Chapter 78 - Dungeon Run (6)

The boss slammed its staff into the ground and created an attack zone around itself. Dark blue energy mixed with black rose from the ground, and several skeletal hands burst out and tried to grab the feet of anyone nearby.

On top of dealing high damage, this attack also trapped anyone it hit. In other words, avoiding it was a must. Getting caught would mean certain death.

After that, the Animalistic Necromancer summoned more skeletons again.

"Same as before!" Arthur shouted as he switched to his bow.

The strategy would stay the same until the boss reached 70% HP. Of course, because Arthur took hits while fighting the boss in melee, he had to use health potions.

And Point Blank had to use MP potions to keep her skills going.

When the boss reached 90% HP, the cooldown on its AOE attack wasn’t 20 seconds anymore. It was 17. There was a different timer for each HP percentage!

This had caused a lot of problems for the players who tried to kill this boss in Arthur’s past life. It took many tests to memorize the exact timing of each skill.

He didn’t need any of that, of course. All that knowledge was fresh in his mind.

When the boss reached 70% HP, the next phase of the fight would begin. Since Arthur had already explained everything, Point Blank knew what was about to happen.

The Animalistic Necromancer threw its staff to the side, onto the ground, and took off the robe covering its body, revealing its skeleton.

Even though it had the head of a deer, its body was completely different. It had several arms, around 6, and a humanoid shape, leaning slightly forward.

The same energy that appeared when it summoned skeletons showed up in front of it again. This time, it wasn’t skeletons that came out of the ground, but a sword made of bones.

The sword was huge, but the boss could hold it with just one hand, with no trouble at all.

"And now?" Point Blank asked, her hands trembling, her bow shaking nonstop. "It’s going to charge at us, right? Is this plan of yours really going to work?"

The Animalistic Necromancer would no longer focus on summoning monsters and casting spells. It would fight in close combat with a sword.

This part of the fight, in theory, was supposed to be harder for them, since it was less predictable. But Arthur knew all the strategies the players had taken so long to figure out the first time.

"Yeah, it will," Arthur replied, "but don’t worry. Trust the strategy I told you. It’ll work. Just focus on attacking it."

The Animalistic Necromancer shouted at them.

"No strategy will work against me! I will kill you all!"

It charged at Arthur, running straight toward him. Its speed wasn’t that low, a little faster than his, but since the boss was a lot farther away, it would take a while to reach Arthur. Especially because Arthur started running.

The castle courtyard was wide, with some trees and plants around, since the place didn’t have a gardener.

In one part of the courtyard there was a huge rock. Really huge, in fact. The boss was tall, and even so, the rock made it look small.

Arthur went to that rock. Point Blank followed them to keep a safe distance, close enough to hit it with arrows. She stopped near another big rock that wasn’t far from the first one.

And that was where the magic started to happen... Something really stupid, of course, but the players had discovered it, and what mattered was that it worked.

The boss, even though it was faster than the players, meaning it was impossible to outrun it forever, lost a lot of speed when it changed direction too quickly.

And by circling that rock, running around it, Arthur managed to stay away from the boss, which couldn’t reach him!

While he ran around the rock like a madman, Point Blank kept shooting the boss with her bow, slowly reducing its HP.

Yuki used her Frost Breath every time it came off cooldown, dealing damage and slowing the boss down even more.

Eventually, of course, the boss switched its aggro to Point Blank, since she was the one attacking the most and dealing the most damage.

Point Blank, shaking with nerves, ran toward the rock near her and started running in circles, just like Arthur had done before.

For the first few seconds, she thought the boss would catch her, and that made her anxious, sweating cold. However, when she realized that wouldn’t happen, Point Blank sighed in relief.

Arthur put away his sword, grabbed the bow on his back, and started attacking the boss, beginning with his Sniping Shot, the skill with the highest damage in his arsenal.

[915 damage dealt]

After that skill, Arthur kept hitting the boss with basic attacks, dealing around 120 to 140 damage per hit, which was good. But the bow had a lower attack speed, and he had to wait for the right moment to land the arrow, so the DPS was reduced.

Eventually the boss switched aggro again, going after Arthur. And that was how the two of them did it, running in circles around those rocks until the boss reached 30% HP.

As soon as its HP reached 30%, the boss jumped into the middle of the arena and started roaring again.

It grabbed its staff, which was still on the ground where it had dropped it, and began channeling another spell.

’We’ve reached the final phase,’ Arthur thought, smiling. ’Things are going really well. This phase is the easiest.’

A creature rose from the ground. It wasn’t a skeleton like before, but a kind of golem made of flesh, with its guts showing, hanging from its torn-open belly.

The creature was huge and carried a two-handed sledgehammer. It was like a meat tenderizer, only much bigger.

"Go, my creation, and destroy the worms standing in my way!" the boss commanded, pointing at Arthur and Point Blank.

The flesh golem ran toward them. Each step seemed to shake the ground, a trail of blood from its entrails forming across the castle courtyard, and the smell of rotten meat filled the area. Arthur almost felt like throwing up. Point Blank did too.

Unlike the boss, the golem was much slower. Running from it or dodging its attacks was easy, especially for someone like Arthur.

As soon as the golem arrived and raised its hammer, attacking him, Arthur rolled to the side and dodged the attack.

During this time, Point Blank didn’t hit the golem. That was their plan. There was no reason to.

And she didn’t attack the boss either. If the boss got attacked, the golem’s movement pattern would change. It would become too fast, and escaping from it would be impossible.

But there was something peculiar about this boss fight. After attacking 4 times, the golem’s 5th attack would be a special skill, and surprisingly, the skill also damaged the boss if Arthur was standing near it...

Arthur kept dodging while moving closer to the boss, getting near it right before the golem’s 5th attack. Getting there too early would mean being attacked by the boss the same way.

The golem jumped high and slammed the hammer into the ground, causing an earthquake that dealt AOE damage! Arthur quickly ran behind the boss, staying far away to avoid getting damaged too.

The boss, though, took the full damage... Its HP dropped by 1300.

Arthur did the same thing over and over. The necromancer was standing still, channeling its energy to recover its HP. While the golem dealt 1300 damage to it, the necromancer recovered 800 during that time. So those remaining 30% HP took quite a while to bring down to 0...

Point Blank just watched the whole time. She wasn’t confident she could do the same thing as Arthur, and so, as not to ruin everything, they decided to let only him do it.

She sat down, watching his movements.

’How does he know all this, and why is he so skilled? I don’t know if I believe this beta test nonsense... Could he be one of the game’s developers?’ thought Point Blank.

After about 15 minutes, the boss finally died, its HP hitting 0. The golem died instantly too, since it was a summon that depended on its master to stay "alive."

"Nooooo!"

Those were the boss’s last words before it fell dead on the ground, giving them their rewards.

[+25000 EXP]

[+10 gold coins]

[+1 Blueprint for Elven Chestpiece]

[+1 Animalistic Necromancer Staff]

[+1 Key to the Castle Dungeon]

Several notifications appeared for them. The amount of EXP was really high, and Arthur couldn’t help smiling when he saw the blueprint the boss had dropped.

"I got one of the blueprints I wanted. And we even got an item drop, not bad. It’s better than I was expecting."

The staff could only be used by mages, so it was useless to both of them, but it could be sold to other players, and that could bring in some good money.

Before continuing to the final part of the dungeon, Arthur fell to the ground, spreading his arms, sweat all over his body. His stamina was almost completely drained.

"I need to rest," he said, giving Point Blank a thumbs up. "Good work."

The game’s system also announced something to all the players on the server.

[Player nicknamed Cinder and player nicknamed Point Blank were the first to kill a boss inside 1 dungeon. They have already completed 70% of the dungeon.]