“I see! I understand now!”
Joe had a look of epiphany after he swung his Giant Toe to crush one of the bloodborne creatures and saw it revert to blood form.
Beside him, Edward resisted the impulse of yelling ‘What do you understand, ape!?’, and instead asked, “What is it? What did you notice?”
“Our quest objective is only to defeat the Nightstalker, but it didn’t mention that we must defeat it by our own hand. In other words, we could let the Roaring Blaze Tiger Warrior defeat him!” Joe exclaimed in delight as if he had discovered a new continent. “And since these blood monsters are going to stop him from attacking the Nightstalker, we have to get rid of them. After that, we’ll just let the Boss punch each other up!”
III
At first, Edward had thought that Joe would have at least broadened his perspective after becoming a Player for so long, even though Edward was in command of most group raids. It would at least have been normal if Joe wasn’t able to see what was going wrong, and yet he came up with such a nutcracking conclusion of the situation—there’s no need to tell us, we already know that!
Meanwhile, the Roaring Blaze Tiger Warrior was still fighting against the Revived Nightstalker who still had yet to fully awaken.
Indeed, ‘fighting’ was not quite the right term because the Revived Nightstalker was not conscious, and fought only by the reflexive movement of its wings.
Even though the strongly erosive blood wings were a nemesis to all life and couldn’t even be touched, that was actually no problem for the Roaring Blaze Tiger Warrior whose body was now as hot as the surface of the sun. The erosive blood would evaporate under the extreme even before it could reach the Roaring Blaze Tiger Warrior’s skin!
Moreover, the Players were holding back most of the bloodborne creatures, whereas the physically vulnerable blood wings couldn’t stop the Roaring Blaze Tiger Warrior’s blows at all-which meant right now, the Revived Nightstalker was being punched single-sidedly.
In fact, his whole body was being ground into mincemeat by the steel fists of the Roaring Blaze Tiger Warrior, and was just inches away from dying.
But in spite of the one-sided state of affairs, all the Players could still clearly see that the Revived Nightstalker’s HP Bar had only dropped by a third even though it had been punched so many times by the Roaring Blaze Tiger Warrior with his six thousand Celsius fists!
And when they recalled the high acclaim given to the Nightstalker in the System notifications, the Players’ foreboding sense only grew strong.
Even though the Roaring Blaze Tiger Warrior had been buffed by some unknown power to the point that its level was now equal to the Revived Nightstalker’s, his elite template didn’t change since his living form wasn’t really refined. As such, the gap between him and the Revived Nightstalker who has the overlord template remained ever distinct.
Meanwhile, Edward was calmly analyzing the situation.
He had considered grouping the Players and help diverting some to help attack the Nightstalker so that they could shave off its HP quicker, but reconsidered and decided not to do so.
The Roaring Blaze Tiger Warrior couldn’t see his enemy’ HP and naturally didn’t know what was really going on with the Revived Nightstalker. Still, from the looks of his slowing punches and the dulling of his rage, the Tiger Warrior must have vented most of his hate and assumed that the Revived Nightstalker was about to die.
With his stubborn attitude, the Roaring Blaze Tiger Warrior might not listen to the warnings of the Players either—and that was why they must stay vigilant and try their best to prevent the Tiger Warrior from being instakilled by the Revived Nightstalker.
And just as expected, the anomaly came instantly when the Revived Nightstalker’s HP dropped to two-thirds!
The blood wings on his back suddenly split and crystallized into a dozen long, narrow and sharp structures resembling spider legs, stabbing out at the Roaring Blaze Tiger Warrior who was caught off guard from every direction – just like a spider on the hunt!
“Black Dragon Hellfire!”
Having been waiting for this moment all along, Edward promptly raised his hand and blasted the Roaring Blaze Tiger Warrior on the back.
It didn’t hurt the Roaring Blaze Tiger Warrior since he was immune against all fire-type spells, but the impact force from the skill itself was real-two of the red razor-sharp joints only managed to scratch the Tiger Warrior, avoiding the fate of him becoming the first dish of the Revived Nightstalker in his awakening
But even though Edward had assumed that the Roaring Blaze Tiger Warrior would keep fighting, he didn’t expect him to drop to his knees with a look of anguish after avoiding the Nightstalker’s fatal blow. He was even shuddering, the flames over his body now fluctuating and looked like a mess all in all.
Edward then noticed that there was a debuff status named ‘Nightstalker Curse’ hanging over the Roaring Blaze Tiger Warrior’s status bar. It didn’t cause much damage, but the victim would suffer great anguish in spirit and lose the ability to fight for some time.
“Everyone be careful. The claws on his back is cursed!”
Once he saw that their powerful support was now incapacitated, Edward stiffened himselfbeing the only remaining spiritual leader of the Players, he led the Players to prepare the second phase of their strategy against the Revived Nightstalker.
“Ho? I thought that I would wake up finding arrogant dragons or cocky elves trying to stop me. I might even compromise and say that it wouldn’t be weird to see violent orcs or the stubborn dwarves standing before me… but to think that it’s mere humans who are here for a dance…”
The Nightstalker spoke, even as his distorted form was rapidly recovering at a speed visible to the eye. “What could food like you possess to gain the courage of standing before me? Hate? Glory?”
And in the next split second, he moved – instantly reaching Edward.
The arcane shield of Happy Flames immediately kicked into the life and rigidly stopped the attacking crystalized blood joints, but it was only when the appendages were inches away from Edward himself that he finally realized that he was being attacked.
The enemy was too quick, and on a completely different level.
Any other army would probably collapse in morale once they saw the insurmountable gap between themselves and their foe, and every soldier would in turn desert their cause and flee for their lives.
That, however, was not the case for the Players.
As long as the System had assigned a quest, anything which had its HP bar shining brightly as an enemy definitely could be beaten!
“Tide Callers and Spirit Swordsmen! Slow him down right now, don’t let him get away!”
The Players who had been left at a loss immediately understood Edward’s intention, in spite of the Revived Nightstalker’s dominance, he wasn’t immune to debuffs like the Roaring Blaze Tiger Warrior was, and the Players regained the feeling of being in a dungeon and farming a Boss.
Hence, all of them rushed up and encircled the Nightstalker, bent on defeating the last Boss in typical Player style!
