to reflect a [Frost ball] and turn myself into a leftie. I made a sword with frost and clipped Cygnus’ left wing. I tried to go for the other wing but he jumped back and used [Frost nova]. I protected myself with my multilayered barrier but it seems he aimed to freeze the whole area.


    “I will go easy on you if you apologize for using a tuna sandwich as bait for your trap!” Why do I need to apologize? It’s your fault that you fell for that simple trap!


    “So, you have chosen, violence… I see, then here take one of my ultimate attacks Quack!” Uhh, is it too late to apologize?


    “Yes, Quack!” He created a small frost ball that started sucking everything in. All the mana in the surroundings was getting absorbed by it and the ball started to grow slowly in response. I covered myself in frost and shadow magic to prevent my mana from getting sucked in too. I wanted to get away from this skill but I was also curious to see if I could copy this skill. This ball was acting like a black hole.


    Every physical object that got absorbed by it got turned into mana. It was a mana black hole. I got to admire sticking to the prison’s theme. The problem was that my options were shrinking because it was pulling me as fast as I could move away from it and any other method that relies on magic wouldn''t work because the mana would get slurped by this skill. I started throwing more frost and water magic around to get 5 stacks of [Frozen skin] because I’m not sure I can get out of this.


    “A special treat for you! Eat my special attack! [X-I]! Quack!” He readied his baseball bat and hit the ball of frost which was slightly bigger than a baseball at this point. So that’s what the baseball bat was for… The moment the bat hit the ball it shot out a frost laser at me. Oh, hell no! Not another laser! It ate through my [Frozen skin] like it was nothing.


    Note to self: [Frozen skin] is useless against lasers which are continuous attacks. It makes sense but it still sucks. I managed to deflect some of it with [Mirror] and I blocked the remainder with my already messed up right arm.


    I had myself imbued with frost magic all the time but since his frost magic is way stronger than mine it only helped to a certain extent. I survived but I don’t think I can use my right arm anymore. I used [Mirror] to become a leftie again and parried a sword slash aimed at my neck.


    “I gotta admit, you might be inexperienced but you do know how to get the best out of bad situations, Quack!” I parried another sword slash and blocked a baseball bat swing with my right arm that was almost frozen solid. This caught him off guard and I clipped his other wing. I kicked him away and trapped him in a [Frost cage]. This won''t keep him for long but I have to get out of here. I tried to fix my arm while running away. Nature energy won’t do anything if it’s frozen like this. But it would also take a very long time for nature energy to fix this after I thaw it. Cutting my arm off and trying to regrow it with nature energy might be faster.


    This would allow me to use a skill that normally can''t be used. It is very easy to use so Viridian taught me this skill, it’s way easier to learn and use than [shadow clone]. This skill is called [Blood clone] the issue with this skill requires a lot of blood or a dismembered body part. This clone will be indistinguishable from the real me and will only disappear if it gets hit by something that would kill the real me. It is very good at making sure you can escape deadly situations. I could make 2 clones out of my arm but that would also mean double the mana cost.


    I found an area with few inmates walking around and found an alley. I took my right arm out of my shirt. I formed a double-layered water bubble around my head to make sure to dampen the sound. I held my sword to my shoulder. The more I thought about it the more I considered backing down but the benefits of having a blood clone act as a diversion made me push through. There is no point in chickening out and ending up dead later on. I gritted my teeth and cut off my arm.


    It is a good thing I formed the bubble around my head because I tried to hold back but I still ended up screaming in pain. The pain was making me nauseous. I formed the blood clone and circulated nature energy to my right shoulder. It took quite a bit of mana but the blood clone now has as much mana as I had before I formed it, and its mana doesn''t get drained by feeding those rings so it might actually do better than myself.


    The blood clone injected me with some nature energy to combat the pain and nausea, placed some traps in the area I was resting, and started its mission to still stay hidden but distract Cygnus when needed. I continued sending nature magic to my right arm and passed out a couple of times.


    I stabilized after 2 hours. My arm didn''t regrow yet but the pain is bearable now. This is the reason why [Blood clone] doesn''t get used often. I got up but felt dizzy and sat back down. I lost a lot of blood, duh! I got some food out of my dimensional pocket and started to eat raw fish.


    Now before you say that''s disgusting don''t forget! I’m a beast kin or however the humans call us, so eating raw meat isn''t an issue for us, and also, I need that iron! Not a big fan of the taste of blood but it’s not like I can be picky in this situation. As I devour the fish which is still tasty, I start thinking of what would happen if I never used nature energy so often to the point that I started to get a decent proficiency in it.


    The situation just now would have probably ended up in passing out and bleeding to death and losing some lives, also other situations might have ended up poorly. Nature energy is overpowered! But on a serious note, something needs to be done about this situation. I always make fun of opponents that get rekt and then say they’re going to use their full power, but I do the same thing, I can’t seriously say that I 100% did my best lately.


    I should approach these situations as if I''m out for the kill. I can’t seem to strike a good balance between being careful and being serious. I have quite the skills that are very effective but they don’t overlap with being ‘careful’. My buddies do say that I should be more serious but they don''t like what comes with it. I don’t blame them but it''s not something I can change. I got up and created an arm out of frost magic. I tested its functionality.


    After redoing this 4 times I got a satisfying result. I will have to work with this while my arm is regrowing. I layered illusions on it to make it look and feel like a real arm. I took out Gregory’s concoction and diluted it properly and took a dose while I inspected myself, I also made some shadow clones and kidnapped 100 prisoners, put them into a small domain made of illusions, gave them a dose, and forced a timelapse on them while carefully observing through different filters what happened to them. 87 of the prisoners reacted to it in the same way, 8 reacted very strongly to it and would have effectively needed a lower dose and the rest reacted poorly which would mean they needed a higher dose.


    I let my tail crunch the numbers and devise a way to create a widespread illusion that forces the effect of Gregory’s concoction on anyone who gets trapped within the range of that illusion. I don’t have time to administer these manually. Since I have a very good idea of how this stuff works, I can force its effect on others with my illusions. It would work on 95% of the prisoners but that would be enough. It might not be completely accurate but as long as it works on the vast majority then my goal will be reached.


    Since I was still in my illusion domain, I could wipe their memories. Would it be a problem if it gets known that I''m a 9t? Hmm probably, it''s not like I can silence a whole prison after I leave here. I guess I’ll have to get serious without revealing my tails.


    I brushed my tails before wiping the memories of the prisoners and kicking them out of my illusion. I had a mountain of fur that got stuck in my brush from brushing my tails over the years, I kept stashing it but I should do something about it. I can’t just throw it away since it could be considered as legendary material to make who knows what. But I could make a scarf out of it… well, more like 12 scarves. At least they will be soft, but I don’t need 12 scarves…


    I cleaned up and reappeared in the alley I started at. My blood clone seemed to have encountered ehh what was his name? I consulted my archive, ah Geminga, the guy Raishin was talking about. Cygnus seemed to be looking for my buddies, he didn''t find them yet but he was awfully close. I headed toward Cygnus as information about Geminga’s battle style flowed into my head from my blood clone. Geminga had a huge axe made out of ruby and it was crafted with ancient technology so unfortunately this axe could cut through frost magic.


    What a pain in the ass. He wasn''t as fast or versatile as Cygnus but at least I could land hits on Cygnus. Geminga seems like a walking rock. Well, his armor is covered in shiny rocks, and the rock I actually mean are the kinds that are actually hard, like rubies and shit. He had a calm and careful personality so it was hard to provoke him or to easily force him to make mistakes. The ground rumbled. Geminga used [Earthquake]. Is it really ok to use a powerful skill like that here?


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    Talking about [Earthquake] didn''t Ted get that skill from Azu? Why has he never used it? My blood clone had 0 issues evading that but he wasn''t doing any damage. He just continued to stall for time. It seems Geminga didn''t notice that was its goal so I guess that works out. I don’t think Geminga can land a hit on the blood clone but that works out for me because the power behind his attacks is no laughing matter. I decided to leave this to my blood clone and started to devise a plan to deal with Cygnus. Starbolt already started preparing some spells so we got spirit magic covered.


    I might have to overload him with mana. That is, I think the only way to deal with him. My buddies seem to be getting harassed by some guards and 3 androids. The prisoners seem to be standing on the sidelines. This is the perfect time to drop my illusion. I sent nature energy to my eyes and created a large illusion domain in which every prisoner will have the effect of Gregory’s drug. I created a domain as large as the barrier in Boshi town. This should be enough. The prisoners seemed to be in some kind of daze for 2-3 seconds but after that, they started rebelling and attempting to escape.


    This gave my buddies the chance to get away from the area where gravity and time dilation was lifted. Unfortunately, the androids don’t care about gravity and the time dilation but at least they only have to deal with 3 pursuers now. Geminga and Cygnus seemed to react to the sudden commotion. Geminga broke away from the fight with my blood clone and started to help the guards in getting the situation under control. Cygnus didn''t seem to do so. He froze any prisoner he met but still seemed to be looking for my buddies. I created illusions of them and made the illusions head toward me.


    I made sure that Cygnus caught a glimpse of them. Starbolt presented the spirit magic circles he prepared to me. I archived them in the hope of replicating them someday. I used [Mirror] to become right-handed and went into stealth. I took a handful of frost orbs charged with Raishin’s red lightning in my right hand, which was still made out of frost magic. I sneaked up to Cygnus from the back and hit him with a palm strike in his back. The frost orbs exploded and created a red lightning blast and sent him flying.


    I got quite some energy absorbed from that but since this was a sneak attack Cygnus had to take the full blow. Unfortunately, this didn''t one-shot him. I probably wouldn''t have any issues if he could be one-shot by that. Starbolt dropped that nasty stun DoT attack on Cygnus before he could get up, to which I followed up by throwing more lightning-charged frost orbs at him. He got hit by the stun but he protected himself with frost magic so the frost orbs did 0 damage.


    “You again! Quack!” I made the illusions of my buddies also do some attacks but they were just throwing frost orbs charged with different elements. My illusion just made it look like they were actually attacking. After that I made them run away because I won’t be able to keep up illusions of them while still keeping them convincing. “Hey stop running away! Quack!” Cygnus was struggling to get out of the stun lock. So, this is what they call a ‘Sitting duck’ is it?


    “Haha, real funny… Just wait till I get out of this! And I''m a swan, Quack!” I continued chucking frost orbs at him while he was trying to break out. Starbolt cast a spirit lightning cage which did the same as the skill he used before but the stun would only kick in if he would touch the cage. Unfortunately, it was quite a large cage so Cygnus would have no problem avoiding contact with it. I


    kept chucking frost marbles at him until I ran out. I couldn''t see his internal temperature but that must have cooled him off a bit. It seems he was fed up with being cc locked and broke out by charging up his ultimate skill again. I made an ice cube in my right hand and swapped the frost ball with the ice cube. I curbed the pulling force of it. My arm which was made out of frost magic seemed to have no issues containing and being in contact with frost magic this strong. Cygnus seemed baffled and I threw the ball at him. Well, it turned into a laser but you know what I mean!


    Take this! Starbolt dropped another [Spirit Lightning cage] on Cygnus and he partially got blasted by his own frost laser. He also got into contact with the cage and ate a stun.


    “Ugh, I thought your right arm was injured, Quack!” I showed him my arm. Does this look injured to you? You must have fallen for my trick! Cygnus seemed confused but that wasn’t my problem. I started using some [Accel steps] and Starbolt boosted my speed. I forgot to take off my shoes again and shredded them after 5 [accel steps]. I decided to deal with that problem later and dropped several purple [Lightning bolts] on Cygnus.


    Cygnus broke out of his CC chain. He looked very angry. He broke out by spiking in power and using a lot of frost magic but out of experience, I know that must have put a dent in his internal temperature. Frost magic isn''t bursty in nature and if someone does do that it either requires some setup, like his [X-1] or it lowers his internal temperature. He sent a [frost wave] at me and I evaded it and sent a [frost wave] back.


    The surrounding temperature started to drop. The surroundings started to freeze over and frost spikes shot at me from nearby frozen buildings and from the frozen ground. I didn’t know this was a possibility. I’m learning a lot in this fight but unfortunately, I can’t allow him to do too much else I might get close to death just like when he shot that laser at me. Starbolt tried to stun him again but the frost magic around him absorbed it.


    I kept throwing various lightning attacks at him while continuing to use [accel step]. He tried using his [X-1] attack again but this time I was fast enough to escape the pull and evade the laser. I can’t dodge lasers that come at me at near-lightspeed but I have a good feeling for timing and he still needs to hit that ball with his baseball bat to send out the laser. It wasn’t a comfortable dodge so I will have to attempt to interrupt his next laser.


    Everything in a line behind me was frozen solid. He wasn’t as talkative as he was before, it seems he also got serious. I saw some frost crystals growing on his legs. Time to put more pressure on him, but first some [Boss music]!


    Now that I set the mood, I made 3 shadow clones and made them disperse. They needed to draw magic circles while I harassed Cygnus. My blood clone seemed to be monitoring my situation and Geminga’s activity. I don’t have to worry too much about Geminga because my buddies at least have a chance against him. A frost magic user is a no-go for them.


    I tried to catch him in a wire trap but the wires froze, became brittle, and shattered like glass. Well, this sucks… Starbolt threw a weak [Spirit lightning bolt] at Cygnus but I don’t think it would have done damage even if he wasn''t covered in frost magic. I told Starbolt to stick to support skills but that I appreciated him trying. I moved him further away from Cygnus because at this range his spirit energy was slowly getting sapped by just being too close to Cygnus. I wanted to check what his internal temperature was but my eyes could tell me nothing with all that frost.


    Starbolt went to help my clones set up some magic circles. I started up [Dagger torrent] and drank an anti-nausea potion as a precaution and started to circulate nature energy. It was quite a challenge to keep it up in the early stages because I couldn''t get the lightning to stay purple because it was all getting sapped.


    “You do know that you are just making me stronger right Quack?” That doesn''t matter if you can’t even hit me! Cygnus started to become agitated and sent out a dozen [frost swans] at me which missed their target. I used some [accel turns] to increase the lightning generation. I sent some daggers at Cygnus and they seemed to do minor damage to him. It seems he didn''t expect it to pack that much of a punch. Unfortunately, it didn''t do as much damage as I hoped.


    The temperature dropped more and he used [Blizzard]. My [dagger torrent] that just turned red, dropped all the way to blue lightning. I also got hit but I covered myself with frost magic to limit the damage. It''s one of those skills that is almost impossible to evade without teleports.


    I don’t need this skill because I don''t miss it on a regular basis. I didn''t mind this minor damage but setting back my [dagger torrent] pissed me off. I guess I will have to wreck my feet a bit. I chained [accel turns] and [accel steps] in rapid succession and got the lightning back to red to which I used [accel stop]. The lightning collapsed into myself and I turned into pure red lightning.


    Now normally I would be overpowered in this state but frost magic doesn''t care much about this state. But for 3 minutes I can freely control lightning with minimal mana use. Now I can’t use [God of thunder] yet because that forcibly ends this state. I started to make it rain red lightning like Raishin likes to do and throw enormous masses of red lightning at Cygnus. He seemed to do a genuine effort to dodge those. I didn’t get as many good hits in as I liked because I wasn’t in a wonderful state myself. Even without his wings, he was quite fast. But that’s fine.


    My clones and Starbolt finished their magic circles. It’s nothing fancy, just a magic circle that returns and amplifies lightning magic when it gets hit by a lightning attack. He may dodge [God of lightning], but if he does, I’ll force him to dodge into the range of this magic circle. Best case scenario he gets hit by both. I threw some more attacks that ‘missed’ so that he was exactly where I need him to be.


    The [boss music] started to become more intense and I bound his feet with wires. This wouldn''t stop him but it would buy me enough time to fire off my [God of thunder]. He fell for it and got hit by the enormous red lightning pillar. I got an invigorating feeling and my body burst into some strange orange light. I grinned. I entered a critical rush, how lucky. I changed the boss music to reflect my critical rush. Lots of electronium guitar sounds to drive the point home that he’s fucked.


    The magic circle also hit him full-on. No critical hit but that is fine, the initial hit did more than the magic circle echo anyways… He dashed at me covered in frost but I could see that he already started to slowly freeze over. My body and feet hurt but I couldn''t stop here. I started another [dagger torrent] It seems Cygnus caught on to what I was attempting but I don’t think he can prevent it now. He was caught in my [dagger torrent] and he got an insane amount of small hits and some did critical hits that prolonged my critical rush state.


    Hmm, [dagger torrent] and critical rush seems like quite an overpowered combo. I already landed 5 critical hits on him and Cygnus seemed to realize something was different about my critical rush. He used [X-1] but canceled it after it sucked up all my lightning and broke out. He put a [frost wall] between us but the wall was only 1 m thick so I teleported behind him, imbued a random sword with purple lightning, and started slashing at him. I didn''t get to land any more critical hits and the orange glow disappeared.


    “You are not a human, are you? Quack!” I didn’t answer him and tried to land more damage but my momentum dipped when the critical rush disappeared, also my sword shattered, again. Cygnus seemed to have a method to regulate his internal temperature but it didn''t seem to work that well. I had slight nausea and I still had some mana over but I shouldn''t be greedy, I will just continue blasting him. I used 3 mana friendly [foxfire: summer heat]. Cygnus evaded 2 and took the last one full-on. Starbolt used his [Spirit lightning cage] again.


    This time Cygnus was prepared and dodged it but came in contact with the cage so ate a 2-second stun. I charged another sword with blue flames and cut him with a [Iai: foxfire rend]. I heard the familiar sound of a shattering sword. I expected this to happen. Cygnus screamed and tried to freeze the flames, which was unsuccessful. The fire went out because the mana got sucked out of it but it did leave him with some scorch marks. I decided to double down and use an [accel step] and foxire-imbued kicks.


    As long as there was enough mana in my foxfire it seemed to at least have some effect on him. I chugged another anti-nausea potion because the nausea reared its ugly head again. I haven’t noticed the passive, that Azu gave me, kick in yet. After several kicks his feet froze over and his movement got restricted which meant game over for him. He did land some hits on me but I managed to block most of them with my right arm. Some parts of my right shoulder that was still flesh got some minor frostbite though.


    After completely immobilizing Cygnus I dropped 3 [foxfire: summer heat] on him causing him to completely freeze over I got lucky and the last one got rid of my nausea. My frost magic prosthetic fell off and I let nature do its job and fix my arm. This problem was solved, temporarily, but now I had another problem. I was very low on mana. And even though I didn''t take that much damage I was quite beat up and my whole body and especially my feet hurt.


    A shadow clone dragged me to a dark alley to rest. The blood clone was heading toward me to help out. Geminga seemed to be heading in a different direction than my buddies were at so that wasn’t a problem for now. I don’t know for how long Cygnus will be frozen. If it was me in that situation, I’d probably be stuck in there for 2-3 hours but he is way stronger than me so I don’t think that’s very realistic. My blood clone arrived and brought me to an empty cell and injected me with some more nature magic. I wanted to take a short nap but I don’t think I can afford to.