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With the Vampiric Bat Queen out of the four, there were three other Bosses left. The big and heavy ones were the slowest and they were acting as living walls to not let us pass through the caves, standing by while the mantis queen slowly stepped forward with her enormously tall body, readying her enormous blades to slice us into pieces. And of course, the damn turtle was firing magic at us without stopping, most of my Terrain effects were now gone as it left everything covered by gooey black miasma.
However, now that we had one gone, we were doing progress, and we defeated the bat in just like three minutes. For now we have to quickly defeat the Mantis as fast as possible and move to the two walking mountains. When that’s done, we’ll find Jeremias and beat him to death!
…Yeah, that’s right! I am tired of acting nice!
“SHAAAA!”
“The mantis is getting closer!” Titan declared.
“How do we stop this thing?! It is immense! It is like a walking building.” Said Rita.
“Like the status said, we have to aim at the legs it uses to walk, any of them would do. The enormous size also brings a lack of good balance because it looks like a walking stick. Aim at one of the legs!” Said Acorn.
“T-Then everyone, take this new buff I’ve got!”
FLAAASH!
Suddenly Florie covered all of us with a near-divine aura of pure spiritual essence. It seemed slightly similar to Titania’s Divine Protection, but slightly weaker. However, it enhanced all of our stats and it stacked with Titania’s Divine Protection to boot!
“This is amazing! What kind of buff is this?” I asked.
“I learned Lesser Divine Protection after leveling a lot…” Florie said with a smile. “I hope it helps…!”
“It will surely do!” Acorn said, quickly retrieving several bombs from his Inventory. “Planta, let me attack he legs, bombs unlike magic are inconspicuous and they don’t generate any aura that can eb easily detected, when they finally land and explode, it is often too late. I’ve realized monsters often have very enhanced senses for magic, but bombs are a weakness as they cannot sense them as well until they explode.” Said Acorn.
“Wow, that’s smart.” Titan said. “I never realized they had such a weakness.”
“Sure thing Acorn!” I said.
“Alright!” Acorn quickly enhanced his body using magic to increase his dexterity and speed, and then aimed at the Mantis from afar while Belle rushed around, evading gigantic blades attempting to slice through us.
SLAAAASSSHH! 𝒃𝙚𝙙𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝒍．𝒆𝒕
FLAASH!
SLAAAASSSHHH!!!
SLAAASH!
Each slash was so strong it unleashed an aura attack that reached all the way behind us, clashing over the walls of the caverns several times. Belle had to cover her hoofs with lightning to increase her speed while she galloped in midair, putting most of the effort.
“It needs a distraction, right? Here!” Achlys suddenly gathered an enormous quantity of Malice she had saved up, and then unleashed a powerful spell. “Shadow Doppelganger!”
FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH!
Suddenly, twenty doppelgangers that were identical to Rita emerged, and they all flew towards the Mantis. The monstrous bug’s senses quickly alerted it of the magic clones, which only shoot down dark bullets that dealt no damage at all.
“SHAAAA!!!”
SLASH! SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!
The Mantis was easily distracted, attacking the clones that exploded into black smoke once destroyed. They were incredibly weak compared to Rita or any Familiar.
“Shadow Doppelganger is a Spell that allows me to create those shadow clones, they’re useless and weak, but they can work as good distraction!” Rita laughed. “Now’s your chance Acorn!”
“Got it!!!” Acorn gathered Mana into his hands and dexterously threw the bombs at the insect’s legs one after the other, they all landed where he had aimed perfectly, and a chain of explosions was unleashed!
BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOOOMMMM!!!
CRAAASH!
The sound of two of the Mantis’ legs breaking echoed across the entire caverns, as the Cultists atop the monster panicked, pointing their staffs at us, and then loading them with Miasma.
“You damn bastards! Phantasmal Shadow!”
The Cultists suddenly conjured enormous spectral beings made of darkness and Miasma, which flew towards us menacingly. They probably were some sort of Curse Spell that also dealt damage.
Well, that’s not going to work!
“Get off here!” I roared, gathering my Mana into my weapon as I shaped it into a shovel, and unleashing a deadly attack. My shovel suddenly was covered by the Spiritual Blessing of Wind, unleashing a powerful slicing tornado of winds, and dissipating the cultist’s attacks, just before the Giant Mantis Queen lost her balance and fell off into the floor!
BAAAAAMMM!!!
“Now everyone, aim at the head from above, it can’t reach us from all the way up here!” I said, Titan and the rest immediately aimed their magic spells down, raining the Mantis with everything we had. Just as the weakness described, the enormous bug’s head began to shatter once many attacks were accumulated in a single place, quickly shattering her exoskeleton, and then, her entire body blew up into bits!
CRAAASSSHHH!!!
“S-Shit!”
“Damn it!”
The Cultists that survived the fall quickly jumped off the Mantis and began to run, trying to regroup with the other Cultists atop the turtle and the beetle.
“You’re not going anywhere!” Rita mercilessly said. From within her staff, a large gathering of malice and darkness emerged, as she fired a devastating beam against the cultists running away.
FLAASSHH!
The enormous black beam reached them, as the cultists looked at the attack filled with despair.
“Uuaagggh!”
“Noooo!”
BOOOOOMMM!!!
The blast evaporated them faster than they could process it completely, as the only thing left were particles of light and pixels which quickly dissipated out into thin air…
“Phew, well, there’s two more left.” Rita said while sighing, the Turtle of enormous size seemed to have finally ran out of Mana, as it suddenly stopped attacking with magic.
“You’ve forced our hand, you abominable monsters!”
“The Souls of our fallen comrades will become our new strength!”
“[Miasmic Monster Synthesis]!”
FLAAASH!
Suddenly, we all saw with horror as the souls of the Cultists we had slain alongside the many monsters we killed flew towards the Cultists on top of the Turtle and the Beetle, an enormous magic circle emerged atop them, as black gooey miasma covered both behemoths and then forcefully merged them together with… the cultists themselves?!
TRUUUUMMM…!
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