Owen and Lucas were taking turns carrying Briar, who despite his size was surprisingly light. Lucas had pointed out that since they had needed to clear out each of the monster before the mini boss had made an appearance, they were taking turns clearing out the monsters. Lucas was growing at a surprising rate, but Owen began to feel sour when he found out it was because their mutual master hadn't let Lucas get a soul temper.
Owen had finally reached the same level as Myra and Peggy again, after they had cleared out more than half of a flock of swans. Owen was getting tired of all these damn birds, since as soon as he got close they would begin flying away and cast magic from a distance. When they had finally cleared out the rest of the swan, Owen was ever so slightly pissed. Almost as soon as the mini boss appeared, without any delay, charged his body with relentless fury and stabbed piercing heavens at the monster. Owen felt like he watched the attack in slow motion as the boss seemed to freeze as the spear entered it's body at blinding speeds, it looked like it had tried to change form, but the spear had still caught it in the moments before.
It quickly sank to the ground and Owen didn't know how to react, as the monster laid dead at his feet. Turning to Lucas who looked just as confused as he did, all he said was, "What?" Looking at his kill notification he was surprised to see he had more than one notification in wait.
*You have slain Zephyrus the West Wing - Level 20
1080 experience gained. 540 has been consumed by your 2nd grade soul.*
"Did you get any experience from that?" Owen asked already positive that he had probably stolen all of the experience with the attack. Lucas shook his head smiling sheepishly. "No, I'm pretty sure you killed it before I was able to participate at all, but don't worry, I've already gained several levels in the short time we've been here." Owen felt a little better about it and looked at the second notification.
*You have gained the title First Strike for slaying a boss monster in a single attack. First Strike increases the damage of your first attack by 10% *
Owen grinned and couldn't wait to brag to Myra about it, he was pretty sure she would be upset he got another title that would have benefitted her a lot. He and Lucas began a steady trot back towards where they had first spawned, Owen with a slight skip in his step.
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Myra couldn't fathom how she had ever thought herself strong before she had upgraded into the fray. It had become into the Gauntlet and let her infuse her body with HP that powered up each of her attacks the same way empowered body did. However, she only needed to burn a third of the resources that into the fray had cost her and she got 20% more stats out of it at the same time. When she channeled both, she could only laugh as she got a whopping 50% total stat increase while fighting allowing her to kill the mini boss enemy in a single strike.
They had hunted down these stupid rats that had casted wind magic to create distractions and then tried to attack during them. It had taken no time at all with Peggy's flamethrower bracelet to sear every single one of the stupid rats, causing the boss monster to appear. The boss had hardly had the chance to form before Myra had leapt into the air, while channeling both her empowering skills, then came crashing down in an axe swing that the boss hadn't even seen coming. Peggy had buffed Myra just before the end of the fight so she had gotten some of the experience as well and upon the kill had immediately began to bag up the rats and boss monster to carry back to the center of the camp.
She felt like a barbarian as they trudged back towards the center of whatever world they had spawned in. She was carrying bags of meat essentially, which were slung over her back and she her hands were covered in bits of blood from helping pick up the corpses. "God I could use another shower." Myra groaned and Peggy could only nod, but she looked more excited than Myra felt. Myra was still pretty sire that they would be the first ones back since she had one shot the second boss monster, but when they were still several meters from where they had spawned she saw Owen and the Lucas guy close to the same distance away from the center.
Without hesitation she threw the bag of carcasses and charged towards the center, making it there first, but only because her bag had crashed into Owen sending him to the ground. "I win!" She cheered and walked over to smile down at Owen triumphantly. Then a system screen flashed in front of her eyes and she saw the title he had earned. "That's no far, I did the same thing to the last boss I fought." She growled and Owen only laughed up at her as he moved the bag out of the way. "Apparently not, otherwise wouldn't you have the title as well." Owen bragged and Myra just scoffed and turned away.
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Even though Owen's group hadn't made it back first, he was still feeling great. They had made it all back together before the 4 hour time limited had expired. And since they hadn't got a notification for having cleared the gate, they sat down to take a break and watched Briar as they slept.
The time slipped by quickly as each of them took turns complaining about the enemy match ups, though the complaining was mostly done by Owen and Myra who seemed to agree the roseborn had made for much better enemies since they had actually stayed to fight. When the time limited had reached it's end, Owen got the expected system notification and read it immediately.
*You have successfully slain all of the four winds. You have cleared the ERROR.... You have the option to clear the gate now and gain your rewards or risk it all in a fight against the hidden boss for greater rewards. Hidden Boss will appear in 1 hour, if you choose not to take this risk, leave before then.*
Owen was staring at the screen in shock, that had been a surprising amount of times his screen had given him an error in the last several days. He asked Myra to share her system panel and was even more surprised.
*You have successfully slain all of the four winds. You have cleared the tier 2 gate Consecrated Grounds of the Four Winds.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Rewards will be calculated upon exit.*
"That isn't at all the notification I got," Owen said. Quickly sharing his personalized notification with the group. Both Lucas and Peggy seemed concerned, but Myra first seemed to pout, but then grin. "First one to kill the Hidden boss is the winner?" Owen had been worried as to why he had been getting personalized messages, but was immediately fired up when the Myra issued the challenge.
"I suppose I'm down for that, what do I get if I win?" Owen asked already thinking about the bragging rights. Myra grinned back, "Bragging rights, duh." "Then what do I get if I lose?" Owen asked again, curious as to whether the bet would actually be fair or not. "You'll have to come meet Peggy's and My parents." Myra stated, paired with the usual stare of indifference. Owen still saw the small flush on her cheeks and could tell how awkward she felt. Peggy stepped in to help her sister out and smiled. "It is mostly our parents wanting to meet the boy that we have been spending all out time with recently." "I'm a fully grown man," Owen said.
"Well, they still want to make sure you aren't getting us into anything weird especially since, they have gone longer and longer without seeing us since the system arrived." "Are they blaming me for that?" Owen asked bewildered. "Not really, but then do know that you've been training with us, so they are definitely curious to meet you." Owen sighed, but nodded. "Okay, yeah, if I lose, I will go meet your guy's parents." Peggy cheered and clapped Myra on the back, who still held a look of indifference on her face. "Okay, well I'm going to do my best to regenerate my resources before the boss arrives." Owen lied.
He still had made it back to pretty much full on his resources during his and Lucas's walked back. Moving a little away from the rest of the group he decided it was time to take another look at his core and see if there was another build up of that weird energy. Diving into his core space, Owen was still amazed every time he looked upon it. It was like his body was made out of a greenish energy now, with bright stars of energy creating constellations throughout his body. When he focused on his core he had been right and more and more certain that the original film of energy had needed to be all of that experience he had absorbed into his soul.
Moving in even closer to his core, he began to cycle his breathing slowly and tried to imagine the breaths themselves traveling through his body on every inhale and then pushing them out on every exhale. It didn't take very long before the experience his soul had absorbed, collected and begin to our into his core at rapid speeds. The green core itself began to spin as the experience was poured into it, cycling the energy throughout his entire body faster and faster began slowing down and eventually stopping as the last of the experience was fully absorbed into his core.
When he opened his eyes he was surprised to see that most of the hour had already passed and each of his friends was already preparing for the fight. He wasn't sure how they had managed to keep such good track of the time, but according to his system notification, they had less that 5 minutes before the boss would appear. Standing up, he had to admit, he did feel more refreshed than he thought he would from sitting back and relaxing mostly.
When the time had made it to under a minute, he and Myra began discussing their battle plan and before they knew it the boss had arrived.
The wind howled through the forest, causing the trees to shake and lose branches. Each one of the directions where they had slain the different winds was torn through with winds reaching higher speeds than Owen was pretty sure they could've on earth. What appeared when the air began to settle, was a man who looked almost fully human, but his form continuously shifted as if it were more a mirage than an actual man. It had a thick beard that seemed to be made of the wind itself and wielded a handle that's blade was a pillar of condensed air. The only thing that set him apart from humans, was a set of wings and his back and his eyes. The monster had an eye, facing each of the cardinal directions.
Owen and Myra prepared their strongest attacks with Peggy immediately casting buffs on the both of them. Owen felt like his body had grown several times lighter as Peggy's buff activated. The plan they had come up with was as simple as attacking on either side of the boss, hoping to catch it off guard. Lucas was to stay in the front and cast earth spikes at the monster only as often as he was sure it wouldn't aggro on him.
Owen had immediately channeled relentless fury and had began making attack after attack towards the boss, but not trying to actually hit it yet. Letting Myra make the first move, he almost had to dodge out of the way as her attack sent the boss flying backwards. Two large gashes had been made on the chest of the monster, which began to heal almost immediately. The boss decided that it as it's turn to attack and swung it's sword at Myra who, thinking it would be easy to dodge, just ducked underneath the attack. A current of air immediately rushed towards her and flung her into the attacks path. She was sent flying away and Owen heard Peggy shout out another one of her skills. Being prepared for the opening, as soon the the boss had made it's attack towards Myra, Owen stabbed his spear through the chest of the boss and tore his spear to the side.
The battle had barely begun and the boss was already severely injured. Of course, nothing ever being that easy, the boss began to chant in low tones, that caused the air in the surrounding area to shift back and forth with the tune the boss chanted. Slowly even more hectic winds than when the boss first appeared began to pick up and then slowly condense as the area effected was shrunk down to just around the bosses body. It now had what looked like a suit of armor made of unbelievably fast winds protecting his body and most every one of the wounds caused so far had began to close even faster that at the beginning of the fight.
Each attack after than had become even harder to hit as just when Owen thought his spear would land, the armor wouldn't block it but constantly redirected it at speeds Owen couldn't fight against. Myra and Owen began to attack with even more strength and pushed harder and harder, without ever making it past the wind protection. "You fools actually dared to kill my sons and are this weak?" a hoarse voice spat. Owen was surprised, the boss monster could actually speak. He didn't let it deter him however and he switched his spear out with his electric bastard sword.
Finally, his attacks seemed to have some effect as even thought the actual blade continued to miss, the electricity rushing through the blade still managed to ignore the wind and attack the bosses body directly. Myra immediately the distraction it caused and began charging her aura into one of her axes. Before the boss had time to react, as it's body rotated to meet her attack, she swung down with full force and shouted. "IVAR'S FATED BLOW!" Her axe tore through the wind barrier and didn't shift even the slightest as it struck directly against the collarbone of the boss. It screamed in pain, with the wind only amplifying the sound rather than dampening it.
Owen and Myra began their barrage of both elemental and skill attacks slowly chipping down the bosses health. They had both been injured several times already, several times because each time they would try to dodge attacks, the boss would cause powerful winds to push them back in range and cause devastating damage. They probably wouldn't have made it through the fight without Peggy's healing, but even so they had managed to bring the boss down to it's knees, the wind having died down almost completely. The boss stared at them, eyes filled with hatred and looked like it was about to speak, but Myra swung her axe at it's head, while Owen chopped down to try and cleave it in half.
Neither attack succeeded as the boss got pulled down to the ground unnaturally fast, before disappearing completely in Briar's already distended stomach.