endless path, infinite cosmos

chapter 23

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!*

Contacting the lizards head, the arrow exploded creating a thunderous boom. The nearby kobolds were knocked off their feet while the remaining two dungeon lizards roared.

In response to the chaos, Vahn continued to fire explosive arrows towards the remaining lizards and larger groups of kobolds. Because of his increased magic capacity, the bow and arrows charged almost immediately as they were drawn. Pleasantly surprised, Vahn loosed as many arrows as he could before the monsters could close the distance.

As the closest kobolds entered the range of his domain, Vahn was overcome by a peculiar sensation. It seemed like his perception had increased further with the use of the bow. He could easily track every monster within his domain, and could even see a small shadow forecasting where they would move next.

Instead of changing back to his sword, Vahn decided to take the opportunity to test the influence of [Will of the Emperor] on his ranged capabilities. He had yet to engage anything after the massive leap in his attributes and found the current situation the perfect solution to appease his curiosity.

While his previous style with the bow relied on opening a distance between him and the opponent, he now used his experience with the sword to improve his combat style. Instead of opening the gap, Vahn used his footwork to outmaneuver the kobolds. In the brief gaps when they were trying to adjust their positioning to match his, Vahn was able to quickly fire an arrow into their defenseless form.

When one kobold had tried to flank him and attack his back, Vahn was able to intercept it with his bow using the senses gained from [Will of the Emperor]. He was surprised to see that when the bow made contact with the kobold's neck, the body seemed to fold around the point of contact before it was launched several meters away.

It was at that moment Vahn realized his strength had increased to an almost super-human level compared to his previous self.

After around three minutes Vahn had dealt with the entire pack of kobolds. He looked towards the previous location of the dungeon lizards and found some slightly larger magic cores. After analyzing them through the system, he was able to determine they had a value of 23, 24, and 27 respectively. Though this implied they were only slightly stronger than kobolds, Vahn knew it wasn't always the size of magic core that determined the threat of a monster

Once everything was cleaned up, Vahn took a good look at his bow. He had initially decided it wouldn't be useful for soloing the dungeon but now knew that it had potential even in close-ranged combat. There seemed to be a synergy between [Bow Mastery] and [Will of the Emperor]. [Bow Mastery] had increased to rank D (from F) and gave a large enhancement to his vision. Combined with the increased perception of [Will of the Emperor] he could almost predict the movements of monsters within the domain.

Looking towards the various tunnels, he equipped the bow to the secondary slot and brought out his sword. The bow was exceptional in open spaces, but he still preferred the sword for combat within the majority of the upper floors. The wide arcs of the sword allowed him to dispatch multiple monsters at once if they were close enough, and he didn't have to risk causing a collapse from misfiring an arrow into the wall. He also remembered how his bow-combat had improved due to the footwork he had been developing with the sword and wanted to polish the skill further.

Vahn approached a random tunnel and started following it away from the large room. On his way, he continued to slay numerous small groups of kobolds. Even though they had become much easier to deal with, because of his close experience with death the previous day he didn't slack. Instead, he tried various different fighting methods, even incorporating punches and kicks into his combinations. He was especially surprised when his back-fist had caught a kobold that had evaded his sword strike.