So I’m a Fish, So What?

An odd tranquility settled over the hall.

In and outside the arena outside, everyone held our breaths.

Anticipation, excitement, interest, irritation… Everyone's feelings might’ve differed or coincided, but they all tacitly stopped whatever they were doing and silently watched.

The calm before the storm.

I acted the same as they did on the outside. My heartbeat sped up and my wide grin slowly faded into an emotionless expression.

On the inside however, I was dancing with giddiness. All sorts of strategies popped up and faded in my mind before I finally settled on the good ol’ trust your instincts and let them finish the job.

I’m really stoked for this! I mean, how long has it been since I was a part of a battle that won’t end with me delivering a one-sided beatdown or fleeing immediately? This is gonna be soooo fun, hehehe!

The atmosphere premating the arena triggered my memories of those nostalgic times when I sparred with Shishou on a daily basis…. Ah, I’m getting distracted right before an imminent battle, that’s not good.

My eyes scanned my opponent’s massive body in search of any glaring weaknesses, but I failed to find anything worthy of note. Instead, my eyes made contact with his belligerent vertical eyes, sending a shiver of excitement down my spine.

Even without my emotional sensor, I could sense the strong emotions conveyed by those eyes– pure battle lust and a cannibalistic desire for victory. I never thought I could feel such raw emotions from eyes that are basically my size.

It was at this moment that I understood the outcome of our duel. This battle can only end with one of us going down, and no one can intervene– except for Gakia, probably.

Unbeknownst to everyone present, the scales were tipped in my favor before we began.

Not to underestimate my opponent or anything of the like, but who told this guy to focus on physical stats only? Rather, the majority of the dragon race develop their skills similarly, if my memory serves me right.

Even if their draconic anti-magic scales make you guys the perfect mage killers, there are some types of magic that these scales are useless against, y’know?

Heretic Magic directly targets the soul, bypassing any and all body defenses. Spatial Magic can also be cast directly inside the body under the right conditions, rendering his scales’ defense useless. Finally, Abyss Magic doesn’t give a fuck about system resistances.

The first two are fairly hard to come by as well, so building resistances against them is quite the task.

By the way, I happen to be a master at the first two, and I have access to the third. Sooo… hard luck, dragon dude. Your sacrifice will be remembered, I hope.

You should be able to hold on for a while though, I’m not planning to use those magics right from the get go, you see. 

This guy has a ton of skill points as well, so it’s very possible he’d pull off an Araba move and obtain a shit ton of resistances with them. That would make the fight really boring and increase the chances of it ending in a draw.

As these thoughts went through my head, the way I looked at the dragon inadvertently conveyed a hint of pity and playfulness… which didn’t escape his sharp pupils, apparently.

I dunno if he took that as an insult, but he certainly wasn’t happy about it. A roar of sheer fury came from his mouth as his body tensed in preparation to pounce.

With my survival instincts on alert and my battle intuition sending loud danger signals every moment, my body moved on its own. Can’t let him have the first hand.

All of a sudden, our silhouettes flickered and disappeared, leaving behind blurry afterimages and charred footsteps.

A moment later, both of us were in the other’s previous positions with our backs facing each other.

The hall went completely silent, as if someone had pressed pause on the world itself. A second later, a deafeningly loud noise echoed throughout the hall.

Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnggggg!

Holy…! This is cool as fuck! I never thought I’d be in one of those cool anime confrontation scenes one day!

We had moved so fast that the sound of our clash only arrived moments after it was over. The visual results of the clash followed suit shortly after.

The dual swords I tightly held on to were completely scrapped, their blades sliding down and dropping to the ground with a weak thud. Those bits and pieces turned into powder shortly after.

As for whatever remains attached to the handle, an overwhelming number of cracks could be seen spreading all over it. It’s honestly a miracle the handle was able to hold on even with me reinforcing it with skills.

The dragon didn’t come out of this exchange unscathed either. His earth-tearing claws were reduced to half of what they were. On top of that, a continuous stream of blood gushed from the palm of his hand and down his fingers.

His wounds were regenerating at a visible rate however, telling of how ridiculous his recovery abilities are. I assume ‘twas but a mere flesh wound to the mighty dragon.

I should still collect that blood after we’re done though, never know what it could be useful for.

An ancient dragon’s blood should sell for a lot as it’s probably used in advanced medicine and potion making. As for the claws themselves, they were already in my Spatial Storage the moment they were cut off.

All in all, I lost my weapons while the dragon basically just got his nails clipped and earned himself a couple of minor injuries.

It’s my win though. My swords can be repaired right away through Shapeshifting and Alchemy, while he’s completely lost those claws until they grow again a few years later.

Even Satiation’s resource regeneration can’t do anything about it. I tested it before, and my tiny nails were considered ‘lost body parts’ that cannot be regenerated naturally, let alone his earth-rending claws.

Perhaps Miracle Magic can regrow them, but this guy doesn’t have it. He doesn’t have the means to exploit the W system’s loopholes with Shapeshifting like me either.

The dragon also understood that he lost this exchange when he saw my swords returning to pristine condition in mere moments.

To add insult to injury, I even went ahead and mixed in a few elements I thought would make the swords tougher, meaning my weapons are now better than when we started.

This isn’t enough to put him at a great disadvantage, nonetheless. This guy can just pat my head with his clawless hands and turn me into a literal hamburger if he feels like it. It was, however, enough to get him to take our duel more seriously.

Out of the blue, my intuition went haywire as I felt a ridiculous amount of magical power building up inside the dragon’s mouth and in my surroundings.

This amount….! Is he planning to empty his entire MP bar this early on?!

His jaws flung open as he sprayed a dragon’s breath my way.

I quickly jumped out of the way and had to roll a few times until his attack was finally over. Just when I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, the dragon smacked the ground with both hands.

Without a moment to breathe in between, I found myself surrounded by numerous Earth Javelins. In addition to that, I felt the solid floor under my feet softening into viscous quicksand, slowing my movements by a great deal.

To make matters worse, the ground outside the range of the quicksand was transforming into numerous thick and thin pillars that started branching while shooting towards me at various complex angles, intending to lock me in an earthen cage and most likely bury me alive.

Too much magic for a physically biased status window… Well, he does have a few thousand in Magic stats, so I should’ve expected it.

With my resistance stats being fairly high, I usually ignore most magical attacks coming my way, but I can’t do the same with these. It’s Earth Magic he’s throwing at me right now, not some candle heat fireballs or tap water water jets.

Even if it’s technically ‘magic’, it actually does physical damage– especially those spells that make use of the surrounding terrain. It directly bypasses my resistance and instead focuses on breaking through my meager defensive stats.

I can’t keep teleporting away from every little attack I take either, or my MP bar won’t keep up with my consumption.

I highly doubt Mister Dragon would be nice enough to let me use Satiation to regenerate my resources mid-battle– unless he’s not as bright as he seems…?

I decided to reveal my next card, a low cost ability that allows me to dodge most attacks no matter what their nature is– Shapeshifting.

Although I usually use it to take on a human form, this is by no means the only function it can provide.

Or rather, any skill or title effects associated with Rulers are incredibly powerful in their own right. I just haven’t been using it much since I didn’t need to.

A part of my archives is exclusively reserved for all the data I harvested after analyzing the corpses of the creatures I defeated before, meaning I can take on a number of forms if I desire to do so.

Throwing my swords back into my Spatial Storage, I activated the skill. My body size shrank rapidly and my humanoid body gradually but speedily morphed into an insectoid one.

Right before the spears and the breath reached me, I made an air platform with my recently acquired Dimensional Maneuvering skill and heavily kicked it with my four hind legs, jumping over all of the javelins.

My new form was revealed to all those present, garnering a few surprised roars from the audience and a hum of interest from Gakia.

It’s not everyday that you see a full-blown human transforming into a mantis, after all.

A slick violet body with a head that holds a pair of large black compound eyes at the sides and three tiny red eyes on the top.

Two pairs of hind legs supported my weight, allowing me to pull off some cool maneuvers. A pair of sharp scythes sprouted in front of those legs, threatening to slash through anything that dares touch them like a hot knife through butter– though their size leaves much to be desired.

Compared to a human, a tiny mantis length could weave through this barrage of javelins with ease. Even the pillars that were supposed to trap me became my aid instead.

When the first one arrived, I held onto it and began nimbly hopping pillar to pillar, using the solid footing to dodge or block the magical siege that is still going on.

Such a small and flexible body coupled with my speed stats made me virtually untargetable. Although my offensive and defensive stats are pretty much useless right now, it’s a good trade in my opinion.

It’s not like I’m stuck in this body anyways, I can switch back or into other forms whenever I see fit.

I decided to keep the mantis body for a while longer though, since its SP consumption is much lower than the human form. The law of conservation of energy works the most wondrous of ways.

I can take advantage of my speed and intangibility to wear the dragon down. He’s having a hard time just finding me, let alone actually attacking me.

Everyone’s been in that situation where you try to step on an ant, only for it to emerge safely due to its small size letting it take shelter in the miniature crevices in the floor.

Yeah, that’s the exact same situation we’re in right now. 

In this case, I’m the ant and Mister Dragon’s the poor human.

In other words, we’re at a stalemate– at least until he runs out of MP or I run out of SP…. You can see where this is going, can’t you?

This guy didn’t have much magic juice in the first place yet he went around wasting it, so it wasn’t long before his MP bar was emptied.

For a short moment, I braced myself for collision. I mean, he can’t use magic anymore, so I thought he’d try to stomp me to death.

If so, then I would juke him around for some time while trying to inject my poison into his huge body, but…. my expectations were violently overturned the next moment.

This guy started eating rocks. Yes, you heard me right. He just picked up a fistful of rocks from the ground and straight up munched on them!

I stood there, totally stupefied as I watched his MP bar refill at a visible rate. Each loud crunch felt like an invisible attack on my fragile sanity.

…So you don’t even need actual food for Satiation to work? A-ha-ha-ha, the more you learn– No, wait a goddamn minute. This is a piece of information I didn’t need to learn at all, isn’t it?!

Also, that’s definitely cheating, isn’t it?! Referee! I call foul!

Even if I –by some miracle from D– run out of food, I have hundreds of clones running around outside. One of them could teleport to the sea and grab a few extra tons of seafood at any time.

By the way, I just realized this guy actually has Status Condition Nullification… which means my treasured poison is totally useless…. te-he~

Honestly, I should’ve expected it with him living almost his entire life in a labyrinth that contains the most poisonous creatures this planet has seen. Totally my bad, to be honest.

This means my only viable methods of causing damage are those three magics I thought of before… but this guy has way too many freaking skill points with which he can buy the nullification skills for both Heretic and Spatial type damage!

Should I just use those two anyways? I could always end the fight with Abyss Magic if I find myself stuck in a tough spot, anyways… meh, whatever.

Let’s focus on dodging for now and leave this problem to the near-future Violet to decide on, shall we?

I really hope this guy drops his guard and gives me a chance to pierce through his heart with a sword, though I highly doubt that’s possible with how patient he is.

Since this guy just started snacking on rocks to restore his resources, I took the time to have lunch mid-air while hopping from pillar to pillar.

You gotta respond to disrespect in kind, y’know? Don’t ever let anyone step over you and leave scot-free. It’d be even better if you build up enough fame for them to not dare pull off such a stunt

Anyways, here’s the current situation.

Nearly half an hour has passed, yet the both of us are still munching on snacks while performing a live comedy skit for a grand audience… like, literally.

This stalemate should be broken soon though– at least I hope so.

Rocks sure as heck aren’t tastier than my homemade crab sticks, so it’s only a matter of time before this big fella gets sick of them and decides to pounce on me instead, right?

…Which isn’t gonna go well for him since I’m still a mantis. Rather, was winning even considered an option for this guy in the first place? It feels like we’re both kinda stupid when it comes to tactics and planning.

How can he go about securing a win against me anyways? I can’t see any viable methods. Even his prized physical stats aren’t all that useful in such a small arena.

As if reading my thoughts, Gakia yelled for the other Earth Dragons to retreat and tapped the ground with his finger.

Instantly, the area of the arena expanded by more than ten times and large stone walls rose around it, circling us and locking us inside– No, it’s not that walls rose around us, it’s that the ground beneath us sank down with us still standing on it.

By the time Gakia was done, we were in a pit that was much larger than the shaft where Kumoko and Araba fought in the anime.

Here, the dragon could finally make use of his true strength— the same goes for me, as well. I can finally cast Abyss Magic without having any scruples about the audience’s well-being.

But first, I wanna make the terrain more favorable for myself. Fighting in an open environment is way too advantageous for the giant dragon.

With a thought, the clearly artificial pit became what appears to be a perfectly natural shaft to the untrained eyes.

Boulders of varying sizes sprouted from the ground, stalactites grew randomly, small and large burrows were dug through the walls, and natural stone arches and bridges formed a road to the great hall above us.

After all that was done, I turned my eyes back to the dragon who was patiently waiting for me to finish.

Now back in my human form, I stared him down straight in the eyes with the intention of continuing our fight.

Considering that this guy can employ the entirety of his strength, I decided to pull a few stops of my own and actually use some of my broken skills.

Raising my hands, I materialized a ball of light and chucked it at the dragon’s face. Right before it entered his scales’ anti-magic range, I let it explode into a blinding light that left his vision temporarily disabled.

At the same time, my body quietly lit up with a soft light– a sign of my Phantom Runes activating.

The moment the dragon fell into my illusion, I darted away and ducked behind a tunnel I stealthily dug out.

My opponent roared defensively, sending more Earth Javelins at my previous position while covering himself in a solid layer of earth.

Frankly, I was confused about his actions.

Even if I’m back in my larger human form, we both know his javelins are useless. We have also seen how futile my physical attacks against his scales are, so the armor is just a waste of magic, in my opinion.

My confusion turned into astonishment when I witnessed what happened next.

Before hitting my previous position, the javelins suddenly stagnated mid-air. Then as if an invisible hammer hit them, every single javelin was crushed into gravel.

You can imagine what happened after that… Let’s just say, I’m really glad I didn’t have to experience what taking a bunch of shotgun pellets to the face feels like, else I might have become a trypophobe’s worst nightmare.

Well, the aftermath left the ground and the walls riddled with innumerable tiny holes, so I’ll take a lucky guess and say a trypophobe would probably faint in fright if he was watching us anyways.

A sigh of relief escaped my mouth as I thanked D and whatever divine friends she has for their blessing– if she had any in the first place.

….At this point, I can’t describe this guy with a simple world like cunning, no. This dragon is just plain vicious.

To think he spent this much time eating rocks and randomly chucking spears at me just to get me to drop my guard down… Thankfully, I was smart enough to not underestimate my opponent.

I’ve decided to take up arms and achieve another dragon slaying feat while cleansing the world of such pure evil!

For humanity!

….Wait, I’m not human, am I?

….Uhhhh, for justice!

The dragon didn’t continue attacking after that. He just stood there, looking at the destroyed terrain with disappointment.

“Hooh?” Gakia’s surprised voice resounded in my head.

Even he has to take a few seconds to figure out what happened.

The illusion I cast on the dragon has the effect of letting him see the result he most desires. If I had to guess, I believe what he sees right now should be a piece of minced meat resembling a corpse that is filled with numerous tiny holes and collapsed in a pool of blood.

The audience weren’t a target of the illusion however, so they’re very confused as to what had transpired– except for Gakia who appears to have had a similar experience before.

Or maybe he just figured it out with his draconic intuition?

Chance!

In a flash, the dragon’s right hand dropped to the ground. The shoulder which it was previously attached to was left with a smooth incision from which blood sprayed like water from a broken pipe.

“Roar…?”

If this was a cartoon, then I’d probably be seeing a few question marks floating above the dragon’s head right now.

Somehow, his bewildered face coincided with all those cute puppy pictures I used to browse on the internet back on Earth. I had to do my best to hold back from chuckling lest he finds my hiding position.

Ah, I also took the time to stuff the lone arm into my Spatial Storage real quick. Wouldn’t want him to reattach it, would I? It doesn’t count as a ‘missing body part’ if it’s still there, after all.

When everything finally clicked in the dragon’s mind, he was incredibly furious, as you’d expect. A roar laden with madness shook the pit, threatening to collapse the entire shaft and bury us alive.

Channeling his magic into the ground, the dragon turned the lower area of the shaft into one of those whole room traps where the walls close in on you to crush you alive.

He didn’t add a roof though, so it was really easy to just hop out and away— or that’s what I thought until I saw him curling up into a ball and slamming into one of the walls as a roof finally covered our heads.

So that’s why he put on some armor, huh? Understandable– not! Did this guy just turn himself into a freaking pinball?!

Locked us in a room without doors and windows with a pinball shaped dragon can’t be good for your health!

As if to confirm my thoughts, the huge earthen ball rolled towards a wall, crashed into it before bouncing back and rolling towards another.

It wasn’t long before he picked up enough speed to escape a veteran adventurer’s sight. To make matters worse than they already are, thousands of sharp spikes suddenly appeared on the armor’s surface.

What kind of hell difficulty pinball game is this?! Also, I’m the only object worth points in this entire place, aren’t I?! I needa get out of here as quickly as possible!

Placing a hand on the nearby wall, I activated my long-forgotten Burrow skill to create a tunnel leading outside this death room.

The dragon immediately sensed the magic power fluctuations and locked on to my position, of course. But Sage’s insta-casting is just way too overpowered.

Before he could redirect his body, I had already crawled out, but not before I used Psychokinesis to stealthily bury some of my scales in the ground.

It’s a trap– an obvious one at that.

Nevertheless, I have a reason to believe this guy will fall for it anyways. He feels like the kinda guy who’s too confident in himself to stop and think it through.

Hiding behind a random boulder, I watched as he channeled his magic through the ground, gradually widening the tunnel’s to the point where the dragon could comfortably walk through.

As soon as I caught sight of that huge ball entering the tunnel through my sphere, I used the connection I had with my scales to transform the tunnel once again.

A ramp there, a couple of walls here and there, a slide over here, and finally, a large pit right at the end. Perfect.

If all goes well, this fight may as well be at its end.

The dragon followed my script to a tee.

He rolled onto a ramp, flew in the air for a few meters, collided with a few walls that slowed his speed down, then fell down the slide and into the pit.

As soon as he stopped, I took advantage of his stillness to activate my Spatial Magic once more, directly targeting his torso this time.

Things didn’t go as I expected them to however. Instead of his heart getting crushed, or at least another arm getting cut off, the dragon emerged from my makeshift pit trap completely unharmed.

A quick scan of his status shed light on the situation.

He lost over a hundred thousand skill points and gained the Dimensional Nullification skill– a skill that might just be rarer than ruler skills.

I mean, Spatial Magic is incredibly rare in itself, and those who are lucky enough to have the affinity for it don’t often use it for offensive purposes. This means the Spatial Resistance skill itself is nigh impossible to acquire, let alone its maxed out version.

….This guy pulled off an Araba move this quick, huh? Well, I guess he had tons of skill points laying around, so it’s only natural he’d use them when the time calls for it.

So how can I do damage now, I wonder?

Directly attacking his soul would leave permanent damage, so let’s temporarily shelf that option until I decide whether I want him dead or not.

I can’t use other types of magic unless I can somehow have them attack the insides of his body directly. Any status conditions would get directly nullified, as well.

That leaves only Abyss Magic, right…..? I guess It can’t be helped then.

Teleporting into a tunnel about a hundred meters above our current position, I pulled out the pre-set rune construction for Abyss Magic’s first spell Hell Gate.

As soon as I began inputting magic power into it, a pool of black liquid materialized at the bottom of the shaft, right underneath the dragon’s recovering figure.

Since I didn’t need to waste my processing power maintaining the rune construction like Kumoko, I was free to pour in as much magic as I wanted.

As such, it didn’t come as a surprise when the pool became large enough to cover the entirety of the shaft’s floor and began slowly climbing upwards.

The dragon sure as heck wasn’t oblivious to what was happening around him. I mean, there was a literal pool of doom building up right under his feat, y’know?

He just didn’t have enough stats to escape– especially with a missing arm throwing his body’s balance off.

Even if he was in perfect condition, he wouldn’t have been able to escape anyways.

This ‘black liquid’ isn’t a liquid at all in the first place. It is the manifestation of darkness, rushing to devour and assimilate you into its very existence.

 

{Proficiency has reached the required level. [Abyss Magic LV 1] has become [Abyss Magic LV 2].}

 

Due to my relatively low magic power reserves, I stopped only after a total of 15,000 MP was used. This left me with enough MP to teleport away twice in case of an emergency– from which I immediately used one to reach the top of the shaft.

I might’ve caused tons of damage to the dragon through this move, but I’m not as naive as to believe that was enough to get him.

I waved a hand to open my Spatial Storage and used Satiation to directly inhale the food inside into my stomach.

It’ll take a few minutes, but my MP should be back to full in time for us to resume our duel– if we need to do so, which I doubt.

Honestly speaking, I’d really rather not continue. This is plain boring.

I believe Gakia, and myself as well, have misjudged just how skewed the scales were on my side. In other words, it appears I’ve become a bit too powerful without realizing it.

I mean, I have been holding back on using Heretic Magic this entire time just because I was afraid of permanently scarring the dragon’s soul, yet I’m standing here totally unharmed while my opponent is in a half-dead state.

If it’s a fight within the bounds of the W system, it’s either gonna be an easy win for me, a stalemate if the opponent has a lot of resistance skills, or it would end with me fleeing unharmed.

A fight against divine beings outside its bounds on the other hand, would only result in my death no matter how I struggle.

The only interesting battles I could seek are those with my powers restricted in some way, like the no magic zone in the Dead Zone. And even that loses its appeal when I’m faced with an unkillable opponent.

It’s a really awkward spot for someone with an extraordinary thirst for battle like me….

Sigh, let’s just focus on creating a new race, shall we? Maybe I could invest my free time into building a kingdom after that.

I also need to search for some ancient ruins and collect more MA energy powered technology and find a way to finally ascend to the ranks of the divine.

As I got lost in my thoughts, my MP bar was turning blue at a very high speed. My opponent appears to have finally recovered from my wide-scale annihilation spell and began struggling to rise to his feet.

The scales he was proud of are gone, huh? I distractedly noted as I watched his recovery ability wrestle with the remnant abyss powers sticking to his wounds.

So no more bullshit magic invalidation and no more bullshit recovery ability… Yeah, this fight’s over... Bummer.

Should I challenge Gakia…? Nah, he’s got resistances to everything I have, and I doubt relying on Abyss Magic could help me secure the win.

Besides, he’s definitely more familiar with the W system and its workings than a rookie like me, so there’s a chance he knows a way to counter Abyss Magic.

Not worth risking at present was my final verdict on the topic.

Sighing, I took a leap of faith into the pit, landing directly opposite to the scarred dragon.

Upon seeing me, his efforts to stand up increased, and I felt a familiar wave of magic power building up in his mouth.

“Just stay down already.” I scowled with irritation. “I’m sorry, but this is already over.” I spoke in a matter of fact tone, my face relaxing back into an indifferent expression.

The dragon calmed down. Not in response to my words, but my actions.

Both of my hands were aimed at the dragon’s heart, each with a rune construction floating above. My eyes stared straight at his throat, a miniature magic circle shining in its center.

This time, it’s really a checkmate.

How should I deal with the aftermath, I wonder?