When Kyle saw the Metal Elemental turn liquid, he retreated out of reflex.
After all, his attacks wouldn't be very useful anymore.
Yet, as soon as he retreated, he knew that he had made a grave mistake.
The Metal Elemental was faster than Kyle, and it reached him again in an instant.
Now, Kyle was in an even worse position.
The metallic liquid surrounded his hammer, making it useless.
At that moment, Kyle's left arm moved to his hammer's head.
His left gauntlet shone brightly.
BANG!
His left gauntlet suddenly changed its shape.
It became flat and wide, and the sudden expansion cut the liquid metal around Kyle's hammer off the bigger pool of liquid.
As the connection between the Metal Elemental and the bit of metal was lost, Kyle activated his hammer's function to absorb metal.
In an instant, the liquid metal around Kyle's hammer vanished.
Yet, at the same time, Kyle's hammer grew much heavier.
Swinging it became more difficult.
At the same time, the new sheet of metal that used to be Kyle's left gauntlet suddenly also turned liquid.
The Metal Elemental had power over metal, and it absorbed the sheet, making it part of itself.
The Metal Elemental solidified again and charged at Kyle once more.
The Metal Elemental was just as strong as previously, while Kyle had become weaker.
He was slower, and he had lost one of his defensive items.
The Metal Elemental didn't give Kyle a chance to come up with a new plan and attacked him again in its liquid form.
Kyle swung his hammer through the middle of the liquid metal.
BOOOOM!
Suddenly, a storm of fire appeared around the hammer as Kyle used the Fragment of Friction.
He used the friction between his hammer and the liquid to create Fire Ether.
Nevertheless, the liquid metal continued.
Kyle's body shot towards the liquid metal and was splashed by it.
In an instant, the liquid metal turned solid again and turned into terrifying spikes.
Luckily, that change came after Kyle had already passed through the metal.
It was almost like the Metal Elemental's reaction had been too slow.
Of course, its reactions hadn't slowed down.
It just hadn't noticed what Kyle had been doing.
The dense Fire Ether blinded it for a short moment.
After all, the Metal Elemental lived in a world of stone and metal.
It was like a person who lived in darkness, and the Fire Ether was a sudden bright light. The only reason why Kyle was still alive was that the Metal Elemental hadn't expected Kyle to charge right through it.
However, that would only work once.
The Metal Elemental hadn't known about that trick yet.
Now, it knew about it.
As soon as the spikes appeared, Kyle swung his hammer.
BANG!
Several of the spikes were destroyed and scattered across the stone in the surroundings.
These spikes were thin, and they weren't thick enough to resist so much physical power.
In an instant, Kyle pulled all the scattered spikes to him and swallowed them as well.
The Metal Elemental needed a short moment to regain its form.
When Kyle saw that, he knew that he had an opening.
However, instead of attacking, he used the opening to use one of his hammer's new abilities.
Metal came out of the hammer, and Kyle consumed that metal as well.
This had been the metal his hammer had absorbed earlier.
During Kyle's battles with Metal Affinity beasts, he had noticed that he could absorb the broken metal with his hammer.
But in exchange, his weapon became harder to swing.
Back then, he just needed to live with it, but now, he knew enough to rectify this weakness.
When Kyle had changed the hammer, he had also created this ability.
Usually, this would be a bad idea since an enemy with a Metal Affinity would gain access to the removed metal.
Yet, Kyle had the Predator's Being.
He could just eat the metal to get rid of it.
Kyle hadn't used that earlier since this took a relatively long time and would give the Metal Elemental an opening.
Sure enough, just after Kyle had finished consuming the metal, the Metal Elemental shot forward again.
Once more, it reached Kyle.
This time, it transformed into a ball before growing countless spikes.
Then, it started spinning rapidly while shooting towards Kyle at speeds he couldn't match.
Kyle gritted his teeth as he tried to find a way to deal with this new form of attack.
'Got no choice,' he thought.
The next moment, Kyle's chest plate, his arm guards, and his remaining gauntlet all shot towards the Metal Elemental.
Then, they exploded.
This explosion pushed Kyle away from the Metal Elemental while slowing it down.
Surprisingly, the Metal Elemental stopped moving forward and just spun aggressively on the spot.
The last time it had lost vision of its target, its target charged right at it.
Because of that, it believed the same thing would happen. While the Metal Elemental was spinning aggressively, it also absorbed all the metal of Kyle's discarded armor.
Meanwhile, Kyle charged at the Metal Elemental from below as he turned more of his surroundings into magma.
His hammer swung forward.
CRACK!
More spikes were broken off, and Kyle quickly consumed them.
These bits of metal were important to Kyle since the gathered Ether from the metal supplemented his incredible Ether usage.
A moment later, the Metal Elemental turned to its normal form again.
Its size hadn't changed.
The metal it had lost and gained were about equal.
Meanwhile, Kyle had lost all non-essential pieces of his armor.
The remaining pieces all had Enchantments on them.
At that moment, the first stones in the original cave hit the ground.
Barely two seconds had passed since the start of this battle.
BANG!
The two of them had been moving at rapid speeds this entire time, and just now, Kyle broke through a wall, entering a new cave.
And as soon as he entered the new cave, he noticed something.
There was a second Metal Elemental.
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