NOVEL NEXT Chapter 45
The HP of the Named enemy is beyond the realm of understanding.
There are no special gimmick structures in the combat area.
Chris’s raid had no choice but to crash in.
“The Named’s patterns are faster than expected!”
Deathly Death was busy countering Balgard’s swift attacks. The ranged dealers hesitated to deal damage for fear of drawing aggro.
Balgard charged in with his massive body, swinging his heavy fists in succession. His rooted legs did not budge.
“For now, we need to see how Deathly Death gets used to the pattern!”
Chris quickly scanned the entire combat area with keen eyes. With that HP, it would take quite a while to reach the special pattern phase.
Timed patterns? Patterns based on HP? Well, the fight needs to progress a bit more to figure it out.
Whoosh!
Balgard extended his fists sideways and spun his body heavily.
The giant, rock-like fists of Balgard whipped around at high speed, sweeping the area.
Gasp!
Deathly Death’s eyes gleamed fiercely.
As Balgard’s fist approached, his hand flowed smoothly into position, taking a solid counter stance.
[Counter (B)]
[Counters the enemy’s attack]
[(B Rank) If counter is successful within 0.5 seconds, becomes invulnerable for 1 second]
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Deathly Death successfully countered Balgard’s first spin at the exact timing. Balgard attempted a second spin but couldn’t break the invulnerability of the counter.
Immediately after, Deathly Death’s flying fist landed squarely on Balgard’s body. Thud! Thud!
Chris couldn’t help but exclaim.
“Just Guard!”
An advantage gained by perfectly timing the block or counter against the enemy’s attack.
Despite the penalty of synchronization rate, Deathly Death skillfully gained the invulnerability judgment.
“It feels just like real boxing. You have to judge the distance and time perfectly.”
Thud! Thud!
Deathly Death’s body moved side to side, pounding on Balgard.
The reliable tank of Chris’s raid, Fighter Deathly Death, was excellently utilizing his Just Guard.
“Indeed, all that special training paid off!”
Chris chuckled at the memory of his reckless training methods.
Now that Deathly Death had switched from defense to offense, other dealers could comfortably deal damage. Cherni and Bae Merong unleashed their skills without worry.
Boom! Boom!
[Level 2 Named]
[Lion Balgard]
[HP 19,000,541/20,000,000]
The four nearby dealers focused their attacks after farming the forward base. Balgard’s HP began to decrease rapidly.
And when Balgard’s HP dropped by 5%, the first change in the combat area occurred.
Clank!
Chris quickly turned her head towards the sound.
The wall of the tower. What emerged from there was a gigantic cog?
Whee!
The cog suddenly started to spin violently.
Boom!
At that moment, Bae Merong’s fireball detonated against the cog. Chris gave a thumbs up to Bae Merong.
“Nice, Bae Merong!”
“That’s dribbling, right? I can clearly see that!”
She who had honed her skills dribbling Galroban’s globes in the forward base responded without delay. If the cog moved towards the tank, Deathly Death would be in serious trouble.
Whee!
The cog started moving towards Bae Merong. She dribbled the giant cog, ensuring it did not overlap with the paths of her party members. Meanwhile, she didn’t forget to deal damage to Balgard.
And when Balgard’s HP reached 90%, a second cog appeared from the wall.
“Next one incoming!”
Boom!
Cherni promptly reacted and dribbled the cog.
Shortly after, the third cog appeared, which Chris took on.
The three ranged dealers of Chris’s raid, honed by countless dungeon clears, dribbled the cogs while maintaining an unrelenting assault on Balgard.
Balgard’s HP had soon sunk to 80%.
Crisp!
As the fourth cog began to appear, the first one tasked to Bae Merong shattered. The cog that had chased after Bae Merong crashed against the wall, its durability exhausted.
Bae Merong quickly moved towards the fourth cog and began dribbling again.
As long as the only threat was the cog patterns, even if it took some time, the Named wasn’t too difficult to deal with.
“Alright! The HP is certainly massive, but as long as we maintain our concentration, we got this! Let’s keep dribbling the cogs and whittling it down!”
Chris encouraged her party members.
[Level 2 Named]
[Lion Balgard]
[HP 8,216,331/20,000,000]
Balgard’s HP dropped below half. The battle continued to flow without issue.
The ranged dealers continued to dribble the cogs, steadily dropping his HP. Despite the simplicity of the task requiring concentration, Chris’s raid continued without error.
The raid against the Level 2 Named reached a turning point.
Balgard indeed possessed threatening regular and special patterns. However, they were not enough to halt Chris’s raid’s swift advance.
At this rate, they could clear it without issue.
Gradually, a flush of color began to appear on the faces of the party members.
Then.
Thud!
An unexpected change occurred that no one had predicted.
Balgard suddenly made a strange movement.
Roar!
Thud!
With a single roar, Balgard struck his chest twice.
“What!?”
“Special phase? Was the cog all there was?”
The party members tensed, watching Balgard’s movements. However, after merely striking his chest twice, Balgard resumed his attacks on Deathly Death.
The first to sense something was amiss was Deathly Death, who was facing the patterns at the forefront.
Gasp! “Something feels off!”
Chris urgently checked the status of her party members. Deathly Death’s HP was rapidly decreasing.
Did he allow an attack? Not at all. Deathly Death was still responding precisely to the patterns.
Then, the only fact the current situation indicated was one.
“Attack power drastically increased!?”
The reduction rate of damage from counterattacks was strong enough to penetrate.
“Damage isn’t registering!”
“What’s going on!? Is his defense massively boosted!?”
The second to sense the anomaly were the ranged dealers.
The speed at which Balgard’s HP was dropping had slowed drastically.
Though the ranged dealers poured skills into him, Balgard’s HP bar wouldn’t budge as if it were anchored.
Then, at one moment, Balgard outstretched his arms.
Crackle!
Chains rapidly shot from the shackles on Balgard’s hands, binding all the members of Chris’s raid.
“Ahh!?”
Gasp!
“No way!”
With the panicked cries of the party members, all were pulled toward Balgard.
Simultaneously, Balgard slammed his fists into the ground.
Boom!
Chris’s face went pale.
The precursor to an area attack.
But everyone was bound and could not move.
No way to respond.
BAM BAM BAM BAM!
Suddenly, a colossal explosion centered around Balgard erupted, engulfing the entire combat area.
“What the hell is this!?”
Chris was engulfed in confusion. The smoothly progressing raid against the Level 2 Named was shattered in an instant.
“The chains could be managed if we knew; however, the attack and defense skyrocketed. With so much HP, we can’t continue the raid like this.”
As Deathly Death stated, Chris bit her nails, revealing her discomfort.
“It was surely progressing without issues. HP wasn’t at a range where special patterns should come out.”
“If there were other special patterns, they should have appeared by now. The cogs appearing every 5% should be all there is to it.”
Cherni chimed in after thinking for a moment.
“Remember that one bus passenger? The one with decades of experience in classic raid games? I heard from him that some bosses in retro raid games had a pattern called ‘Berserk.'”
“Berserk?”
“If you couldn’t defeat them within a set period, they become impossible to raid.”
“More like a time attack.”
Deathly Death nodded. Bae Merong asked with a confused expression.
“But none of the Named we’ve faced so far have had that pattern, right?”
Chris shook her head.
“No. Thinking back to the Baron Statue and Galroban in the Demon’s Grave, it’s certainly possible.”
“Hmm. The fights got progressively harder as they dragged on.”
The Knight Statues gradually rising and Galroban’s magic mines filling the combat area.
As combat times stretched, the fighting area becomes restricted, monsters pile up, leading to an eventual scenario where it couldn’t be raided.
“Of course, a four-person party’s firepower might clear it, but those could also be seen as a form of Berserk.”
Bae Merong fidgeted anxiously.
“S-So what should we do?”
“One of two things: Either we’ve overlooked something, or we’re absolutely short on damage.”
“Considering how our early adaptation to the patterns cost time, we might be able to get through if we ramp up the damage.”
But at the point of Berserk, the Named had over 40% HP remaining. Could they really reduce an additional 40% just by ramping up damage?
Chris shook her head.
“If our damage isn’t enough, no party can take it down.”
“There must be a gimmick to reduce HP. I have an inkling about something. Regardless, we’ll need to experiment with a few things.”
[Level 2 Named]
[Lion Balgard]
[HP 3,553,007/20,000,000]
Whoosh!
After obtaining a Just Guard from the first spin, blocking the second, Deathly Death used a counter on the third spin.
Whee!
Peeking towards the sound, a giant cog was nearby. I slightly turned my body, narrowly dodging it.
Roar!
A cog that brushed past me raked across Balgard’s body.
Balgard was already covered in bright red wounds.
The sight of him bleeding from the gashes made by the cog looked grotesquely surreal.
At first, he seemed somewhat human, but now, drenched in blood, he resembled the Blood-Red Angler more than anything.
Seeing that, I couldn’t help but smile.
“A timed attack pattern. A gimmick-based boss.”
I had tackled every dungeon alone up to now.
I inevitably faced many timed attack patterns.
The moment I saw the HP of the Level 2 Named, I instinctively recognized he was a boss that would activate a timed attack if the gimmick wasn’t executed.
Having observed the first cog’s reflection, I understood how to use the cogs.
Fundamentally, the game’s system meant Named attacks wouldn’t hit minions, but exceptions existed like Craksas.
So, the reverse scenario should also be possible, and that thought hit the mark beautifully.
Crisp!
One of the cogs that had been chasing me shattered. Dodging Balgard’s incoming fist, I swung my sword at the newly revealed cog.
[Unarmed Fighting Technique]
[Attacks an enemy within 15m, then retrieves the sword]
Swoosh! Clang!
While the Unarmed Fighting Technique’s damage was paltry, it served to draw attention.
The cog, now aware of me, began to fly towards Balgard in a straight trajectory connecting us.
As the cog grazed Balgard’s body, wounds began to accumulate.
I couldn’t directly observe the enemy’s status effect, but the visible injuries piled up and Balgard’s HP dropped rapidly.
Whee!
Three fiercely spinning cogs came rushing towards me all at once.
I twisted my body to dodge one, countered the second, and as the third cog passed by, I borrowed the power of One Flash to quickly maneuver to the opposite side, scoring a cut on Balgard in the process.
Roar!
With Balgard’s pained roar, another round of spins came flying in.
Clang! Clang! This time, I blocked them in place.
From here on out, I didn’t even need to deal damage.
There was no need to land Just Guard judgments either; countering could be used merely for dodging the cogs.
Balgard’s HP was already decreasing by several hundred thousand per second.
I glanced at Balgard’s miserable state and couldn’t help but smile broadly.
“I’m done hitting now?”