Zombehs

Labyrinth

Sounds fine to me. Alexander could probably use the help back into town anyways.

Labyrinth

It was with slight disappointment that Alexander darted up the stairs and out of the fourth floor. He had an estimate of how strong he would need to be to challenge the Metal Slime, but with the limited number of floors to explore it would be quite some time until he was at such a level. Assuming that Zhan did not improve itself which relied more on there being no means for it to do such a thing. The creature was obviously intelligent enough to consider it.

The last remnants of Ares’ boon began to leave him just as he reached the statue. As the wave of exhaustion came over him, his knees nearly buckling out from beneath him, Alexander managed to reach out and touch the statue.

Labyrinth

His initial strikes worked amazingly well, so of course Alexander wasn’t surprised when his opponent adapted. The Metal Slime Prince seemed smart enough for it, but he silently cursed the creature anyways. It felt like a spar against Matsuha all over again, where the smaller statured man would roll, twist, and turn with each of his strikes and bleed away some of the momentum and force or even turn the blow completely aside. Still, his attacks had only been lessened in effectiveness rather than outright nullified, so he pushed onward as Zhan’s form wavered and shifted. The fact that he had not yet received a single counter attack from his opponent only encouraged Alexander to press on; Zhan probably couldn’t risk the loss of whatever material it devoted to an attack.

As he was forced to fling handful after handful of the metallic fluid, Alexander disengaged with a huff of frustration. The fight had already dragged out longer than any of their other encounters and at his current rate, he would need quite a bit of time to rip Zhan down to size. Apparently his decision to disengage proved to be correct, even if he didn’t particularly like it, as Ares voice echoed in his mind. Without a word he retreated to the stairs and up them towards the handy statue Senna had discovered earlier, intending to use it before the medallion’s effects wore off.

Labyrinth

He didn’t take any time to think and simply reacted. Zhan had abruptly withdrawn the moment the boost had surged through his body, and with the timer already counting down Alexander had no time to waste. His enemy withdrew and he followed, the metal of his greaves groaning at the stress they were forced to endure as he sprinted forward faster than ever.

There were numerous problems at the moment he had to deal with though. The unknown duration of Ares' boon was perhaps the largest. Beyond that, he didn't know if separation would actually render smaller portions uncontrollable by the Metal Slime's core. With how swiftly the monster acted and moved it was also incredibly likely that its core could be shifted around at will in reaction to attacks. All very troublesome, but ultimately he would find out nothing if he simply retreated from the battle. Actually, that point was debatable as some of the Deities might be willing to answer; it was an uncertainty though given this was one of the challenges presented by the Labyrinth. Well... he also didn't want to just waste the gift he had received from Ares.

Zhan's anger fell on deaf ears as Alexander watched carefully for any reaction before he lashed out with swipes to rip and fling aside pieces of the Slime's body. Did he expect to actually defeat the Floor Boss in this encounter? Not in the slightest, but at the very least he could work out more effective measures of hurting the creature. If ripping it to smaller pieces was ineffective then he would have to move onto a different strategy. Well… he would probably only be able to test this and another method of attack. Anything further would probably run the risk of Ares’ gift ending part of the way through.

Labyrinth

I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

Labyrinth

Well the fight was going about as badly as Alexander had imagined it would. He had managed to stop both attacks for the moment, but only the flexible and metallic body of Zhan meant that he was in a bind, quite literally. With both sword and shield ensnared by tendrils that seemed strong enough to match his own strength given his shield refused to budge, he didn’t hesitate to burn his Goddess’ gift. As the disc crumbled in the pouch at his waist, he felt the surge of power race through his body as the world seemed to slow down around him. The tendril around his shield had just formed yet another tendril that lanced out towards his chest. The Acid Slime was of concern, but he planned to dodge the attack in the first place.

He released his hold on his sword quickly, given he couldn’t focus on both problems at once and a weapon was of little use if he was impaled through the chest. The freed hand slammed into the back of his shield as his shield arm twisted and tugged away sharply. He didn’t know if with his new found strength he would have been able to overcome Zhan’s strength, but it didn’t matter. With two rapid snaps, the leather straps that held the shield to his arm snapped with ease and he stepped back rapidly to avoid the Metal Slime’s attack.

Labyrinth

Le fucking shit. Dishonor on me, dishonor on my cow.

Labyrinth

Ah, cool. Thanks.

Labyrinth

<Snipped quote by Zombehs>

He'd be able to pull it back a bit, but not to the point where it'd break out of the tendril's coil. At least, not immediately.

@Dawn

I take it would be same for his sword? He would be able to hold onto it, but it would be a struggle between the two of them?

Labyrinth

@DawnJust wondering how much resistance Alexander would meet if he tried to pull his shield away? Would it budge, or simply be locked in place?