Chapter 83: How Are You Supposed to Fight a Boss That Heals Itself?
The surrounding vegetation grew denser and denser. The grass gradually rose past Viktor's waist, encircling everyone present.
Several enormous flower buds erged from the sea of blossoms and burst open in the air all at once.
"This is……"
"【Sylvan Fragrance】."
Viktor spoke the na of the terrain on behalf of everyone present.
Just as the Calamity of Fire, Gulton, possessed the power to alter terrain—
Druga, too, held the power to reshape the landscape.
At this mont, Druga's 3 pairs of eyes fixed themselves on Viktor, studying him intently for a long beat.
On Viktor, it sensed the scent of its own kind.
But its kin appeared……extrely weak.
So weak it seed as though it couldn't withstand even a single ordinary strike from Druga.
Viktor had no intention of putting on any display for it either. Both hands gradually began to construct a complex 4th-Tier Formation.
4 layers of Formation slowly converged between his single hand, their patterns overlapping once more after a long absence.
Before long, the 4 empty rings were engraved with countless Runes and intricate patterns.
Beam after beam of golden light rose slowly from beneath Viktor's feet.
Attack, defense, Magic Power, agility……
Buff after Buff began to stack continuously on Viktor's Status Bar.
Feeling the warm surge of power spreading steadily through his entire body, Viktor gazed at the Calamity of Wood before him and gave a quiet, composed smile.
Weija stood on his shoulder—she seed perfectly relaxed as well.
Having fought alongside Viktor so many tis already, she had long since shed the panic she'd felt the first ti they encountered a Calamity together.
Now she was nothing but excited.
"Viktor! Blow it apart!"
As for why Weija so desperately wanted to puml Druga—
That was because it was the Calamity of Wood that Weija had helped Viktor resurrect.
The Magic Power and natural energy around them entwined and grew turbulent, throwing the area into considerable chaos.
In such an environnt, Viktor would naturally struggle to locate Druga's Core of Origin in any short span of ti.
So Weija flew up to Hagar's canopy, using her eyes to probe Hagar's Magic Power for weak points.
Through his connection with Weija, Viktor was able to draw on the power of the Calamity of Fire to awaken the sleeping Druga.
This Calamity—imprisoned within Hagar by the Archmage and used as an inexhaustible source of Magic Power—had been summoned back to wakefulness once more.
At last, it seed to co to its senses, as though only now grasping how long it had been held captive.
A furious roar thundered through the entirety of Endymion's base.
Heim's eyes went wide. He could not fathom what Viktor had just unsealed.
The sheer oppressive weight of the massive creature before him—conveyed by nothing more than its roar—had set his entire body trembling.
At this mont, he couldn't even reach out for outside help.
Over a hundred phantoms identical to Heim were spread throughout the periter of the barrier, channeling every last drop of his Magic Power to sustain that defensive wall.
All he could do now was hold on as best he could, ensuring the terrifying beast's power didn't bleed out into Endymion itself.
Cocotte wasn't faring much better.
She had very nearly toppled off her cloud. She knelt on it now, her heart pounding like a war drum.
If this had been any other Calamity, Cocotte wouldn't have reacted so drastically.
But the Calamity before her was the incarnation of Wood-attribute energy.
The majority of Cocotte's most powerful Natural Magic spells were Wood-based—if this Calamity so much as grew irritated, she wouldn't even be able to construct a Magic Formation.
She sat on her cloud, on the verge of tears, murmuring to herself:
"I believe you now, bro. I really, truly believe you."
Viktor hadn't lied to her.
He really had fought a Calamity before.
The battle erupted in an instant.
A Health Bar gradually lit up before Viktor's eyes—its length seemingly without end.
Above the start of the Health Bar, the Calamity of Wood's Level appeared.
LV55!
It was a full 5 Levels higher than Gulton had been.
After all, Gulton had been in a state of continuous slumber beforehand—even when roused, its strength had never fully recovered.
But Druga was different.
Having been beneath Endymion all this ti, even freshly awakened, it had been saturated by Endymion's Magic Power for so long that it was already more formidable than Gulton had been upon first waking.
And yet—what a sha!
Viktor looked the powerful Calamity squarely in the eye.
In the ga's Storyline, this Calamity's first appearance ca after the Dark Archmage attacked the base of Hagar.
As Endymion was on the verge of falling, Druga was resurrected.
Upon its resurrection, it used boundless vines to anchor Endymion firmly back into the sky.
All 7 layers of Endymion were invaded by Druga's vines.
Endymion thus beca a long-term Dungeon for a period of ti.
After the Dark Archmage's death, Players could challenge Endymion's 1st through 7th layers each day.
The endlessly dense and strange plant life was the challenge Players faced.
A Boss waited on each layer for Players to tackle, up through the end of the 7th layer.
At that point, Players could descend to the 0th layer—the location of Hagar.
There, they could challenge the fully awakened, Level 60 World Boss: Druga.
Which ant, from Viktor's perspective—
This freshly resurrected Druga right before him.
Was not nearly as powerful as the one he had challenged countless tis!
All of a sudden, countless roots and vines plunged into the ground below only to burst back out again, lunging toward Viktor in a frenzied charge.
Those enormous flower buds also erupted all at once, scattering dense clouds of pollen that steadily whittled away at Viktor's long-stacked Buffs.
And that was no surprise—the Calamity of Wood's terrain was what gave it a uniquely maddening form of difficulty.
Within Druga's terrain, not only were Wood-attribute spells greatly amplified, but the duration of Players' Buff effects was also cut in half.
Because of this outrageously oppressive Debuff, many Players at the ti had headed to the ga forums to vent their fury.
It was a sha—Boss difficulty was never going to be adjusted.
That, if anything, had only fired up a group of high-end Players, who relentlessly experinted with skill combinations and team compositions until they finally defeated the massive jade-green beast for the first ti.
As luck would have it, Viktor had been one of those high-end Players.
And right now, he didn't need any team at all.
He alone was already an army!
Viktor did no more than glance at the Calamity of Wood's offensive, and the 2 iron cards at his waist flew out in a smooth arc.
Those 2 iron cards instantly transford into a sky full of blades, charging the massive enemy before them like a swarm of advancing soldiers.
They beca a tempest of flying feathers, sweeping across every inch of Druga's body.
The 9 enormous hands atop Druga kept swatting at the gnats circling around it, but each ti, the cards—moving as though guided by intent—darted out of reach, exposing openings for exploitation.
Beneath the relentless barrage of Viktor's hundreds of Throwing Cards, every last weak point on Druga was accounted for and addressed with precision.
Before long, a small gap appeared in its Health Bar.
Intense pain ca crashing down on its massive body all at once. A thunderous roar sent every flower, blade of grass, and towering tree in the vicinity shuddering violently.
Druga's 3 pairs of compound eyes suddenly blazed with a powerful surge of green light, that radiance slowly spreading outward toward its wounds.
The injuries visibly closed before the eye. The thin gap that had appeared in the Health Bar began to recover slightly—the sliver of lost HP had already beco imperceptible once more.
This was the Calamity of Wood's 2nd most infuriating trait: every 3 minutes, Druga would recover 5% of its total lost HP.
And with a Health Bar as enormous as Druga's, this skill alone could drag the battle out into an agonizing eternity.
The sense of hopeless, drawn-out futility this created under the terrain's influence had been one of the chief reasons countless Players abandoned their attempts to challenge it.
Viktor's expression didn't change. He had anticipated this entirely.
Since healing was inevitable, Viktor simply used the recovery window to keep outputting damage onto its weak points.
Druga broke off its recovery and instead thrust all 9 of its glowing green enormous hands into the void, violently tearing open a massive green rift.
"Here it cos."
The mont Viktor's words fell, countless Magical Creatures ca pouring out from within the 4 massive rifts.
Flower Fairies, Tree Sprites—they began surging into the space in droves, followed by an endless tide of bizarre Magical Creatures.
Among them, for example……hyenas whose eyes had been replaced by flowers; leeches whose tails appeared to clutch red fruit……
Countless Magical Creatures ca flooding toward Viktor.
Viktor distributed a hundred Throwing Cards around Druga to continue whittling down its HP, while he himself slowly raised the black staff in his hand—Ulruste.
He held the staff upright before him and slowly channeled magic into it.
The intricate Runes along the shaft flickered with a slow red glow, and soon, the red gemstone began to pulse as well.
【4th-Tier Magic: Phoenix】
An enormous Formation materialized before Viktor from thin air, and a scorching heat was already radiating off it even at the Formation stage.
The Formation spun rapidly, and from its center, the head of a Phoenix gradually erged.
It let out a long cry into the void, then erupted free from the Formation—its entire massive body surging forth.
The enormous fla Phoenix swept upward toward the endless swarm of Magical Creatures above.
The rank-and-file Magical Creatures were reduced to nothing in the instant the Phoenix passed over them.
Only those with bizarre, grotesque appearances possessed a tenacious enough vitality to press through the flas and creep slowly toward Viktor.
With his Magic Casting Speed increased, Viktor swiftly constructed a new spell.
【4th-Tier Magic: Returning Fla】
The Formation took shape in an instant. Several Magic Formations appeared in the air above, and a fully reversed fla—like a spiraling blade—drove itself into the bodies of the Magical Creatures.
The leeches drifting through the air took a piercing blow and plumted toward the ground. The red fruit on their bodies swelled violently.
Viktor leaped back. He knew what was coming next.
Within just a few seconds, the red fruit detonated one after another in the air. The Phoenix born of blazing fire wove through the endless explosions, continuing to tear through the fodder Magical Creatures.
Viktor watched the bomb-like detonations going off in the air like fireworks, then lowered the staff in his hand and recalled the hundred Throwing Cards.
Those Magical Creatures were wiped out in monts. And now, Druga—staring at an utterly unscathed Viktor—let out another furious roar.
Its 3 green enormous hands reached out to grab Viktor.
This ti, Viktor made no move to dodge. A sly glint flashed in his eyes, and he let Druga's attack land squarely on him.
Sensing imminent crisis, Druga was already beyond the point of pulling back its strike. The crushing force slamd into Viktor with full force.
In just an instant, that imnse pressure erupted violently.
But the one who took the hit wasn't Viktor—it was the Calamity of Wood.
Thanks to the Mage's Robe's effect, the Magic Shield Viktor generated dealt a devastating blow back to Druga.
Viktor seized the Calamity of Wood's Stagger window and fired the hundred Throwing Cards straight into the Calamity's chest in a single explosive burst.
In an instant, Druga's multiple layers of defense were shattered with ease.
Blood—ca spraying from Druga's body!
This was Druga's first genuine injury!
Heim stood frozen in place. He could not comprehend how Viktor possessed the strength to trade blows with a being that seed akin to a divine beast.
And moreover……he appeared to have a slight upper hand?
But in an instant, a wave of glowing green suffused Druga's body.
The wounds it had just sustained—in the blink of an eye—had recovered to sothing close to their original state.
That terrifying regeneration left both Heim and Cocotte completely stunned.
"Can a being like this……"
"Really be defeated?"
***
The surroundings fell quiet.
After the group had departed, only Auréliane remained behind in the Mage Council chamber.
It was nothing like the kind of room she had imagined. At first, she had assud the Mage Council would be so lavish, opulent place—
Like a palace, stacked with gold and silver bricks—a symbol of the Mages' prestige.
But it wasn't.
The walls around her heaved like living things. A single glance at them made her feel as though her mind were under attack—she didn't dare look again.
"Teacher will be back soon. I'm not scared, I'm not scared."
As she murmured to herself, a whimpering sound drifted in from behind her, and Auréliane gave a startled jump.
Honestly, she was a little timid.
If she hadn't known Viktor was there beforehand, she wouldn't have dared to fight those kinds of Magical Creatures either.
"Uuu……Teacher."
Auréliane wanted to close her eyes out of fear, but she lifted her head slightly.
Before her—sothing had suddenly appeared.
A strange door materialized in the space ahead.
The strange door slowly swung open, as though beckoning Auréliane inside.
She sensed sothing was off and shook her head sharply, willing herself to stay clear-headed.
"No. I should stay here."
"I absolutely cannot cause Teacher any trouble."
And yet the door's pull made her feel as though the other side held sothing deeply reassuring.
She held the urge at bay and shut her eyes, refusing to think about it any further.
But in the very instant she closed her eyes—
The scene around her shifted like a shooting star.
Even Auréliane herself didn't notice.
Before long, a faint chi rang out beside her ear.
Hearing it, she opened her eyes in a daze and stood rooted to the spot.
What lay before her was sothing resembling a Library.
The Library-like space was deeply strange—it seed to be a spherical area, with staircases and bookshelves distributed in a twisted, tangled arrangent across the surface of the sphere.
The shelves and staircases were scattered about in no apparent order, like a suspended labyrinth hanging in midair.
Looking up, the ceiling mirrored the bookshelves she had just seen—only as though flipped upside down.
It seed as if the entire spherical space had been deliberately warped and cramd full of all manner of hallucinatory books.
So open volus floated through the air, their pages covered in Runes Auréliane couldn't begin to decipher.
"Where……is this?"
Auréliane couldn't make sense of it. She had clearly been standing in place without moving, and yet……
All at once, a mory forced itself into her mind. She felt a sharp pain in her head as she stared at the fantastical space before her.
Within that mory, a single phrase had suddenly surfaced.
Auréliane murmured it aloud.
"The Magic……Archive?"
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