The power behind the rocks didn't reduce when they exploded but rather increased; the explosions were propelling them forwards with more power.
The little pieces scattered around hit the mana beast in different parts of its face.
Since it was facing the rocks with the idea to formerly dodge them head on, most of them hit it in the face.
The pain brought by a single piece didn't inflict much damage to it, neither did it cause great pain, however, the pain and feeling of every piece hitting it at once, especially with such great speed, managed to hurt it quite well.
Little cuts appeared around his face and little drops of blood bled from them.
Some even went into its eyes, causing them to turn red, hindering his sight. It reflexively shut its eyes while trashing around, wailing in a bid to ease the pain.
The most annoying thing of all for the cobra was Harry who kept on shooting those rocks relentlessly.
SCREECH!!
It let out another wail in anger and frustration, its eyes red from all stones and particles that had hit it.
By now, the little pieces had practically covered all of its vision, it couldn't pinpoint Harry's location and was more bothered about destroying the projectiles.
Meanwhile, a smile appeared on Harry's face. This had been his aim from the start; to obstruct the beast's vision by distracting it using the rocks.
He was really wary of the beast's quick regeneration and didn't want to take any chances.
Fortunately, the skill didn't take much energy from him, leaving him with plenty to spare.
Suddenly, he dashed towards the beast and then swung his hand in an horizontal arc.
'Wind slash.'
Immediately, a huge slash of wind followed, heading for the beast with huge speed.
The wind slash hit the beast at the side of its body, leaving a deep scar that ran from the side of its neck down to the torso.
As he ran, he brought out the two daggers from their pouches, holding them tightly at his side with eyes on the beast.
His plan was to close in on it and attack it using the daggers.
While he could keep on attacking from a distance with his skills, that could put him at a disadvantage since his energy wasn't unlimited.
Using powerful skills in rapid succession would drain his energy too fast and while he had a rapid energy regeneration, he would still be at a disadvantage if the speed at which his energy drained was faster than the speed at which it regenerated.
He still kept [Accelerate] and [Lightning Dash] active to keep up with the speed in case it attacked again.
The cobra's movements had slowed and it was starting to become passive, its eyes were still closed and while its injuries were healing, they were only healing slowly and the one in its eyes hadn't healed yet.
He threw one of the daggers towards the beast's head with full force in a bid to distract it before dashing to its side.
Gripping the second dagger, Harry closed in on the cobra and attempted to stab it at the side of its neck.
However, just as the tip of the dagger was about to touch the beast's neck, the figure of the beast suddenly vanished from Harry's sight.
Harry's eyes widened in shock, the hand holding the dagger was still stretched when his instincts suddenly warned him of something approaching from his side at high speed.
'Earth skin!' He barely managed to complete the skill activation when he suddenly felt something slam into the side of his chest with full force.
"Arrrg!!" He exclaimed as his body shot backwards like a rag doll.
Blood spurted out of his mouth and his whole vision turned blurry.
[-40 H/P]
'Almost half of my health! Just from that one attack!' He exclaimed in shock and then placed one of his hands on the side of his chest.
The expression on his face worsened greatly when he felt faint cracks on the surface of his skin.
Unlike his usual appearance, the skin of his body currently had a dark brown shade. However, once glance at his current look was enough to know that it wasn't his natural appearance.
It seemed more like the skin on his body was thinly coated with a dark brown substance, the brown substance extended from his face down to his feet.
It had a dull and rough texture similar to a stone, however, it didn't seem to be as dense.
[Earth Skin]; that was the name of the skill he learnt at the earth spell library. It was originally a tier two spell that was mainly used for defense and was quite popular among earth elementalists.
Just as the name implied, it was a skill that hardened the skin and transformed it into stone.
It was often referred to as a lesser version of the spell "earth armour", because it only hardened the skin and didn't have as much defense when it came to shocks and tremors.
If not for the fact that he activated this skill at the last second, before the mana beast's attack connected, that one hit would have definitely drained more than half of his health or even worse, end his life.
His eyes immediately turned towards the direction where the attack had come from.
The first thing he caught sight of was that of the peak stage two cobra in a menacing position, glaring at him angrily.
Its tail was coiled on the ground while the upper part of its body was upright with the hood of the cobra spread out and its sharp fangs jutting out of its wide open mouth.
However, one thing that was different in the beast was its scales.
Its scales were glowing with a dull yellow hue and even from where Harry stood, he could feel the power of the mana beast rising rapidly.
'Shit… this is bad, very bad.' Harry mumbled inwardly. If not that his skin was currently hardened like stone, beads of sweat would have pooled on his face.
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