Green flames were suddenly expelled from the Dullahan's neck and they swiftly blow towards Greenie who was already swinging his hammer down on the monster. The flames and the hammer connect and contrary to Greenies belief he wasn't able to simply smash through them, the flames had solidified into a shield that managed to completely block his strike.
"What?!" Greenie shouts as he was sent back from the strong collision, suddenly the flames turn back to normal as they attack Greenie.
Swish
Shadow uses his teleportation and shows up beneath Greenie, with great speed he arrives at Greenie as they both move to the side while the flames pass next to them.
"Oh a Dullahan, and one that can already use his Soul Flame, you're in for a tough one little brother." Aethion suddenly tells Reign as the latter charges towards the Dullahan with fierce speed. Thunder was usually the bane of demons and evil spirits, which could be seen from the battle the party had with Aethion, even though Reign's lightning wasn't able to completely destroy the undead like light was, it was still highly effective against them.
"Soul Flame?" Reign stops suddenly as he asks Aethion, he almost forgot that the old man should know pretty much everything there was to know about the monster in front of them, Dullahans were usually depicted as high or medium-level undead in many novels since the old bastard was a necromancer, a Transcendent necromancer to bout, he should be incredibly familiar with it.
"Yes, it's similar to the Death Flame that we necromancers use, a Soul Flame is something special that stronger undead possesses, of course, this one is still too weak to utilize it to its fullest potential, but such a low-level Dullahan being able to use it at all means it's quite talented, I would have probably used it if I had my body," Aethion says with a sorrowful tone, Reign was already imagining the old monster looking at him with puppy eyes while uttering the words, he quickly shakes his head as he tries his best to delete the picture from his head.
"Cut to the chase Aethion."
"So impatient, alright listen up," Aethion says suddenly, "The Soul Flame has many uses, right now this guy can only use the basic ones, he can use it to attack like a flame, the difference is that the soul flame doesn't really burn, it's actually quite chilling."
"The other function is the one you have just witnessed, with a simple thought and mana control the Dullahan can solidify his flames, they can be used for both defensive and offensive purposes, but mostly defensive."
"Light magic can suppress them a bit, but it's not as effective as it was against my undead as soul flame is as the name suggests, a flame of the soul since it is technically considered something that was living then light magic can only do so much, your lightning as well, even though it can't fully suppress it you should be able to go against it," Aethion says before coughing slightly.
"Beware though, being hit by the soul flame is no joke, it doesn't hurt the body, at least not initially, it will target your soul and the pain of your soul freezing is not something you wish to experience, trust me on that one."
Reign quickly shouts at the others and tells them what Aethion just told him, right after that he charges towards the boss with his lightning fully cloaking him. Even though the information that Aethion had given him didn't contain any weakness of the Dullahan, it was still a good thing to know your opponent's powers.
"Does this thing have any weakness?"
"Not really, since its head is gone you can't target that, there is the primal soul fire inside of its body, that's the source of its soul flame but, as you can see its quite well defended, not to mention that it could be anywhere as its quite small, each Dullahan is different and the primal soul flame will be positioned at a different place as well."
Hearing Aethion's words Reign simply continued, he expected as much, at least he now knew that something called the primal soul flame is the source of the fire, even though Aethion said that it's very small and hidden inside the body, who knows, perhaps he will be able to find it during the fight. Reign first tries to sense the flame, with his incredible sensitivity towards mana he concentrates a bit on the Dullahan, but unfortunately, its powers functioned a bit differently compared to how they used mana so he wasn't able to sense anything special.
He soon arrives at the boss and starts fighting against it, as the Dullahan was a level 40 boss its power was incredibly large, his attacks were fierce and the power behind each swing was great, Reign wasn't able to relax for even a second as he dodged the attacks and did his best to counter-attack.
The Dullahan's armor was still giving him trouble, every time he would aim at a weak point that he could see or between the joints he would still somehow hit the well-armored parts of the armor. It was only after a couple of hits when he realized what was happening, other than the horse and the flame the Dullahan didn't use any kind of ability or skill, of course even without it the boss was still a fearsome enemy that was not to be underestimated.
Every time that Reign attacked the monster he was able to feel a slight force being applied to it, the force wasn't overly strong, but it would constantly happen when he tried to attack the weak points, from that he could infer that the boss had some sort of skill or ability that allowed it to create some sort of a force field around certain areas of its body, the force field would allow it to fight without minding its weakness that much as the force field would do enough by its own to protect him.
"Good job, you managed to figure it out quite quickly," Aethion says with a calm voice as Reign managed to deflect an attack with both of his swords, even though he was successful the strength of the blow still pushed him back.
"Why didn't you tell me this?!" Reign angrily scowls at Aethion as he continues fighting against the Dullahan, Wolf and the others were also attacking the boss, but with the help of his horse he was able to run past almost all of them and dodge many attacks, Reign was the only one fast enough to keep track of him all the time, Shadow was close as he would appear next to the headless horseman a mere second after Reign.
"Well the thing with higher level undead is that they all start developing their own skills, the abilities are also something that a necromancer had nothing to do with, some would inherit the abilities that they had in their life before they died, while others would develop completely different ones, I only managed to figure out this guy's ability a while ago, I thought I would give you a chance to use your brain a bit before telling you, you did not disappoint me, boy." Aethion's gleeful voice could be heard as he snickers a bit after speaking, Reign grits his teeth as he continues fighting the boss with all that he had.
Since none of them were in danger he decided not to use his sword's ability, Wolf as well had no interest in using his right now, the cooldown for both of them was rather long and it was a great trump card to have when in dangerous situations.
Since everyone was close to him Reign was also not able to use his black and white lightning, his control over that power was still not sufficient enough and it would cause harm to his friends as well. Using his blue lightning and his swords he was battling the boss fiercely while the others were running around and following after them, only occasionally managing to deal some damage.
Beast was probably the one that was getting annoyed the most, his normal arrows were pretty much useless against the boss, even after getting the new bow, his skills, on the other hand, were limited as most of them would do AOE damage and he didn't want any of his squad mates to get caught in the crossfire. He suddenly calls back the lion as he starts fusing with him, since everyone was giving it their all he was going to do the same.
Even though the skill had a chance of making him go out of control, with the worst-case scenario being him losing himself, he felt fine for now, each time he used it with one of his beasts he would change a bit, but he was still himself and the effect would wear off after changing back.
Beast inferred that it probably had something to do with how powerful and loyal his beasts are, if he had one that was stronger than him then the risk was higher, the same probably applied if the beast was of a high grade, such as being a special kind of variant species or a strong elite.
Fully changed now the blonde-haired Beast stomps the ground as it caves in around him, with a powerful kick he launches himself towards the Dullahan as the ground explodes behind him, launching a cloud of dust and pebbles in the area.
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