Chapter 73: Clearing the 28th level
Like a shadow, Ivan\'s figure faded away while leaving afterimages behind him as he dodged everything and appeared ten meters away.
The card in his hand jumped into the air and scattered into light particles of blue, red, and gold.
Rumble!
A moment after the card turned into light particles, the sound of the sky rumbling rang out as a thick lightning bolt of similar colors appeared out of nowhere and struck at the monster.
Roar!
The monster roared and prepared to meet the lightning bolt head-on; it was too fast for it to dodge.
Bang!!
An explosive sound echoed as the lightning bolt exploded on the chest of the monster, sending the latter flying away like a broken kite.
It smashed into the ground fifty meters away from its previous location and continued crashing for another twenty meters before coming to a stop.
The impact of the lightning bolt had been so strong that the monster wasn\'t able to stand its ground.
BOOM!
With a deafening sound, the monster jumped back to its feet and landed heavily on the ground; creating another deep crater with its weight.
Ivan took a close look at it, on the chest of the monster was a clear burned mark with a few of its scales having cracks that spread for inches.
He had almost broken through the defense of the monster with a single lightning bolt!
Pleased with the outcome of his attack, more cards appeared around Ivan and floated around him in circles.
The monster, having been sent flying by Ivan\'s attack, roared angrily. Its scales had cracked and it could still feel the stinging pain around the area that was hit.
The ground trembled as the monster moved like a gust of wind again and approached Ivan.
Ivan was prepared and immediately sent out five cards that turned into lightning bolts and struck at the monster but the latter had prepared this time.
With a sonic boom, its speed doubled.
Hundreds of craters appeared on the ground almost at the same time as the monster crossed the distance between it and Ivan in an instant.
The five multicolored lightning bolts missed their target and struck the ground, creating five holes in it and causing the space to tremble; the monster had already appeared in front of Ivan.
It immediately sent its large claws swiping at Ivan\'s face.
Swish!
The sound of the wind being sliced through by the sharp claws of the monster rang in Ivan\'s ears when he tilted his head to dodge the swipe, there was no doubt that his head would be cleanly cut off if those claws had landed.
After dodging the swipe of the monster\'s claws, Ivan quickly moved back to gain distance but the monster was not going to let him and moved along with him while at the same time sending another swipe at Ivan.
Ivan dodged again but barely this time, the movements of the monster were becoming faster!
Bending his body after dodging the swipe, a large mass of oppressive red energy burst out from Ivan\'s body and gathered around his right fist which he sent toward the side of the monster\'s body.
POW!
A punch smashed into the body of the monster with great impact and sent a shockwave out through the other side of the monster\'s body, a painful roar left its hideous mouth.
The force of the punch caused the body of the monster to curve, but it wasn\'t strong enough to push it back or break its scales; Ivan even felt a slight sting in his knuckles after executing that punch.
Ignoring the pain, the monster sent a knee strike to Ivan\'s face.
The knees of the monster had scales that stuck out like a knife, it would definitely pierce Ivan\'s face if he took the hit.
Still, in the half-kneeling posture, Ivan had to push flexibility to the extreme and made an insane twist in that position.
He slammed his palm on the ground and did a side flip while at the same time pulling back his head.
Ivan managed to successfully avoid the knee strike and landed two meters away from the monster on all fours, he did another backflip before standing on his two feet.
The monster was surprised that Ivan was able to dodge that attack; after all, there was only a fraction of o.3 seconds before its knee smashed into Ivan\'s face.
It turned to Ivan and opened its large mouth, a red energy ball immediately shot out at a speed that made Ivan\'s eyes widen.
BOOM!!×9
One energy ball after another was shot toward Ivan in quick succession that he would not have time to dodge; all energy balls landed on the place Ivan was standing, and a huge explosion engulfed him.
Smoke and dust screen covered the place, a massive hole had been formed and Ivan was presumably inside it.
The monster waited for the smoke and dust to clear. Although it had not seen what happened after the first energy ball, it was sure that Ivan hadn\'t been able to dodge; he would have appeared at another location by now if he had.
The monster waited for a few whole minutes as the smoke screen and cloud of dust slowly dissipated; it finally caught sight of Something after the place cleared a bit, but before it could take a proper look.
Wooosh!
A red light suddenly shot toward it from behind the dissipating cloud of dust and smoke. Experience tales at mvl
The monster was stunned for a moment before recovering and immediately moving away, but the red light followed it as if it had eyes; the speed of the red light wasn\'t slower than that of the monster either.
In just a fraction of a second, the red light caught up with the monster and jumped on its body.
The monster\'s retreat immediately came to a stop as it came crashing into the ground forcefully.
Taking a closer look, it realized that the red light was, in fact, a fire snake.
The snake was only four meters long and wasn\'t as huge as the monster; it had a large head, and its entire body was made of scorching fire.
The fire snake wrapped itself around the body of the monster before squeezing and biting at the monster.
Every scale that the snake made contact with would immediately begin to melt under the strong temperature of its body.
Roar!
The monster roared furiously upon seeing its scales beginning to melt. It tried to cut the snake\'s body with its claws, but the body of the snake would simply reattach after separating for a few seconds. It was made of flames, after all, and was intangible.
What\'s more, the claws of the monster instantly began to melt after making contact with the fire snake.
The monster began to roar in pain as it thrashed about, creating loud noises and causing the ground to tremble from its movements.
Meanwhile, while the monster was struggling with the fire snake.
Ivan was standing inside a faint blue barrier inside the hole that was created by the energy balls shot by the monster.
He had been caught off guard by the sudden energy ball as the monster had never used it before, thus he didn\'t have time to evade. But that did not mean that he didn\'t have other ways to deal with it.
He had turned one of his cards into this barrier and it had successfully blocked all the energy balls without receiving a single crack.
It was even sturdier than the scales of the monster!
Returning his gaze to the red monster that had almost all of its scales melted by the fire snake and was still thrashing around, Ivan removed the barrier and began walking over in calm steps.
He stopped a few meters away from the monster that seemed to have gone mad from pain, a look of satisfaction appeared on his face.
"End it" Ivan muttered.
Reacting to Ivan\'s order, the fire snake unwrapped itself from the body of the monster and moved to its head before exploding.
The explosion of the fire snake caused the head of the monster to explode as well, its body immediately became motionless after its head exploded.
Clang!
One of its red horns flew over to where Ivan was and landed before his feet. Ivan looked down at the scorched horn, the notification from the system appeared in front of him at the same time.
[Level 28 cleared, proceed to level 29?]
[Yes/No]