Another swarm of fire bolts falls upon us. Since it’s the same attack as usual, it’s getting easier and easier to avoid, but…
*Bang!*
Still, regardless of how good I get at evading, there are too many and one hits me on the shoulder.
“Fuck!” I exclaim in horror, as I watch almost a quarter of my HP vanish. “The damage is increasing way too fast!”
Swarm attacks are called like that because they have lots of projectiles, making them hard to avoid in exchange for damage. But that stupid Wrath innate is enough to make them hurt as single-target skills!
Immediately after, I see a Fireball flying my way. I hide behind a rock to avoid the damage. But Targaroth has predicted my actions, because I suddenly find him in front of me, and a stone axe lands on my head, sending me flying.
My HP… I quickly check my status. My HP is in the danger zone! Fuck! Another hit and I’m done for!
Targaroth has been attacking me all the time and doesn’t give me any time to rest. He sends attack after attack at me without getting close. It isn’t that he’s scared of me but that he respects the power of the overpowered item called Buddug’s Daze. He knows he can deal with us with ranged attacks, so he’s trying to force me to activate it as soon as possible. He wants me to waste it while he’s inside the lava, as we won’t be able to approach him while he’s stunned.
The situation is more or less like this: if we can make him get out of the lava before he can force us to use Buddug’s Daze, we have a high chance of winning. If we can’t, and he forces us to activate it while he’s in the lava sea, we’re bound to lose.
I stand up with difficulty, slightly disoriented. Even if this is a game, being launched for a few meters isn’t pleasant.
Targaroth looks at me. The Wrath’s aura, which looks like a mix of fire and shadow, has been getting more opaque. At the same time, his eyes are turning red and starting to glow. When the original aspect of his Champion can’t be seen anymore, it’ll mean his Wrath has reached 100% bonus damage. It isn’t there yet, though.
“When are you going to use that item, huh? Will you wait until you die? It’ll be too late by then, you know? Hahaha!”
I know, you fucker!
“Then, why don’t you get close? Isn’t it you who’s scared?” Two can play this game. “If you’re truly that good, show it! Come at me with everything you have instead of staying in a safe place. Coward! Well, it’s fine. Since you don’t want to come, catch me if you can! Fufufu! Hahaha!”
I use Chaotic Beam, surprising him at the same time I burst out laughing. Then, as you might expect, I don’t wait for his reaction and start running away. I just have enough time to see him furrow his eyebrows as more red circles appear around him.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck…! Why did I have to land here of all places?”
I didn’t realize until now, but when Targaroth sent me flying, he aimed for a place where the lava was close and there were almost no rocks. My mobility is reduced, and there’s nowhere to take cover! I can’t avoid the fire bolt swarm like this!
With my remaining HP, if I take that attack, I’ll die. I must do something…
“Moo!” I shout. “Block that attack! I can’t die yet!”
Is he close? I hope he is. If I die while holding Buddug’s Daze and Targaroth gets it… It’ll be very bad.
“Mooohahaha! I’ve got you covered!”
Moo runs to intercept the projectiles. He passes next to me at an impressive speed, and soon, I hear the multiple explosions behind me. I’m sure Moo used Health Trick to block the projectiles.
But instead of rejoicing at being alive, I continue running.
“Haaah. It feels great. Hey, demon. Why don’t you play a while with me, huh? I don’t mind being your plaything… even outside the game…”
…yeah, I think so too. let’s pretend I didn’t hear anything.
“Balmy! Stop hiding and heal me!”
Where’s the healbot fairy when you need her? She has been pestering me the whole Mystery Event, but now that I need her, she isn’t here.
“I don’t want to get close because you’re his target… okay, I’ll come…” Her voice comes from a certain distance up high. She must have been hiding until now.
I start running in that direction.
It’s time for the next step of the plan. As soon as she gets close enough to cast her healing spell, I toss Buddug’s Daze at her. She grabs it in mid-air, and when she realizes what it is, she looks at me with a dumbfounded look on her face.
“...this is…”
“Yeah. It’s the hot potato. Now you have it. Good luck! Hahaha!” Having received her healing and passing the ‘bomb’, I start running away.
The next step was simple: to give the item to someone else so Targaroth would leave me alone.
Calaban hasn’t sent me the signal, yet so we must distract Targaroth for a while longer, and I’m too low on HP to be the bait. Furthermore, he already knows my moves and skills, that’s why he set up a perfect situation to kill me. If Moo hadn’t protected me on time, it’d have worked.
Targaroth, worthy of being called a pro player, immediately realizes that Balmy is the one with the item that can defeat him, so the next wave of attacks flies in her direction.
But the fucking fairy, instead of flying to a hidden spot to force Targaroth to come close to her, leaving him no option but to fly out of the lava that’s constantly feeding his Wrath skill, starts chasing after me.
Which in turn makes Targaroth concentrate his attacks near me, putting me at risk too.
“Stop chasing me! Can’t you see you’re putting me at risk?”
“Then take it back!”
“Never! Ah, shit-”
I suddenly change my path, surprising both my chasers. But I had no option, I was running in the direction of Calaban’s party, and this would have revealed their presence.
----------------------------------------
We keep changing the owner of Buddug’s Daze for a while. Sometimes we do it openly and sometimes we do it when Targaroth can’t see us. This way he can’t be sure who has it and can’t focus all his attention on a single one of us.
“Come on, Calaban… What’s taking you so long…”
Tired of running, I take a short rest, leaning my back on the wall. But another stone axe flies my way, forcing me to avoid it.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Leave me alone! Can’t one take a rest in the middle of a battle to the death with the final boss!?
Hahaha, I know it makes no sense. But I’m tired…
It happens right then. From the other side of the cave, in the opposite direction of where Targaroth is currently looking, I see Calaban making an okay sign. It’s the signal that Calaban and his party are finally ready.
I put on a poker face and wait for Balmy, who’s currently the one in possession of Buddug’s Daze, to get close to Targaroth. The activation range isn’t big.
“Attack!”
At my shout, all hell breaks loose. Targaroth suddenly finds himself targeted by tens of attacks, coming from all directions.
Moo, Muribelle, Balmy, and I didn’t split up just to prevent him from easily targeting us. It was for this time. With the eight players attacking at the same time from all directions, even a pro player will be forced to take a defensive position.
We’ve tried our best to surround him since the battle started, but as expected of a pro player with higher stats and experience, we weren’t successful. This is why Calaban’s party needed to position themselves as the other ‘half’ of the encirclement, while Targaroth didn’t know of their existence.
“Hmph! Naive.” Targaroth snorts and a dark purple veil appears around him, stopping all our attacks.
This is the chance we were waiting for! As long as he’s inside, he can’t move; It’s the only chance we’ll get at this.
“Balmy!”
“I know! The Great Fairy Explorer will save the day!”
Balmy activates Buddug’s Daze. The crystal cracks, revealing an intense light coming from within. Everyone closes their eyes for a brief instant at the intense light.
And then, with a ‘plof’, Balmy falls to the lava sea.
*Plof!*
“...”
I knew it! I knew he would have something hidden! If I’m not mistaken, this must be the Fate Reversal skill, one of the Wicked Legion’s exclusive skills. I know about it because Laura told me about it when she was thinking about which skills to pick up.
Fate Reversal (Active skill) Cost: 80 MP For the next 2 seconds, all status effects you would suffer are nullified and reflected back to the attacker. This skill has a 30-minute cooldown.
Give it to the demons for nasty skills… A skill that can reflect status effects. I shiver, imagining what I would have to suffer if it were me who activated Buddug’s Daze and fell into the lava.
I hope Balmy doesn’t die. We’ll need her heals in the future.
“Hahaha! It took you so long! You fell for it! Now you have no chance against me…” Targaroth starts laughing, but when he realizes we aren’t surprised and instead have grins on our faces, he looks bewildered. “W-what…!?”
“Yeah,” I nod, “I agree with you. You stole my words. Indeed, you fell for it. Everyone, keep attacking! Press on!”
The remaining six of us resume the previous spell barrage and Targaroth reactivates his purple veil to protect against them.
I don’t know which skill he’s using, but powerful protective spells always have limits, have a high cost, or are difficult to use. This means Targaroth can’t keep using it all the time and must eventually come out. Furthermore, while protected, he can’t attack us.
Targaroth must be waiting for us to run out of MP or EP first. Now that there’s no Buddug’s Daze and his Wrath is charged, he must be confident of his victory.
His confidence will be his downfall.
“Don’t worry about saving anything!” I shout. “It’s either we win, or we die!”
The first one to run out of MP is me, closely followed by Moo, Navigator, and Calaban. Melee characters usually don’t have much MP, after all. Plus I’ve been fighting all the time.
…don’t look at me with pitying eyes, as if I am pathetic. I’m a mage, but my skills require a lot of MP! Except for Cold Blast, but Targaroth would laugh at me if I were to try to kill him with that one.
It isn’t until Thunder Thighs stops attacking, leaving Muribelle as the only one with MP left, that Targaroth pops out of his bubble.
“Not bad, not bad.” He haughtily nods. “But this is getting tiresome. Let’s finish this.”
With his HP still over half, Targaroth seems impossible to defeat. With a smug grin on his face, he raises his two hands and summons a small sun.
“Woaah, what’s that…?” Says Muribelle, fascinated.
Then, from the sun, beautiful light rays split up, accurately landing on each of our torsos. There’s even one for Balmy, diving into the lava.
I feel a prickly sensation where the light touches. My HP is falling at a crazy speed! It’s a channeled skill! It isn’t a beautiful light but a scorching ray of death!
“Don’t let him do as he pleases!”
At my shout, everyone jumps into the lava and runs towards Targaroth. He just smiles as we approach, watching us struggle.
Adding the lava damage to the scorching rays might not have been the brightest of the ideas…
Anyway. The important part is that everyone but Muribelle, who still has some MP left, unleashes their most powerful attacks on him in melee. Which, in my case, are just random hits with my staff.
Targaroth defends himself and avoids as a pro should. Even with five people attacking at melee range and one at range, he continues to channel his tiny sun.
Since I’m the most useless in melee, I check the remaining HP of everyone. Since Balmy activated Buddug’s Daze, less than ten seconds have passed. But we’re all about to die.
As planned, I, who has the most experience when fighting pro players, sneak behind Targaroth in the middle of the fight and jump at him. His surprise lasts nothing. He grabs me and immediately throws me to the side. But this small interruption has bought enough time for Moo to use his finisher move.
“Moooooohahaha!”
Moo swings his golden-glowing axe. Targaroth can’t avoid it thanks to me and a horrendous slashing sound follows. His HP takes a huge hit, as almost half of it suddenly disappears.
Counterstrike (Active skill) Cost: ? EP Deal physical damage equal to the damage received from your target since the battle started. This skill costs 1 EP for every 10 damage received. This skill has a 5-minute cooldown and can only be used if you wield a melee weapon.
Targaroth opens his eyes wide open. “What!? Who takes this fucking skill? It’s utter garbage!”
Ahaha, the pro player wasn’t expecting anyone to have Counterstrike. Nobody sane would, as to use it, you first have to take damage. Counterstrike sounds amazing but it just returns the damage you’ve already taken, and in general, taking extra damage is the worst you can do in any situation. This is a skill that, generally speaking, only monsters use.
But Moo doesn’t care because… well, he’s Moo. Lesson of the day: never underestimate a masochist.
“Retreat!”
At my order, everyone, including myself, starts running away and searching for high ground to escape the lava. The only exception is Moo, who, taking advantage of Targaroth’s bewilderment, grabs him with all his strength so he can’t escape.
A meteor falls from the sky as we run.
‘A meteor appearing inside a cave!? It makes no sense!’
‘Well, this is a game, so stuff like that can happen.’
‘Ah, you’re right.’
‘Of course, I am. I’m always right.’
Both of you, shut up! Now isn’t the time for this!
“You’ll never outdo me when it comes to fire skills! Hahaha!” Muribelle laughs, delighted to have a chance to show off her ultimate skill.
“Release me!” Targaroth shouts. “Do you want to die too?”
“I’m taking you down with me. Mooohahaha!”
*Booooooom!*
With a deafening explosion, the meteor lands where Moo and Targaroth are standing. But as I expected, Moo is alive. He used Health Trick at the last moment.
Targaroth, on the other side…
His empty HP bar fills up in a blink, and his body starts swelling. Large muscles bulge out of his arms and legs, his wings grow to three meters, and his previously large horns seem to want to reach the ceiling.
“H-he isn’t dead yet…?” Someone says. “What do we need to do to kill him?”
“Is this the second phase?” I gulp. I imagine that not only his aspect has changed. His stats must have risen like crazy.
“This is too much even for me…” Moo quickly retreats.
But right before Targaroth finishes his transformation, the whole cave shakes. With a rumbling sound, reverse black lightning appears from the ground. The lighting obliterates everything in its path, killing Targaroth as quickly as his transformation healed him. His HP falls to zero in a split second.
This is… this is the end.
image [https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]
“Oh, yeah... Where is Balmy? I completely forgot about her.”