Reincarnated Hero System

Unique Skill: Stoneheart's Embrace.

It was a skill Evan would definitely want to get if he had skill slots available right now.

|Stoneheart's Embrace;

Type: Unique Skill

Effect;

With a weapon as a conduit, contact with the user's opponent channels the essence of earth into the target, initiating a gradual petrification process.

The severity of the petrification depends on the duration of contact, with longer exposure leading to more extensive petrification.

This skill can immobilize the user's opponents, rendering parts of their body into stone, significantly incapacitating them and leading to their eventual petrification. |

Because of this skill, Evan could not afford to get hit by Maude's attacks.

'Still, BoD infuses me with the essence of the World Law of Destruction. It should be able to 'destroy' the petrification effect…unless…'

[The 'goddess Artemisia' states that the essence of the Earth elemental World Law is involved, though the user is unaware of this.

The Level difference between you two makes it such that it can still affect you, but due to your BoD skill, it would only be at 30-40% effectiveness.]

'So, BoD takes out a whole 60% of the petrification? That's nice.'

A thin layer of green light washed over the boy's body, courtesy of Eliza's support magic cast with the aid of the Radiant Codex.

With that spell taken into account, only 10% of the petrification could work on Evan if he used BoD.

As for Maude, the woman instantly figured that Evan had asked Eliza to cast some sort of buff on him.

'Could it be…he knows my skill? Also, where's that lightning spirit of his? I can see the cat in the girl's hands is the shadow one, but I can't tell where the other one is.

That strange feeling from his is also gone, along with his power boost…'

She silently joined the two short staves together, returning them to their original form as on long staff and silently took a stance.

Her thought momentarily went to her contracted demon who was barely holding her own against the combined attacks of the Demons of pride and greed, but as if Evan sensed that momentary lapse, he dashed towards her in that same instant.

The boy held his sword at his side, infusing it with his aura before sending out an aura slash while Maude activated basic wind magic to boost her speed, allowing her own slash to reach Evan before his reached her.

Evan bent his head to the side to avoid the staff slash, but Maude flipped the staff and sent out a follow up slash, preventing him from getting in an attack as he used his sword to block.

She quickly pulled the weapon back and the sent out an upper slash which he dodged by twisting his upper body, and once again she chained in a low slash to his legs and forced him to jump back to avoid.

Without hesitation, she slammed the staff onto the ground and activated her Seismic Strike skill.

The ground shook violently, making it hard for anyone in the room to maintain their footing, before sending shockwaves radiating from her position.

Even after her staff had left the ground, residual tremors still continued to affect the boss room.

But as the skill's activator, Maude was immune to the effect of these waves, hence the reason she was able to charge back at Evan with breakneck speed.

She got into range, swinging her staff diagonally upwards, attempting a strike towards the hero's upper body. Simultaneously, five earthen projectiles manifested on his other side, before stabbing towards him faster than her staff's movement speed.

Caught between the two attacks, Evan just silently activated Elemental Shield and set the element to Earth, with the end result being the two attacks bouncing off harmlessly.

Immediately after, he tightened his grip on his sword and spun around, sending out a massive slash of gold aura that forced Maude to reactivate her stone skin whilst jumping backwards.

She even erected multiple earthen walls to dampen the effect of the attack, but Evan's slash bashed through them all with ease and reached her, slamming into her body and sending her flying.

'Blade Cannon.'

The boy did not let up, swinging his sword twice and sending nearly a dozen fist sized aura bullets at her, each one accompanied by a slash of his golden aura.

'Rising Ground!'

She slammed her palm onto the ground and activated a spell, summoning a towering earth pillar from beneath her. It propelled her upwards, effectively avoiding the onslaught of the blade cannon.

'Earthen Rain.'

An array of multiple earthen projectiles manifested in the air before launching towards Evan at sonic speed, prompting the boy to dart around on the ground to evade them.

Each one of them exploded on contact with the ground, giving rise to billowing clouds of dust and debris.

'Heavy Armoured Guard.'

The ground cracked open and the upper body of a massive warrior-like golem of stone burst out from within, brandishing a gigantic great sword.

It executed a mighty full powered slash aimed at Evan, but the slash was intercepted mid-air by a translucent barrier of magic power.

'That's right…she's there as well. The 'Child of Life' skill holder.'

Maude and Eliza momentarily locked eyes, but Eliza only smiled and spoke.

"You shouldn't focus on me too much, you know?"

Her voice was amplified with magic, making Maude who was dozens of metres in the air hear her clearly. The statement made the Demonic Human realise that Evan who she had been fighting, was nowhere to be seen anymore.

She could not see him, nor could she sense him within the clouds of dust on the ground.

'Where-?!'

Her senses picked up on the threatening sensation the essence of destruction gave her at the last moment, and she turned around, swinging her staff to block the upward arcing slash of the hero's sword.

'Frostblade Slash.'

But she wasn't fast enough.

Evan 'materialised' behind her and unleashed a razor-sharp icy crescent of energy that sliced through the air, colliding with her side and knocking her off the pillar of earth she was on.

The frostblade unleashed its numbing power and enveloped her in a shroud of biting cold that not only dealt damage but hindered movement and dexterity.

But thanks to her Stone Skin skill, it was only the movement impediment she had to worry about.

'Kayla.'

[You finally remembered I was here.]

The Lightning spirit spoke sulkily as she manifested on Evan's shoulder with her right hand outstretched. Simultaneously, Evan stretched out his left hand with a bit of a wry smile on his face as the both of them sent out spears of Fire and Lightning towards Maude.

Both spears tore through the air and towards Maude, about to hit the woman when she slammed her fist on the ground and conjured a wall of earth to defend.

She also tried sending a command to the Earth Golem to attack Evan from behind, but said golem was suddenly destroyed by three super condensed beams of energy.

Evan and Kayla's spells reached, impacting with the earthen barrier and bursting into trails of lighting and flames that advanced around the barrier and collided together right in front of Maude's face.

**BOOMM!!!

The ensuing explosion blasted the barrier to bits, sending stone fragments flying towards Evan, but the boy simply swatted them away and high fived Kayla.

With his feet landing on a void step, he rose his other hand up and conjured a massive spike of ice, launching it towards where Maude had fallen but the spike suddenly stopped mid-flight, shaking as if it had been met with an invisible barrier.

He tried forcing it forward but the resistance persisted, and just before he could use wind to clear away the smoke and see what was stopping it, he noticed that the stone fragments from the explosion that he had swatted away, were still hovering in the air.

'Telekinesis!'

The instant he came to that conclusion, the fragments all morphed into tiny earthen daggers and launched towards him at sonic speed, but Evan simply created an earthen elemental shield to block them.

As for the person telekinetically controlling them, Kayla used a skill to conjure a giant fist made of lightning blocks and threw it at them through the smoke at the speed of the element it was made of.

The fist struck Maude's flank, hurtling her body towards the adjacent wall.

Her body violently crashed onto the Boss Room's reinforced wall, with enough power to shatter her stone skin and expose her actual flesh.

Before she could recast the skill, Eliza unleashed a concentrated beam of magic power that hit her right in the chest, making her cough out blood.

**CRACK!

The sound of something entered Evan's ears, with the boy's gaze turning towards the cocoon atop the altar where Maude was when they entered.

"The Lizard Lord is waking up already? Then playtime's over."

With those words, the boy activated three of his unique skills, BoD, Mesarthim, and Harbinger of Ice (HoI) simultaneously, drawing his sword and layering their energies on the blade.

"Elemental Destruction Fusion."