As Bill continued to evade the Beetle King's lightning attacks, his mind raced to devise a winning strategy. He realized that his wind ability could be the key to turning the tide in this battle. With his wind aura boosted and his body moving with incredible agility, he had to find a way to exploit the Beetle King's weakness.
Observing the Beetle King's movements and attack patterns, Bill noticed that the Beetle King had a split-second delay between summoning the regular lightning bolts and launching them with more advanced skills requiring more time before it could reuse them.
These were the cooldowns for the skills that the Beetle King was using, with the basic moves like the lightning bolt having delays of less than a second to others which couldn't be used for several minutes or even hours.
Unlike Mako who had the system and could easily gain all the info by simply using Analyze, Bill had to make his observations the old-fashioned way and figure out how long the cooldown was for each ability.
It turned out that the Beetle King could produce 20 lightning bolts in a row before stopping for a second and a half and then resuming the assault with another 20 lightning bolts. This skill was called "Lightning Barrage" and was very powerful with a single one of these lightning strikes capable of completely frying an average level 3 or 4 ability user.
The pulse-like attack that Beetle used on Bill earlier was a skill called "Disruption Pulse" which the Beetle King had only used once after the initial move which Bill easily dodged and learned that this move could only be used after every 3 minutes.
There were also other massive lightning attacks such as a single massive lightning bolt and erupting pillars of lightning from the ground but all of these moves were slow and were easily dodged by Bill's fast reflexes and took about a minute or so before it could be used again.
Throughout the several minutes that Bill was battling the giant Terra Beetle King, he also learned that beasts had greatly larger cooldowns than humans as almost all of these moves could have been repeated a lot faster if he was fighting a level 7 Lightning ability user.
This gave him an idea!
If he could disrupt the timing of the Beetle King's attacks, he might create an opening to strike.
Bill focused his thoughts and finally came out of the skill that his mutant gene had activated for him which was called "Wind Mode" and took control over his body again.
He quickly channeled his wind aura to create intense gusts of air around him. The swirling winds formed a protective barrier, deflecting the lightning bolts that the Beetle King hurled his way. While his wind ability couldn't directly counter the lightning, nature was on his side.
Even though Bill wasn't the brightest student in class, even he had learned about the basic laws of nature that govern the universe and one of these laws was that electricity needed a medium to travel through.
The reason lightning arcs are created is because the electricity ionizes the air around it and uses it as a path to travel from one point to another.
Since Bill could control the wind and more accurately air molecules, he could create temporary vacuums where there are no particles of air and the lightning has no medium to travel forward; hence, it looks for another way, essentially rerouting itself to a different location based on the nearest air particles.
As the Beetle King grew frustrated with its failed lightning assaults, Bill seized the opportunity.
He directed the winds to intensify, creating a localized cyclone around himself. The swirling vortex disrupted the Beetle King's aim and interfered with the Beetle King's control over lightning even more.
Using the cyclone as cover, Bill swiftly closed the distance between himself and the Beetle King, and with a burst of speed, he lunged straight at the Beetle King.
Similar to before, right as he was about to launch his attack on the Beetle King, Bill felt his green aura react again and grow outwards with his glowing ever greener. Bill had no idea whether the mutant gene had a conscious or whether this was all happening at random, but he didn't have time to worry about that right now as he allowed the green aura to expand once again.
Since the last time, his mutant gene had activated a secret skill that made him practically untouchable and allowed him to come up with a strategy, he was curious as to what would his mutant gene do now as he was about to commence a heavy attack on the Beetle King.
The green aura extended out and just like before it activated another skill, but this time it wasn't a defensive skill, but rather an offensive one.
Bill's hands extended outward and his fingers became pointed like a blade just as he reached the Beetle King's mandibles, he channeled his wind aura into a super concentrated burst of fast-blowing wind with insane slicing force.
This insane and powerful skill that was called "Zephyr's Edge" sliced through the Beetle King's mandibles cleanly, severing them from the Beetle King's massive head.
Even though it was a slicing move and not a piercing move which was the Beetle King's actual weakness due to its brittle exoskeleton; with enough power and force, a slicing move was capable of doing the exact same damage as a piercing move.
The Beetle King was roaring in pain and fury, it staggered backward, and its lightning abilities were momentarily disrupted.
Bill didn't waste a single moment as with his buffed-up Wind ability still he summoned as much wind aura as he possibly could creating a powerful gust that propelled him high into the air.
Suspended above the Beetle King, he unleashed an upgraded form of an old move that he knew very well.
He began rapidly swiping his hands in the air, launching a torrent of razor-sharp wind blades, slashing through the Beetle King's exoskeleton and striking its vulnerable flesh beneath.
This move was none other than the Vacuum Cutter skill which Bill had modified to turn it from a single wind blade attack to a barrage attack with several razor-sharp wind blades.
The Beetle King writhed and thrashed, its enraged and pain-filled cries echoing through the area and the nearby forest.
Bill descended slowly, using his wind aura to gradually slow his acceleration and allowing him to land softly in front of the Terra Beetle King. He observed the wounded king, panting heavily with a multitude of lashes all over his body oozing out blue blood.
Seeing as he had won, Bill wanted to savor the moment of killing this terrible beast, which was why Iris almost killed herself. He slowly began walking toward the Beetle King aiming to torture it even more before finally killing it.
Recognizing its impending defeat, the Beetle King unleashed one final desperate attack. It couldn't sacrifice its crystal again and go berserk because the crystal was damaged due to having already gone berserk and wasn't healed completely. If it was to go berserk again, the crystal would rupture before it could do anything.
Knowing this the Beetle King decided to unleash its strongest move which carried a risk as it no longer had its mandibles which it used to safely cast this skill. Without its mandibles, there was a great chance for it to get hit by its own attack, but it was ready to take that risk as its ego refused to take such a humiliating defeat.
It summoned a massive surge of lightning, enveloping its entire form. Bill's mutant gene quickly reacted and instinctively summoned the wind aura once more, creating a protective barrier of vacuum to protect Bill from the electrical onslaught.
The lightning was wild and traveled outward in every direction sending shockwaves throughout the area where ever it struck, causing the ground to shake and the air to crackle with energy. After a tense standoff, the vacuum shield managed to disperse the Beetle King's lightning, leaving only billowing smoke in its wake.
As the smoke cleared, Bill emerged unscathed. The Beetle King lay motionless, defeated as it had completely exhausted all of its stamina and couldn't move a single muscle. The battle was over, and Bill realized that it was very foolish of him to savor the killing of the Beetle King when he was still quite weaker than it and a single lightning bolt from that final attack could have probably killed him if it wasn't for his mutant gene reacting in time and protecting him.
After cursing himself internally for his own foolishness, Bill quickly conjured another earth sledgehammer and proceeded to quickly smash the Beetle King's head until it turned into a bloody blue pulp.
He dug his hand inside the Beetle King's corpse until he finally reached the crystal and he proceeded to pull it out. The crystal was bigger than any High-tier crystal he had seen before, but it was quite dim and cracked.
Bill didn't know why the crystal was dim or cracked and didn't care about it. He quickly took a moment to catch his breath and assess the situation.
His mutant gene had been deactivated and he could feel his wind aura return back to its normal size. He still had a decent amount of energy left as most of the energy he used in the battle was from the additional energy he received from activating his mutant gene.
After catching his breath for a few minutes, Bill quickly started running over to the east side where Mako, Erin, and Leon were fighting the other Terra Beetle King and its army so that he could lend them a hand and finally end this fifth and final wave.
The most uptodat𝓮 n𝒐vels are published on (f)reew𝒆(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦