Raze Dawg paused.
Before today, he would have laughed at that comparison. Monster bosses had patterns, phases, and terrain built around them. Players were supposed to be ssier than that.
Emperoar had sohow beco worse than a pattern because he kept changing the answer.
The comparison should have sounded insulting. Emperoar was a player, an underleveled tank who had sohow dragged himself into the middle of Just Die’s plans and refused to die properly.
After the West Bank, however, Raze Dawg could not reject the description.
"He has a set that lets him breathe underwater and move freely," he said. "But the water pet is definitely his biggest advantage. He used the pet, the water, and the terrain all at once. By the ti we solved one problem, he had already made three more."
Victoria’s gaze did not move from him.
"That is what a good monster boss does," she said. "Damage is only part of it. The real threat is how it changes the room, forces players to obey its chanics, and punishes the wrong response before anyone has ti to understand the right one."
Raze Dawg said nothing.
In the guild feed, soone shouted that another formation had broken.
Victoria continued as though she had expected it.
"Emperoar’s stats are not the problem," she said. "The problem is that every part of the field starts working for him. The turtle moves the water. His shield creates the opening. His skill drags that opening back into range, and Night Espresso finishes whatever he leaves exposed."
Raze Dawg’s jaw tightened.
Hearing it from her made the loss feel cleaner, and sohow that made it worse.
"He made us fight a player battle as if we had walked into a raid phase," Victoria said. "That is why your people are dying."
"...Yeah," Raze Dawg said. "That sounds right."
"You’re the only one in the guild with a beast pet," Victoria said. "The rest do not care about pets or beasts. They focus on self-growth, their own items, and their skills."
"You’re right..." Raze Dawg said. "Does that an I should convince the others to obtain beasts? Show off Ashy more?"
For a mont, he thought that might be the best path for both himself and Just Die.
Ashy was proof that a beast could raise a player’s ceiling. Raze Dawg knew that better than anyone. A proper beast gave its hunter another instinct, another body on the field, and another threat the enemy had to respect.
If Just Die had more beasts, maybe Emperoar’s turtle would not feel so impossible to answer.
Then he looked into his guild leader’s eyes and realized he had missed the mark by a huge margin.
"Kill Ashy," Victoria said.
"Huh?"
The reaction left Raze Dawg’s mouth before he could stop it.
For several seconds, his mind refused to make sense of the words.
Kill Ashy.
The na sounded wrong in Victoria’s mouth, as if she had told him to discard a broken item instead of slaughtering the beast that had fought beside him, carried him through hunts, and helped him earn the sa reputation he had just damaged.
Ashy had been with him through hunts that would have broken weaker players. The beast had guarded his blind spots, answered his calls, and made impossible charges feel survivable.
His hand twitched toward his weapon before he realized it.
Victoria noticed, but she did not move.
That was when Raze Dawg understood she was not testing his hearing. She was testing him.
"My people do not want to obtain beasts," Victoria said. "So they should obtain beasts’ powers for themselves instead. This path goes against every monster hunter academy and the lore behind them, but this world is versatile enough to allow it."
Raze Dawg slowly raised his eyes back to her.
"Boss..."
Victoria turned around and began walking toward the cave’s exit.
"Still, we need proof that it works," Victoria said.
Raze Dawg stared at her back in silence while the guild feed continued in his ear.
[Shotcaller down!]
[Pull back! Pull back!]
[There’s nowhere to pull back to!]
Victoria did not slow down.
"Use the legendary weapon you still have to kill Ashy and obtain its powers," Victoria said. "If you do that, I’ll get your second legendary sword back from Emperoar."
She stopped near the mouth of the cave.
The offer hit every wound he had tried to hide. His pride, his lost weapon, and the fear that Emperoar had reduced him to soone disposable.
She had given him a way to recover what he had lost, then tied that recovery to Ashy’s death.
"Whether you succeed in gaining anything from Ashy or not," she added.
Raze Dawg’s mouth went dry.
Even failure would serve her.
If he killed Ashy and gained power, she would have proof of a new path. If he killed Ashy and gained nothing, she would still have proof of how far he was willing to go for the guild.
Victoria looked over her shoulder.
"Do not make wait too long for your decision."
With those words, Victoria left Raze Dawg alone in the cave.
For a while, he did not move.
The chamber felt larger without her in it, but not emptier. The darkness pressed against him from every side, and Ashy’s na remained in his mind long after Victoria left.
His hands clenched again.
Had Victoria offered him redemption or punishnt?
Raze Dawg could not tell.
Through the feed in her left ear, Victoria continued listening to the second shotcaller’s orders.
By the ti she stepped out of the cave, the West Bank battle had already reached its end.
The voices had stopped chasing victory and were only trying to make the loss look less complete.
Her guild was about to suffer a total defeat at Night Espresso’s hands.
"We lost?" she repeated Raze Dawg’s words.
A trace of amusent touched Victoria’s mouth and vanished before it could beco a smile.
"No, Raze. You and Just Die lost."
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