Their Overcharge was still active.

A small hole in Kiyomi’s dome opened, enough to push the dagger through. She poked the mirage beside her.

ZZZT! An electric spark ran up its body, and it froze. Another stun. The other clones scattered around the cave spat water at her relentlessly, like a heavy downpour of rain.

On the far side of the cave, where Razor was tackling the real hydra, he was a glowing, purple blur. He bounced from head to head to head to head, maintaining his high speed. Although his hits were light, each having little damage, they were quick and numerous. All his hits were adding up. His DoTs were whittling down the heads’ HP bars simultaneously while the heads spat water at him. Whenever the Water Barrages came, he paused his attacks and put up a bubble-shaped forcefield—he would use Kiyomi’s Forcefield skill through her Skill Share.

As minutes passed, each head drooped down as its HP zeroed.

Once Razor killed the tenth head, all the heads rose back up and roared. Now he had to cut down that 4 million HP on its body. He continued his moves as before: jumping, jabbing, slashing, dodging…

When the hydra’s body HP bar hit 0, Razor jumped out of the way, avoiding being crushed as the hydra fell over on its stomach.

The mirages faded away and the cavern turned quiet.

Kiyomi took down her forcefield. “Nice job.”

Razor nodded from across the cave. He kept his combat stance as he eyed the lake—a dagger in each hand raised defensively.

She raised her staff at the ready too. Almost done. Homestretch. Just the giant, talking snake left.

A familiar voice sounded everywhere. “Amusing, but you are still no match for me.”

Kiminaru’s head popped out of the lake and rose all the way up until it nearly touched the ceiling. Nagas also began sliding out of the water. He shot his tongue toward Kiyomi, since she was closer to him.

Kiyomi made a big leap back and avoided it.

His tongue struck the ground where she had stood and left a crater before retracting into his mouth.

Razor would focus on the nagas, and Kiyomi would find a way to break Kiminaru’s water armor.

“WEAPON ART: SHOCKWAVE!” He plunged his daggers into the ground and dispersed a shockwave that spread across a wide area, killing most of the nagas—the same method he had done in the first phase.

While he ran around, finishing off the rest with slashes, Kiyomi put up her barrier and skimmed through Razor’s list of abilities on her holoscreen. She couldn’t spam Lightning Spear while blocking Kiminaru’s attacks. Even from blocking and being within close proximity, he hit like a truck: she felt the hits and heavy vibrations against her shield. Her shield renewed every few seconds, which was why she could tank the hits continuously. And it burned through her MP bit by bit, but she had plenty. Something with a lot of impact. More impact meant more Stagger potential. Ice spells weren’t an option…

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She found one:

Skills

Description

Mastery (%)

Discharge

Channel electrical energy inside you for 20 seconds before releasing a devastating, unidirectional streak of lightning through your selected limb (hand or foot).

90

20 seconds was a long time. Thankfully, she could use a skill while maintaining her shield. She would charge the skill, drop her barrier, and throw it. She tapped a button to close the holoscreen and began charging the energy in her free hand—she had her staff in one hand. “Stun in 20 sec!”

“Got it!” Razor killed the last few nagas, summoned Shizunari, and waited while Kiyomi held aggro.

Kiyomi tanked Kiminaru’s explosive water projectiles it spat from its mouth. Her charging hand vibrated as the energy built up in it.

At 20, he dashed to Kiminaru. He was too far away to be in the attacks’ AOE,—opposite to where Kiminaru was facing—so he didn’t need to dodge. Once he sank his daggers a few times into its side, Kiminaru flinched, went limp and fell over.

Before Kiyomi dropped her forcefield, huge water balls from the lake rose up in the air.

Razor put up a barrier.

They all fell down and splashed everywhere.

She dropped her barrier, stretched her hand forward, and fired at his head.

As Kiminaru recovered and got up, the lightning struck him. The word STAGGERED popped up by his head, and he fell over again. They had 30 seconds.

They rushed their attacks in a relentless barrage, aiming to get his HP bar down to 7 mil.

Kiyomi spammed Lightning Spears. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. No time to think of another spell.

Razor got in close and did a flurry of swift, melee attacks with his daggers, applying his DoTs.

In 15 seconds, Kiminaru’s armor and helmet cracked and burst, but they couldn’t deplete the HP in time.

After 30 seconds, he rose and towered over them again. He rotated and sprayed water back and forth onto them like a fire hose.

They erected their forcefields. Thank God for Kiyomi’s shield. It made defending much easier.

Kiminaru focused on Razor, raining down his attacks on Razor’s shield, which couldn’t give Razor an opening to strike. He was stuck defending, so Kiyomi would attack next.

Kiyomi lowered her shield, charged another Discharge and zapped Kiminaru. It ate a chunk of his HP but didn’t stagger.

The high damage caused Kiminaru to turn around and start attacking her.

She put up her shield just in time to block the assault. “Again!”

Now free from the attacks, Razor lowered his shield, moved in, and stabbed Kiminaru with Shizunari again and again and again… “It won’t be easy! He has Stun Resistance!”

“That’s alright. Keep going!” They just needed one more stun. Big mobs typically had Stun Resistance, meaning every time you stunned, its resistance to stuns and binds increased. The resistance made it harder to stun the next time. This was probably to prevent players from cheesing through everything with stuns.

Eventually, Kiminaru fell down with a thud again. His recovery would be quicker, so they had to make this count.

She dropped her shield, switched to electric claws, and went in to deal melee attacks.

Razor copied.

When Kiminaru rose back up, Kiyomi landed another hit with a claw. That hit knocked his HP to 7 mil.

And now for the tidal waves…