“We seriously have to do this first?” Salamander groaned. “Can’t we just go there and smack the fucking guy?”
“Yes,” John responded imdiately, “because I don’t even know if you can co along.”
“Urgh!” Salamander imdiately complained. Missing out on the average boss was one thing, but his harem had several thrillseekers that desperately wanted to be present when a final one was being fought. That was the only real drawback to the number limit, as far as John could make out. “Co on, give your reasoning.”
“We will effectively be fighting five bosses at the sa ti,” John told her. “Five powerful bosses, each with their own chanics and such. Maybe they can be clumped up for AoE attacks. Maybe.” He made certain to underline that word. “Most likely, though, is that we’ll have to keep them away from each other to keep their individual effects from overlapping too much. Which also ans we need five tanks.”
John connected his mind to the television in the living room and projected a very simple drawing of the arena onto it. Without any unnecessary details which, for the ti being, included the bosses. “Obviously I need to fight,” he stated and spawned in a token for himself. “No choice there. I’ll keep using the Ambassador Double for the extra manoeuvrability. I might switch to my real body if Magus Step would be better than flight.”
“If we require an additional tank, may I suggest you use the Creator Puppet?” Aclysia weighed in.
“Aclysia, can you stop suggesting that whenever you fucking can?” tra shot back imdiately. “He sucks at lee, he’d weigh us down.”
“He enjoys it!”
“Much as I do!” John raised his voice to prevent the outbreak of an argunt. “tra is still right. The Creator Puppet is not ready for a difficult boss fight.” Shut down, Aclysia pouted. He appreciated her trying to let him have fun, but fun at the expense of a success rate was not the way to do it. “Obviously, we’ll be needing you, Beatrice, tra, and Gno,” he listed out.
Three of them were the group’s true tanks and Beatrice could work well enough as one. Between her dodging and her high HP regeneration, she was sturdy enough to occupy an enemy.
“That still leaves us one short,” the Gar thought out loud. “This would be the in I can give you, Salamander…” he carefully suggested.
The apocalypse elental considered for a few monts. Her Endurance was above average. Not impressive, but impressive enough to take a few hits and co out all right. Simultaneously, she had good Agility. “I don’t think I’m sturdy or fast enough for this,” she finally gave her assessnt.
Which John did actually share. Salamander was strong and quick enough to supplent her devastating ranged capability with respectable lee attacks. It made her less of a glass cannon and an ergency protector for Sylph. The ranged attack duo was the DPS backbone of many of John’s strategies. Sha the limited group size he had forced him to make choices.
“That leaves us with two alternatives,” John sighed and scratched the back of his head. “I like neither. Best would be if Eliana could join us…” The blood mage and her absurd regeneration capacity would definitely fix their missing tank issue. Sadly, between her instability and her being way overlevelled, she was not eligible for the Raid. Shaking his head, John faced reality. “Either we have Undine tank or we have two agile lees trying to deal with it. Rave, Siena, I think you two would be optimal for this.”
Rave nodded eagerly, while Siena gave it an acknowledging smile. Rave’s Agility, especially when fused with Copernicus, was impressive, and Siena’s when Unleashed was above even that. Additionally, Rave had her bodysuit to give her additional sturdiness and regeneration.
Undine would be a better tank than either of them, but the sli girl would need all the power she could muster to heal the damage of five bosses.
“Is this whole fight even feasible?” Momo threw in the expected question.
“I would expect the boss to be designed in such a way that a lot of damage is avoidable. In other words, to make up for the sheer amount of chanics we are being presented with, the individual bosses will be incredibly fair and even a bit forgiving in their attacks. Typical knights, in other words… we’ll see if I am way off on that analysis.”
Momo nodded and let out a long sigh. “If it’s impossible, we can just walk out and pick them off one by one.”
“Yeah,” John agreed. “Alright, so we’ll go with Rave and Siena as our fifth tank. Obviously, Momo and Undine will co along, we’ll need the healing and shielding. That leaves only one open slot.”
“Which goes to , right?” Sylph imdiately babbled her way into the planning. The volt bunny held onto the back of the armchair John was sitting in and bounced around excitedly. “I’m the best single target we got and when we have a bunch of single targets I go zap-zap and zap them one after the other.”
“That would be the base strategy, yes,” John agreed. That put the last token on the basic map.
“Alright, we know where each of the knights will spawn from the banners, as well as where the king sits. Beatrice, you will take on the Poison Knight. Aclysia, you will go to the Ice. Gno, you take tal. Rave, Siena, you two go to the Shovel.” A little bit of snickering at that, but otherwise the serious air in the room was maintained. “Thanks to Lorelei, we already know that there will be tank swaps involved.”
The seer had left them with the typical prophecy/guide before she had joined the other non-combatants in the workshop. She had foreseen that the primary boss would wield the powers of his underlings and that a great dance would be required to assure victory. Scarce on details, compared even to other bosses, but perhaps no wonder with all the moving parts.
“tra, you take the main boss. You have the best damage resistances all around. Sylph, you’ll focus your damage on the Shovel Knight, at least for the first few tries. We’ll work out who we want to defeat first later on – if they can even be defeated one after the other. Might be a shared health situation.”
“Fountain of White?” Momo asked.
“Good question. Upper half of the room, for now. It’ll be easiest for the most people to retreat into it.”
______________________________________________________________________
“And so it cos to this,” Amadeus greeted them. Gaia must have manually triggered the boss monologue or sothing, for the silent king to finally open his mouth. His voice was as pleasant as the king was handso. His long, blonde hair swayed in a cinematic breeze, as he grabbed his rapier. His brilliant armour sparkled in the light radiating from his cape of woven sunlight. Amber eyes drifted across the room. “A realm of knights is nothing without its challengers. I have given you the chance to diminish my power and you have chosen to leave my four Knights alive… for now. We will see if your honour persists even after you are presented with the folly of your actions. To you goes the first blow.”
Standing ready before his throne, King Amadeus of Astria awaited the strike.
‘No changes there,’ John thought. “All right, everyone, take battle positions.” The mbers of the party spread out as planned. The Gar had little hope for this first attempt. Amadeus himself was level 625, his support were four level 615 knights, and all of them were boss monsters that could overpower anyone in his party individually. A party that was made up of mostly level 594 mbers (John’s current level). ‘I wish the fucking exploit still worked…’
When the system had first been implented, John had found a little design oversight. Because he was always busy getting busy outside the Raid, he had been getting constant passive experience no matter what he did inside the Raid. Timing it correctly, he could have gotten an instant MP refill in the middle of the boss fight because of a sex-fuelled level up. Gaia had deed that an exploit and now had him stuck at 99,99% EXP when he was in an ongoing fight in a Raid.
A little thing he couldn’t abuse any longer.
“All right everyone, keep in mind what the target of this fight is. We go slow and steady. No unnecessary risks, focus on defence and resource preservation. I want as much intel as possible.” The Gar stood at the edge of the effect aura of the Fountain of White and waited for tra to take the first swing.
The First of Wrath held an eagerly quivering halberd in both hands. One foot forward, she pulled Rex Magnar back. Letting loose one last series of drum sounds, the weapon grew reliably still and quiet as it was thrust forward. The Fusional tip of the first of its kind on Earth hit the king between the eyes. A singular drop of golden blood ran down between the fair-skinned man’s eyes, turning into fluorescent mist as it evaporated.
“And so the first blow was struck!” Amadeus declared, swinging up with his rapier.
The silver-white tal of his blade hit the similarly coloured shaft of the halberd. tra was driven back two tres, her dark grey heels scraping over the gleaming floor. Segnt for segnt, her helt slotted into place, the seriousness of the encounter clear after just one attack.
In the four corners of the room, the portal fras flickered to life in the corresponding colours of the banners above them. Green as poison, blue as ice, grey as tal, and white as a shovel(?), the particles swirled, consolidating into magical gateways. Simultaneously, the four knights of Astria stepped forth.
John already knew Rudeus the Toxic, the Poison Knight. Wielding an elegant lance, he stepped forth, his green armour covered in purple and yellow ornants. “I acknowledge my opponent, as all knights do!” he declared and charged towards his closest target: Beatrice.
“I, Ina, acknowledge my opponent,” the Ice Knight echoed, her female voice matching her less bulky build and the soft, additional rise to her chest plate. That was all the femininity to her form, the blue armour covering all else. Holding a slender, long sword in one hand, she gestured at herself with the other, covering herself in an armour of ice that matched that of the black-horned dragon maid before her.
Bulkiest of all, Markus, the tal Knight, stepped up to Gno. He dwarfed the brunette elental. Layers upon layers of tal were strapped onto his grey armour. Wielding a sword in one hand and a heater shield in the other, he was the most traditional display of a knight on the battlefield. “I acknowledge my opponent.”
Last and perhaps least was the Shovel Knight, whose Observe revealed no other na. In a brass armour, he stepped out, his face revealed, his helt thick like a hard helt. Pointing his absurdly sharp digging tool forward, he asked. “Declare which of you is my opponent!”
“, that’d be !” Rave shouted and jumped right forward.
The Shovel Knight greeted her with a wide swing, striking her square in the sides. His speed surprised both the cat-eared Lightbearer and the shadow spirit right besides her. Although he could have hit Siena on the backswing, the Shovel Knight rely acknowledged her with a short gaze, before setting after the feline Lightbearer.
Siena and Sylph both rained down attacks on the focused Shovel Knight. From his position, John felt as if their effectiveness was reduced, but it was impossible to say without further testing.
Combat unfolded all around under his, Undine’s and Momo’s analytical eyes. Their minds were closely linked, information swirling back and forth with individual thoughts attached, like data getting processed in various places inside a server.
Beatrice gradually suffered an ever-stronger dot. Each ti Aclysia was hit, the ice armour around Ina got thicker. Scrap tal latched onto Gno with each strike, spawning out of the portal and seeking her out as if she was a magnet. Between every attack, the Shovel Knight’s weapon sunk into the ground and sent a spray of gemstones into the room. Each ti, the spray beca larger in number of projectiles and range. Only tra could continue tanking the main boss without issue, beside the one the expert dancing of his rapier strikes caused her.
Amadeus parried with his gauntlet, knocking Rex Magnar aside in a glorious golden glow. Cape drawing swirls behind him, he executed a perfect lunge. The rapier pierced through Astrotium as if it was common steel. Certainly, the armour protected the First of Wrath’s vulnerable insides, but it was clear they were facing an opponent worthy of this grade of protection.
tra backed off with a backward step. She refused to use any Rage, requiring the resource to remain high so she could exploit the passive damage reduction it offered her. “An honourable fight, this should be, but the numbers require so culling!” Amadeus declared in the space created.
He raised a hand towards the ceiling and five projectiles of radiant light flew upwards. In high arches, they flew, each seeking out one target. If there was a pattern, John did not see it. The projectiles slamd into their targets: himself, Momo, Sylph, Aclysia and Gno. Each of them took a hefty chunk of damage. Sylph the most of all, relative to her HP, although it conspicuously left her at exactly 50% of her HP. The attacks, for the impact they had on health, did not have much kinetic force to them. None of the targets struck were inconvenienced in their movent.
The individual attack effects of the knights ramped up gradually, predictably, and inevitably. A new stack every six seconds, by John’s estimation. The poison would eventually overco Beatrice’s health regeneration, the ice would make Ina invulnerable, the tal would weigh Gno down until she could no longer move, and the gemstones would beco so nurous that they would shrapnel everyone else in the room.
“Swap now!” John shouted when the effects increased in intensity for the fifth ti. “Challenge your new targets!”
It was the first ti they executed a tank swap at this scale, but the chanic itself was well known. Everyone reacted to his voice and disengaged simultaneously. Everyone moved clockwise towards the adjacent target. Everyone except tra.
Ina was in the process of following Aclysia to the bottom right of the map, when Beatrice’s voice rang out. “Challenge: fight , Ice Kni-“
“WATCH OUT!” tra shouted.
While everyone had been engaged in the tank swap, Amadeus had drawn back his rapier. The blade gathered within it bands of ambient light and concentrated them into an iridescent sword that was then unleashed into a cone of bright light. It reminded John of the scattershot of sunlight that Rave sotis used, doubly so when it struck tra, Beatrice, and the three supports behind them in its superheated power. Undine halfway evaporated, John felt his mana burn away, Beatrice’s and Momo’s surfaces lted like wax, and tra was blasted backwards.
Regenerations kicked in rapidly, but Ina had already been challenged. The Ice Knight hastened over, her armour of ice breaking off and remaking itself in its beginning stages. Her Agility decreased, following the hit she suffered, Beatrice barely managed to block the attack of the Ice Knight. The sword knocked Perfect out of the maid’s hand. The weapon flew through the air, one of its enchantnts soon reversing its course, to return to its wielder’s hand.
Neither the other knights nor Amadeus remained unmoving.
Drawing his rapier back again, like pulling taut a bowstring, the king shouted out, “I call upon the power of my vassals! Toxins fill you! Ice covers you! tal buries you! And the shovel digs your grave!”
With each exclamation, he let loose another cone of magic, corresponding to the vassal. They each aid at the current target of his knights and did not stop until they hit the wall of the circular chamber. Left behind were persistent trails. Siena and Rave found themselves standing and covered in noxious green. Beatrice would have stood in chilling permafrost, had she not been claid by Fateweaving. Aclysia moved through a track of suspended shards of tal, cutting her surface with every step taken. Gno had to manoeuvre through trenches of spiked rock and crystals.
Everyone’s HP had already been dangerously low. With these hazards filling up the entire room, having had all the space they needed travelling from the northernmost point to the wall behind his moving targets, doom was inevitable.
43 seconds into the fight, they wiped.
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