Author’s corner: HELLO HELLO! LATE UPDATE TODAY!
ANYWAY, this was one HARD chapter to write. For some reason it just wouldn’t come out no matter what and I almost wasn’t capable of uploading it today… Because of that I won’t be able to write the Q&A in time today, so that will be left for tomorrow… Sorry… (^.^’)
ALSO, it’s time for the bomb-shell of a revelation. And this one is on the level of a nuke.
I’ve been thinking of stopping Insania. (BOOOOM) Why? Because there is one problem with the story that have been bugging me for a long time, and that is because it became too successful, something that I sincerely didn’t expect. I kind of expected that I would be giving up on this project around chapter 30 or so, so I didn’t give it enough of a base on which to support it, and this always come back to haunt me, like the SERIOUS lack of a plot and some other inconsistences. NOW CALM DOWN, because this is something that I’ve been only THINKING about, the chances of happening are very low since I’ve already got so far. And even IF I do stop, chances are that I would simply give the whole series a MASSIVE reboot and rewrite it from ground up, probably only keeping the characters and the idea behind the story. MonHun on a MMO.
Sorry for ranting on, just needed to vent that out...
Have a good read.
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“Okay. He doesn’t seem to be as tricky as the drone. So, what do you guys think?” Yagver asked us as he readied himself.
“I think we should get in there and give him a swift kick on his tail.” Xredder said while punching his open hand.
“You know that is not what I mean…” Yagver said with a sigh.
“I think we should be careful around those pillars.” Lenny said after a quick look. “I don’t think they are there for no reason whatsoever.”
“And that tail bothers me.” Han-chan said while looking at him for some time. “It pierced the ground too easily…” She turnd around and said. “So, what do our professional monster hunter think?” She said while looking at me, but I was a bit too focused and didn’t notice that she was talking with me at first. “Gon?”
I blinked, regaining my focus when she called my name, before looking around.
“Sorry… I was…” I rubbed my eyes for a second before going on. “Anyway, there is something about him that have been bothering me for some time. I’m not sure how to put it on words, but be careful.” I looked at him a bit more and said. “I think we will get a nasty surprise mid-battle…” The others raised their eyebrows at my words. “Also, we need to find out how his energy works, since he starts with fifty, it might have some kind of mechanic behind it instead of a straight-up increase over-time.…” For this one they all nodded.
“What about his attacks? What do you think he might have in store?” Xredder asked me afterwards. I looked at the boss for some more time before saying.
“I’m not entirely sure… But I would bet that he uses the pillars in some way or another, as well as probably a few frontal AoE attacks if we take in consideration the wolves from earlier. And probably many types of jumping and charge attacks as well…” I gave my last opinion about the boss after some seconds of consideration.
“Are you sure about that?” Yagver asked me.
“Almost entirely.”
“Hmm… I see. Then I think I’ll keep this shield just to be safe.” He said pointing to the super heavy shield.
“That… Might not be a good idea…” I said while looking at the boss. “I have the feeling that you will need more mobility than what that can give you.”
“You seem a lot more cautious about this guy than the other one.” He said slightly worried, but I simply shook my head.
“It’s just that the strange feeling is bothering me a lot.” I said with a wry smile before it turned into a wild one. “But it doesn’t mean that I’m not heated up for a fight, though.”
He smiled awkwardly for a moment.
“Well, since it’s just a feeling, I will risk it.” He said while adjusting his shield. “And sincerely, I’m not really expecting to defeat him in one go anyway.” He told me in a whisper. “Okay! If everyone is ready, then get in.” He said turning to the others as we walked in.
We slowly advanced towards the middle of the room. As soon as we took the first step in, the wolf started to growl loudly towards us, and the closer we got, the louder the growl became.
And I finally got a good idea on how big the guy actually is. He was even taller than Aura back at when we fought, towering at incredible three meters tall, and this size only got more obvious as we slowly approached him.
The moment that he got within distance, Yagver used his leap skill, hitting the wolf head on and making the numbers pop up as the attacks landed.
-20 -13 -23
-56(22944/23000)
We almost started cheering when we saw the numbers going up, but Yagver grimaced slightly as he looked at the numbers.
“His defense is pretty high! Don’t get too excited yet!” He shouted a warning as he prepared himself for the boss’s attacks.
The others quickly snapped out of it and moved aside so we would leave only Yagver in front of the wolf. I quickly changed into my bow and started with a piercing shot using a poison arrow, but it seems that the boss had some resistance, as the arrow didn’t poison him immediately.
-40 -4 (22900/23000)
I widened my eyes at this. This guy’s defense really is something else. Piercing shot should be one of my strongests attacks, yet it only dealt that amount of damage!
By now, the boss started to attack Yagver with his claws and bites, but the huge shield easily stopped all the attacks with great ease. Feeling a bit too overconfident, I saw as Xredder approached the boss from behind and landed a heavy blow on his legs. The wolf groaned in annoyance and whipped him with the tail, the spike piercing the tiger-man’s shoulder making him yell in pain as he jumped back.
He lost around a fourth of his health, and lost one or two percent of his health per second through a bleeding debuff.
“New rule. Stay away from the tail.” I said in a mocking tone, which made Xredder look at me annoyed.
“No shit, Sherlock…” He said as his health started to get back up slowly thanks to the healing.
As we bantered off, the boss growled once again and jumped back, opening some distance between him and Yagver before advancing once again and slamming the Jötunn with his whole body. Even with the shield, I saw as the Jötunn cringed slightly and was pushed back, landing on the lighted part of the room.
At least the shield stopped the damage, even if the knock-back still hit him hard.
The boss growled at him once more before jumping at him with a sweeping claw strike that pushed him back even more. Yagver grimaced even more as he slowly recovered from the strike and landed a slash at the boss to keep its attention focused on him.
As soon as his small combo finished, we went back to attacking the boss while trying to keep ourselves attentive to any of his attacks. We managed to bring him down to 21 thousand HP before he used his next skill. He howled angrily at the tank, making us flinch with the noise, before suddenly twisting this body and swinging his tail towards the tank.
The tail curved around the shield and almost hit Yagver, who barely managed to parry the tail with his sword, but he quickly twisted his body the other way and landed the sickles on the Jötunn’s shoulder, leaving the bleeding dot on him. The Jötunn shouted angrily as the pain settled into his shoulder, before the boss growled at him and jumped back once again.
He raised his shield and prepared for the impact while the rest of us took aim at the boss. But instead of attacking the tank, the wolf looked towards the pillar on his right side for a moment.
Then he slammed his body heavily on it.
Crystal pillar integrity: 66%These pillars are the only thing still keeping the crystal ceiling up. Should half of them break, the whole celiling will fall apart, and only the Moonlit ravager will survive.
We stared at the crystal in shock for a moment, before waking up by the sounds of something cracking. When we looked at the pillar, we saw as a huge crack appeared at the place of the impact and spread all the way up to the ceiling, where it started to shatter the crystal into many plates that started to fall upon us.
“Move away from them!” Xredder said as he jumped away from a plate falling near him, and we all started to dodge the falling plates.
Sir Yagver, with the heavy shield, could only raise it above his head and hope to be enough, as his lack of movement speed made it almost impossible to get away in time from the spots. But even then I saw as damage numbers popped up above his head. At least they were still within the double digits…
These damned crystals dealt more than three hundred damage to our heaviest armor user, we’ll be damned if it lands on one of our lighter armored members.
As we hastily dodged all the falling pieces, the boss simply stood there, while slowly shaking his head as if recovering from the impact, and even when the crystal fell on him he simply ignored it as if nothing happened.
After some time he recovered and growled at Yagver, even if the crystals still hadn’t stopped falling. And before Yagver even had the chance to lower his shield towards the wolf, it jumped ahead and bit deeply into his arm, taking out a whole hundred points of his life in a single attacks.
“Okay, that is troubling…” Hanbei said while glancing at the pillars. “How do we stop him from destroying these pillars?”
“We kill him before he destroy them! Easy!” Yagver said as he landed a couple of punches on the boss flanks.
Almost as if waiting for that, the wolf stepped aside, dodging the attack and countering with a hip-check that sent the tiger-man flying back. Luckily, the damage wasn’t all that large, and was more of an annoying knock back than anything.
Of course, this made the tiger extremely annoyed, as he jumped back into the boss and started hammering him away.
I smiled awkwardly and looked back at the wolf, noticing something. His energy was slowly going up, one point every couple of seconds. I blinked surprised at this, since it didn’t happen up to some seconds ago. I looked at Yagver and motioned to him with my head towards the boss, and when he noticed this, he grimaced.
Going at this rate, the boss would reach full energy in around one minute.
The others noticed our small exchange and looked at the boss’ energy, and got worried, remembering our experience with the last energy bar we saw getting to the maximum.
But before we could even avoid this, the suddenly turned away from Yagver and aimed towards Lenny, who was aiming to take a shot at that exact moment, and slammed his tail on the ground, shattering it and picking stone with the sickle on the tip and throwing it towards the harpy.
Lenny barely managed to jump away in time, and right afterwards the boss turned towards Yagver and landed the heavy body-blow on him once again, making the Jöttun skid a few feet backwards from the sheer impact. Just afterwards the wolf prepared to lunge at him like the last time.
However, if Yagver got hit again, he would be facing the boss with the wall right on his back, which would make it difficult to maneuver. I grimaced at the thought and acted quickly, by casting tactical charge on the Jötunn while picking a throwing knife from the bandolier and throwing it.
“Lieutenant, wind dagger. Yag, get away!” I shouted to the two, who immediately followed the orders.
Sir Yagver left the place at the same moment that the dagger pierced the ground and froze everything around it. Right afterwards, Doggy landed on the ice while barely managing to keep his balance on the slippery surface. Balance that was broken the moment a small dagger pierced its front paw and activated, making him slide even further until he hit the wall on the other side.
I could have used the arrows for that, but for some reason, consumable mastery didn’t count them as consumables like the daggers. Probably because they are considered as ammunition, rather than normal consumables. Thus, their effects were slightly weaker than the daggers, which was mildly annoying.
Still, it did the job of making the boss miss the attack and give our tank some breathing room.
“Thanks for that.” He said as he calmed down.
“See? This boss isn’t all that strong after all!” Xredder said with a wicked smile as he saw the wolf being bombarded by me and the girls bombard the boss with our ranged attacks.
“I’m still not so sure…” I said with a wry smile as I saw the ice melting and the boss finally getting up again while growling angrily. “Get back! He is going to do something!” I warned the others, who nodded while falling back.
The wolf lifted himself on his hind legs before falling back on the ground with strength, cracking the whole ground around him. Followed that, he started to stomp around where he stood, shattering the ground into even smaller fragments before turning to us.
He growled at us for a moment, keeping us on our toes, before slamming the tail on the ground to the point that it looked stuck.
Then, he twisted his body while swinging his tail towards us, dragging the fragments of stone with it and shooting at us like a shotgun. We were staring at the scene in confusion for far too long, so we were unable to find cover.
Rather, even if we had time, I don’t think we would have a place to take cover.
The shrapnel flew with such intensity that they even bounced off the pillars, pinballing between all of them and hitting us from all sides at the same time.
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And by the time we recovered, we saw that our health had dropped down by one full third, ignoring armor, shields and skills. I saw as Forgotten started to panicky start spamming all of his AoE heals like a madman before the boss could do something worrisome.
“So… Still an easy boss?” I asked Xredder as he grunted an answer.
“Well… At least his energy started decreasing…” He said annoyed.
I blinked surprised as I looked back to the boss, noticing that, as the tiger said, the energy was decreasing slowly, at around the same pace as it was increasing before. But why?
No matter. This is a good sign for us.
“Shishou! The pillar!” Yuu suddenly called to me, making me blink surprised before looking back at the crystals and paling at the scene.
All of the crystals lost around ten percent of their integrity.
This is bad. This is very bad!
“HE CAN’T USE THAT AGAIN! THAT THING DEALS TOO MUCH DAMAGE TO THE PILLARS!” I shouted as Yagver was pushed back by a heavy body-slam.
“And how do we stop him from doing that?” Yagver asked me confused.
Well… That is actually the problem.
As the wolf approached the Jötunn, I saw as it once again left the shadows toward the light area before using his tail-flail to hit our tank. I grimaced at this and once again put myself to kill the wolf. Even if it still had more than seventeen thousands of its health.
After some time, it once again jumped away and body-slammed the crystal on his side, bringing it down to fifty six percent of integrity and starting another cave-in from the shock. We ran around avoiding the falling debris for a moment, and this time, I cast Tactic charge on Yagver right before the wolf managed to jump at him, saving our tank from the attack.
But…
“WHY THE HECK IS HIS ENERGY INCREASING AGAIN?” I shouted as I looked the energy reached eighty once again.
“Maybe it’s the when he attacks the pillars!” Hanbei said while falling back to charge her attack. I looked at the boss and shook my head.
“Not likely. That doesn’t make sense, since he was recharging it even before the attack!” I said while pulling another arrow from my quiver and landing a rapid-shot on his head followed by the second poison knife, which finally managed to leave him with a debuff.
As if mad at me, he picked a rock on the ground and threw it at me.
“It’s the light!” Lenny said as I rolled near her. “Whenever he stands on the light the energy fills, while standing on the shadow makes it decrease!”
“Are you sure?” I asked the harpy who nodded while nocking an arrow on her bowstring.
Hearing our talk, Yagver immediately started to back away from the center of the area towards the shadows, luring the boss to outer side of the room.
As if waiting for tis chance, the wolf landed the body-blow on Jötunn before lunging at him. Since I was mid-shot this time, I didn’t have enough time to help him with anything more than tactical charge, but at least this worked enough to avoid him being pushed too far back.
He started kiting the boss as he tanked it on the outer ring of the area, between the pillars and the walls. From here on, it became a relatively easy fight, since the boss energy soon started to deplete just like his health.
However, after some time he jumped back and stomped the ground, breaking it before using his shrapnel shot-gun on us.
Thankfully, we had more than enough health and healing to survive the skill without much problem, and we kept on attacking him as we were, slowly whittling down his health. However, as we fought him, for some reason he stopped using his body-slam on the pillars and simply used the shrapnel to attack us.
We started to grimace as we saw the two crystals that had been body-slammed fall to only twenty-six integrity while the others still had sixty. We had barely managed to bring the boss down by one third of his health, yet we were three attacks away from losing due to the crystals breaking down.
And as if to mock us, the ravager suddenly howled loudly as he clenched its claws on the ground and the two blue stripes disappeared from his body, leaving only a dark black fur and a pair of menacing red eyes. Then, a new buff appeared beneath his name plate.
Crystalline moonlit ravager (doggy)[lvl 21] [ELITE dungeon Boss]
Equivalent level: 26
(aggressive)HP: 15264/23000
Energy: 13/100
-?????The alpha wolf that lives inside Yksar’s mine. Nothing is known about this beast, except that it rules the whole dungeon through sheer strength and fear.Stone-guarded (Lasts until energy reaches 100)
Stone-guarded: Removes and grant immunity to all status ailment.
Decreases damage taken by 50%
Costs 50% of actual energy to cast.
This skill is removed when energy reaches 100
We paled at this. Is this some kind of bad joke?
Our damage was already heavily impaired when we were fighting him before, and now he earns this ridiculous buff? And he HAVE to reach one hundred energy?
Suddenly, that nagging feeling that I had been feeling the entire fight came with full strength, as if warning me that now was the time to see what this boss really was made of.
“Yag, take him to the light! Everyone else. Be prepared… Something really bad is about to happen.” I said as I felt my heartbeat getting faster and faster with excitement.
Yagver nodded and ran towards the middle of the room with my tactical charge. Everyone else stood beside me and kept attacking the boss to stack up some damage, even with the defense buff. As if mocking us, the boss dealt a body-blow towards two different pillars before his energy reached one hundred, destroying one and leaving the other on its lasts points of health.
Then, it came.
This is a scene that was burned into my eyes for a long time after I first witnessed it.
As soon as Doggy’s energy reached one hundred, he stopped everything he was doing and started to tremble uncontrollably. As we stared at the scene shockeds, he suddenly raised his head up high and howled. The crystals around him seemed to resonate with him as they shook slightly, making a heavenly music amidst the hellish shout.
As he howled, the two blue lines appeared back on his back, but it didn’t stop there. The fur of his mane stood up as it changed to match the color of the crystal around us. The same thing happened on his paws, as not only the fur changed, but also the nails slowly grew, doubling their size and getting a transparent coloration. The blade on the tip of his tail grew to an humongous size, reminding me of a Grim reaper’s scythe made entirely out of crystal.
After five seconds of howling, it finally brought its head down, the red eyes now shining on a menacing blue coloration that left lines on the air as he moved.
I gulped loudly. My whole body shivering with a mix of fear and excitement at seeing this new form of the boss. All my instincts shouting that this wasn’t something we should take on yet.
As I prepared myself for whatever it was to come, the wolf made the first movement.
With incredible swiftness, it turned aside and landed a hip-check on our tank, making him slide back with the impact before even understanding what was going on. Following that, it regained its posture and took a step back, as if getting impulse, before advancing forwards, swinging its claws widely.
Yagver quickly braced for the impact once again, but when he looked at the wolf, he saw as his claws became stuck on a nearby pillar.
We all blinked in confusion at the scene, not managing to understand what was going on, until I saw some sparks coming from the place where the claw and the crystal met, and noticed that the wolf was still putting strength behind his leg.
“Crap… RUN AWAY!” I shouted to the Jötunn, but it was too late.
The claw suddenly freed itself from the crystal, and all the energy it had gathered there as it was impeded by the crystal was suddenly set free in one single moment.
It took the wolf a full second to make the attack.
But the result was downright scary.
Yagver was literally thrown back all the way to the back of the room, where he slammed his back on the wall before slowly sliding down, a third of his health missing. However, the wolfs attack didn’t stop there, as it ran forward and landed a second claw on the shield, moving it away, and finishing with a quick spin that made the scythe hit the Jötunn right on the neck.
In three attacks it had killed our tank.
And now, its next target were us.
He turned towards Xredder and Han-chan, who were slightly nearer him and lunged at them with his mouth wide open. The two barely managed to avoid the lightning fast attack, before the wolf suddenly looked at the beast-girl and landed a hip-check on her, slamming her against the pillar and leaving her breathless.
He followed with a swiping turn towards Xredder that landed square on his chest, bringing his health down by half in one single strike.
“Hey! Fur-ball! Get someone of your own size!” I shouted at it after changing to my sword and shield.
The wolf quickly ignored the two melees and jumped at me without giving me a single moment to breathe. I barely managed to survive the attack using nature’s bastion, but I was still blown backwards by the attack until the back of the edge of the room, where he lunged at me for the kill.
I barely managed to dodge the skill with a roll and went back towards the center, where Forgotten was healing Xredder and Han-chan.
“WHAT. THE. HELL. IS. THAT?” Xredder asked shocked.
“I have no idea, but get ready that it’s coming back!” I said as I watched the wolf turn to me and run on the ground, the claws leaving marks on the ground.
I took a step forwards to meet it, and right as I was on attacking range, he suddenly stopped while putting all strength into one of his legs and twisting his huge body around it like a pivot, the huge scythe on his tail reaping away while scrapping against the crystals.
With no time to dodge the skill, I tried blocking it only to be blowy side-way towards the broken pillar.
He was about to turn back into me when suddenly a frost-fire spear hit him straight on the head, making him flinch for a moment before turning towards the kitsune mage with her hands extended.
They stared at each other for a brief moment before the wolf suddenly leapt backwards before charging forward once again. Yuu quickly dodged aside as soon as the wolf jumped for the kill and hid herself between the two farthest pillars together with Forgotten and the others.
But they never saw the boss passing in front of them.
Only I, who was on the other side of the room saw what actually happened.
Midflight, the wolf extended his claw towards the crystal and grabbed it at the height of his leap. Following that, he used the claw as a pivot to change his forward momentum into a circular one, as his body spun around it making the tail dig deep into the ground, following not only a circular shape around the claw, but also one around the crystal as he coiled around it.
Thus, all that they saw was a hellish scythe cutting the whole ground towards them and lifting them into the air, only to be finalized by the boss jumping away from the crystal and slashing at them still in the air.
I watched the whole scene in shock, as the boss landed on his frontal claws and quickly turned at me, and growled angrily.
I smiled awkwardly as I saw him charging back at me. With everyone else dead, I had pretty much no hopes of defeating him.
Still, going down with no fight just isn’t my style.
I charged ahead and rolled the moment he changed his run into the horizontal sweep and barely managed to pass beneath his tail before turning around landing a slash on his leg. He looked at me annoyed and quickly spun around before lunging at me while swinging his claw. I raised my shield and blocked it with nature’s bastion.
Bad idea.
Soon after, he jumped back before landing a heavy body blow on me, which took most of my health, as well as sent me back flying.
Finally, he killed me with a lunge.
…
“As you said, Gon… That shield wasn’t a good idea…” Yagver said when I respawned together with them but slowly died down his voice. “Why are you smiling?” he asked me confused.
“Sorry… It’s just that I was getting a bit excited with the idea of fighting him.” I said while trying to control my smile.
Yagver sighed loudly before going back to his previous talk.
“As you said… At the normal part the shield was fine. But against that raging phase... It’s better to avoid the attacks rather than blocking.” He said with a slightly sad face. “But it’s still going to be difficult to survive that…”
“Well… It’s not like it doesn’t have a good point to it, though.” I said cheerfuly, which made them raise their eyes confused. “I managed to land a strike on him…” I said with a wide smile. “Zero. Armor. All the damage got through.”
They opened their eyes wide at this, and looked surprised.
And just as I got excited about this, Han-chan suddenly said.
“Gon, you are sitting the next round out.”
And the others nodded in accordance.
Huh?