Chapter 249 Betrayed?
4153words
〈Battle Logs: 20 seconds remaining for the «Restless Souls of the Undead»!〉
Cheeeeet!
After five seconds passed, six Undead Netherworld Skeletons climbed from out of the ground and immediately charged towards Izroth's party.
Halls wasted no time using Battle Focus so that the Undead Netherworld Skeletons would turn their attention onto him instead of going after one of the other party members.
Izroth moved swiftly to deal with the skeletons that spawned. Since they were the same as the previous skeletons that he most recently fought against, Izroth took care of them in a similar manner. With one sweep of his sword using the First Baneful Sword: Destruction, he was able to kill off each skeleton just moments after they spawned in.
I guess I'll just leave them to you from now on. Halls said after seeing how easily Izroth dealt with the monsters that spawned. If he could take care of them with such ease then it would save him some trouble.
As Izroth eliminated the creatures, a faint violet colored mist passed through his body. After defeating six of the Netherworld skeletons, he gained six stacks of something called Restless Souls. Just like with the stacks of plague, there was no immediate consequence, however, Izroth knew that if he took it lightly then things could end on a disastrous note.
Every time I eliminate one of them, I gained another stack of Restless Souls. I still have no idea what kind of consequences accumulating too many stacks will have, therefore, I should not take on too many for the time being.'
As the twenty seconds passed by, six level 38 Undead Netherworld Skeletons spawned every five seconds. Izroth handled twelve of the creatures while Guan Yu took care of the other twelve without issue. Both of them accumulated a total of 12 stacks of Restless Souls each.
Meanwhile, Zi Yi and Mariposa were not letting up on their damage output on Nekrostis.
After the Restless Souls of the Undead ended, Izroth and Guan Yu rejoined the main boss fight.
I've played enough games! Now die! Nekrostis said as it stuck its boney tail into the ground and stopped all of its movements.
Immune!
Immune!
It's in a state of immunity so careful! Zi Yi warned as she halted her assault.
Everyone else also chose not to waste their energy and mana on attacking something that was completely immune. Of course, these states were not uncommon in higher level boss fights, especially against rare bosses. When bosses entered into a state of immunity like this it usually meant one of two things.
The first was that the players had to do something special to get the boss to leave its state of immunity. The second was that the boss was preparing to use one of its stronger abilities. Either way, it was definitely a sign of trouble.
Halls released a deep breath and said, "I'd rather fight against that behemoth from the event again instead of this thing. At least then all I had to worry about was being crushed by a giant boulder."
Guan Yu laughed as he said, "I know what you mean. For some reason, this fight feels more complicated than the boss fights I'm used to. Though, I'm not necessarily complaining. I enjoy a good challenge either way."
It's not a coincidence that this fight feels more complicated than usual. Not only is this an SSS-ranked quest, but we're also starting to truly leave behind the hand holding stage of the game. In other words, things will only become increasingly difficult from here on in. We can't afford to take these type of boss fights as lightly as the ones before, otherwise, we won't even know how we died. Zi Yi stated.
She's right. All the boss fights up until could be considered a warm-up exercise. It seems we've arrived at the end of the first road.'
This stage of the game is where the elite and experienced players are truly separated from the average bunch. There will be many hidden gems that finally steps into the spotlight. Mariposa commented.
Sheeeng!
As they were waiting for the immunity state of the boss to end, the sound of a blade being unsheathed could be heard coming from deep within the underground chambers in a corner of darkness. As the sound grew closer to Izroth's party, it became loud and sounded like a disharmony of metal blades clashing against one another.
What's that? Guan Yu said as he saw a large cloud of dust rising and rushing towards them. At the moment, it was around forty meters away and closing in fast!
It was hard to see through the cloud of dust, however, as it came into clear viewing distance, one could see something that resembled that of an operating mine flail, except it was made out of nothing but bones. But, from the sound of the bones colliding with one another, it sounded as if they were made out of metal.
The bones headed in their direction had spikes on the outside and as it made contact with the terrain it actually ground up the earth beneath it. It spanned across the entire underground chambers and so there was nowhere to run or hide!
Everyone, try to position yourself on the same path as the boss. There's a good chance that the attack won't reach us that way. Zi Yi said as she moved into a position that was lined up directly on the path of Nekrostis. The others soon followed suit and moved as well.
As the spinning bones of death approached Nekrostis, instead of being stopped or hindered in any way, it simply phased through the body of the boss monster as if it was not even there.
Bang!
Halls was the first person the bones made contact with and it slammed up against his shield and caused his entire body to slid back a bit with the force of the impact.
«Blocked»
-2,063
Zi Yi observed the attack carefully and something instantly caught her attention. After the bones struck Halls, that small specific path where his body blocked the skill no longer had any bones on it. Not too long after Halls was hit, Guan Yu was next to face the attack.
«Parried»
-2,985
Guan Yu managed to successfully parry the attack by making sure his guandao took the brunt of the assault. The results were the same as Halls where a small path was left without bones as it passed by Guan Yu. It did not take long for Zi Yi to connect the pieces together.
Quick! Stand on the same path as Halls or Guan Yu! Zi Yi yelled in a hastened manner. They only had a few seconds to move, therefore, she could not waste time going into any specific details.
However, Izroth, Mariposa, and Luna were all very observant. The three of them managed to catch on just as Zi Yi did and had already begun to make their move towards the safe pathways created by Halls and Guan Yu.
Sheeeeng!
The wave of bones passed right by the four of them as they were able to successfully avoid the attack.
As the bones traveled towards the end of the chambers, it reversed its path and began to head back towards the party at an increased speed. The bones that were previously destroyed had been replenished. But, this time, everyone already understood what to do.
Everyone immediately moved behind Halls so that he would be the only person to receive any damage from the attack. It was a good thing that they did because the attack was even more vicious on its return trip.
«Blocked»
-5,109
3,058
1,390
Luna cast Heal on Halls followed by a Cure to restore most of his lost HP. She had no trouble keeping up with the damage being dished out by the boss monster, however, Luna's biggest concern so far was the stacks of plague. They still had not yet figured out how the stacks were being accumulated.
Persistent bags of flesh! Nekrostis roared as it pulled its boney tail out of the ground and resumed its physical assault against Izroth's party.
85%...
75%...
65%...
Woosh!
Izroth's Sword of The Storm sliced into the bones of Nekrostis with relative ease. After locating its weak point, Izroth made sure to take full advantage of it and locked the focus of his attacks onto that specific area. He found that after five attacks to a weak point, it would snap and enter into a state of self-repair. During that state of self-repair, one was unable to injure Nekrostis if they attacked that part of its body.
«Critical Hit»
-1,858
«Critical Hit»
-4,466
«Critical Hit»
-7,075
Just as Izroth's last Phantom Strike connected with the skeletal of Nekrostis, that area that he struck turned violet in color and became immune to damage.
As they fought against Nekrostis, everyone became more comfortable with its attack patterns. Every time its HP dropped by 10%, Nekrostis would enter into its purple sphere form. After doing so, it would unleash that deadly violet light and damage everyone while removing all stacks of plague at the same time.
Unfortunately, no one had been able to discover what was causing one person to gain more stacks of plague than the other. To be honest, it almost seemed as if the plague stacks were stacking on targets at random. But, they were able to figure out that each stack of plague dealt a flat 250 damage that ignored all defensive stats.
Therefore, for the time being, it was up to Luna to make sure that no one was in a dangerous situation HP wise when it came to plague stacks. They also found out that there was no consequence in attacking Nekrostis during its purple sphere state. In fact, it was quite vulnerable since it was stationary and easy to target in that form.
They were also able to confirm that the Plague of Death was behind the stacks of plague and the Aura of Death was that violet light being released during Nekrostis purple sphere form. Therefore, at the very least, they were able to discover what two of the abilities they were affected by was doing to them.
Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the remaining two skills, the Hand of Darkness and Restless Souls of the Undead. At the moment, excluding Luna, everyone had around 14 to 16 stacks of Restless Souls. However, there was nothing unusual going on as far as they could tell. As for the Hand of Darkness, they still possessed zero information regarding what its abilities were.
After leaving its purple sphere form, Nekrostis would immediately use Restless Souls of the Undead. Once that ended, it always followed up with its AOE skill "bones of death" as they were now calling it. It did not appear to be straying from this pattern, however, that did not mean that Izroth and the others expected things to stay the same for the rest of the fight.
60%...
55%...
50%...
Get ready! Halls warned everyone when as they reached the 50% HP mark. It was at this time that Nekrostis would enter into his purple sphere form and unleash that wave of violet light followed by its other skills. However, something strange happened this time around.
Instead of taking on its usual form, the skeletal form of Nekrostis transformed into a biped humanoid species that stood around six meters tall. Nekrostis still possessed its tail, however, its bones were now a grayish crimson color and its skull looked like that of a demonic beast.
〈Battle Logs: Nekrostis has entered into its second stage!〉
You will regret this day for all eternity. Nekrostis bellowed as a deathly aura appeared around its now skeletal hand and fingers. It pointed its boney finger outward towards Izroth's party.
Woosh!
All of a sudden, a lone arrow soared through the air and disappeared into the void. Less than one second later, it reappeared right at the back of Halls' head whose attention was focused on Nekrostis and his new transformation.
Bang!
«Critical Hit»
-3,264
Halls felt a powerful force slam into the back of his head. When everyone turned and realized who the attack came from, they were all in a momentary state of shock.
What are you doing?! Guan Yu shouted angrily at Zi Yi who stood there ready to fire off a second shot. Had she lost her mind attacking one of her own party members?
250 Hand of Darkness
Everyone was momentarily stunned when Zi Yi took a cheap shot at Halls in the middle of a boss fight. Not just any boss fight, but one that was against a rare boss over level 40! Even if it was just a joke, was this really the time for one? However, everyone knew that Zi Yi would be the last person to joke around in a situation like this.
After their initial shock wore off, a second arrow was released by Zi Yi into the void.
Woosh!
Just like the first arrow, it disappeared. However, this arrow stayed lurking within the void much longer than usual. It almost felt as if the arrow had been lost and could not find its way out, but that was not the case at all.
Luna was the first to notice that something was off due to the sudden change in Zi Yi's stacks. She had been keeping a close eye on everyone's stacks and saw that the Restless Souls stacks Zi Yi possessed just moments before, was no longer there.
This time Halls stayed on full alert mode. He always realized how fearsome Zi Yi's class was, but experiencing it firsthand could only be described as terrifying. Imagine waiting for an attack that you know is coming, but arrives whenever it pleases. It was similar to playing a game of Russian Roulette. One knows the bullet is in the chamber and will eventually shoot, just not when that moment will arrive.
However, if that was all Halls had to deal with then he would have been grateful. But unfortunately, Nekrostis was not taking a break just because Zi Yi had turned on them.
After entering into its humanoid form, Nekrostis physical attack strength was enhanced greatly in terms of raw power. One would think that given its boney and frail looking structure that there would be little power behind the boss monster's attacks, however, they would be sorely mistaken.
Nekrostis formed a fist with its skeletal hand and aimed it right at Halls.
«Blocked»
-3,455
Halls positioned his shield to intercept the attack. There was a faint aura around his shield when Nekrostis hand made contact with it. There was a small pause, but at the next moment, Nekrostis was sent sliding back a few meters. This was caused by Halls using his Rebound skill.
His attack power has almost tripled in his second stage...! Halls groaned as he blocked the attack.
At nearly the same time he successfully blocked Nekrostis' attack, an arrow left the void and arrived just 25cm away from Halls. It was like a predator waiting for the perfect moment to strike!
«Critical Hit»
-3,264
782
3,058
7,665/16,008 HP Remaining! (Halls)
Too close! Halls said as his head shook from the impact of the arrow. The arrows were appearing way too close for him to react in time. In other words, there was no way he could dodge them with his current speed and reaction time. If things kept coming on this way, then even with Luna's heals, he would be unable to survive the onslaught of both Zi Yi and Nekrostis!
I'm afraid you'll have to sit this one out for a bit. Izroth said as he used the Crystallization skill from his Crystal Sea Head Ornament to encase Zi Yi in a body of crystal and prevented her from taking any course of action. While this would buy them some time to reorganize themselves, his Crystallization skill would not hold forever and so they had to figure out what was going on and fast.
Why did Zi Yi suddenly attack us? Guan Yu questioned with a frown. He and Halls may tease her at times, however, it was always in a friendly way. It was definitely not something that would warrant such an aggressive response during a critical boss fight!
Mariposa furrowed her brows as she asked herself the same question. There was no alert from the battle logs about anything... Wait! As Mariposa manually checked over the most recent battle logs, something immediately stood out and grabbed her attention. So that was why Zi Yi was acting so weird!
Zi Yi is being influenced by the skill Hand of Darkness. It seems that when Nekrostis transformed, it somehow took control of Zi Yi. I assume it has something to do with the stacks of Restless Souls as Zi YI had the most when it happened and now they're all gone. Luna explained with a thoughtful expression on her face as she also concentrated on healing Halls.
It did not take long for Nekrostis to regain its balance. It launched forward and slammed its boney fist into Halls' shield. After two more attacks with its fist, it then swept its tail made of bones out towards Halls. In total, it shaved off nearly 11,000 HP from Halls, but Luna was timing her heals with perfection and prevented him from falling too far into the danger zone.
There were certain skills that players would not be alerted to and would remain in the dark about unless they manually checked through the battle logs. Even then, it was still up to the player to piece things together on their own as skills such as the Hand of Darkness usually only included the time and name.
Of course, checking the battle logs in the middle of a fight was far from ideal. After all, the main reason battle logs existed was so that players could learn and grow from their mistakes after a fight was done, not during it.
Do you know how long the effects will last? Izroth asked as he scanned the skeletal figure of Nekrostis for its weak point. Its previous weak point had disappeared after its transformation, therefore, Izroth had to do things the old fashioned way and attack different areas until he managed to locate one.
Izroth gathered energy at his fingertip at it pierced through the hardened bones of Nekrostis. He infused his Fissuring Point with a few points of his Essence to increase the deadly force behind the attack.
-11,178
It was at times like this that his Fissuring Point skill shined the greatest. While the defenses of Nekrostis was not necessarily high by any means, it was still fairly sturdy as a boss monster. Therefore, a skill that completely ignored all the defenses in its path like Izroth's Fissuring Point was ideal for these kinds of situations. This was even more so when he had a trait like Soul Essence to pair with it.
Luna nodded her head and responded, "Twenty seconds."
Then, we should be fine for the time being. Izroth said. If one did not struggle against it then his Crystallization skill would last for twenty seconds. Since Zi Yi was not resisting the skill itself, there should be no problem with it lasting the full twenty seconds.
On the downside, Izroth would not be able to use this skill again during this boss fight due to its ten minute cooldown time. Therefore, if they did not come up with a solid countermeasure against the Hand of Darkness and Luna's theory about the person with the most stacks of Restless Souls being selected turned out to be correct, then...
I will be next.'
Due to Izroth's interference, they had no idea what limitations, if any, the Hand of Darkness skill possessed. If it took control of him and forced him to use the skills at his disposal, then nothing needed to even be said about the disastrous results that could bring. In the end, there was only one person present he could rely on to stop him for a full twenty seconds if he used his full strength.
Izroth retreated after a few more strikes against Nekrostis with his sword and fell back next to Luna.
If what you say is correct, then I will be the next target. We still have too little information about the skill itself, therefore, I'll be counting on you if things get too out of hand when the time comes. Izroth said in a carefree manner.
You can count on me. Luna said in a reassuring and confident tone of voice.
Izroth gave a slight nod before dashing back towards Nekrostis.
A smile unknowingly crept onto Luna's face without her even realizing it. For some reason, she felt happy that Izroth was willing to count on her. Even though she knew he probably meant nothing by it, nevertheless, it still put a smile onto her face to hear those words coming directly from him.
Twenty seconds passed by and Izroth's Crystallization skill ended. Just as Luna said, the Hand of Darkness no longer affected Zi Yi and she was freed from the control of Nekrostis.
It's good to have you back. Luna said.
Indeed, you've worried us quite a bit. Mariposa commented.
Trust me, it's good to be back. What a bizarre feeling. I could see and feel everything I was doing, but I had no control over any of the actions I performed while in that state. There was no way for me to communicate or hear what was going on. What a terrifying skill for a boss to have in its arsenal. Zi Yi stated.
Luna took a moment to catch Zi Yi up on her findings and immediately after hearing what Luna had to say, a worrisome expression appeared on her face. Of all the people to be next, it had to be him!
Let's just hope that our luck is not too bad. Zi Yi said. Since Zi Yi's Void Jump skill could be used during the Hand of Darkness, who knew what would happen if Izroth was affected? However, all they could do was take care of it when the situation arises.
I had some time to think about a few things while I was being controlled by the Hand of Darkness. I may have figured out how we're accumulating stacks of plague, as well as, how to counter it. Zi Yi said.
She had not just spent those twenty seconds panicking. After the first three seconds, she found that there was nothing she could do to escape, therefore, she used her remaining time to organize her thoughts and piece a couple of things together.
While seventeen seconds may not be much time for others, it was more than enough for someone with Zi Yi's capabilities.
Everyone was taken aback by Zi Yi's statement. She had figured out how the plague stacks worked so fast?! Usually, against bosses like this, guilds would send in a scouting party to test the waters and gather sufficient data about the boss before committing to a real fight.
They would then use that collected data to formulate a solid battle plan to defeat the boss with as little complications as possible. However, it could take many fights just to understand how some of the bosses skills worked and yet, they had not even finished an entire fight before she discovered something. How could they not be shocked?
As they fought against Nekrostis, Zi Yi explained her thoughts. By the time she finished, everyone had a slight look of disbelief on their face. Even Izroth was a bit surprised by what Zi Yi had just said.
Are you certain? Izroth asked.
Zi Yi nodded and replied, "I still had a few reservations before, however, after listening to Luna's findings while I was trapped within the Hand of Darkness, I'm confident without a doubt."
Who would have thought...'
Then, we will go based off of your suggestion. Izroth said. Of course, no one objected to what Zi Yi suggested and would go along with it as well.
Even though Nekrostis was much stronger in its humanoid form, Izroth and his party still held their ground. In fact, their attacks grew even more relentless as the fight went on. It did not take long for them to bring Nekrostis' HP down to the 40% mark.
Foolish bags of flesh! Bathe in the darkness of the Nether Realm! Nekrostis roared as a violet light flashed throughout the chambers. It was the Aura of Death, but unlike before, Nekrostis did not bother entering into its purple sphere form before using it!
