Their silent exchange heated and Gabrielle’s face inflated like a pufferfish. Rowan watched in simmering annoyance and fascination at their unique relationship. Or perhaps his inexperience with girls gimped him. It seemed they fought over something… not something big like command over this continent but something small though important enough to have a spat over. Maybe a real-life squabble?
Either way, it didn’t look like it mattered to the mission and it’d take a whole lot to crack their silence.
Rowan sighed loudly and stilled his nerves. “Alright! I don’t care about your squabble. Just explain what happened.” He fought the lingering suspicion that they’d turned on him. Gabrielle’s sensual act just then didn’t help. “We wasted another two hours. The dark humans will be lost if we don’t move quickly.”
“Very well,” Ambiguous said without pause, “The fortress has a ward that activates after three uses of any portal or wormhole skill within a short timeframe. It warps the space-time enough to cause havoc but not enough for us to notice without the right skills. I disabled it just then. Apologies, Mr. Necromancer.It was my fault for not checking for that rare ward. Almost no dungeons have it.”
Rowan pinched his brow, a headache sprouting. “That’s all?” he asked Gabrielle.
She said after her features twisted for a moment, “Yup.”
Ambiguous nodded.
“You’re not betraying me?”
They laughed. “Why would we do that, ya silly? You’re our grouchy ticket to a dark continent!”
“I’m not grou—” Rowan shook his head and let his blood cool.
So he had overreacted and assumed they were betraying him. Though it wasn't unfounded—the girls' weird behavior was partial to blame. If anything, this little fiasco showed he could trust the two a tad more than before. Or at least rely on them, if not trust. He took five long breaths and said, "Fine. Let's get a move on. Ambiguous I need to buy another set of—"
The set he bought earlier hadn’t been left behind with his corpse. It wasn’t a soulbound or retained-on-death set.
“Oh,” Gabrielle chirped, “My Resurrection Draught has a bunch of bonuses. Ya don’t spawn with weakness and ya keep any lost gear that wasn’t looted from your corpse… destroyed gear too.”
Rowan huffed. They really didn’t betray him. Ambiguous’ story was solid. “That’s good. Let’s go.” He tugged on the links to his minions, ordering them to evacuate the tunnel and two entrances.
“Kay!”
“Yes, Mr. Necromancer.”
More like it. With these two and a demonic legion under his command, nothing will stop Rowan Black.
Chapter 27
Raid Boss
A set of stairs wide enough for a giant sank into the darkness. Rowan and his two lieutenants stopped at the first step, the light from Gabrielle’s Mana Lamp insufficient to reveal what’s below. But Rowan already knew what was below: the raid boss. The gargantuan, winged fire demon wielding a whip. Gabrielle had been quite ticked off that he hadn’t Examined the thing, Ambiguous as well though not as direct.
“Any more ideas to take down the thing,” he said, glancing at Gabrielle then Ambiguous.
They shook their head. “No. Something is still blocking my Detection Ward,” Ambiguous said for the third time, “Almost like an electrical mana static permeating the air that limits me to about a hundred meters.” She didn’t have to keep explaining that.
“Yup,” Gabrielle said, “Just glimpses of that level 192.”
“You got that, Rowan?”
“Yes,” he grumbled.
They laughed and he let himself enjoy their humor. It wasn’t worth it to get annoyed. They’d been growing impatient, rightly so.
The level 192 figure had been alarming, a weight pressing on his shoulders as his death flashed into his mind again. The thing’s head looked far too similar to Draesear. Perhaps it was him—the god who had conjured that damned vision which Rowan dared not replay. His beautiful, fun-loving Gabrielle was here, with him, not depressed. And that’s all that mattered.
“So,” Gabrielle said and poked his rib, “No more suggestions? I think we should just go now with what we’ve got. We got over a hundred fire imps and stalkers.”
True. Zerging the thing down could work… if it didn’t have a massive area-of-effect attack. “Maybe…” Rowan mumbled.
Underestimating the thing wasn’t an option. It’d killed him in a single hit—though his defenses hadn’t been boosted by Gabrielle’s auras at the time. You needed to be within a range limit, as expected.
But a level 192, gigantic demon couldn’t be taken lightly. The Owlish Overseer was only level 127 and guessing from the game’s exponential scaling… A level 192 demon would have to be orders of magnitude stronger. The levels for demons weren’t comparable. They were only a greater power plane.
Ambiguous stepped forward, her heel echoing onto the second step. “I think we’ve planned long enough. What we’ve come up with so far should work.”
“Yuppers!” Gabrielle chirped, “If we can’t take down this little guy there’s no way we could win at the Water Mage spire. So let’s go!” She began descending with Ambiguous. “I think this will be way easier than we’re thinking.”
"Mmm," Ambiguous mumbled, "This place was next to a starter town. It wouldn't make sense for another higher than an A rank down here and that would be pushing it." She started strutting down the steps, her hips swaying. Gabrielle followed along skipping.
Fair points. They couldn’t waste more time.
Rowan sighed and followed down the cracked steps. He ordered a fire Imp ahead to lead the way, a large ball of flame in its palm.
The army shuffled behind. Eleven owls, fifty-three clawed imps, over a hundred stalks, and seventy or so imp Mages. A balanced, sizable force only lacking tanks. They hadn’t encountered anything other than the four demon types despite Ambiguous’ assurances of over twenty types existing, according to her lore tomes.
The sudden jump from level 127 to 192 wasn’t a feature of other dungeons either. Possibly, there could be level 140s and 160s hiding in the darkness. But they’d camped the stair-top for close to an hour and only detected the boss a few times. Rowan had sent scout imps but they’d been killed in the thick darkness.
So there wasn’t any other way. They just had to go for it.
They reached the bottom step eventually, the army ready to puff into formation any second. That was the strategy—lure the boss out with a stupid, packed formation and then instantly puff into the real raid formation. It’d bait one of the boss’ area attack and allow it to underestimate the group. Always an advantage. The only weakness would be if the boss could hit them from a distance greater than a hundred meters. Gabrielle had said such projectiles were all slow and easy to dodge.
And the plan wasn’t really a plan but a series of fall-backs relying on Gabrielle and Ambiguous’ class skills. Not so much the latter, for she only possessed around twenty skills—and most were grayed-out thanks to the mana reservation of Mass Stasis. Gabrielle was low on crafting materials and a lot of her skills weren’t available too, the majority of her totems and explosives unavailable. A shield totem here would’ve made all the difference.
Still, both their repertoires far outclassed Rowan’s measly two skills, blizzard and craft minion not included. He’d been tempted to craft a stronger minion from all these clawed imps. Unfortunately, the process was exceedingly time-consuming. Every muscle, bone, and mana structure needed to be right else the whole thing could fall apart. It was far more difficult than he had first thought.
This floor was giant, fit for that giant demon. There had to be miles upon miles of empty space in this fifty-meter high chamber. Red and blue light fluttered on massive columns supporting the roof, spaced fifty meters apart. The balcony overlooking the magma sea which Rowan had died at glowed orange in the far, far left. Or at least what Rowan assumed to be the balcony at this distance—a dot of light.
An
d in the far front, a fuzzy glow of dark-red glimmered. Rowan squinted and discerned a crystalline structure. The boss’ dwelling, obviously. It sure loved space for itself. There wasn’t a single elemental or demon here and they’d marched over two or three hundred meters now. In tension. In silence, Ambiguous and Gabrielle’s chatter gone. Ready for a surprise at any moment.
When they had marched half a mile, the demon finally showed itself, puffing in front of them in a storm of smoke. Like before, it towered over Rowan by thirty or forty feet, that whip twirling in the air. Like before, those enormous, magnificent wings kept it hovering. It erupted in black and red flames and roared what sounded like a low, screeching laugh. Then spoke. “Fooools!”
Not an instant kill like before. Not even a long-ranged area attack. Maybe the army of its kind intimidated the thing. Or maybe it liked to entertain a large audience. Either way, Rowan wasn’t going to waste this opportunity.
Heart steady and strong without a thread of fear, Rowan tugged at his troops and gave the signal. He pinged the girls.
His minions moved in an instant, puffing into a rough, spread-out, circular formation. Owls far apart from each other at the center, each leading a pack of Mages. Clawed imps in the shadows, ready to strike. Stalkers at the mid-lines and their illusions sent to the rims.
Fire, he ordered.
Every imp Mage pointed, chaos orbs appearing at their nails.
The demon’s arm moved and Ambiguous gripped Rowan’s arm. The world flashed in purple.
You have taken 0 arcane damage (100% absorbed)
Her insta-movement skill didn’t cause nausea like Gabrielle’s Puff but dealt feedback damage to those without a similar skill.
Rowan stood at the center of the circular formation, a triangle of owls and Gabrielle with him. An elite guard for himself. The boss wouldn’t dare puff above him else it’d take a hundred chaos orbs at point blank range.
Remembering, Rowan Examined even if it didn’t help that much.
Colossus Enforcer (Demon): Level 192
Health: 571,200
Mana: 230,150
Stamina: 430,00
Buffs: Dark Flame Amour (Bonus to armor and all resistances, buffers against projectiles), Haste (Global speed increase), Rage (Increased melee damage, lowered accuracy)
Bloody hell. Over half a million health points—truly a raid bo—
Wait.
The Colossus didn’t have a world boss tag. All bosses had a world boss tag.
Rowan couldn’t ponder as the imps launched a wave of crackling, flaming spheres. The heat and dark electricity scorched Rowan’s Mana Shield, chunking him for 5% of his mana. Chaos friendly fire was dangerous.
The Colossus simply puffed out of the way and appeared at the right. The Chaos Orbs moved far too slowly, at half the speed of elemental bolts.
Ambiguous chanted at his side. A sword of black mana began forming in her hand. One of her few skills she could use at 75% reserved mana.
While the Colossus was occupied with the illusions, Rowan sprayed it with tainted ice, investing over 20% of his mana. The black ice melted on contact with its flaming body.
You have dealt 5120 cold and dark damage to your target (resisted and blocked)
Colossus Enforcer has resisted your Taint debuff
Damn. This was going to be a long, long fight.
The Owlish Overseers threw a hail of disease curses in between healing bolts aimed at burned imps. They cawed and screeched, chanting in their own unique language. The curses puffed to smoke against its flaming armor, useless. Rowan ordered the owls to concentrate on healing. They obeyed with a hoot.
The colossus dodged half of every attack, that Haste buff allowing it to move at almost comical speeds. Lines after lines of stalker illusions faded. The real stalkers couldn’t keep up with new illusions, the first stalker slashed in half by the whip.
“Tell me when,” Gabrielle said in between single-word incantations, her voice playful as he wand twirled.
She was going to be used as bait if needed, much to Rowan’s distaste. “Soon,” he spat and chugged down a mana potion, earning him a Recovering debuff that reduced his damage by 75% while his mana topped up.
“Kay.” She kept up a steady stream of curses. None took effect except for two laceration curses, cutting into the Colossus’ dark, bone-like armor. Gooey black blood bubbled from the wounds.
The Colossus’ health bar dropped to 90% health. A good portion of the next Chaos Orb wave pummeled the Colossus before it puffed out of the way. 80%.
The countless stalkers and illusions followed, proving too much for it handle even with Haste. Clawed imps puffed in and out like blazing flies, taking cheap shots at its flanks and sides. Less than five had been cut down, disintegrating to ash in pained screeches.
Gabrielle unleashed a wave of Laceration Curses. Her arm moved in a blur.
75%.
“Hmph, easy,” Ambiguous said, blade in hand, “I doubt I need to even join the fight at this rate.”
“RAAAAAAAAAA,” the Colossus roared. Sharp pain bit at Rowan’s eardrums.
Its flaming eyes blazed pure white.
A skill?
Rowan was answered a split-second later with beams of laser-like dark fire streaming from its eyes. Every illusion and over ten stalkers disintegrated.
“Get back!” Rowan shouted and—
His sight flashed purple, Ambiguous’ hand crushing his arm.
“Another one!” she yelled as a whip lashed her shield.
The world flashed again. Rowan’s heart stuttered, his stomach constricting at the surprise double.
Swatting away panic, he ordered his forces to split formation and dodge at all costs.
He eyed the new colossus, battling his Gabrielle in a duel. She moved unlike anything he’d seen before, twirling and puffing at speeds he didn’t think was possible. She dodged every lightning flick of its whip with ease as its body took cut after cut. What an extraordinary sight—his beautiful Gabrielle besting a gargantuan demon.
Something pinched his cheek. “Get it together, lover boy.”
Ambiguous blinked away and engaged the other Colossus.
Rowan shook off his stupor and micromanaged his demons. A fifth of his total force had been defeated. He chanted and waved his wand, raiding three salvageable stalkers. They rejoined the fray against the first Colossus. Its eye laser attack had ended, the floor marred with melted grooves. Rowan blasted it with tainted ice. It was all he could do. It dropped to 53%.
Then Gabrielle took a hit. Her mana bar dipped to two thirds. The room pulsated, Rowan’s innards sinking. He diverted a contingency of clawed imp and Mages to her aid in a knee-jerk reaction. Though her mana bar refilled at surprising speed—enough to tank a whip every ten seconds.
The first Colossus roared once more. Another eye attack.
But it unhinged its fiery maw instead.
Rowan pulled every melee unit back and they puffed away just in time as a flamethrower crackling with chaos spewed into the chamber. His ice blasts evaporated at half-distance. Shit.
But the channeled attack left it wide open from behind!
Ambiguous capitalized before Rowan could, blinking to its whip arm. The Colossus whirled in a puff but it was too late. The dark mana blade severed its hand. The whip fell to the stone and dimmed to embers. Imp Mages puffed into position and followed up with pre-charged Chaos Orbs.
They hit dead-on, dragging it down to 38%.
The Colossus cut its channel, shrieking in pain. Its fire swelled in its rage and Ambiguous took 50% shield damage before she flashed away. She joined Gabrielle’s duel. Their laughter could be heard in the symphony of battle. The second Colossus was at 67%. All Gabrielle.
Rowan breathed and sank into the cool wind of his amulet. Now wasn’t the time to lose focus. He was far less useful than Ambiguous or Gabrielle with so few skills but that allowed him to focus on managing the troops. He commanded individual stalkers and imps, overriding their w
ill with his own.
It was like playing a real-time strategy game, directing single units in the heat of battle. In, out, left, right, hold, attack. Heal that stalker. Heal that imp. Tiring work that taxed Rowan’s mind but it was pure joy, a rush of endorphins pumping in his head as he played the game in this new way.
His efforts were rewarded and saved the lives of thirty stalkers and imps. He tossed in a Tainted Ice Blast here and there when he had the chance. He re-raised two more stalkers, his micro-management slipping for a second. He was never the god of real-time-strategy and it was showing here.
The first Colossus thrashed with a flaming claw and sparse eye-beams. 21% health. Then 20%
Something happened to its body. It glowed with ruby miasma while Fire-Dark mana gathered at its silhouette.
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