While Lila fought her one-woman war against a hundred, Kael was in a four-on-one battle of his own.
He and his three clones had Norlun pinned to the ground, helpless.
-58,731 (Kael’s auto-attack)
-39,082 (Clone’s auto-attack)
-188,375 (Kael’s critical hit)
-129,818 (Clone’s critical hit)
…
Each coordinated volley dealt between 100,000 and 300,000 damage. Norlun thrashed against its bonds, and while its imnse strength managed to slightly shorten the three-second duration of the bindings, it was futile. With Kael and his clones firing relentlessly, another [Silkbind Shot] would land the instant it broke free, locking it down again.
Soon, Norlun’s frustration turned to rage. Its long, narrow mouth opened slightly, releasing a strange, piercing cry that sounded like a flute.
In response to the call, four massive ants, each six feet tall, erupted from the ground around Kael, their eyes glowing with a malevolent red light. They had been enthralled by Norlun.
Two of them were familiar.
[Enslaved Leafcutter Chieftain]
[Enslaved Elite Carrion Ant]
Their stats were the sa as before, and he assud their skills were, too. The other two were new.
[Enslaved Elite Acid Spitter Ant]: Level 33 (Archer)
HP: 12,000,000
Physical Attack: 12,220
Physical Defense: 8,800
…
[Enslaved Rock Ant Chieftain]: Level 34 (Tank)
HP: 32,000,000
Physical Attack: 5,200
Physical Defense: 15,100
Magical Defense: 4,100
…
Two chieftains and two elites. A green support mob, the Leafcutter. A purple magic-damage dealer, the Carrion Ant. A grey, heavily armored tank, the Rock Ant. And a white ranged attacker, the Acid Spitter. It was a perfectly balanced party.
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An average level-30 raid group would need a hundred players just to off-tank these four boss-level adds. Factoring in Norlun's own formidable power, any force smaller than two hundred players wouldn't stand a chance. And this was only Norlun's first phase.
Nyria herself had led a 150-player raid against Norlun a few days prior. Only fifty had made it out alive, and they had never even seen what the boss was capable of in its later phases. After that disaster, no one had dared to even think about attempting the fight again.
The four summoned bosses imdiately coordinated their actions. The Rock Ant Chieftain, closest to Kael, stomped its foot, raising a solid stone wall that blocked his line of sight to Norlun. At the sa mont, the Leafcutter Chieftain cast a dispel on Norlun, freeing it from the [Silkbind Shot], and imdiately followed up with a powerful heal-over-ti buff.
100,000
100,000
…
At this rate, the ten million damage Kael had dealt would be recovered in no ti.
Simultaneously, the Elite Carrion Ant and the Acid Spitter both attacked Kael.
-841 (Elite Acid Spitter Ant)
Sunder Arrow applied: Physical Defense -4,000.
Kael’s defense dropped to 12,000.
-1,073 (Elite Carrion Ant)
Corrosive Strike applied: Physical Defense -4,000.
Kael’s defense plumted to 8,000.
Because these were on-hit debuffs and not targeted control spells, they didn't trigger his gear’s defensive passives. The Acid Spitter’s second arrow struck ho.
-4,433
With their jobs done, the Leafcutter and Rock Ant Chieftains also began to charge him. With his defense shredded, there was no way Kael could survive the combined assault of five bosses.
But he remained perfectly calm.
First, he activated his [Warp Emblem], instantly teleporting out of the encirclent. Next, he recast [Mirror Image], a move that not only summoned fresh clones but also purged all debuffs from his body. Then, with terrifying speed and precision, he put his micromanagent skills on full display. In less than a second, he had assigned a new primary target to himself and each of his three clones.
Two clones were assigned to Norlun, their only job to chain-cast [Silkbind Shot] and keep the main boss locked down. With two sources of the bind, the Leafcutter's single dispel would be on cooldown long before it could free its master.
A third clone was tasked with pinning the Elite Carrion Ant, preventing the lee monster from getting close enough to apply its corrosive debuff again.
Finally, Kael targeted the Leafcutter Chieftain with his main body. It had a Mass Resurrection skill. It had to die first. He had only seen it revive regular ants, but he wasn't taking any chances.
That left the Rock Ant Chieftain and the Elite Acid Spitter unaccounted for—a problem he left to chance. Each of his four bodies loosed three [Splintering Arrow]s with every shot, and these secondary projectiles couldn't be aid; they flew toward random targets.
But with Kael's astronomical Luck stat, the arrows always seed to find their way to the most critical targets. As a result, all five bosses were perpetually tangled in silk, unable to move.
The Leafcutter Chieftain was the first to fall. Despite its constant healing and buffs, it couldn't outlast the focused DPS. The lower-health Acid Spitter and Carrion Ant followed soon after.
That left Norlun and the Rock Ant Chieftain, which still had over 10 million HP.
Just as Kael thought the fight was wrapping up, the Rock Ant’s body began to change. Its grey hide hardened into black granite. The damage numbers from Kael’s arrows shrank dramatically, and even the effect of [Silkbind Shot] was diminished. The three-second bind now barely lasted half a second.
Even with four sources of the skill hitting it, the Rock Ant began to slowly, unstoppably advance on Kael. Its defense and resistance had gone through the roof.
Still, against Kael’s overwhelming firepower, it was only a minor hiccup. A few monts later, the Rock Ant Chieftain also crumbled to dust, leaving Norlun as the sole survivor—a general with no army.
But just as Kael prepared to finish the boss, it unhinged its jaw and shot its tongue out with blinding speed. The tongue, impossibly long, stretched a hundred feet across the battlefield.
It snatched the four ant corpses from the ground, retracting them into its mouth as its body began to glow with a furious, crimson aura. It had entered a berserk state.
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