Chapter 234 Monster Hunter Dante - End
Dante nodded in satisfaction, closing the singularity which led into the part of space that space element users didn't like to think about. One thing for sure was that whatever entered there was not coming out since it would be destroyed by spatial storms, so he didn't need to worry about pollution or congestion.
While Dante might be pleased, the owner and resident of this bog was not. With a screech of rage, Dante saw a strange half-bird, half-lizard-like monster charge at him while flapping its wings rapidly like a hen that was on the attack.
The cockatrice was a menacing hybrid of the chicken and a dragon, the proof lying on its body which was basically that of a rooster with colorful plumage. Its eyes were piercing and malevolent, glinting with an eerie crimson light full of cruelty and the wish to cause physical harm to all species.
A serpent's tail extended from its slender frame, a plume of scaly feathers glistening in chromatic hues. Its deadly and razor-sharp talons extended from its avian claws on two surprisingly thick and muscular legs.
The evil creature's wings were membranous and leathery, stretching wide to almost cover the sun for targets below its talons while easily extending to twice its torso's width in a sinister manner.
One of the most cruel Draconic sub-species, right up there with Basilisks.
However, as scary as it was to face head-on, one could not help but ask the question internally. How did a dragon mate with a chicken to give birth to this??
Dante was speechless at the thought and easily repelled the Cockatrice's wild charge with a swing of his blood battle halberd, causing the beast to cry out and fly back a few meters.
Oh?
Dante had used about 80% of his full strength in that hit, and it only caused it to fly back a bit? Even its talons that clashed with his blood battle halberd were not even scratched, showing how resilient it was.
Dante checked its stats out of curiosity.
?Monster Name: Cockatrice
Monster Rank: S
HP: 20400/20400
Strength: 1534
Agility: 1209
Dexterity: 566
Intelligence: 4
Constitution: 1768
Vitality: 1799.?
Well, well, those were impressive stats. As a Draconic sub-species, its body was tough, especially those scaled feathers that dotted its form. They could likely withstand nuclear blasts head-on, though the cockatrice would definitely not feel so good.
Its regeneration was even crazier. Everyone knew how lively chickens were even after you cut their heads off, not to mention that it also had lizard genes which could literally grow back severed body parts.
Heh, it was likely that this was the cockatrice's specialty and biggest strength, its revival ability from any wound as well as its ability to keep its life. No wonder it didn't bother to fight back against attackers, what was the point when you had Deadpool-like regeneration?
It also had respectable strength thanks to its talons, but its dexterity was low because it had wings, not hands. It could certainly throw feathers that were as sharp as blades, but that was not much.
Another shared strength of chickens and snakes was their agility and quick reaction to things. It was likely that if this cockatrice realized that it was in danger, it would flee with its chicken legs and disappear like a hurricane.
As for intelligence... cough. No matter how high the snake side of its genetics was in terms of intelligence, it would be heavily dragged down by the chicken's side. There was a reason why the term 'bird brain' was an insult, and chickens were the worst of the entire species.
Dante felt like this cockatrice was going to be interesting. After all, not counting his magical powers or his unactivated 10x boost from Bionics and Psionics, it was relatively close to his level.
Without further ado, Dante rushed forward and engaged the beast in direct combat. Its primary method of attack was to flap its wings to lift its body up a little and then strike repeatedly with its talons.
In response, Dante blocked all such moves with his halberd deftly, the red-colored weapon glowing with a nefarious light despite not being infused with blood Qi yet.
The entire wasteland shook with force as the shockwaves from each clash caused wind to fire in all directions like a cannon. The sheer clanging sounds of the two tough weapons meeting head-on was enough to deafen any listener.
This was all made worse by the fact that the two were attacking and defending at their full speed, their bodies moving so quickly that it seemed as if they were frozen in time to the average onlooker.
Visually, it formed a still painting of a cockatrice swinging its talons while a human struck with his halberd, but the thunderous environment around them and the loud sounds caused this painting to be one that was very hazardous to look at.
Eventually, the two separated, Dante feeling a bit warmed up while the cockatrice was panting heavily. Moving at that kind of speed burned great amounts of energy and stamina, and it was not like Dante who could regulate his body efficiently.
Seeing that it was tired, Dante was a bit disappointed. He had not even used his Blood Qi, much less his Life Essence or his other abilities. As such, his posture became relaxed as he put away the blood battle halberd, an action which puzzled the cockatrice.
However, it suddenly found itself drawn to his eyes and could not look away. Unlike the usual scene where Dante implanted memories, this time he simply spoke coldly. "Expel your mutation core and cease your life functions."
The Cockatrice immediately did so without hesitation, not even struggling against the command. It gurgled and then spat out a rather large and glowing ball of energy before falling limply to the ground, its mind and body ceasing immediately.
Dante glanced at the corpse and kept it in the quantum space. Using his Eyes of Illusion like this barely drained his energy, which was normal. After all, using illusions to control the mind and actions of a person was one of the lesser uses of the illusion power tree.
The whole shtick where he rewrote their lives and gave them new meaning without interfering with the present was one of the highest-end uses of illusions, which was why Dante was always drained so much when he used it.
In fact, apart from using it for the two protagonists, Dante had actually never needed to use it ever again. There were far simpler illusions he could have used to achieve what he had used the eyes for previously.
So yes, he had been basically using a railgun cannon to kill a germ those previous times.
Dante held the Mutation Core in hand and smiled, but his face suddenly changed. He realized that the S Rank Mutation Core in his hand was fundamentally different from the ones before.
If the ones before held important information that his quantum abilities could work with, this one held nothing and was an empty shell. Immediately, he teleported away and went to find other S Rank monsters to kill in order to verify his thoughts.
In a matter of 6 hours, over 34 S Rank monsters fell, a pandemic for the monster race of the Apocalypse World and a boon for Dante's account.
Even the AI admin for the world was alerted, but it could not find any foul play in Dante's actions since the means he used were publicly acknowledged to be a part of his superpower.
It could only helplessly report upwards while the Central AI thought of countermeasures to nerf Dante and especially his upcoming Supercoin payout that was going to break the school's record since establishment.
As for Dante himself, he was in despair. It turned out that the reason why all Mutation Cores up to the A Rank could work was because of the knowledge of the real world. Just like with the fruits in the zero gate world, part of the Mutation Cores programming contained the secrets of superpowers at each realm after studying them.
Before Lara, B Rank was the limit so only up to C rank mutation cores worked, so those mutation cores B Rank and above were empty. When Lara came and became headmistress, she freely advanced the database of superpowers by revealing the nature of her A Rank superpowers.
However, that meant that only B Rank Mutation Cores should work, so why did the A Rank ones work too? One should know that 10 Mutation Cores of the same Rank as your superpower meant you would upgrade.
So 10 F Rank Cores upgraded an F Rank superpower to E Rank and so on. So 10 A Rank Mutation Cores would send an A Rank Superpower to the S Rank.
Unless... their database had information about an S Rank superpower? But how was that possible? Even the universe only knew that the highest realm was the A Rank from Lara, and there were no others who...
Ah.
That was right.
Even as far back as when she graduated more than a half a century ago, her base superpower was already at the A Rank.
What on earth had made Dante think, especially with all of her secrets, that the headmistress had not ascended to the S Rank and above in all this time?
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