"Galaad, what's wrong with you today?!" Morana shouted for the seventh time since the boss fight began. Or maybe the eighth? She'd lost count.

Just now, Galaad used a [Medium Heal] on BoneCrusha, who was only a few health points short of a full bar. Immediately after, the barbarian ate a Fireball, a couple of arrows and a few sword strikes, which collectively sent his health bar plummeting to below 30%.

"Sorry!" The cleric replied flatly, which only made her angrier.

"I'm on it!" Sarkaas shouted. She was prepared to un-summon her Starfish spirit and cast it on BoneCrusha.

"NO! I'll do it!" The witch shouted back. Having increased regeneration would do squat against a bunch of zombie knights swarming the barbarian right now.

Morana cast a [Cure Light Wounds] on BoneCrusha, who, at the same time, consumed a light healing potion. Both their efforts brought his health him back above 50%. That would tide him over for about a dozen seconds, enough for at least one of Galaad's healing spells to be off cooldown.

Between the three casters and a shaman, their group had three healing spells and two increased regeneration abilities. Coupled with strategic use of potions, it should have been more than enough to deal with this boss. They'd done this before. Half a dozen times, in fact.

Normally, Galaad was rock solid. Today, however, he was all over the place. He kept missing his cues to fight, buff and heal. His lack of concentration was throwing the whole party's rhythm out of whack. He was most likely distracted by the matter of Cordelia.

'Cordelia, that bitch!' Morana bitterly thought.

"Morana, look out!" Someone shouted, startling her.

*WHACK!*

Morana gasped as she was sent tumbling by a zombie knight. It had slipped through a gap between BoneCrusha and Galaad, and bum-rushed her.

'Shit!' She had been so distracted monologueing internally that she neglected to look out for herself.

Wheezing in pain, she rolled away, just in time to avoid the war hammer smashing down where her face was a split second ago. Ignoring the pain, she cast [Ice Slick] between her and the zombie.

"MmmMMMRRooaar…"

Letting out an inhuman moan, the zombie approached her. Its mangled foot stepped on the slippery layer of ice covering the floor. Immediately, it lost its balance and fell down.

[Fireball!]

*BAM!*

The spell exploded the zombie's head a mere meter away from her. She winced from the intense heat from the near point-blank explosion which also pelted her and her teammates with bits of guts and rotten flesh.

"Ewww!" Complained Saarkas the shaman.

"Focus, will you?" SilentDeath shouted.

"I know!" Morana replied through gritted teeth and went back to crowd-controlling the zombies.

'That Fireball should have been used on the group of knights that was about to spawn in that far corner,' she thought spitefully. As she lacked any sort of close combat capability, she had to resort to using the spell. Having either the barbarian, cleric or shaman turn around to rescue her would disrupt their defense formation. The rogue and ranger were too far away to be of any help.

'It's only at 15% and we're already this messed up!' The group was getting more and more unstable. Each mistake only tipped the scale further toward disaster. She could see no way they could turn this around.

'Should we call this off and head back?'

No!

She slapped herself, startling her teammates.

"Everyone listen up!" she shouted.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

'Oooh? Seems like they're pulling themselves together!' From his hiding spot, Manco noticed the change in the group's tactics.

They had pulled back a little, utilizing the broken pillars to give themselves more breathing room. Instead of attacking the boss, they focused on holding back the minions and supporting each other.

Slowly but steadily, their health bars were filling back up. Orange, to yellow, then green.

After the team was stabilized, they went back on the offense. This time even more slowly but also more steadily.

The barbarian and cleric used their crowd control skills to group the undead together, setting them up for the witch's Fireballs. The rogue took less risk to relieve the burden from the healers. The cleric was now micro-managed by the witch and had to heal on command, which added to his frustration, but it nevertheless reduced the number of mistakes he made.

After a few minutes, all the undead minions were wiped out.

The lich stomped, hissed, and slammed down his staff.

A circular wave of green energy blasted out from where the staff meet the floor and rippled all over the room. As the energy wave swiped past the heaps of bone left behind by destroyed skeletons, the bone fragments began to glow eerily, then each pile shifted and reassembled into a skeleton, looking a little worse for wear, but still as vicious as before.

With the same tempo, the group methodically cut down the newly animated skeletons.

Before long, the lich's pack of minions was down to a single zombie swordsman, and the group turned their attention back to the boss. During the minutes where its minion held back the intruders, the undead spellcasters had restored a sizable portion of his health, pulling the health bar back up to about 50%.

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The lone lich was no match for the coordination of the whole group. Quickly, they bought its health back down to about 10%.

"It's at 10%. Get ready!" The witch shouted.

"Got it!" The rest group replied. With practiced movements, they pulled back and spread out, forming a loose circle five meters in radius, with the boss at the center. The barbarian took out his crossbow and fired a bolt, which hit the boss in the chest.

'Hmm. Interesting...' Manco straightened up. Whatever they were about to do next, he had a feeling he didn't want to miss.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

"Here it comes," Morana muttered.

Pulling out the crossbow bolt, the lich glared at BoneCrusha. It then held up its scepter, which emitted an sinister dark green glow.

"Come on!" she muttered and activated the special ability of the monocle on her left eye.

[Mimicry]!

Through the monocle, the boss' silhouette was highlighted. She stood still, keeping the undead spellcaster at the center of her vision.

A stream of dark green, foul smelling liquid sprayed out of the crystal on the boss' scepter. The attack caught BoneCrusha right in the chest.

"Ugh!" the barbarian grunted: "This stinks!" Then his grunt turned into screams as the liquid ate through his armor and into his flesh.

This was [Death's Nectar], one of the lich's more powerful spells that it would unleash at low health. The liquid bypassed the target's armor, lower its attributes, and slowly reduced its health.

It was impossible to remove without tier-4 or higher spells. To players of level 30 or lower, this spell was essentially a death sentence. Using potions or healing spells only served to delay the inevitable.

To make it worse, after several minutes, players killed by Death's Nectar would resurrect to be a zombified version of themselves. Albeit the attributes were lower, the undead was still a lot stronger than the average zombies under the command of a low-level lich.

[Success!]

[Mimicry progress: 65% -> 78.5%!]

"Alright!" Morana muttered. Just two more times like this and she would own this spell!

"Galaad, Sarkaas! Keep his health up!" she ordered. The cleric and shaman complied, sending healing spells at BoneCrusha, trying to keep his health bar from slipping too low. The barbarian, meanwhile, was rolling on the floor, screaming in pain.

"Boner, stop being a crybaby!"

"Why don't you try it! Shit it's like being boiled alive!" He shouted back between breaths.

Ignoring this scream, Morana turned her attention on the lich. SilentDeath and OneShot were sending attacks at it, provoking it to retaliate with Death's Nectar.

"Just two more…" she clenched her fist, watching the boss' movement.

Again, it held up its scepter, which glowed green…

… and disappeared in a chaotic puff of smoke.

"What?"

"Galaad! Lookout !"

She turned to Galaad just in time to see the boss had materialied next to him and shot a spray of [Death's Nectar] point blank at his face. He dropped to the ground without a single scream and was instantly killed. An item dropped from his body.

"What the hell?" someone shouted in shock. Galaad hadn't attacked the boss, so the sudden assault was completely unexpected.

[Inspecting Success!]

[Mimicry progress: 78.5% -> 91.5%!]

"Shit!"

Things quickly fell apart. The group wasn't prepared to have their chief healer out of commission so quickly.

BoneCrusha, who were already half-dead from the previous spray of [Death's Nectar], died next.

The lich raised its staff again and slammed it down on the floor, reviving the skeleton yet again. The two dozen skeletons looked very battered, but still deadly against the group adventurers that was down to four members.

"You three! Distract them!" Morana shouted to the remaining three teammates. While they whaled on the boss, she rushed over to Galaad's corpse and scooped up the dropped item, a magical ring.

OneShot was only level 15, so he wouldn't drop anything. Sarkass' Beta Item was safely in her personal storage chest back in town. SilentDeath's item was in her hand along with her own. They would be able to stall the boss without much loss.

Having made arrangements, Morana ran back to the double door they had used. The door had been locked earlier, when the boss' behavior changed to 'battle mode.' It could only be opened when the boss was killed or changed back to 'patrol mode.'

That was where the cloak came in.

She turned around, leaned her back against the door then sat down. She wrapped the cloak over her head and checked to make sure no part of her body was exposed.

[Conceal]!

Immediately, the cloak turned transparent and she could see through it.

The remaining three members of her group was heavily outnumbered, and they weren't even trying. They would be dead soon enough.

As for her, provided that she didn't move, speak or use any items, she would be perfectly concealed. Then the boss would go back to patrol mode and the door would be opened. She would be able to leave this dungeon, battered but intact.

'Next time! I'll definitely learn that spell next time!' She thought.

Then the ground around her inexplicably became soft and she slowly began to sink.