Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Mud and water splashed as the giant snakes wreathed in pain and hurriedly unraveled their knot. The lake's water became even murkier as they stirred up the mud at the bottom.

As the snake finally took some distance from each other, Seth saw one of his concerns confirmed. The swamp dragon was gone!

This should have been a piece of good news because there were only ordinary high-level giant monster snakes left. Except that he did not know where the matriarch had gone!

But he had to stay calm and keep reciting the song. There was a raged heap of titanic snakes before him. He could not just run off, to make sure where the dragon was.

The snakes in the basin were running wild as they tried to find the source of the song and arrows and began to use large-scale skills to pelt the surrounding area in destruction. They spat water jets or created mud spikes that shot out and laid waste to the ruins of the surrounding structures.

Although they could not see him, Seth had to dodge and run not just once. He did not fear the damage thanks to his items but falling in the water and getting stuck in the rubble. He had not yet found an enchantment for waterbreathing and feared drowning.

Now, that they released their knot, Seth could also estimate their numbers. There were at least 30 Titanoboas with their sizes comparable to a freight train. Especially the patriarch looked long enough to embrace a skyscraper and squeeze it apart like soft cheese.

Seven or eight were drifting lifelessly in the water, either dead or stunned. The other 20+ were spotted with rotting wounds that were spreading at a slow but visible rate. Because of the pain, they were busy looking for the attackers in a berserk manner by randomly everything around them.

Only the giant patriarch was calmly scanning the surroundings and systematically attacking places. This snake had an intelligence comparable to a human and remembered the encounters with invaders that had also used the tiny prickly things.

The patriarch water and earth kept aiming for places an archer could stand. It was currently the most problematic opponent as its magic had already taken Seth's foothold twice.

The blacksmith had already concentrated his fire on the patriarch, but unlike with the other snakes, the decay and pain effect of the bow and arrows had very little effect. Even the homing was slightly thwarted. The patriarch was definitely a miniboss and had a high resistance to abnormal conditions.

This was a problem. Unless the arrows hit a crucial vital point, they could not really affect such a giant body without the abnormal effects.

Arrows were limited. Seth decided to simply keep an eye on the patriarch and concentrate on cleaning out the other snakes who didn't have a great resistance. If you face a problem that it too big, split it into smaller ones and take care of them step by step.

Seth kept dodging any magic that came too close and kept shooting. Last night, he had made 300 adamantine arrows enchanted with the demonic ballad of decay. It was to further strengthen the bow's innate ability.

As the snakes finally started dying one by one, they fell into a panic. They couldn't find the attacker and there was no end to the painful stinks and the sickness they brought. Even the patriarch started losing its cool.

Even though it was not a target itself, it had to watch its children get slaughtered and couldn't do anything to help. It was when half its kin was dead, and the other half was barely alive that the constant volley of arrows finally stopped.

It wasn't that Seth was out of arrows, but that he decided to change the strategy. He didn't want to all his arrows and then face the pseudo-swamp dragon. Especially since the patriarch was a bullet sponge.

Instead of firing arrows, Seth changed equipment. There was only one weakness of snakes of which he knew of. The cold. Unfortunately, Seth himself was not too good with the cold either. His high affinity with fire made him have a shitty affinity with the cold.

The blacksmith could no skill in ice magic, but it didn't mean he couldn't acquire some through other means.

He wore the Frozen Sky brigandine, the Ice Glider Boots, and the staff and ring he had made for Lyxiss. Since the elven girl had acquired the class of an Elementalist she had asked for items that helped her elemental affinities.

Since his departure had been too sudden, he had no fitting soul for her staff and simply copies Evee's Arcane Staff which strengthened all magic in general but with a high chance to also inflict random curses.

The ring was made of <Frost Nova Brass>, a unique rated material he managed to make from <Cold Copper> and <Volatile Zinc>. It ended up as a ring because its creation was more luck than skill and he didn't manage to make more of it. Like the name suggested <Volatile Zinc> has uncontrollable properties and he could not replicate the process.

With these items equipped sneaked up behind the Titanoboa Patriarch and jumped on the lake behind him. The boots created an ice floe for Seth to stand on. The blacksmith was invisible, but the floe was not so he hurried to cast the Hailstorm of the brigandine.

The originally ten-meter range of the Hailstorm had more than tripled and created a powerful shower of ice balls that pelted the giant snakes. Physical injuries were minor, but the cold it brought with it, sapped the energy from the giant bodies and all movements slowed down.

But this was not the end.

"Ice Nova!"

An explosion of frost with Seth at the center covered the lake in a thick layer of ice. This was a skill attached to the ring. It had no fixed power and grew with the mana that was pumped into the casting.

With two thirds of his mana and the power-ups from the equipment, the whole basin became a domain of frost. This blow was enough to sap out the last bit of health from the regular Titanoboas. A huge wave of experience rushed to him, and he heard several level-up notifications

Only the patriarch withstood this shock frosting. It was covered in a layer of ice, which cracked and broke as it moved at an almost imperceptibly slow rate.

Seth looked up to the snake's head that was towering far above him. Like a sea monster, the patriarch was so long that his head at the end of its erect body hovered almost 5 stories above the water surface. How was he supposed to get up there?

Suddenly a blazing beam of light shot from the distance penetrated the almost motionless giant's head. Puffles had sniped the giant snake with a lase he shot from between his mandibles. The Ivicer had never looked more anime than now.

Well done! Seth praised in his mind as another huge chunk of experience came in, together with another level-up notice. He had reached lv.58 in one go. A whopping six levels. It was really worth it to hunt far above one's own level.

This maneuver had not really been planned, but since they could roughly read each other's emotions and inclinations Puffles had acted on its own to deal a finishing blow.

<Ding! Your Title "Snake That!" has been strengthened thanks to the continuous and merciless slaughter of snake-type enemies. +20% Damage to snake-type enemies.>

He had totally forgotten about this title! But before Seth could think long about it something else demanded his attention.

The giant patriarch's body went limp and crashed into the ice surface. It broke under the massive weight and Seth had trouble finding a safe spot to stand. Before it could completely submerge in the cold floods, he touched it and stored the body in his inventory.

Hopping from floe to floe, the blacksmith hurried to store the other bodies too, at least those on the surface. Seth had two big concerns.

One was getting his loot but the bigger one was that the pseudo-dragon might return before he could collect all the bodies. He was confident in the Helm of Hades but a dragon was a dragon. Even just a pseudo one. Who knew what it could do?

Seth grabbed all the bodies he could and went to rejoin with Puffles and retreat to a safe distance. From the roof of a tall building in the distance, they kept observing the basin. When nothing happened right away, Seth turned to his status.

He had 8 Free Skill Points and 57 Free Attribute Points. He distributed the latter evenly to even out the current numbers and put the rest in agility.

With 7 of the 8 Skill points, he finally leveled up <Blacksmith's Eyes>. Unfortunately, it did not increase the rank of items he could not appraise and he still couldn't appraise the Helm of Hades.

Now he could gain the blueprints of items below epic by appraising them and he could check items up to the Relic rating. He was confused by this description. He was already able to check relic-level items, otherwise, he couldn't have checked his own works, right?

~ Obviously, there is a difference between appraising something foreign and something you made yourself. ~

Al explained with a sigh. Seth thought about it and it was true that he had never seen a relic aside from his own.

"But what about my gloves? I can clearly see they are legendary."

~Didn't you get these from Tored? ~

"Yeah?"

~He's your master, he probably used an identification scroll on them, so someone like you could appraise them. ~

"I see..." Seth said unconvinced, but not really in the mood to argue with the sorceress about this.

They stayed there and observed for a few hours but nothing happened. Seth used the time to have a meal.