Maria and her newly arranged party dove back into the dungeon and made their way back to the Castle Gardens for their rematch with Magradas, the Weeping Willow Spirit.
“Alright, everyone. Let me cast some buffs on you. They aren’t as strong as Cindy’s but they’re better than nothing,” Maria said as she began casting buffs such as [Haste], [Protect], etc. to increase everyone’s stats for the battle ahead.
“Thanks, Mary,” Lizzy said before turning to everyone, “Everyone ready?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s do this.”
“Time for our rematch.”
“One sec, let me do another thing,” Maria said.
After saying that, Maria closed her eyes and used [Metamorphosis] to transform into her True Nephalem Form. Unlike in the previous battle where she only used her Battle Form or Nightmare Form, this was her form that was a little more demonic and definitely more powerful.
The transformation was similar to her Nightmare Battle Form, but there were some differences. First of all, her body grew by a few inches as her skin turned ash gray from its previous pitch black color and the red cross-shaped scar on her chest extended across her body and began glowing with an eerie purple light.
Her limbs started snapping and reforming back in place, which caused Maria to groan in pain and fall to the ground along with her armor that could no longer fit her body. Demonic scales began erupting from her body to replace her armor and they covered the areas that had just become exposed, such as her arms, abdomen, butt, crotch, legs, neck, and torso.
The guys in the party had to turn away when they noticed the armor dropping, but nothing was actually visible since a dark aura covered Maria’s body when her transformation started.
The scales also emerged on her face and a third demonic eye appeared on her forehead as the halos that were usually hidden emerged and began changing color from red to dark purple.
“Urgghhh…”
The transformation made Maria look quite demonic and seeing her like this, her party members couldn’t help but step back a little before Lizzy knelt next to her and asked urgently, “Mary! What’s wrong?!”
“Arggh…W-Wait…I-It’s almost…done…Ugh…”
The transformation took a while to complete and it was quite painful, which was why Maria hardly ever used it. She only decided to use it this time because in the battle with Magradas, it would be better to have her abilities enhanced by her [Metamorphosis] skill than without it.
Her [Nightmare] skill had an upgrade after she became a Nephalem and it was now called [Metamorphosis]. This upgrade gave her 3 forms to use and although her 2nd form–the original [Nightmare] form–gave her enhanced combat abilities, the third form was where the enhancements truly made her character broken.
Her Battle Form–previously her Nightmare Form–upgraded her abilities, but the effects weren’t the full extent of what her [Metamorphosis] skill could do.
Name: Metamorphosis Rank: EX+ Description: Brings out the true power of the Nephalem. Depending on the degree of the transformation, the Nephalem's power is increased dramatically.
Stage 1: Grants the Nephalem a 50% increase to STR, AGI, INT. An 80% increase to VIT, and a 25% increase to ATK SPD
Stage 2: Grants the Nephalem a 75% increase to STR, AGI, INT. A 120% increase to VIT, and a 50% increase to ATK SPD
Stage 3: Grants the Nephalem a 100% increase to STR, AGI, INT. A 150% increase to VIT, and a 75% increase to ATK SPD
Due to absorbing the 7 Deadly Sins, all skills relating to the Sins will have their cooldown reduced by 99% if the user is using this skill in its strongest form. Cost:
Stage 1 - 0.5 NE/second
Stage 2 - 0.75 NE/second
Stage 3 - 1.25 NE/second
Her Battle Form enhanced only 50% of her 3 basic stats, 80% of her VIT stat, and increased her ATK SPD by 25%, but this was only the first stage of the skill. Maria was always using her Battle Form whenever she charged into a fight, so no one was surprised when she transformed in the midst of battle and began dominating her opponents, but this wasn’t the best her [Metamorphosis] skill could offer.
Maria called her third form the True Nephalem Form, where 100% of her [Metamorphosis] skill was invoked. In this form, her 3 basic stats would increase by 100% and her VIT stat by 150%. Her ATK SPD would also become monstrously fast due to the 75% increase, which made her appear like a tornado when she attacked.
Then there were the upgrades to her Seven Deadly Sins skills that basically made them lose their cooldowns. There were virtually no detriments to using this form. If there was one, then it was the fact that the transformation process was always rather painful to do and the skill's resource cost was really large.
Once her transformation was complete, Maria stood up and stretched her aching body. It had been a while since she had to use the skill, so she had to readjust herself. For one, she had grown a bit taller, so she needed to get used to it.
“It’s been a while since I had to use this…last time was when I was conquering Transylvania, which was months ago now that I think about it!”
Maria was in this form when she raided the unique dungeon, Transylvania Castle. There was no one to witness her in this form because she didn’t stream her dungeon raid, so this was the first time she was showing this form to anyone other than her NPC followers.
“M-Mary…what the heck happened to you?”
Maria turned to her friend and said, “Ugh, I really don’t like using this skill. It hurts using it and it makes me look like a monster, but what choice do I have? I need to be a little serious since this boss battle is a little annoying.”
There was an obvious look of annoyance on her face and she seemed bothered by using this form. Lizzy didn’t know why her friend was acting like that, considering that she could physically feel the power that was emanating out of her. Just standing next to her transformed friend made her feel some unknown pressure weigh on her chest, causing her to feel a tad uncomfortable.
Lizzy already knew that her friend was a completely broken character in the game who the devs couldn’t do anything about because Maria didn’t do anything wrong and acquired the power herself without using any cheats or exploiting any bugs, but her new transformation completely broke her previous understanding about her friend.
Lizzy began circling Maria and eyeing her up and down. She then stopped after a while and said with a broad smile, “Not gonna lie, but this form you have looks so freaking cool! I thought that your Battle Form transformation was wicked but this…this beats the cake!”
“R-Really?”
“Uh, yeah! Why haven’t you used this before when partying with me and the girls?”
“It was unnecessary and I didn’t want to scare anyone…also, it hurts a lot to transform into this!”
“Well, I’m not scared! I’m impressed, but if it really does hurt, I guess I understand why you haven’t shown this form before.”
“It hurts a lot, Liz… especially my forehead. When the eye emerges, it feels like my head is being split in two! It’s really uncomfortable…then there’s the change in my vision.”
“Hm?”
“Ugh, having a third eye is so weird…Wait a minute, let me get used to this again. I feel sick because my third eye is making my vision zoom in and out…”
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Maria took some time to get readjusted to this form of hers. It didn’t take too long and she was already running and jumping around normally again.
“Alright, I’m ready. Let’s go!” Maria said to everyone.
Seeing this demonic version of their friend giving them a friendly peace sign was a little uncanny. No one was unsettled, however, as they had gotten used to her now. In this form, her appearance really was fearsome, but that wasn’t the only thing that was fearsome.
Her stats were even more scary and they judged this by the amount of HP she now possessed.
Name: Maria Level: 250 HP: 2,222,820/1,234,900
DE: 3,828,120/3,190,100
NE: 4260
SP: 187,943/156,619
Additional information is blocked by the user’s Divine Energy!
Lizzy had just used [Inspect] on her friend and shared her stats with the party.
“Wow, what the hell…these are stats incomprehensible for priest class players…” Sky said in shock.
Hendrick agreed and added, “It’s not just that, but Maria’s attack stats are probably higher than most DPS players, but her HP is on par with players who play as main tanks…”
“What’s more scary is her MP, or rather, her DE… if she has that much DE then her INT stat must be freakishly high! She’s far ahead of any mage-class player that I know about…” Curio said while comparing Maria’s stats with his captain’s stats.
Rafflesia remained silent and just transmitted what she saw to her private stream that the rest of her Blackhand Mercenary Company were tuning into and furiously typing away in her mercenary group’s private chat group.
The party members shouldn’t try to compare Maria’s stats with other players. Her stat multipliers were higher than others and she had more stat points to distribute because of her race and Awakened status bonus.
Her actual stat numbers were much lower compared to players who specialized in a role, but since she had more free stat points to distribute, her numbers were closer to each other, making her well-rounded in every field, which was usually not a good thing.
Lizzy was happy to see that everyone’s morale was boosted after seeing Maria’s broken status screen. Everyone in the party was already expecting the battle ahead to be very difficult and they wore grim faces on the way to the boss monster.
Now, after seeing Maria’s transformation, everyone’s faces were brighter and their mood had improved.
“Our morale is great, so what are we waiting for? Let’s do this!” Lizzy said, hyping everyone up.
“We should get going! Just to let you guys know, I can only maintain this form for an hour or so,” Maria spoke up and said.
“Only an hour? Then let’s start the battle! We can’t be wasting your transformation’s duration just standing around!”
Maria nodded at her friend’s words and quickly dashed into the enclosure where the boss monster, Magradas, was waiting. Since the boss monster’s physical form was a tree, it hadn’t moved anywhere and was just waiting in the spot where it was rooted.
*DING*
You have entered Magradas, the Weeping Willow Spirit’s territory!
The [Deafened] and [Silence] debuffs were immediately inflicted on the party and they could no longer use any skills or send and receive a chat message to and from anyone.
Once iMaria entered its aggro range, Magradas immediately started attacking her with its numerous branches, just like before. However, unlike before, Maria was able to easily cut down a bunch of branches with a single chop of her ax because her stats had significantly improved. Her attack speed had also been enhanced, so she was moving closer and closer to the boss at a much faster rate than before and when she arrived in front of Magradas, she immediately unleashed a few rounds of her weapon’s [Calamity Cleave] on it.
Her attack speed enabled her to execute her attack much faster, so Maria was able to cycle through all of Calamity's different weapon forms and use the [Calamity Cleaves] in each of those forms a lot quicker.
Since [Calamity Cleave] was on cooldown in all of Calamity’s forms, Maria quickly pulled out her Zantetsu-R and began chopping away at Magradas with her two weapons in hand. Her attacks rained down on the boss monster like a storm and it couldn’t even return an attack on Maria.
Maria was constantly chopping down the boss monster’s branches whenever they recovered, so only a few branches were waving around in the air and Rafflesia quickly took care of those in an instant, leaving no branches for the boss monster to use to attack the enemies in front of it.
With no branches threatening them, the rest of the party could attack the boss monster with reckless abandon, since they didn't need to worry about the boss monster hitting them.
‘Keep this up! While Maria’s transformation is still in play, do as much damage as we can!” Lizzy roared in her mind.
Since they couldn’t communicate verbally, Lizzy was trying to communicate with everyone using physical gestures with her arms.
Everyone could somewhat understand what she meant with those gestures, so they attacked the boss even more intensely.
Magradas couldn’t attack with its branches since they were being chopped down the moment they regenerated, so it began shooting its leaves at the party. Maria quickly reacted and she spread her scale-covered wings in front of her, blocking the leaves from doing any harm to the rest of her party.
Since she was bigger now in her True Nephalem Form, the rest of her party was just standing behind or next to her and attacking while being protected by her extremely large wings that had grown to an immense size after her transformation.
Maria wasn’t going to continue to one-sidedly take Magradas’s attacks, so she swept out with Calamity that was in its greatsword form and sent out a strong gale at the incoming leaves, canceling their forward momentum.
With no more momentum, the leaves just dropped harmlessly to the ground or were cut apart by the sword wind that she sent out. Seeing that it worked, Maria continued to attack the monster while dealing with its attacks just like that.
Maria’s attack speed was through the roof, but there was still a physical limit to how many attacks she could send with just her two arms, so she decided to use her entire body to attack the monster.
Maria turned the sharp edges of her wings at the monster and lacerated its trunk with her blade-like feathers. She had previously used this method of attacking before, but it was just easier to use her weapons, so she hardly employed them in actual battles.
Now that there was a good punching bag in front of her to test and train her ability to use her wings in means that’s more than just flying, she began to consciously manipulate her wings to attack.
It was easy for her because it was just like how she would use her skill, [Rain of Terror], but instead of shooting out her feathers, she was using her feathers as a direct means of attack while they were still attached to her wings.
The boss monster was one-sidedly taking a beating, so it opened its mouth angrily and let out a soundless shriek, ‘SHREEEEEEEE!!!’
At the monster’s silent shriek, Maria let out a crazy smile and licked her lips in excitement.
Battlelust began overtaking Maria’s mind and she began attacking the monster even more crazily than before and this time, she added in her legs. She used her transformation ability to forcefully grow sharp blades on her legs and feet that were likely extensions of the bones in her legs. She slashed the monster not only with her wings and weapons, but also with her kicks now.
The forceful transformation definitely hurt a lot, but Maria barely registered the pain because her mind was just too focused on the battle.
Her friends were shocked when they saw the sudden transformation and Lizzy backed off immediately and stomped the ground powerfully to get everyone’s attention.
‘Spread out! Don’t get too close to Maria!’ She implied with her gestures.
Her powerful stomp got everyone’s attention except for Maria and, after taking a bit to understand what she meant, the party moved away from their friend who was already moving erratically and attacking the boss monster with movements that were just inhuman in their eyes.
The attacks she made looked like skills to everyone else, but they all knew that Maria couldn’t use any of her skills other than her weapon’s skill, [Calamity Cleave].
“H-Holy shit! How could she move like that?!” was what all of their expressions were seemingly saying.
Maria was employing the martial arts she learned from Odin to its fullest and this ramped up her damage numbers on the boss.
Lizzy once again stomped the ground and got her party members’ attention. She gestured to them to follow her and they quickly did. She didn’t want them to just stand around while watching Maria in shock, they needed to help her out and kill the monster!
Hendrick looked a little bit disappointed but Sky appeared next to her and gestured to him that they were recording everything. Hendrick smiled and gave her a thumbs up in response.
With no skills or spells used, Maria’s party whittled away at the boss monster’s HP bit by bit. Thanks to their party’s different composition and Maria’s transformation, they were able to chop the tree monster’s HP down to 50 percent even before an hour had passed.
When Maria’s transformation ended and she returned to her original form–not even her Battle Form, since her Negative Energy had bottomed out–Magradas’s HP had fallen below 30 percent, so the party only needed to push a little bit more to defeat it.
“Keep attacking guys! Just a little bit more! Nothing’s changed with the plan!” Lizzy yelled out before suddenly looking shocked.
“I-I can talk again?!!”
“Wha?”
“Oh!”
Before Lizzy and the rest of the party could comprehend their situation, they suddenly heard Maria shouting to them, “Liz, the monster’s changing!”
“Everyone, use your skills and regroup with Mary! We’re going back to our basic formation! Curio and Hendrick, adapt! I didn’t factor this into our battle plan, so we’ll have to wing it and think on our feet as the battle progresses!”
“Roger!”
“Got it!”
“Come on guys, just a little bit more and we’re home free! Let's not mess this up!”