They had a decent bit of time to rest before the next fight started, and they yet again meditated during that time. Beth had tapped her mana pool to a noticeable degree even though she had tried to be conservative with it, and the chance for twenty or so minutes of meditation was welcome. The time allowed Beth to recover a decent chunk of her mana before the gate rolled open to reveal their next foe.
What walked out next was something that Beth had briefly seen but had not yet fought, the first time she had ridden Blood, as a matter of fact. It was essentially a huge praying mantis, with massive, sharp blades for forearms and a dark green coloration across its entire body. Its legs were slightly thicker than what she might assume a scaled-up version of the insect would have, while its thorax and abdomen seemed to be a little slimmer. The opponent didn't give them long to admire its deadly figure before it charged across the sand on the arena floor at them.
"It’s a speed type!" Beth yelled at Blood. "Five strength types, now a sixth beast that's different! It has to be giving us these first fights by some kind of overall type!"
That was all she managed to get out before deflecting the first three swings from the mantis's arms, the creature matching exactly what she thought. It wasn't able to deliver the kind of force the first five boss-type enemies had dished out, but it was fast. Incredibly so.
Beth had to make use of her Journeyman-level skill with the sword to keep up with the enemy, her DEX not quite enough to match the flurry of slashes trying to separate her head and torso. Her ability to move her sword more quickly and precisely was the only thing making up the difference, as otherwise she would have likely already taken a serious cut just in the first five seconds. She was pretty sure the armored gorget of the helm she had bought from Jaq would stop an attack from the wicked scythe-arms of the beast…the first time, at least, but she didn't want to even put that to the test.
The mantis proved to be not all powerful when Blood got her first attack in, grabbing the back right leg of the beast and partially crushing the joint with a Rending Bite as well as a twist and jerk of her head. The mantis had not reacted in the least before Blood's teeth were actually in its leg, then thrashing and flailing to try to get itself free. Beth was able to easily slide back two steps, avoiding all the creature's wild strikes without much effort.
'It has a wide field of vision but doesn't use it, sister,' Blood sent her. 'The beast seems to focus too much on a task it has already started.'
That confirmation from Blood was all Beth needed to really get in gear. She started by running Swift at about seventy-five percent, not wanting to expend too much mana while also wanting to spend a little time practicing exerting more finite control over her skills. Next, she did much the same with Beastly Body, though she only pulsed it at about fifty percent of what she could put into it when she was deflecting or parrying. The focus needed to constantly activate and de-activate the skill was great training, and the use of it to just deflect helped her with fine-tuning the mana usage as well as which precise parts of her body she empowered. She had a feeling both said factors would be important in moving the ability into the Silver ranks.
'Lucky we found this sword,' Beth sent to Blood as she parried a double-armed strike from the mantis, stepping back a single step to prevent the leading points of the scythe from digging into her chest armor. 'I feel like something worse, like that copper blade I had, would be cut apart by this thing.'
'Its hide is quite tough,' Blood commented in response. 'My teeth are only easily able to sink into the gaps in the joints of its legs.'
'I think it's called chitin for bugs,' Beth commented, blocking a quick overhead slash before getting her own first strike of the match in. 'I think it acts as the skeleton for bugs. At least, for the small variety it does. I don't know about something five feet tall.'
The mental conversation tapered off again as both girls concentrated on the fight, Beth only able to return about one in ten blows, while Blood was having a tough time actually applying any meaningful damage to the joints. The challenge was good, though, as Beth was finally facing an opponent that she didn't have to work to challenge herself against. Whether it was the beastlings, the criminals, or even the first five bosses of this stage, she had been superior enough that she had to limit herself to find any challenge in the fights and try to improve her skills. The beastlings had been a bit of an exception just due to sheer weight of numbers, but she was finally fighting something that could really give her an opportunity to grow.
The mantis was not particularly skilled with its arms, not in the way of a swordsman, but it had both the raw speed as well as the predatory instincts to make its every movement dangerous. It seemed particularly hell bent on decapitating Beth, constantly aiming slashes for her neck from every angle it could use. A close shave from its right arm was followed by a powerful upward slash from its left which Beth couldn't deflect fully, wincing slightly as the razor-sharp edge smashed into the protective screen of her helmet. The force screen held quite well, but the energy of the blow still rattled Beth's cage a little, Blood fortunately riding to the rescue with a well-timed bite to the back right leg of the beast, putting in some real damage to the joint.
Beth had darted a step back and now shook off the stunning aftereffects of the strike, moving back in with a rising strike starting from her lower left. She expended a bit more mana to light the blade on fire, something she hadn't really needed or wanted to do the last few stages, earning an angry hiss from the mantis as it recoiled from the heat. The staggered movement let Beth get a good, clean strike into the left side of the beast's torso, finding that the chitin cracked a little from the force of her hit but held together.
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That was fine, as that was just the opening of Beth's counter-offensive, her next four swings darting between the beast's as she leaned out of the path of two of its own strikes. The second and fourth of her own hits she empowered with Monstrous Blow while in the air, not at full capacity, but still enough to cause considerable damage to the left side of the boss's torso. She had had a hard time striking the joints of the arms and even the front legs were basically a no-go, too far from the regular zone her blade could reach to attempt a strike against. Given those considerations, she had decided on a tried-and-true tactic: hit the torso in the same place over and over until her blade was a foot deep in the beast's guts.
The tactic worked again, aided in no small part by Blood, whose crippling of the beast's legs had led to it being unable to effectively dart away from Beth or circle around her. It turned the fight into a full-on frontal confrontation of speed and strength and, while Beth had trouble with the former, the latter for her should not be underestimated. Her repeated strikes to the torso further angered the boss, but it couldn't really do much about them. It attempted to ram into her, using its size, speed, and hardened carapace to smash her, but the damage to its legs was simply too extensive and it was unable to flatten her as she slid to the right.
She had avoided the fumbled charge while at the same time placing herself in the perfect spot for a strike; coupled with Blood grabbing a leg on the far side of the beast and going to town, she had a path right to the fractured wound on left side of the boss. A path her blade followed, Beth cranking everything to maximum for that devastating blow, Swift and Beastly Body ratcheting her movement up to the point of it being a black and ochre blur, while the fully powered Monstrous Blow pulverized the side of the beast and much of its torso. She didn't stop there, however, pushing the blade deeper while letting go with her left hand, twisting the sword with her right while she sent an artillery-like punch into the side of the beast's head. Blood had pulled at the same time, sending the boss off balance before the next strike from Beth's heavy gauntlet caused it to partially collapse.
She took a second to make sure her next strike was the best it could be, planting her right foot firmly before twisting on it as she loaded up her left foot. She charged everything below her waist with Crush, pushing against the floor as her leg rocketed through the air, the blow powerful enough to cause the air to rush out from around the sides of her shin. The slightly angled center of her shin-plate connected directly with the center of the boss's face, crushing the beast's head into a jagged, broken mess spewing out ichor from both the front and top. It was enough damage to earn them the kill, the message showing up in her mind letting Beth know it was time to take a break.
That's exactly what they did next, Beth having used considerably more mana on this fight than the others, though she was still at a little less than half. It had also been a little quicker than she had assumed, one of the funny things about the speed they operated at in such battles making them seem like they dragged on much longer than the time it took to finish them. When everything was a blur and their lives were on the line, every strike seemed to stretch the time like a rubber band pulled too taught, while the end of the fight snapped the band back, bringing the sense of time back into focus.
It was quickly time for the next match, with the gate rolling up to reveal a thin, tall troll with bluish white skin and glowing red eyes. It wielded a spear and led the way out of the gate with a leaping charge across the arena, the point aimed straight for Beth's heart. Beth found it difficult to parry the thrust, the amount of force concentrated on a single point making it difficult to push aside. The spear was something she only had a small amount in fighting against, as Baelvyr had only had a little time in drilling her against different types of weapons other than swords.
Still, fighting against this boss wasn't that difficult as compared to the mantis, the use of a weapon hindering the boss a little as it wasn't particularly skilled. The fights so far, at least the speed-based bosses, were really demonstrating the differences between stats and skills, particularly weaponskills, and how one could make up for the other. In this case, the troll had the stats, only being a little weaker than Beth while being something like twenty percent faster. The speed and agility did it little good, however, as Beth's skills being a tier up, with a gap of several levels, more than canceled out the speed difference. Baelvyr had explained how weaponskills were very powerful and could make a massive difference, but experiencing it firsthand as compared to being told it was eye-opening, especially since it wasn't in the training ring but a live fight.
Beth and Blood combined managed to demolish the troll in less than five minutes, giving them plenty of time to rest. Enough so, in fact, that they were mostly topped up when it the gate rolled up and revealed their eighth opponent. What emerged was something Beth could best describe as a shadow panther as it looked very much like a panther from Earth, only much larger and with a shadowy mana billowing around it. She checked to see what they were up against, having more time than what the last two speed-based opponents had given as this boss slunk forward with a lithe grace as opposed to wildly charging.
Level 79 Evoran Jungle Shadow-Stalker
It was certainly a bit of a mouthful, but her eyes returned to her that the panther was named based on its location of origin. Perhaps it held a significant enough place in the mythos of Evoran that it was important to point out that it was from the jungles of that place, or perhaps it had no easily referenceable common name and was simply known by its origin and type? Whatever the case, this boss took a slightly more measured approach rather than complete aggression; not that it was not aggressive or hesitated to attack. Just the opposite, in fact, as it leapt for Beth, blurring in a strange way as it did so, seeming to blend partially with the floor as it made its attack.
'It's using its shadow to confuse us!' Blood called out as Beth repelled a quick series of swipes with its front claws. Apparently, the beast hadn't been blending into the floor, but into its own shadow which, given the lighting in the arena, had been nearly fully below it as it moved towards them. That information helped Beth a little, just knowing what it was doing helping her in distinguishing what was happening as she focused more on the outline of the creature and its general movements. It also helped that the skill was not all that impressive, likely meant for helping blend into the thick growth of its native jungle terrain, not an open and empty arena floor.
The shadows did cause the fight to take longer, though they impeded Blood much more than Beth. The wolf wasn't that impaired overall, but it was harder to get a good hit in, and she was punished when she tried to bring her jaws to bear only to find mostly shadow in her mouth, the panther turning on her and dealing her a nasty swipe that her vest only partially blocked. Beth fared much better thanks to her eyes, and not just that they were more powerful, but the shadow magic that swirled around the panther didn't do a great job in disguising its heat signature, allowing Beth to see the position and movements of the beast rather clearly.
Once the panther was slain, they rested and prepared for the next fight, meditating and restoring their mana. The pattern repeated another two times, as the remaining two DEX-based bosses were really nothing special. They did get another level for their troubles and were resting to wait for boss eleven as Beth took note of the now quite lively stands around the arena floor. She estimated them to be around four-fifths full, quite an improvement from the less than half they were at to start.