Versatile: Alternate World

When compared to the first phase of the Execution Puppet, the Stone Cutter Puppet is much faster and much more capable of dodging attacks. I didn't expect it to get harder than before. The videos of suppressing the second phase of the Execution Puppet are easy for the players who streamed it in the past so how come it was much harder now? It was like it was being controlled by a player and was purposely toying with us.

"Girl's don't waste your mana for now. It looks like this guy is just purposely causing bait signs for you guys to waste your mana-consuming spells. Don't bother doing it and just use basic long-range attacks!"

The magicians nodded. They quickly change their attacks to small magic orbs that are known as basic long-range attacks for magicians and clerics. That is one of the advantages of magicians and clerics in battles, they can perform both melee and long-range attacks, and those attacks deal magic damage. Not only that, their basic attacks recover mana every time their basic attacks deal damage to enemies. So with this enemy that is good at dodging attacks, it is much better to recover some of the lost mana and make sure to find a good opportunity to deal surefire damage.

I already choose my weapon form into a cannon and shoot it, but due to how fast it can move, the cannonballs did not even make any scratches to the boss due to it missing. I also tried the other weapons like the gun and bow and arrow but they deal minor damage that even if we attack it for the whole day, it will only have a small amount of health bar chipped off. Due to this, I started to think of a better plan on how to deal with it. The first is to observe its new attack patterns.

The Stone Cutter puppet can attack mid-air and can launch both ranged blade attacks and melee blade attacks. The ranged attack is much easier to escape with but the melee one is hard to predict due to its ability to teleport around. And from what I can see, the weak point of this boss is none other than the little core that can be found in its center whenever it started to spin its blades. It is hidden most of the time.

The attacks of the blades are mostly similar to the first phase, but this time, it is much stronger and bigger than before. So if the blades graze a part of the armor or weapon, they will surely lose a bit of durability without exception. I also see a few ways it can grind something to dust. During its few attacks, there are some small shrubs that get caught on its attacks. Whenever the blades roll, the shrubs immediately get turned into pieces of dust. This further solidifies the theory that the attacks are also capable of dealing a one-hit kill to a player if not careful enough.

"The rest of us, deal damage to the Stone Cutter Puppet whenever you can while making sure that they won't target the magicians! Don't worry about the damage you take, I will heal you all so don't panic!"

"Yes!" 

WRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

The Stone Cutter Puppet floats up above the air and all of a sudden reveals more blades from the middle of the cuboid. More blades, more trouble.

"Oh sh*t..." even Iron who is usually composed on any kind of battle cursed.

The core on its center suddenly glows golden, making the Stone Cutter Puppet looks like a cuboid lantern. But what was unexpected are the rising skeletons spawning on the ground.

"Sh*t, it is summoning some minions!"

I grit my teeth and change my weapon into knuckles. It was not my first time using knuckles as a weapon since I used them in real life, but it seems like I am still not comfortable using them. However, this is the most optimal weapon right now.

"HUP!" I dashed forward and quickly made my way to the spawning skeletons. Before the skeletons can fully emerge from the ground, I punched them back to where they belong, canceling their spawning process. I repeated doing this to the others as well.

Then, my eyes saw that the others were just looking at me.

"Guys! What are you doing?! Go and attack the mini-boss while I am dealing with these skeleton bastards! Don't waste your time just staring at me!"

"Sorry!"

After that, they started to find ways to fight off the Stone Cutter Puppet that was floating and rotating its blades. As for the others who have no method to deal with any long-range, they decided to help me dealing with the skeletons. No matter how fast I break some of them, it is not fast enough to deal with all of them.

After 2 minutes, the cuboid stopped rotating and returned to its usual form. The skeletons also stopped spawning and we managed to get rid of the rest.

"This bastard is hard to deal damage with. Half of us are only capable of melee damage and our long-range attackers are not even that useful when using basic attacks only. They have to use their attack spells to get big damage but this boss is capable of dodging them easily. This is much stressful than fighting against bosses found in dungeons, at least they don't have many gimmicks on their kit!" Iron said frustrated since his usefulness is limited.

"Master. It seems like we have to do something about this. With the mini-boss constantly flying around, ground units like us have trouble hitting it once. I propose we have to go to higher ground and deal with it while flying," Atlas suggested.

A higher ground huh, if we need to get to the higher ground and are still capable of fighting against it, we have to be capable of flying or have a good mount capable of flying. I have Leona with me but her size is bigger compared to the size of the open area where she can fly freely due to the number of trees.

Then something struck me. Perhaps...

"Guys, let's lure the boss. I have a plan."

"Care to explain?" Dolly asked.

"I will explain while we lure it, we can't just keep ourselves standing here. Iron, trigger your taunting skill and run with us!"

"Alright, Brother!"

Iron raised his shield and raise it up in the air. A thumping sound can be heard on his shield several times. While the thumping sound can be heard, the Stone Cutter Puppet started to face in our direction and made its machine sound.

VRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR...

"Alright, I already attracted its attention! Now what?"

"RUN!" And I started running followed by my followers.

"Hey! Wait for us!" Dolly and the others also started running.

And as expected, the Stone Cutter Puppet followed us with its whirring sound coming from the rotating blades. All of the trees that the Stone Cutter Puppet passed by were all reduced to dust as it acted like a sawmill. reducing all of the logs to dust.

"Holy, sh*t, holy sh*t!!!" Iron cursed more as he is the very last guy being chased. As a fully armored guy, his Agility is compromised a lot in exchange for defense. To help him with his predicament, I opened my skill panel, opened the skill tree of the Alchemist, and selected the Tier 2 ability before purchasing it.

I held out my hand and a bottle of red liquid appeared on my hands before throwing it to Iron.

CRASH!

"Huh?" Iron didn't expect something to crash on his armor. But then, he felt lighter in movement and he quickly managed to catch up from the rest of us. He then saw an alert on his interface which must be the notice for receiving the buff.

"What did you just throw earlier, Bladeheart?"

"It's one of the abilities of the Alchemist class, [Bottle of Haste]. With its name, you can already guess its effects. Since we are already running fast, I don't need to throw a few bottles to us, only Iron needs it since his agility is pretty much nonexistent with his heavy armor."

We continue to let the Stone Cutter Pupper chase us while we lead the former around the ruins where trees were growing.

"So what is the real reason you want us to do this?" Dolly asked.

"See how the boss is destroying the trees on the path and reducing them to a pile of dust? That is our key. That way, we can use an aerial fight against this guy."

Dolly quickly realized my intentions and grinned, now motivated to run. As an athletic girl that does marathons at school, she does not get easily tired.

We did multiple laps around the ruins until a large amount of the forest around the ruins was reduced to dust. Now, the moon that shines in the sky is now plainly shining up above the sky.

"Alright! Time to fight back! We are now going in for the kill!"

In a single snap, Leona appeared in the sky and swoop down the Stone Cutter Puppet down to the ground.