Chapter 264 - Nemesis
“Such a high HP!” Aqua Rose couldn’t help but wrinkle her brows at this sight.
The amount of HP a Boss was correlated with the amount of time needed to kill it, and the more HP a Boss had, the higher the demands on the damage dealers. The Bosses of Level 10, 20-man Hell Mode Team Dungeons would have 700,000 HP at maximum. Even so, not a single team in White River City had managed to clear one such Dungeon yet. Meanwhile, the Boss before them had 880,000 HP. Aqua Rose instantly felt despair at this sight.
Fire Dance and the others, on the other hand, felt nothing much about it. They were simply waiting for Shi Feng’s orders.
Feeling everyone’s fervent gaze on him, Shi Feng smiled as he said, “Cola, go test the waters. Gluttonous Mouse, you’ll be responsible for healing him. Everyone else, pay close attention to the Boss’s movement patterns and habits; be sure to take a video recording. Afterwards, we’ll think of a way to raid it.”
As the Knight Captain of the Demon’s Castle, Justin Freed excelled in melee combat. Even though Cola boasted excellent equipment, he could survive three hits at most from this Boss. If it were any other MT, they would definitely die in two hits.
Aside from possessing high Attack Power, Justin Freed was a heavy-armored knight and his Defense spoke for itself. Now that he had been converted into a demon, his natural magic resistance was also very high. Justin Freed was practically a Boss without weaknesses.
Justin Freed had two major skills, and if not taken with caution, either one of these skills could easily wipe out their entire team.
Moreover, these two skills were further strengthened by the Hell Mode difficulty, making them extremely hard to deal with.
The first skill was called Demon Summoning. Periodically, Justin Freed would summon three Demon Guards. If players failed to kill these three Demon Guards within a set amount of time, they would be absorbed into Justin Freed’s body, replenishing the Boss’s HP. In the Hard Mode difficulty of the Dungeon, each Demon Guard would heal Justin Freed of 3% of his maximum HP, while in Hell Mode, that percentage was increased to 5%. Hence, players needed to kill these Demon Guards no matter what.
The second skill was called Death Blow. When using this skill, Justin Freed would randomly mark a player and throw a spear at them, dealing large amounts of damage. Players struck by this spear would also have their Movement Speed reduced by 60%, and Defense reduced by 100%. Justin Freed would then charge towards this marked player. During this charge, players had to avoid standing between Justin Freed and the marked player. Otherwise, both the marked player and the players standing in Justin Freed’s way would die without question. Hence, when a player was marked by Justin Freed, they needed to run as far away from everyone else as possible. The marked player would be fine as long as they could survive Justin Freed’s onslaught for 10 seconds.
Just these two skills alone would already cause many challengers to despair. However, Justin Freed also possessed multiple other minor skills, although those would not be a huge problem if players made sure to dodge them.
After Cola and Gluttonous Mouse battled with the Boss a few times, everyone fully understood just how amazing Justin Freed was. If struck by Justin Freed’s greatsword, even a powerful tank like Cola would lose over 1,400 HP. It would take Justin Freed only two attacks to finish off anyone else within the team. Moreover, Justin Freed had a very high Attack Speed; he had no problems brandishing his greatsword twice in one second. If they wished to successfully clear this Boss, they needed to cooperate with each other properly. Not only did the MTs have to know when to dodge Justin Freed’s attacks, the other melee classes also needed to know how to interrupt the Boss’s attack pattern.
“Start the raid!”
After Shi Feng finished giving out his instructions, everyone went to their assigned positions, making a perfect encirclement around Justin Freed. Once ready, Cola immediately rushed towards Justin Freed, while Ye Wumian waited at one side for the appearance of the three Demon Guards.
Compared to attacking an Elite monster, the damage Cola dealt to Justin Freed was much lower; his normal attacks only dealt slightly more than -100 damage to the Boss. After Cola solidified his aggro of the Boss, everyone else promptly barraged Justin Freed with attacks.
However, the team quickly discovered a crucial matter—Justin Freed’s Defense was seriously too high. During the trial runs, Cola had been the only one attacking. Hence, everyone had not really noticed how high Justin Freed’s Defense was.
Take Lonely Snow for example. As a Berserker, every time he struck Justin Freed’s back with his two-handed axe, he could only deal slightly more than -200 damage. Even after using Armor Break on the Boss, his damage only barely reached -300.
As for the newcomers, the damage they dealt was far less.
“His Defense is too high!” Even with her most powerful spells, Aqua Rose only managed to deal around -500 damage to the Boss.
“Shadow Burst!”
Blackie didn’t dare hold back, immediately using the new skill he received for clearing the four-colored trial. Five black streaks of light immediately shot out from his staff, landed on Justin Freed’s back, and exploded.
Damages of -736, -741, -726, -732, -738 appeared above Justin Freed’s head.
Shi Feng was also slashing madly at Justin Freed’s back. However, the damage he dealt was far lower than Blackie’s. Each of his basic attacks only dealt over -100 damage. However, this damage was further increased when Shi Feng triggered one of the Abyssal Blade’s effects, inflicting the Doom Curse on the Boss. There was also the Damage Amplification effect from Thundering Flash.
As Justin Freed was a Hell Mode Boss, both the Abyssal Blade’s Doom Curse and the effect of Thundering Flash were greatly weakened. Overall, the two debuffs had weakened Justin Freed by 15%.
Simultaneously, Shi Feng swapped out his Might of a Thousand title for his Demon Hunter title, further weakening Justin Freed.
Now, Justin Freed only possessed 80% of his original strength. This result undeniably reduced the burden placed on everyone in the team.
“Guild Leader, the additional passive skill of your weapon and also the effect of your title are simply too amazing! Thanks to you, the difficulty of this Boss has been forcefully brought down a notch!” Cola said with a smile. Undeniably, he was the person who profited the most from these debuffs.
Aqua Rose’s eyes glowed with joy as well when she witnessed this scene. Thanks to Shi Feng’s skills and title, they now had hope of defeating this Boss.
It seems that I, too, should get more of such titles in the future. It would make Boss raids a lot easier. Aqua Rose looked at Shi Feng’s title in envy. However, she knew it would be very difficult to obtain such a title. Aqua Rose made a note to herself to ask Shi Feng how she, too, could obtain such a title when they left this Dungeon.
When Justin Freed’s HP fell to 90%, Shi Feng immediately shouted through the team chat, “Ye Wumian, get ready to aggro the monsters! Everyone, focus fire on the spawns the moment they appear! Fire Dance and I will help Cola cope with the Boss!”
“Damnable trespassers! Guards! Get rid of them!” Justin Freed bellowed.
Suddenly, three Demon Guards ran in from outside the arena. Every one of these Demon Guards were Elite monsters. Moreover, each of them possessed 40,000 HP.
Fortunately, the Demon Guards had much lower Defense compared to the Boss. The team took no time at all to finish all three, especially when they had a powerhouse like Blackie.
Everyone then returned their focus to the Boss.
During the entire battle, Shi Feng did not get many chances to deal damage. Possibly due to there being many more people attacking him, Justin Freed’s attack pattern right now was slightly different from when only Cola and Gluttonous Mouse were raiding him. The Boss could always accurately force Cola into a corner whenever he brandished his greatsword, preventing Cola from effectively dodging his attacks. To make matters worse, aside from Shi Feng, nobody else in the team could accurately find a way to interrupt the Boss’s attack rhythm. Although Fire Dance managed to react to the situation and find a suitable location to attack, due to her low Strength as an Assassin, she failed to interrupt Justin Freed’s attack. Hence, Shi Feng had no choice but to focus all his attention on interrupting the Boss’s attacks. Otherwise, if Cola were to make a mistake and eat any of the Boss’s minor skills, he would definitely lose his life because the healers would not be able to keep up with their healing. Concurrently, Cola’s death would also mean everyone else’s death.
When Justin Freed’s HP fell to 78%, he finally used Death Blow in a fit of rage.
Meanwhile, the target of this skill was none other than Shi Feng.
Shi Feng’s first reaction to the activation of this skill was to turn tail and run. After being marked by this skill, unless players activated skills that provided invincibility, they would unquestionably die when Justin Freed closed in on them.
Justin Freed retrieved a silver spear and abruptly threw it at Shi Feng. Instantly, a silver flash streaked across the sky and flew at Shi Feng, producing a boom as it broke the sound barrier.
Players were unable to dodge this silver spear, so they could only try to block it. Hence, just as the spear was about to reach him, Shi Feng immediately spun his body around and activated Parry.
The spear smashed into the Abyssal Blade, generating brilliant sparks as metal clashed against metal. Shi Feng was forced to retreat over a dozen steps before he could shake off the attack and stabilize his body. Both his hands felt numb after blocking Justin Freed’s attack, and he had very nearly lost his grip on his swords. He then took a glance at the Abyssal Blade, finding a clear scar on the blade of the sword.
Unbelievable. To think that this move could even damage a Magic Weapon… If it were a Secret-Silver Weapon taking this hit, wouldn’t it get destroyed instantly? Even a Fine-Gold Weapon might not survive this attack. Shi Feng secretly rejoiced that he had not used the Silver Lake to block this attack. Otherwise, the sword would have been finished.
After seeing his spear blocked, Justin Freed grew furious. Ignoring Cola, he charged at Shi Feng with large strides.
Without hesitation, Shi Feng immediately activated Windwalk, increasing his Movement Speed by 30%. He then started moving in circles around the arena.
As Shi Feng did not receive any damage from Justin Freed’s spear, he also did not receive the Movement Speed reduction debuff. Hence, no matter how hard the Boss tried to chase Shi Feng, he simply couldn’t catch up. In the end, Shi Feng kited the Boss around the arena for the full ten seconds.
With both of Justin Freed’s major skills dealt with, everyone returned to their positions and resumed their attack on Justin Freed. Later on, no matter how many times Justin Freed used his major skills, the end result was still the same. After a dozen minutes passed, even when Justin Freed entered his berserk state, he still could not change the inevitable. The reason being, Cola had Protection Blessing to stave off the Boss’s increased damage. Cola also had the Arclight Guard’s additional skill, Time Arc. The effect of this skill was the equivalent of providing Cola with nine seconds of invincibility. It also allowed him to reset the Cooldown of any skills he had used during Time Arc’s duration. One way or another, Cola had managed to endure and survive through the 20-second duration of the Boss’s berserk state.
In the end, Justin Freed let out a scream of resentment as he fell to the ground, his body leaving behind a pile of dazzling items as it disappeared.