Izroth charged forward with his Blade of Lightning in hand. He remained vigilant, as he did not currently have any sort of understanding about Barbados stats.
When Izroth entered into Barbados range of perception, the sea creature stared at him with those beady vicious eyes of his.
"Your presence taints the Great Sea! Death to all surface dwellers!" Barbados instantly went into attack mode and accelerated in Izroth's direction. His speed was faster than Izroth's, but it was still manageable. This was probably due to the fact that Barbados was not receiving the agility boost that sea creatures usually did because he was not within a body of water at the moment.
'Its agility isn't going to cause too much trouble. I should have no problem matching its agility once I have the full stacks for Hellfire Rampage active.'
Barbados had no weapon in its hands, but instead, it depended on its rows of various sized razor sharp teeth to rip through its enemies with. Barbados opened its jaws as it tried to latch onto Izroth and tear him to shreds.
Izroth quickly positioned his Blade of Lightning to intercept Barbados' attack. His sword was locked in place with the sea creatures mouth. There were sparks flying from the clash as though Barbados teeth were made out of an incredibly tough material.
«Parried»
-544
'What a high attack stat… It has to at least be around 1,000.'
When Izroth parried the blow, he felt as if a crushing pressure had descended upon him from that single attack. The worse part of it was that it seemed like that was just a basic attack. If a basic attack did so much damage, Izroth would have to be extremely careful as its skills may not be as friendly as its basic attack.
Izroth's body began to flicker as copies of himself started to appear throughout the entire battlefield. He activated the skill Flickering Steps, increasing his agility to 1,200. He slashed out twice in quick succession at Barbados.
-337
-337
After his counterattack, Izroth created a small distance between himself and Barbados. He consumed a Lesser Health Potion, restoring his HP by 150 points. He did not know the full extent of Barbados abilities just yet and so it was best not to take any chances. Izroth's current HP after consuming the potion was at 1,406.
'It'll be one minute before I can use another potion. Though with Flickering Steps activated, it'll give me plenty of time to max out the stacks the for skill Hellfire Rampage.'
Izroth did not wait for too long, as he would risk losing his stats from Hellfire Rampage if he went for more than 3 seconds without a successful attack landing. Right after drinking the Lesser Health Potion, Izroth kicked off his back foot and shot towards Barbados, leaving behind a series of afterimages.
Izroth's Blade of Lightning had two shadows trailing behind its blade as each strike was simply too fast for Barbados to react properly to in time.
Izroth directed his sword towards Barbados lower body with the first strike. He then adjusted his attack to aim directly for Barbados gills that were located where its neck would be if its upper body was that of a human's, with his second and third strike.
Izroth used the first strike of Phantom Strike and forced Barbados to guard the vital point near the lower end of its body. While Barbados managed to properly safeguard that vital point, the sea creature was unable to stop Izroth's next two strikes from hitting their intended target.
-144
«Critical Hit»
-724
«Critical Hit»
-1,111
Thankfully, while Barbados possessed an insanely high attack stat, its defensive stat was a different story. It was even weaker than some of the regular elite monsters that Izroth fought earlier on. Though this kind of trade-off was to be expected, after all, if something with such a deadly attack stat also had a sturdy defense, it would be a nightmare.
'At this rate, it shouldn't take too long to finish this battle.'
Things were looking up for Izroth as he pressed on with his assault, quickly shaving down Barbados' HP. Barbados could only sit back and take the attacks as every time it tried to hit Izroth, it would instead strike nothing but his afterimage.
94%…
86%…
80%…
When Barbados HP reached 80%, its eyes started to glow bright red and the sea creature unleashed a bloodthirsty aura. It looked as if it were being possessed by some kind of demonic being with the amount of killing intent it was releasing.
"Come to me, my brothers! Devour the surface dweller and restore what is rightfully mine!" Barbados shouted in a maddened tone of voice.
All of a sudden, the ground beneath Izroth's feet released a few tremors. Before he knew it, water began to fill up the room. However, it did not fill it up all the way, but rather just enough to reach Izroth's knees.
'Is it happening already?'
Izroth guessed that the room would eventually be filled up all the way with water like at the end of his boss fight with Calder. However, it appeared the rate at which the water was going to fill up was much faster than it did during his fight against Calder.
Swoosh… Chomp…!
Izroth could hear the sound of something constantly flopping around in the water. It was not long until he began to hear the sound coming from all directions. When he pinpointed the source of the noise, he saw fish that looked just like Barbados closing in fast on his position.
While these fish resembled Barbados, they were not nearly as big as him and also had the lower body of a fish, not a human. However, the fish swimming in Izroth's direction had that same naturally vicious look in their eyes as Barbados. There were a total of four of them.
'Adds.'
Name: Great Sea Barracuda(Normal)
Level: 23
HP: 7,000 (100%)
Izroth had dealt with quite a few number of adds so far in RML. Adds was a gaming term which referred to the additional monsters that spawned, usually, during a boss fight. It was common for them to give little to no EXP and drop zero loot. Adds sole purpose was usually to hinder players in their attempt to defeat a boss monster.
While the majority of the time their HP and stats were not as strong as regular monsters, there were still numerous ways adds operated in a boss fight; so that rule may not always apply. There were various reasons adds would spawn during a boss fight.
It could be to heal the boss, damage the players, or protect the boss. There were countless ways a scenario could play out when dealing with adds. If the adds were left alone, it was possible that the boss monster could become much more challenging to deal with throughout the fight.
While adds did not spawn in every boss fight, it was still a common occurrence in numerous fights. Therefore, players should always be prepared to deal with adds accordingly if they appear in the middle of a boss fight.
Although the Great Sea Barracudas were only normal monsters with 7,000 HP, Izroth did not underestimate them for a single moment. He had already made that mistake once against his fight with Ekquilore back in the Shadahi Realm. He decided it was best to break off his attack against Barbados and deal with the Great Sea Barracudas before resuming his assault.
Bzzzt… Bzzzt!
The electricity around Izroth's Blade of Lightning started to become more active, releasing a crackling noise that was soon followed by a loud crash that sounded as if lightning was descending from the skies above.
Lightning bolts began to rain down within the surrounding 15 meters of Izroth as his movements quickened and his attacks became more fierce.
Barbados did not sit still and wait for Izroth to launch his attack. The sea creature moved forward at a speed that was at least 50% faster than its original pace. Even though Barbados was not completely submerged in water, he was still capable of gaining such a massive agility boost.
Since Izroth's Flickering Steps had already run out, he used Lightning Field to maintain his speed advantage over Barbados. With the effects of Lightning Field and Hellfire Rampage, Izroth's agility was sitting at a steady 600 points. Izroth agility was evenly matched with Barbados even with its newly found speed.
However, Izroth's reaction times and battle experience were far superior to Barbados, giving him an advantage over the sea creature.
Izroth had a simple solution on how to deal with the Great Sea Barracudas. The Blade of Lightning within his hands started emitting an oppressive aura. In a flash, Izroth was already before the first of the Great Sea Barracudas as his sword slashed out with amazing precision, cutting cleanly through the sea creature's head.
«Critical Hit»
-9,288
〈Battle Alert: The cooldown time for your skill «First Baneful Sword: Destruction» has been reset.〉
Thanks to the reset from Izroth's First Baneful Sword: Destruction, it made dealing with the adds relatively easy. The increased damage due to sea creatures being weak to lightning-based attacks also helped to smooth things over without issue.
Even though Barbados speed matched Izroth's, it was not difficult for him to finish eliminating the Great Sea Barracudas that spawned before they could do any real damage while also dealing with Barbados. Especially with the paralyzing effect of the Lightning Field Skill.
It may have been because of his 1 Luck stat, but the number of times Barbados was paralyzed happened more often than not.
After finishing off the Great Sea Barracudas, Izroth immediately rushed towards Barbados. At the moment, Barbados was delayed for a brief period of time due to the Lightning Field and was incapable of taking any actions.
Izroth did not miss this window of opportunity as he mercilessly began his barrage of attacks, targetting Barbados critical areas. Even if Barbados managed to move, it was not long until he was paralyzed again by Izroth's Lightning Field.
While this fight appeared to be extremely easy, it was only due to the fact that Barbados opponent was Izroth. Barbados was actually the best kind of boss Izroth could ask to fight. The sea creature focused purely on physical based attacks and did not seem to possess any ranged or magic-based abilities.
Ranged or magic-based bosses were much more difficult to predict compared to physical type bosses. Of course, there were always exceptions given certain circumstances but for the most part, the majority of players would much rather fight against a physical type boss monster.
Izroth's barrage of attacks was quickly chipping away at Barbados HP. Due to the bonus lightning damage from Izroth's Blade of Lightning, the extra damage dealt to Barbados was not small at all.
70%…
60%…
50%…
40%…
When Barbados reached 40% HP, it once again called upon some Great Sea Barracudas. This time the water in the room filled up all the way to Izroth's torso and a total of eight sea creatures spawned.
Izroth used the same tactic as last time and executed his First Baneful Sword: Destruction skill in order to quickly deal with the adds. However, there was something different about the adds this time around.
The Great Sea Barracudas spewed out a dark green liquid after they perished. The liquid was absorbed by Barbados and as he took in more of the liquid, his nature became increasingly more violent.
That was not all that changed, but his agility had increased again thanks to the room filling up with more with water. However, it was still within Izroth's tolerable speed difference range, even though Barbados was now faster than him.
〈Battle Alert: Vicious Barbados has been consumed by Bloodlust!〉
'Bloodlust?'
Izroth knew what Bloodlust was, but he was unsure of its exact effects within RML. However, he was sure that it was not put there to make this boss fight any less challenging.
All of a sudden, Izroth felt a strong force pulling his body down underneath the surface of the water! It felt as if he was being dragged down by a powerful whirlpool.
