Scarlet swatted at the bubbles repeatedly, as if she was being pestered by a swarm of troublesome insects. The watery circles were indestructible, as if they were floating blobs of gel. Scarlet’s attempt to destroy the spherical objects only served to distort their shape, rather than making them burst as a bubble normally would under such pressure.
The bubbles travelled slowly, uniting with one another in a watery cluster. This cluster was gradually given form, until every bubble in the room had joined to form a single image.
It was a gorgeous woman, who by all accounts seemed to be flawless. Yet, she was no flesh and blood mortal. Her body was composed entirely of the water that came out of those pipes all but moments ago. Her calves were toned but not overly muscular. Her hips curved perfectly, giving her the hourglass figure that many women work so hard to achieve. Her breasts and buttocks were exactly the perfect size, augmenting her body spectacularly. She towered over the raiders at a height of roughly fifteen feet. She was an Amazon of beauty who made Joan look like a midget in comparison. She stood over Joan with her towering form as if to mock her attempts to be tall. Her transparent pigtails wagged wildly like individual tails, as if they had lives of their own. The liquid female had no facial features to speak of, save for her hellish eyes that gleamed a malicious red, making it clear she was anything but friendly.
This watery woman named Livia started attacking Joan immediately, giving them no time to formulate a strategy. Joan, who was taken completely off guard, took a splashing smack directly to the face.
“Ugh, that bitch!” Joan grunted in displeasure.
“Everyone, attack!” Omni shouted in urgency.
“I was gonna do that even if you didn’t tell me, baldy,” Chaos quipped defiantly as he charged straight at the gigantic female, driving his fists straight into her thigh.
This only caused her thigh’s shape to distort as Chaos’s fists passed through her. The warped image of her thigh would quickly recover to its original form after every attack. This was just like when Scarlet tried to break the individual bubbles with her hand. None of the bubbles would break, and this boss was taking absolutely no damage from physical attacks.
Without warning, several gushing noises erupted throughout the room. It sounded like several waterfalls cascading at once. This wasn’t too far off the mark, as water began flowing outward from the pipes in abundance, filling the large room slowly but surely.
The boss’s attacks were manageable, but if the water kept coming in at this rate, within twenty minutes the entire room would be flooded, and they would all drown.
Dusk was scrambling in his mind, trying to wrack his brain at a rocket’s speed while keeping his wits about him.
Think. Her body is composed of pure water. Our blades can’t touch her. What forces work on water?
His eyes lit up as he solved the mystery, coming to a conclusion.
“Lena! Shoot ice shards at her. Hurry!” He yelled out, his voice stressing the timely necessity upon her.
Lena stared at him for a moment before realizing his plan.
“Understood!”
Several lethal icicles came into chilly existence as Lena chanted the spell in her head. The icy servants hovered over her, waiting for their master’s command. She lifted her staff behind her, causing the icicles to move backward slightly before she threw her arm forward with all the force she could summon, sending the icicles into a line drive, crashing straight into Livia’s watery form.
Her head had been frozen, but the rest of her body was still moving about in its watery beauty.
“Keep doing it!” Dusk commanded.
Several more daggers of cold slammed into Livia, their icy embrace encompassing her in a tight bear hug, restricting her movements and refusing to let go.
“Everyone, attack!” Omni bellowed out authoritatively, having caught on to Dusk’s plan early on.
Blades were now able to touch the previously untouchable creature. Her health pool was being chipped away slowly but surely with each chunk of ice that fell to the wayside. But there was another problem. The water that had slowly been swelling now came up to their ankles, and Livia had only lost 10% of her health. Right now, that wasn’t a cause for concern. However, later on, when the fight was nearing its end... the room being filled with water would make it more difficult to move. Hopefully everyone in the raid could swim.
After a few minutes of being entombed in ice, the rebellious Livia decided she had enough. She curled up into a tight ball before stretching herself to full length instantaneously.
Pieces of ice shrapnel shot outward from her in an explosion in all directions. Some shards were jabbed straight into the raid members on their outward journey, making it necessary for Tsuki and Muse to administer healing. Her body was now back to its original glory.
This process of freezing and attacking Livia continued for half of her health. The water in the room was up to their knees now. The threatening omen was creeping up on them by the minute. Livia also started doing something new. She stretched her arms skyward, as if to summon something forth from the ether, or give praise to the gods. It was the former, as she summoned two of the largest bubbles that the virtual soldiers had ever laid eyes on. These bubbles had formed around Chaos and Emerald, trapping them completely within their spherical prison before travelling to opposite corners of the room. Chaos and Emerald struggled to break free, but these beads of liquid death would not be broken from the inside. Their respective health pools were falling at a moderate pace as they slowly felt the drowning pain burning in their lungs.
Tsuki and Muse ran to the opposite corners, each trying to heal one of the bubble enclosed fighters, but heals were having no effect. The large circles were blocking any attempt to refresh their comrades, absorbing the heals in their entirety.
“Scarlet, Lena, break the bubbles, hurry!” Tsuki’s feminine voice demanded with a roar.
Scarlet and Lena had a massive advantage in this fight, as their attacks could be used from long range. In this battle where the water was continuing to rise even further, Dusk would have been hard pressed to make his way to the corner of the room where the bubbles resided. A simultaneous brew of hissing and booming noises echoed throughout the room, the volume of available air decreasing by the second.
Scarlet had fired her trusty sniper rifle, freeing Chaos from his prison, allowing him to breathe his oxygenated salvation. At the same time, Lena had fired a small fireball at the globule of the water which held Emerald firmly in its vise-like grip. It seemed the bubbles could be broken with a few attacks.
Emerald and Chaos were desperately gasping for air, trying to suck in as much of it as possible to recover what they had lost. As the two were struggling, Livia took the group by surprise yet again, shooting her hands out with lightning speed and gripping her hands tightly around the necks of Omni and Joan before lifting them high into the air. There was no way Dusk, Chaos, or Reaper could reach that high with their melee attacks. She was squeezing the life out of each fighter, as if she was trying to crush grapes in her hands. Their health pools were falling rapidly. Tsuki and Muse chanted to themselves quickly, bathing the two suffering tanks in mending luminescence. Right now, those two were the only reason Omni and Joan were still alive. The skillsets of Lena and Scarlet also proved invaluable once more.
Lena would freeze the arms while Scarlet used her machinegun, hitting Livia with a rain of shining bullets. Livia’s arms, now broken at the elbow, shattered into several fragments as they released Omni and Joan from their crushing grasp. Her arms quickly regenerated themselves as if she were a plant. Livia was at 25% now, but the water from the pipes now filled the room up to their chests. How they wished the glass would be empty rather than full. Each fighter steeled themselves, for they would soon have to tread water. Dusk, Reaper, and Chaos were progressively doing less and less damage to Livia; the water sapping the strength from their swings.
Dusk could only look on in terror as Livia reached out her a
rm straight in his direction, grabbing him from behind. Instead of choking him, she pushed him straight into her torso, allowing her watery body to swallow him completely. He froze, terrified as he saw his nine comrades from Livia’s point of view. His vision became distorted from his prison, which would soon turn into his watery grave if they didn’t help him. He struggled and fought desperately, but he could not free himself from her.
The group was taken aback as Livia absorbed Dusk into her body. They were unsure what to do as his health pool was gradually falling into the abyss. There was a silver lining in that the trapped Phantom could at least be healed while confined within her. However, unless they froze the watery belle in ice, they could not damage her, which meant they could not free their imprisoned comrade. Omni’s eyes were solidified by determination. He had made his decision.
Dusk will not like this, but we have no choice.
“Everyone, I have a plan to get Dusk out of there, listen to me,” Omni boomed, portraying the emergency.
“Emerald, use one of your buffs to make Dusk resistant to the cold, hurry!”
“R-right!” Emerald was utterly confused as to why Omni asked her to do this, but now was no time to question orders. She promptly waved her staff without asking any questions, causing the entrapped fighter’s body to emit a tranquil icy blue glow as the buff enshrouded its augmentative presence on him.
“Lena, aim your ice shards straight at him!”
“But won’t that?” Lena paused for a moment to mull things over, quickly realizing the answer. “I see. Understood.”
Omni abruptly turned towards the healers.
“Tsuki, Muse, get ready to use your strongest heals on Dusk; this is the only way to save him.”
“Very well,” Muse agreed.
Tsuki felt like she was drowning. The irony was it wasn’t from the water, but from the intense anxiety she felt at this moment, bearing witness to her pupil’s suffering. She turned her head suddenly towards Omni, nodding with potency.
“Well then... ready, go!”
Dusk was overwhelmed with panic as he saw several ice shards flying straight at him.
What the hell is she doing!?
A split second later, an intense freezing pain travelled all throughout Dusk’s body. Every square inch of his skin—every muscle—every nerve was clamped in the bite of an extreme chill. This hurt more than anything he had ever experienced. He opened his mouth instinctively to scream out, but this only caused his lungs to fill with water. His cry of immeasurable pain was smothered within Livia. The misery was incalculable but short lived as glaring light surrounded him, rejuvenating every pore of his body. One second he felt like every cell in his body had been bitten by an icy desolation that pressed down on every single fiber of his being, and in the next it felt as though he was dipped into the fountain of life, his frozen form fizzling with unparalleled bliss. It was the most bizarre thing he had ever experienced. His senses had returned to him, allowing him to take in the sights again, or lack thereof. He could no longer see anything but a wall of thick ice surrounding him; a reminder of the cold pain he had felt all but moments ago.
This caused his terror to rise up, similar to what the water in the room was doing right now. After all, he could not see what was going on outside any longer. Could only wonder as he felt numerous vibrations rocking his prison. A minute later, the ice wall shattered, allowing Dusk to see the outside world again. He fell forward, coughing out copious amounts of fluid as he tumbled into the water below with a splash.
It took every ounce of fortitude Dusk had to regain a calm mind after that hellish experience. After five more minutes of fighting, Livia’s health had neared oblivion, but the room was nearly out of air. On the bright side, every member of the raid group knew how to swim to some extent. On the other hand, they were treading water now... seventeen feet above the room. Only three feet of oxygen remained before the room was completely submersed.
This massive volume of water entrapping them continued to siphon the power from them like a blood sucking vampire. In order to damage Livia, they would have to swim back down to fight her, sapping their strength slowly but surely every time. Reaper and Chaos, having noticed this, stopped even trying to use their weapons, instead using the little spells they had available to them. Dusk, having no spells whatsoever, struggled the most, having no choice but to exert his physical shell constantly.
Livia’s health pool now specified that there was a mere 2% health remaining. She was at death’s door. The combat unit of ten took one last chance to swim upwards, now with only a mere two inches of air available to them. This was it. There would be no more chances for air after this. It was either win, or die a miserable death as their lungs filled up with water until they burst. Considering this fight had lasted twenty minutes, they were not sure they could do this. But they would push on no matter what—forward, straight through this mass of water blocking their path.
Every member of the raid was feeling some degree of either apprehension or fear creeping up on them at this point as the possibility of their doom loomed in front of them. The harbinger of death grew ever closer as the sharp pain in their lungs increased, almost to the point of being unbearable. Livia’s life had not even dropped a percentage since they took their last breaths of air.
I can’t hold on much longer. It feels like I’m going to explode. Is this the end?
As if a divine hand had come to aid them, two large pockets of air had appeared in the room, which was now buried under twenty feet of water. Omni motioned with his hand frantically, urgently beckoning for everyone to follow. The other nine warriors trailed closely behind him, soon finding a temporary sanctuary within this bubble of air. Everyone immediately puffed and wheezed for air, desperately grasping for any sliver of life they could.
“This won’t last us for long,” Omni pointed out. “As soon as we are ready we will have to fight again.”
As if to mock him, the bubble exploded moments after he finished speaking, leaving the group once again within the airless mass with the towering foe before them.
They fought with every ounce of power that was left in them, taking refuge in the last remaining spherical haven before that too, popped. Livia had a minute sliver of health left before she too would lose her hope to cling to this world.
Without any pockets of air left, the group could only rely on their own might. Dusk strained his muscles to their fullest to swing through the immense watery resistance. Every individual member within this group was pushing themselves beyond their limits.
Fuck this. I won’t die here. I refuse to die until I’ve done what I need to do. You hear me, Raven? I won't let you win. I won’t die!
As Dusk prepared to land another strike, a large bullet moved silently in a beeline straight for Livia, hitting her straight in the chest and cutting the last remaining thread that connected her to this virtual world. Livia’s body twisted and spasmed as the process which had given her life started to reverse itself. Her body, no longer stable, dispersed into several bubbles, and then into imperceptible particles before vanishing completely from existence.
Each soldier immediately began to swim upward, starving for oxygen. Luckily for them, since they had defeated Livia, several large drains had opened up on the floor, causing the water to fall steadily for the first time. They reached the indigo lit ceiling, having just enough air to breathe deeply as some of them came out of this fight alive only by a hair’s breadth, others barely having the strength left to tread water.
As soon as the water had drained completely, most of them fell to the floor in exhaustion. In fact...Muse, Emerald, and Chaos had all passed out cold. It was as if their bodies had given out long ago during the fight, only staying conscious through the sheer strength of their will.
Joan leaned on her sword, which she drove into the ground. She felt that if she let go she would fall over and pass out with the others. Lena, Scarlet, Reaper, and Tsuki were all sitting down, not having the strengt
h or desire to rise again. Omni was the only one standing, but even he was visibly fatigued, clutching his hip and pain and cringing. Dusk, meanwhile, was plastered on the floor, unable to move even a muscle, his body having betrayed him. He, more than anyone else, had to exert the most effort in this fight. Since his class didn’t have even a single ranged attack or magical ability, he had to swing his swords through the watery opposition the entire fight, which took an enormous strain on his muscles. Not only that, but his lungs were on fire having teetered back and forth from the precipice of a miserable drowning death several times.
Omni walked slowly to the three members who were passed out, his legs creaking from the strain. He put two fingers up to each of their necks in order to affirm life.
“They’re breathing normally, they’ll be fine. They just passed out from fatigue.”
“That’s a relief,” Joan muttered weakly, releasing her grip on the sword and passing out onto the floor face first with a crash.
The room fell into a drained silence for a few moments before Reaper’s words pierced through.
“Let’s rest here. I know Raven said there were no more monsters after that one, but I don’t trust him.”
“Agreed,” Omni nodded. “It’s better to have everyone with us when we progress.”
It took a full thirty minutes before everyone awoke from their exhaustion.
“Is everyone awake now? Then, let us press on. It is nearly finished. But first there is the matter of loot,” he explained as his eyes locked on to the treasure chest that had been sitting on the opposite side of the room, just waiting to be unlocked.
“No, there’s a matter that’s even more important than that,” Raven’s voice reverberated yet again.
Dusk fought his screaming body. It took all of his willpower to even sit upright.
“Congratulations on defeating Livia! Honestly, this boss is quite a bit tougher than the bosses you would’ve fought if you did the Sundered Towers as planned.”
The Virtual Realm Page 45