The doors of the second boss fight opened up to reveal a grand hall much the same in architecture as the others, only far larger. And there was no ring of torches lighting up the place; instead, the domed ceiling shone with a dusting of silvery white, an echo of the night sky outside. It also looked a lot like the claws of the zergies, which I found interesting for about half a second, after which I promptly forgot. After all, there were far more interesting things present.
The floor of the room was covered in a layer of serene, reflective fluid that mirrored the ceiling almost faultlessly. The fluid itself was slimy and viscous, almost mucous-like, and it squelched under my boots in a way I did not enjoy in the least.
The perfect tranquillity of the liquid was broken in the center by a throne, a gilded pulpit studded with jewels, atop which sat curled what I could only guess as the Origin herself. She had a lower half much like the centipedes of the first boss fight, but her upper portion was built like that of a human woman. She wore the same keratinoid armor on her torso and limbs, and her scaled hair fell down in shimmering waves. In her hand, she clutched a forked spear of dirty gold.
She stared down at us with the haughty eyes of a queen, her lips curled in a sneer. She raised her fork up high as we walked up to her, preparing what would surely be a scalding speech.
Unfortunately for her, before she could even start, she was hit in the face with a stone boulder almost exactly the same size as her face. The sudden blow snapped her head backward, which elicited a joyous whoop from Tara, who’d fired the thing.
Immediately, the rest of us who could followed her lead, launching whatever we could throw at her face.
Najam, who’d laid down the plan for the fight, had instructed us to begin as soon as possible. According to the guides he’d read on battling Zergyll Origins, there were no weaknesses to exploit, nor tricks to make the fight much easier. There was little we could do beyond just wear down the boss until it died, which made me as happy as it did Najam sad.
The one thing we could do to gain an advantage was try to get as much damage done as possible before the Origin’s protectors showed up. Once the protectors showed up, our damage output on the Origin would decrease, since we’d be split among the three monsters. And worst of all, according to the guides, the protectors would never truly die until the Origin did. Killing them would buy a few minutes before they would regenerate and return at full health. The only way to finish the fight would be to deal with the Origin herself, which meant we had to damage it as much as possible, as quickly as possible.
The Origin, however, was not helpless on her own either. She took our first volley out of surprise, but she wasn’t idle for much longer. Extending her lower half out fully, she rose up to a towering twenty feet high. Far too high for her fork to be of any use, I thought, but I quickly understood.
The fork was not the weapon itself, it seemed, but a wand, not unlike Tara’s. With far quicker movements than I expected from a thing her size, she drew out a circle of those same strange symbols, before poking her fork straight through, pointing directly at Tara.
Najam had warned Ren and I that this was something that would happen. Dungeon bosses tended to target the ones with the highest damage outputs, which usually happened to be the squishiest caster-type mages. And so it was the job of the tankier mages to protect them.
And, just as the projectile of green acid neared Tara’s face, Lionel did exactly that. Moving swifter than I thought he could, he appeared directly in front of Tara and raised his greatsword, batting away the acid with the broad side of the blade.
The blade sizzled a little, but came away otherwise unmarked. The acid landed harmlessly against the fluid of the floor, evaporating it as it did. Meanwhile, Najam and I did not cease our assault on the Origin’s long body – though our attacks had seemed to have done a grand total of zero damage to her.
The Origin continued firing her acid Arte for the next little while, staying irritatingly safe atop her raised platform. Ren had tried to join her up there a few times, but seemed to be repelled by some strange invisible barrier that allowed nothing physical through. Even Najam’s physical arrows seemed unable to pass, so he stuck to his wind arrows – which I only then realized was something he could do. It seemed he’d had a wind affinity that he’d finally decided to show.
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The arrows were silvery and almost transparent, and seemed just as solid as normal arrows. I watched them for a moment before an idea suddenly struck me. Lighting up a fireball in my palm, I waited until the perfect moment before launching it directly in line with Najam’s arrow. The two met in midair, and with a flash, the flame expanded and warped into the mould of the arrow, visibly brighter and certainly hotter.
The arrow struck true on a plate of the Origin’s armor, and left behind a scorched mark that visibly angered the bug woman. Najam shot me a surprised look as it did, as if he couldn’t believe I’d thought of that before him.
I gave him a cheeky grin in return.
We began to match our attacks every time from then on – running and jumping around as we did, since our tactic was one the Origin decidedly did not enjoy. The other melee fighters took it upon themselves to protect the rest, when they weren’t firing projectiles of Flux of their own.
About fifteen minutes after the fight started, the protectors finally made their appearances. The centipede was exactly the same as the first mini-boss, while the Penultimate Zergie was just a gorilla-sized, armoured zergie.
Immediately, and seamlessly, our group split into our duos. Lionel and Tara stuck with the Origin – who was now, at last, open to physical attacks – since they were the most classic formation for a team. Ren and I would deal with the centipede, and Najam and Gyda would handle the gorilla zergie. Galas, as always, was healing and attacking when he could with his wolves.
I wasn’t sure if the centipede was easier now or if I’d just gotten much better, but Ren and I were able to deal with the protector with far more ease than I had expected. Likely, both of those were true, but the most likely reason, I eventually realized, was that Ren and I had near impeccable teamwork. Those months in the jungle truly showed their fruits as the two of us fought, hardly needing to exchange a word with each other as we did. Neither of us had Revived by the time the centipede fell, the both of us covering for each other in a way no one else from Najam’s group had been able to.
We rejoined Lionel and Tara not ten minutes after the protectors appeared, leaving a charred and bleeding centipede behind us. We had about fifteen minutes of fighting before the protector was brought back to life, if the guides were accurate, and we intended to make the most of that time.
Ren immediately threw himself at the Origin, his dagger flashing as he stabbed and jabbed at the not-so-soft skin in between the Origin’s armour plates. He drew blood – a vile, brown sludge – but not much, not even enough to draw the Origin’s unerring attention from Tara.
Tara, for her part, seemed to be simultaneously having a terrible time, and the time of her life. She was hardly given a moment's respite from the now-various Artes that targeted her, which meant she had to constantly be on the move. And even then, more than once, she survived an attack only because Lionel and his bulky armor managed to step in just in time.
On the other hand, she seemed to be unleashing loads of pent-up frustration on the punching bag that was the Origin, and seemed to be having a great time as she did. Her hands were a blur as she cast Arte after Arte, her tiny figure releasing a maelstrom of ferocious elemental attacks as she darted around the arena as fast as her little legs could carry her.
I was hardly idle during the time we had, either. Now that I could physically approach the Origin, I unleashed everything I had on the thing’s armour; every swing of my pole swung with all the strength I had. At some point, I began to imagine the ruddy brown of the armour as Leo’s face, just for the fun of it, and I could have sworn I hit harder when I did.
Eventually, Najam and Gyda dealt with their protector and joined the main group, and not a few minutes later, I noticed the centipede begin to stir once again.
Ren and I arrived promptly, ready to teach the wretched thing yet another lesson.
The boss fight continued on much the same afterward. It’d be a race to deal with the protectors as quickly as we could, before we’d jump back into the main fight and unleash everything we had on the Origin.
It was an exhausting routine, both mentally and physically, and the toll the fight took on us was noticeable. I began to slow as the time passed, until I eventually took an entire acid Arte straight to the back. The pain was exquisite, and it resulted in one of the more torturous Revives I’d had in the past while. The Revive rejuvenated me for a while, of course, but inevitably, the same pattern would repeat again and again.
The others weren’t faring much better than I was, but we made sure the Origin wasn’t having a good time either. Our attacks had finally begun to break through her armor, and a few plates had even cracked in some places. More than half of her was scorched black, and she bled from numerous wounds all over her body.
Finally, after a good five or so hours of continuous fighting, and a good twenty-some Revives on my end, the Zergyll Origin cast her last Arte before falling face-first into the slime that coated the floor. A blue screen popped up not long after, declaring the boss dead, and the second boss fight of the dungeon officially cleared.