Chapter 342 - 342. Risking All The Way
The Grim Sand Drake tried to calm itself as its exceptional draconic blood tried to purify the poison. The poison damage that ate away at its life by more than a hundred HP per second started to reduce to below a hundred.
It could cure itself?! Jack realized in consternation. Shit! So it was as Peniel said. His luck did not give him a free meal on two giant monsters' drops.
"I strongly suggest that you run," Peniel advised as she sensed that Jack was intending to attack.
Even so, the Grim Sand Drake's HP was very low already. It was just a bit over 6000 HP. Jack was waiting for its HP to go down until it was close to 1000 HP before taking action in order to be sure. But he would take the risk now, if the drake managed to cure the poison effect entirely, he would have no more chance. He activated the Fireball scroll in his hand, the only one he had in his bag which he bought before he left for the expedition.
The last time he used this spell, it had caused 1200 damage to the target, which was also a special elite. Though the target this time was much higher in level, he thought it should still score at least 1000 damage. Hence, why he had been waiting for the drake's HP to be further reduced by the poison. At the moment, the drake was still treating them as nobody. Once he made an attack, the drake would also go on the offensive.
The magic scroll disintegrated as a large Fireball sped towards the Grim Sand Drake. The drake was still concentrating to reduce the effect of the poison. Thus, it was not aware of the incoming spell. It would never expect the tiny ants to dare to provoke it.
The fireball slammed into the drake's body. The hit awoke the drake from its trance. It had managed to bring down the effect of the poison to just around 20 HP per second. But now that its concentration was broken, the poison effect stayed at that rate.
It glared at the ant that had dared to disturb it. Its eyes were filled with malice as it huffed and took one step forward.
Jack gulped, partly due to the intimidation showcased by the drake, another part was because of the damage caused by his Fireball spell. It was only a friggin 300 damage points!
The difference was too vast. Was it because the drake's defense was too high? He could only rely on the poison effect now. In other words, he needed to keep the drake busy so as to not allow it to cure the effect of the poison.
Jack made a fast count. The drake still had around 5800 HP. With the rate the poison was eating at its life, it would take around five minutes for it to reduce to zero. The prospect of surviving for five minutes against this monster was not encouraging.
"Anyone has another high offense magic scroll?" Jack called out in team chat.
"Only you have the coins to waste on those scrolls," Bowler commented.
"I have one," Trinity Dawn said.
"Save it! We are not fighting. Bowler, now!" John exclaimed.
"All right, everyone, close your eyes!" Bowler said and cast Brilliant Radiance.
The spell created an intense light. The Grim Sand Drake was caught unaware and its eyes were blinded. It roared furiously as it wrecked its surroundings aimlessly.
"Good job! Now, everyone attack!" Jack shouted as he rushed forward. The web that filled the ground had hardened already, he could run on it freely. But the hardened web still held the ground together, so the drake would not be able to use its burrowing ability to escape. This was the best chance to kill it. It was time to risk it all!
"Oh, for the love of… You are supposed to run!!" John yelled in exasperation.
"We won't outrun it! It was on its last leg and it can't use any skill. We can do this!" Jack countered.
"I have the Group Haste scroll, ah! Forget it. Damn you all! Attack! Attack!"
All the ranged players started throwing their attacks. When the attacks hit, however, they felt dread over their hearts. The damages were all below five points.
"F*ck it! You have doomed us all!" John complained.
"Less cursing, more fighting! Melee class, stay back!" Although Jack asked them to fight, he was still sensible enough to not sacrifice them blindly. The objective was to survive until the poison devoured the remaining HP of the drake. There was no need to go all offensive.
Jeanny had also noticed the poison that continued to ebb at the drake's HP. He told the others, "Prioritize safety. The drake is in poison effect. We just need to survive until its HP ran out from the poison."
Jeanny also started issuing commands to the others and let them organize more coordinated attacks.
Jack cast Barrier and activated Life Burning Art as he ran forward, then drank a basic healing potion to recover the partially consumed HP. He then shot all his offensive spells at the drake. His spells only fare a little bit better than the others, with each damage below twenty points.
The Grim Sand Drake had recovered from its blind condition. It saw Jack as the nearest ant that had attacked it. It stomped down with rage.
Jack jumped aside and managed to evade it, but he was startled. The speed of the drake's attack was even faster than he expected. He had dodged the stomp just barely. It was totally different between when he was only watching the drake's fight to when he was the one being attacked.
When Jack thought he was safe, he felt a rush of wind from the side.
"Look out!" He heard someone shouted. His mind was not in the mood to identify whose voice the warning was from, because a whole chunk of a tail was occupying all his mind's attention at the moment. When the drake failed to stomp the ant, it had followed up with a tail swipe.
Jack's body instinctively jumped back and then executed Flash Step when the tail was about to hit. He used all the 4.5 meters distance limit. As he reappeared, the tip of the tail still grazed over his body. He was thrown away and slammed to the ground, bouncing several times from the impact.
He rose up quickly and was extremely glad to find that he was still alive. He was still shocked though to find that he only had a little bit over 200 HP left. Even with his immense 1,210 HP, combined with level 7 Barrier at 1 star and Life Burning Art, he still lost so much life just from a little graze. He would have perished if it was a direct hit.
He quickly took out a Healing Potion that recovered 500HP instantly to recover his HP. He then used a Regeneration scroll to recover his HP slowly, at the same time countered the HP consumption effect from Life Burning Art. A healing light also fell on his body as Bowler cast his Heal spell.
"Allow me!" Trinity Dawn used the magic scroll that she previously had taken out.
Specks of blue light swirled near the Grim Sand Drake before they transformed into innumerous particles of ice that rained on the drake. The drake received only a little bit over 100 damage from the spell, but a layer of ice coated its body. This spell would have frozen normal monsters, but it could only slow down the drake's movements.
"Good spell!" Jack exclaimed, he was casting a spell. He formed three runes at the same time. The three-runes spell formation that usually took him more than three seconds to cast was completed in a little bit less than two seconds. Two copies of himself appeared.
"All mages, Arcane Turbulence!" John instructed. "Set your placements following my direction with the drake as the center! Storm 1 o'clock, Trinity 3 o'clock, Tip 5, Bitter 7, Swell 9!" He forwent the o'clock after saying it twice as it was a mouthful and took too long to say. Anyone with a decent brain would understand what he was trying to say.
There were six mages in the team including Jack. Everyone started to cast the spell. Jack cast the spell as he rushed forward with his doppelgangers. Everyone could not help but admire his bravery, the dude just got smacked away a moment ago, now he was rushing back into the face of danger again.
They never considered that Jack was doing that because he wanted to keep the drake's attention on himself. If the drake rushed over to their formation, they would be decimated.
Amongst the mages, Trinity Dawn completed her three runes first, in two seconds. Unlike Jack, she formed the rune one by one, but she still managed to complete it almost the same as Jack's multi-rune forming. Jack still used his multi-rune method, but because he was casting it while running, it took him two and a half seconds to complete. John achieved the same time as Jack, while the others were all over three and four seconds.