I was finally starting to get a footing on the floor as it rolled up and down and flexed simultaneously. Body parts, armor, weapons, and gore were all being flung around by the wave of movement from the king’s hammer. I watched as Dirk retreated somewhere behind my by jumping to a shadow off on the side of the room.

The king kept slowly walking toward me, wearing that evil grin as he had a good fifteen-foot radius of stone, acting like a pond with ripples radiating out from him in the center.

“You have no idea what you have stumbled into, do you?” the king asked as he chuckled. “You were fools to walk into this throne room and think I would be some easy prey. I will enjoy taking my time as I crush you underneath my heel.”

With a quick flick of the king’s arm, his hammer lifted from the ground, stopping the ripple effect for just a moment before he slammed it into the ground, and it launched a wave of stones at me in a cone attack area.

I saw the bricks coming, and even as fast as I felt from the heart, I knew I was not going to be able to block all of them as I started blocking as many as possible with my sword. I felt the stones acting like bullets as they tore through my legs and arms, cutting me with ease.

I backed up as I looked down and saw the blood streaming from my legs and onto the floor. I could feel the wounds healing rapidly and watched as the blood from some of the bigger holes turned into a small trickle.

Thank you, Naydras, but what the hell did you get us into? I thought.

The king grinned at me even more and started laughing as he left his hammer on the ground from his strike, causing the ripples to start again.

“Oh, this is going to be even better,” he bellowed before he roared with laughter for a moment. “I can take my time tearing you piece by piece!”

“Vreek! Turk! I need ideas now!”

I had already backed up a fourth of the way through the throne room, and if we did not do something soon, we would be pinched against the massive doors that were shut on the far end. I had no idea what might be waiting for us outside of the room.

“Turk, use your fire magic and create a wall between him and us!” Vreek shouted.

“It doesn’t hurt him!”

“I know! We need to blind his vision of us!”

Vreek was right, and Turk knew it too, as I saw the flame wall appear a few feet between us and the king.

“That won’t work!” he bellowed out as he strode toward it.

I glanced back and saw Dirk near Turk, about twenty feet away, and saw the look of concern on his face. I wasn’t sure if the near-death experience from earlier had made him a bit more timid or if he realized how difficult this king would be.

Vreek moved up closer to me and motioned for me to move to the right as he moved to the left side of the room.

“Turk, try and take out the floor near where he is walking!” Vreek shouted as he ran toward one of the pillars.

I watched as Turk nodded and started to charge a shot with his bow. The arrow what bright and started to light up the area of the room around where he was standing. He could see where the king was by the ripple coming along the floor. The moment the king stepped through the fire he released the shot and hit a few feet before him.

Massive chunks of stone and dust exploded upon impact, and the king backed up behind the wall of fire again, and I heard a grunt.

“AGAIN!” Vreek shouted. “Dirk guard Turk! Drop the flames after this shot, and keep up the attacks on the floor!”

I kept moving along the edge of the room, mirroring Vreeks steps as Turk powered up another shot. I could see how the ripples had changed some, sinking into the six-foot wide hole Turk had made and losing some of its potency.

As the wall dropped, Turk let his next shot go, and it hit a few feet from where the king had moved and tore up the floor and bodies where it impacted, causing an explosion almost like a grenade.

As he walked, I noticed the king was holding his other hand up near his face. I could see a few cuts along his face that I could only imagine occurred from the rocks and metal pieces exploding in his face earlier.

“Looks like you aren’t as powerful as you want to believe!” I shouted as I skirted the edge of the room, just on the edge of his weapons ground attack. I could walk here without issue and knew we would need to find a way to take advantage of the king’s weakness.

“Surround him!” Turk shouted. “It's four against one, and if he uses his hammer to launch an attack, that leaves him weak to us for just a moment!”

“I’m going to rip your green nut sacks off and use them for decorations,” the king shouted at me as he lifted his hammer to slam it at me again.

Prepared this time, I ran along the wall and toward the throne where he had been. If I could get behind him, it would create an opening for the others when he attacked.

The king spun and slammed his hammer into the ground, and that cone attack of the floor that he was using sent stone, bone, and metal at me again. I was grateful to be further away and running so that most of what he sent was not as close as the first time. I still retook multiple hits and had to reach down and rip out a piece of plate armor that had embedded itself in my shin, tearing a chunk of flesh out.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I watched as the king attacked, and at that moment, when the hammer was no longer on the ground, Dirk came out from the shadow underneath him and swung both daggers up and into his sides. One glanced at the armor, but the green dagger slipped somehow underneath a scale and into his back between his deltoid and shoulderblade, causing him to grunt and yell in pain.

Dirk’s dagger flashed green the moment it pierced his skin, and the king spun around and elbowed Dirk, sending him flying backward toward Turk.

He still held onto his hammer with his right hand, sending those shockwaves around him, but Dirk’s dagger was lodged in his back, and he was unable to reach it with his left hand. His armor and his injury prevented him from being able to pull it out.

I tried to close the distance and attack while he was distracted, turning around and dragging his hammer with him, but the moment I got within ten feet, I could not maintain my balance even though I thought I should be able to.

It must be something to do with the hammer.

Another bolt impacted near his feet, and the king howled as stones and metal sprayed at his face again.

“Dirk, get back!” Vreek shouted, causing me to glance at Dirk and notice his arm was hanging from his shoulder as he held it.

“Stop being chicken shites and die!” the king shouted as he turned into a cyclone of hammer slams. He would turn and slam the hammer at each of us, throwing stones, metal, and bones in our direction. Vreek and I sought safely behind a stone pillar near the edge of the room and watched as fragments impaled themselves into the stone around us.

We hid behind our stone barrier as the king must have unleashed a good two dozen strikes around himself, taking massive chunks from my stone pillar and creating a mountain of debris at the base of the walls.

“Now!” Turk shouted.

I glanced around the column and saw the floor was literally a foot lower as the king had stripped whole sections of it with his hammer.

Turk started firing lighting shots quickly at the floor near the king.

“His range is only fifteen feet from his strike! Everything after that is just the force of the effect! Twenty-five feet usually before it falls off!

I found myself smiling as I was glad Turk was on our side. So many boss raids had been successful because he could learn their patterns and attack ranges quickly. He would watch countless videos back in our raiding days and have maps and pictures he came up with to help people know where to stand or move to.

“I’ll draw his attention!” Turk shouted again, “When I do Vreek and Dad, you two run and jump at him from opposite sides! You can clear the distance between his ground effect!”

Moving from behind the column, I took a few steps back and saw Vreek doing the same thing. Turk let out a barrage of quick arrows at the stones far enough away from the king to bounce up toward him.

“Now!” Turk cried out.

Vreek and I both ran toward the king. Three steps later, we lept over that area around the king that pulsed with magic, and both of us came down on opposite sides with our swords swinging at him.

His left arm was up, shielding himself as he turned from Turk’s attack. He could not hold it well and was forced to block most of his vision with his arm as he tried to approach them. His lack of vision left him open to us, as did his depending on the magic of his hammer to keep us away.

Powered by Naydras, this jump was even easier than usual for both of us.

My sword came down on the back of the left side of his neck, where a row of scales protected it from my sword. The impact was enough to drive him down to the ground and to his knees. Vreek’s attack landed almost at the same time as mine had, hitting the king’s elbow and arm on his right arm, breaking the grip he had on the hammer, and causing the shockwaves to stop radiating out from him as we landed on the floor.

I continued to hack at him with Light Drinker, and I saw Vreek grab the king’s hammer as it stood on its head.

“Aaahhhggh!” Vreek screamed, and I saw smoke rising from his hand as he let go of the handle after what seemed forever.

Dirk was suddenly next to me and kicked the king on his right side, barely moving him.

The king was grunting and cursing, and I realized the greatest threat right now was his hammer and if he got ahold of it.

Tossing Light Drinker to Dirk, I grabbed the king without hesitation and wrapped my arms around him. Towering over him by a good foot, I used every bit of strength I had coursing through my legs and attempted to lift him away from where he was.

It felt like I was pulling a tree from the ground by the roots.

He thrashed against me, but I held his arms pinned against him and could feel the hilt of Dirk’s dagger pressing against my ribs as it moved around inside the king’s back.

“I need help!” I groaned as the king fought me.

He was trying to move closer to the hammer, and I realized quickly I was losing this battle as he slowly inched closer and closer to where it was resting.

Vreek appeared and pressed against the king from his right side like a football player pushing a sled. He drove those legs of his as I lifted the king as high as I could.

Dirk flashed before my eyes, and I heard a scream, felt an immense amount of heat coming from the king’s helmet, and felt the king give up his struggles. Vreek and I almost fell upon each other as Vreek surged forward, and I yanked the king off the ground.

I looked at Dirk and saw him across from me. He approached the king who I was now holding up off the ground a few feet from his hammer, and saw Dirk put his hand near the king’s face.

“He’s dead,” Dirk gasped as I watched him pull his dagger back, and the king’s head fell limp against his chest.

Vreek was next to me, breathing hard and looking at his left hand. The green skin of it was slowly returning to normal, and I saw a small imprint of the handle of the king’s hammer.

I let the king fall to the ground, and Dirk bent over and retrieved his other dagger while pointing to my sword on the floor.

“Guys!” Turk shouted as I moved to grab my sword. “The doors are starting to open!”

Glancing at the massive doors, I saw that a clock-like gear system was moving now, appearing to unlock what we had not realized was locked.

“Does this mean there are going to be more coming?” Dirk groaned as he wiped his dagger off his pants.

“We need to try and escape!” Vreek shouted as he pointed to a door behind the dead king's throne.

The locks on the doors started to finish unlocking, and Turk cast a wall of fire right on the inside edge of it.

“Run!”

“What about the heart?” Dirk asked as he bent over the king’s body.

“We don’t have time!” I yelled. “That armor will take forever to cut off!”

I barely heard the groan from Dirk as he moved from the king’s corpse and ran to join the rest of us. The sound of the gears finishing up their moving and the doors starting to open echoed through the hall.

“We need to find a way out fast!” Vreek stated as he opened the door behind the throne and motioned for us to enter.

Shouts from the door started to echo through the halls. There was no telling how many of them were coming.