Chapter 625 - 625. Fighting Against Time
Jack's ice resistance was the highest among all of them, hence it took him the longest to get afflicted.
Giant Steve's had survived the ice spears due to his high defense and also because he activated Final Shield, the skill that had saved him when going up against the Grim Sand Drake.
Balo and Jason survived due to their martial art expertise. Balo's HP was in critical condition, though. Jason was surprisingly in a better condition despite his lower HP. He had used a master redirection martial technique called Reversing Heaven and Earth. His long mace moved in a rapid movement that created a field that deflected almost any incoming attack. After seeing the result, Jack thought the technique was aptly named.
"Eh?" After another look, Jack realized the avatar was still around. This means… He looked around again. There he was, John was walking back slowly. Shit, Jack thought. The dude had run out of the area when the ice spears fell, leaving everyone behind. He must have stayed as far to the back as possible after hearing Jack's explanation about the ice spears. John was the only one who could afford to fight that way since he fought mainly using summons.
But still, Jack was amazed that the guy had predicted the boss would use his ultimate skill early. Jack had been reserving from using his Lightning God Barrage because he thought the boss would only use its ultimate skill when its HP was at a critical. Jack planned to use his divine skill once the boss HP's touched 100,000. Hoping that this divine skill would do enough damage to one-shot it at that state, thus eliminating the chance for it to use its ice spears move.
When the Ice Demon Fiend landed back to the ground, Jack first cast Myriad Ensnaring Chains. He knew the chains wouldn't be able to hold this high-level boss for long, so he had Therras used its Imperious Pressure as well.
The two restraining skills rooted the boss in place for a brief moment. Since there was no need for Jack to save his divine skill anymore, he unleashed it on the incapacitated boss. The twenty balls of lightning landed on the Ice Demon Fiend.
When the tempest of lightning energy subsided, Jack saw that his skill had taken out 80,000 of the Ice Demon Fiend's HP. Less than he had hoped for. The demon's HP was now only slightly above 100,000.
It was paralyzed by the lightning attack. Jack took this chance to approach and meet it head-on. His speed was not as before after getting a Slow status, but he compensated with finesse. His two swords danced with precision as he focused all his attention. He incorporated his offensive skills in between his sword arts, trying to wear the boss' remaining HP down.
John's avatar was in a bad shape, it was saved due to its high HP and high armor value from the full set of rare equipment. Peniel cast Group Fast Heal, bringing everyone's HP up again. Jason also used his Heal on Balo, who was the one most near death.
The avatar, Balo, and Giant Steve came to help Jack. Peniel cast Healing Field for them. Jason stayed at the back and sent them Heal once in a while.
As time passed, Balo succumbed to the frozen status. Not long after, it was Jason. They had lost their remaining healer player, leaving only Peniel as their sole healer. Peniel's healing though was much more powerful, its cooldown was also much longer than the player's Heal.
The avatar who was with them suddenly vanished, they knew then that John had been frozen.
After a while, Giant Steve was so slow that he didn't do much except for being a human punch bag. The demon gave the sentinel a strong punch and Steve flew away. Jack saw the big guy become solid ice in the middle of his flight.
Jack was the only one remaining now, accompanied by his Therras Beast and Peniel.
But the Ice Demon Fiend was also not in the best shape. Its life hit 50,000 HP when Giant Steve got frozen. Seeing his opponent's HP hit that mark, Jack decided its time for the final struggle to decide winning or losing.
Jack activated Storm Breaker's Overlimit. His body then enlarged into a large werewolf. The werewolf's black fur also turned golden at the same time as Jack activated his bloodline's Gold Scale Armor. He forwent evasion and went full offense, clawing and biting in a manner more ferocious than the demon he was fighting.
Despite his increased HP and defense, Jack's HP still went down faster than the demon. Luckily, Peniel's Fast Heal had come off cooldown. She brought Jack's HP up again to give him more time in the brawl.
But time seemed to be against them. Due to his near-perfect mana sense, Jack could feel the elemental buildup within him. He knew the frozen status was coming soon. It was like he heard an internal timer via his mana sense.
The demon's HP was almost 20,000. Jack hoped that if he unleashed his forty-eight burst slashes, this move should finish the demon. But when he was about to do it, he felt familiar mana from the Ice Demon Fiend's large mouth.
"F*ck! Peniel, invulnerability!" Jack shouted urgently.
The demon's mouth opened and the devastating ice beam poured out at Jack point-blank. There was no chance for him to dodge. Therras was situated further away, Jack had sent it a mental order to run away to not get caught by this ice beam.
He watched his entire vision turn white. He wondered if Peniel had managed to cast her spell in time. After the beam subsided, he found himself locked inside the jagged ice wall created by the ice beam.
He looked at his HP, it was not going down. Peniel had made it in time. One other thing Jack noticed, according to the internal timer of his mana sense, his body should be frozen by now due to the elemental buildup, but the accumulating mana was currently halting. He surmised it must have been due to the Invulnerability as well. The spell had halted the buildup progress, meaning he had bought himself 3.5 seconds.
The Ice Demon Fiend was directly in front of Jack. Jack saw its triumphant expression as it thought Jack had been incapacitated inside the ice wall it had created.
Jack used his race skill, Willpower, which broke him free of any restriction. The skill shattered the ice wall imprisoning him. The Ice Demon Fiend's triumphant expression turned to shock when it saw the scene.
Before the demon could react, Jack's two claws danced in a frenzy. The demon was caught unaware and thus was not adopting any defensive action. All forty-eight burst slashes of Jack's sword art landed on the demon's body. Due to no missed nor blocked attacks, the damages were fully boosted by combo multipliers.
By the end of his assault, Jack saw the demon's HP zeroed.
As the demon fell and disintegrated, Jack wondered if the elemental buildup carried on? If he got frozen after this victory, would the raid still consider a fail?
Luckily, he felt the cold mana accumulating in his body slowly dispersing. At the same time, he heard a notification that the guild had successfully completed this dungeon. The guild received reputation points, gold, mana, building materials, and some resources for craftings.
The boss itself dropped loots, Jack did not forget to use his Runestone of Luck when he executed his burst slashes.
For being the two sole survivors, Jack and Therras received full exp from killing the boss. As for clearing this legacy dungeon, all party members received exp, even those that had been killed. Those that had been frozen were considered killed as well. Jack saw their frozen bodies crumble when the victory notification was announced. Extra exp points were granted to all members for clearing this dungeon's difficulty for the first time.
Jack's three classes were already close to level up. So from this triple exp he received, all three of his classes leveled up one time. Therras only received the exp from killing the boss, but it also leveled up by three levels to level 39.
A notification informed him that he could opt to exit this dungeon at any time or wait until five minutes before he was automatically sent out.
Jack crouched down and reviewed the boss' loots.
There were the usual coins and mana cores. Since this was a guild party effort, he decided he would just donate these coins and mana cores to the guild. A few uncommon equipment and materials. One rare gun weapon. 'Weird,' Jack thought. There was no gunner in their team but the monster still dropped a gun. Maybe this was because it's a guild dungeon.
Jack had left the three most unusual items for the last. After he stored the other loots, he looked at these three. Two out of the three exuded denser mana compared to the others, so Jack knew they were the best grade among the loots. One looked like a tiny medicine tablet. The two with denser aura were a round bottle and a piece of ice rock.
Jack picked up the medicine tablet.
*
Exp Pill (rare grade)
Grant 1,000,000 exp points
*
"I'll be damned," Jack uttered.
"Now we know the place that drop this thing," Peniel remarked.
Without delay, Jack used the pill for his Blade Dancer class, filling its exp bar by a million points. He then picked up the remaining two items.
*
Thousand-Year Wine (Super rare consumable)
Usage on players: Add 15 days to age
Usage on NPCs: Increase level growth rate. Duration: 30 days. Cooldown: 90 days
Restriction: Human race
*
Heart of Ice (Super rare material)
For crafting purpose