Chapter 247: Death of the Gargoyle King
"GRAKKKQS~" in addition to that, one of its wings was damaged as it had tried to use it to block the cross, a fatal mistake in that regard.
But even then, the king still believed there was a chance for it to come out victory out of this mess.
It took it around thirty seconds, but in the end, it was able to stand back on its feet, swaying left and right as to keep its balance, the holy aura hurting its head.
And when it finally decided to look at Stark again… its eyes widened, and it finally realized something: it would have never been able to win.
In front of it was a giant energy ball completely created from holy aura, Stark\'s arms spread around it as it was roughly the size of his chest, an aura pouring out from his fingers to give power to the attack.
This was the legendary perk of [Crimson Purification]: Holy Concentration.
It did take them quite a bit of it to do it since Stark had never done it before, but he had successfully managed to complete his energy ball before the gargoyle got up.
Basically, instead of focusing his aura to send it around his body like some sort of holy wave, he grabbed all of that aura and put it inside that energy ball, making it slowly grow with a magnificent golden color.
And when he was finally done…
"Adios," he smiled as he pushed the ball out with his palm, sending it toward the gargoyle king at intense speed.
And of course, in its weakened state, the monster had absolutely no chance to avoid it.
~FWISH… BOOOOM~
Not only did the holy energy ball touch its body perfectly, but upon impact, it immediately exploded, sending out waves of aura around it, meaning that if it potentially had enemies surrounding it, then they would have died too.
"-278367!"
"Gahg-" the green aura in the second eye of the gargoyle flicked for a few seconds as well before completely vanishing, a trail of smoke leaving the body of the elite upward as it had quite literally been fried by the ball.
[Gargoyle King: 0/650000]
And so it fell, dead.
~SWISH~
And its body turned back to stone instantly, before shattering completely.
"Damn, that\'s overkill, not gonna lie," Stark laughed.
[You have slain \'Gargoyle King lv140\', gained 3,800,000EXP!]
He got slightly more EXP than by the [Darkness Ghost], probably since it was level 140, 10 levels above the other monster, and there was no denying that it was an elite, only one rank below boss.
Of course, nothing until now could ever compete with the EXP he had gotten from the warden, but soon enough the monsters would finally be able to give him 5 million exp at once, catching up to it, though it will take time.
[You have slain \'Gargoyle Minion lv135\', gained 227462EXP!]
[You have slain \'Gargoyle Minion lv135\', gained 219381EXP!]
[You have slain \'Gargoyle Minion lv135\', gained 225448EXP!]
~DING~
[Your level has increased to level 66, granting you three skill points and a boost in stats]
[Experience: 2359515/2850000]
And worse of all: he only got one level from that.
"…" Stark sighed, but he was used to it, domination was truly an unforgiving class after all.
~TAP, TAP~
He slowly headed back to the stone path, and specifically the stone fountain which now missed the gargoyle statue at the top, to continue walking toward the path leading to the boss/final zone.
The garden was now in chaos from the battle: MOST of the small gargoyle statues were destroyed, the grass was burned because of the holy aura, and because of the shadow claws, and some walls had cracks on them because of all the damage.
"Battles are intense, huh," this was actually the first time Stark noticed such a distinct change in the atmosphere after a battle, as for some reason he had never seen such a scenery before, "Well, doesn\'t matter."
He walked around the fountain and continued heading toward the end of this garden as he was now the other half, no monsters coming out as they had quite literally ALL been killed.
But this was a good thing, since it allowed Stark to rest: he still only had 7500 HP from the fight, so trying to fight the apostle right now would be suicide.
In the distance, at the very end of the garden, there was a massive red door that opened, inviting him to enter.
Only ten minutes after that, he reached that very same door.
But instead of immediately going in… Stark went to the right side of the garden and rested against the wall.
His side still hurt a bit from the [Shadow Claws], but surrounding it with his aura massively decreased the pain and stopped the bleeding as well.
"Spatial Inventory," he mumbled, then pulled out THIRTY, yes you heard him right, THIRTY [Regeneration Potions], then gulped them all one by one, "Good thing I always restock my potions, heh…"
[Potions Available: x73 strength, x66 speed and x47 regeneration]
The wound on his side slowly closed up afterward, and he didn\'t have to put his aura there as to stop him from dying of blood loss.
There were several ways to regenerate your health points: potions of healing, skills and finally… just resting.
As long as you didn\'t have the [Bleed] effect and weren\'t amputated or had a massive/fatal injury, then simply resting and sleeping would slowly give you HP, although that\'s the longest method of all, and the least used since, y\'know, when you\'re in a rift, you can\'t really take the time to do that.
And the other reason Stark could afford to do that without fearing just a single monster come to kill him while he was resting is because…
"Clone Frenzy," he lifted his arm upward, and three clones appeared in front of him, "Superior Clone," he mumbled, and the clones suddenly began to merge in a flash of beautiful crimson light.
30 seconds later after merging, what emerged from all that light and was, obviously, the [Superior Clone]!
He hadn\'t summoned it until now because he feared that it could get taken down in one strike, and giving it HP was a terrible idea, just check the fight against the gargoyle: he had been put to under 6000 health points, which would have killed him.
And if a single debris flew toward the clone and hit it, then it would have died too.
"=)" and of course, that little shit had its iconic demonic smile, which never left its face no matter what happened.
"You know what to do," Stark smiled at it, and it nodded as he closed his eyes, "I guess you can wake me up in like… huh… two hours?" he didn\'t want to stay for too long in here as there was the possibility of this rift\'s time going much slower than in the real world, meaning that while he thought a few hours passed, it would actually be weeks outside.
The next zone, beyond that red ominous door with a frightening aura coming from the other side, was probably the final boss of this rift: the apostle.
And so Stark needed to prepare himself with everything he had, as it would surely be a hard battle (but not his hardest since, y\'know, Exorcist).