Epoch: A Berserker's Rise

Chapter 18: Fighting the boss (3)

The boss and the two tanks collided with each other, and this time the result was different. The boss was stopped and both tanks stayed where they were, taking barely any damage.

However, before they could even move another punch came, followed by another one, and another one. Like that 5 consecutive punches were launched at both the tanks, each punch pushing them back a little. Moreover, each punch was stronger than the last.

The boss was only stopped when Burning Lotus launched a [Zap] spell at it. This allowed the two to take back the lead and push the boss back. The other players went for the attack too, but the boss took them by surprise.

Until now it hadn't used many skills, it looked like it had five of them. But here, it used another one. It suddenly became much faster and took back the lead. It became so fast that it could attack the two tanks and push the other players back at the same time. It would even dodge the arrows and spells coming from the long ranged fighters.

Ten seconds later, its speed dropped, but Steel Lungs had died, and Arin was low on health. Adam took Steel Lungs' place, and along with Arin they didn't even defend but instead made as much damage as they could. In this form the boss was doing less damages, so with the constant heals of Holy Lotus they were able to keep this long enough.

However, the situation changed once again when the boss jumped on Arin. Because of the proximity Arin couldn't react in time and the boss tackled him to the ground and its teeth bit the Monk's neck.

Blood splashed out but none of the players were phased, they continued damaging the boss. The boss didn't care though and continued sucking Arin's blood, which gave it some of its HP back.

Even though their DPS was higher than the rate at which it regenerated, allowing them to damage its HP bar some more, they lost their last real tank.

Once Arin died, they couldn't use Provoke skills anymore, and the aggro in this game was more realistic so the boss didn't attack Adam who had the highest defense. Instead, it went for the other players, the mages.

Once they saw the boss coming, they knew they wouldn't be saved, not the Elementalists at least. Every close ranged players went near Holy Lotus as she absolutely couldn't die now, and the two Elementalists spammed everything they could at the boss.

However, Adam could see that with the boss' speed, it would absolutely destroy them before they could empty their MP, so for the first time he activated his Vest's skill, Everwinter.

A blast of ice was launched from Adam's body and covered everything except his allies in ice in a five meters radius. The skill could only last 10 seconds, but during those five seconds the boss's speed was reduced by a lot, and so were its attributes. Unfortunately, because it was a Chieftain boss that was 3 levels higher than Adam, it's speed wasn't reduced by 70% but rather around 40-50%. However, it was enough for the girls.

Nima, as a Foxkin, was faster to empty out her MP, but Burning Lotus was able to use not only her MP but her HP too to launch her spells. Thus as Nima used all her MP she jumped in front of the boss and tried to contain it long enough for Burning Lotus to use all her spells.

Unfortunately, even with Everwinter and Nima acting as a human shield, the boss was still able to finish Burning Lotus before she could burn all her HP. This was a problem because every time the boss hit someone with its red shining fingers it would heal HP. It was obvious to everyone now that it had used a lifesteal skill, a rare and coveted skill by players.

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When the two girls were killed, the boss only had 10% of its health remaining. As for the players, there only remained 6 of them, with one being a healer, another a ranger, an assassin, a berserker and two swordsmen. As for the NPC, Arno, although he wasn't dead, he had fainted some time ago and only had a few HP left.

However, Holy Lotus didn't have any MP remaining, meaning she would have to use her HP from now on as she was a Light Elf.

The boss looked at the players carefully but didn't move, it was regaining its HP. The players couldn't let that happen though, so Adam had to take the lead and attack. Unfortunately, he was too slow compared to the boss, who was able to easily bypass him and attack those behind.

The two swordsmen attacked in unison the beast, only activating their most basic spells as the others were on cooldown. The two were only able to deal a few slashes before dying too, placing the boss' HP to 8%.

Again, it tried to go for the only healer, and King Slayer stood in its path. However, the monster once again surprised everyone as it clashed with King Slayer. It actually let itself be attacked and used the strength behind the blow to jump toward 69420.

As a Level 5 Ranger, he wasn't even able to defend himself against the Level 10 Chieftain in close combat. The boss didn't leave him any chance as apart from its life steal skill, it used another skill that allowed it to one shot the ranger.

It allowed the boss to regen back to 10%, but King Slayer appeared before it and slashed it multiple times. The boss reactivated the skill from earlier which made it much faster though, and the two got in a standoff.

However, King Slayer wasn't able to hold on long enough for the skill to end and died too, leaving the boss with 5% of its health.

The boss looked at Holy Lotus with a murderous gaze. It knew it had won, with its speed it would be able to kill the healer, and then the last one wouldn't be able to defeat it, as although it was low on health, so was the berserker.

As it was about to rush at the girl though, it felt two arms grab it at its waist. It looked behind it in shock, only to see the berserker grinning madly as he yelled "SUPLEX!"

The boss felt its feet leave the ground, and the next instant its back was slammed in the ground, making it shake. It couldn't understand what just happened, he had suffered from an otherworldly technique after all.

While King Slayer had been keeping the boss busy, Adam had sneaked up behind it and made the move. It didn't do much damage as that wasn't really considered a real attack, but that immobilized the boss.

With an unnatural agility Adam moved to sit on the boss' chest, blocking it on the ground, and he began punching its face. As he did so, the boss understood it wouldn't be able to best the berserker in strength with this form, and thus began punching him madly.

All the dead players looked at the scene in silence, their general sitting on top of the fiercest boss and exchanging punches with it.

One would expect the boss to be on the winning end, because even though it made less damage it had the life steal effect on, making it that it gained some hp with every strike, and it punched more than two times faster than Adam.

However, Adam had the support of Holy Lotus, who was emptying her health bar to heal him. Only a few seconds later, she dropped to the ground too, dead. There was only Adam and the boss left, punching each other madly.

Adam continued punching, punching and punching, his mind was filled with one word, punch. At some point though he was stunned to hear a notification ring in his ears.

[You have defeated the Evil Abomination! XP +1750!] (Author's note: This amount of XP may seem very little, but there are reasons. Upon death this boss gives 10 000 XP, but because there were several parties that contributed to its death 70% of the XP goes to the party which killed it, and the other two share the 30% remaining XP based on their contribution. That means King's Heart gets 7000 XP. Now the way XP is shared between the members of this party is totally equal, meaning they shared 7000 in four parts, and 1750*4=7000)

[Charge has leveled up!]

He looked down and saw that the boss had stopped moving. Actually it couldn't, because its head had been turned into a mess.

Adam remained in the same position for a few seconds, too tired to move. This day had just been too tiring, be it physically or mentally. However, now wasn't yet the time to rest. However, as he was catching his breath, he felt something tremble below him. Looking down, it came from the corpse.

Adam reached his hand where the vibration came from and easily plunged his hand in the boss' chest, grabbing the object that was vibrating. He yanked it out of the corpse and saw it was actually a black heart, which had now stopped vibrating.

[Godslayer's Heart] (Common, Quest Item)

Description: A strange artifact found in a low leveled ghoul.

Adam was curious about what that was, but since no quest was activated he put it away in his inventory.

Adam then heard a loud bell like sound come from the village, and as he turned to look at it he received another notification.

[Village Quest Completed! All the monsters have been defeated and Rosewatch has been saved!]

[Respawn back on!]

[Rewards: As the commander of the forces, go see the village's chief to get yours and everyone's rewards.]

Adam got back up and walked up to Arno. He had to walk over the corpses of both monsters and players as in this game the corpses would disappear only after a period of time.

Throwing Arno on his shoulder like a sandbag, Adam made his way back toward the village. As he reached the walls of the city, he could hear the players which had already respawn talking, however there were way too many voices to understand what was being said.

In front of the three meters tall wall, Adam was able to jump high enough to grab the top of it and then raise his body. Upon entering the view of the revived players, everyone stopped speaking, and looked at Adam.

Looking at the sea of players, Adam noticed a similarity between the different players: the respect in their eyes as they looked at him.