The Territory Boss Pt3

Dropping into a low crouch and spinning on my own, I hack my sword at Trollbone's legs only for him to raise his feet back at knee height. My sword passed through the darkness enshrouding his body and seemed to pull it away even though his body never lowered from its previous height.

After the darkness broke free from Hauntings that was eating up the undead energy, I rose up into a proper 360 Edge that was twice as fast as my initial attack. Still, Trollbone seemed to simply levitate backward just barely out of reach. His feet were still raised like kneeling in the air, as if taunting me with the fact that he needed only a thought to deal with my attacks.

Pressing the attack, I feint a step back only to lunge forward on my leading leg and thrust out at his chest. Trollbone simply turned its body sideways in the air to evade my thrust before finally using an attack of his own. His sword blurred as it passed through the air, looking like a streak of pure darkness even in the light of day.

I barely had time to think and thus simply reacted, accepting the sword's strike across my heavily defended chest while thrusting out my free hand. Black crystalline blade struck sparks against black crystalline scales, unleashing a small explosion of conflicting energies. However, instead of being pushed back, I gripped onto the lich lord's wrist behind the skeletal hand gripping his sword.

Hanging on for dear life despite the sword's edge eating into my defenses, I lash out wildly with my other sword and finally land a blow across his chest just like the attack I had sustained. However, the ten-thousand-percent health in his bar only dropped by two percent. Worse, still, was the simple fact that I had overlooked.

I was holding onto a magic skeleton.

Lich Lord Trollbone's hand simply disconnected from the wrist I was holding onto and began freely flailing about while supported by a length of pure darkness. I had lost ten percent of my health from just the first attack and now several chunks were begin savagely carved away as blows landed all about my body from every direction. In the same span of time I was only capable of striking Trollbone two more times.

By the time I was finally forced away under the ceaseless barrage of attack, Trollbone had only lost about ten percent of his health while I was halved and thrown to the ground. Even as I watched from the ground, Trollbone rose several feet higher in the air and straightened his legs as if standing while his health rose by one percent now that he was not being attacked.

"First-Aid!" I exclaim angrily, refilling my health to over seventy percent before leaping into the air with Flying Guillotine. Hauntings struck crystalline blade and another explosion of energy was released, threatening to send me flying if not for the fact that my sword was diminishing the energy of the collision through consumption.

Feeling myself falling back to the ground, I rush into another 360 Edge before that throws both of us away from one another. Thankfully, Geist triggered on its own and three ethereal blades washed over the lich lord to trickle away five percent of its health and continue pushing it away from me. However, I did not let the distance grow too much and used another Flying Guillotine to throw myself forward through the air.

Hammering my sword down into Trollbone's blade yet again, I immediately combo with yet another 360 Edge that shoves us apart once again. There were no Geists this time, though, so we both only flew a few feet out of reach from one another and the damage was downright negligible.

After having not landed any blows of his own in the past two exchanges, Lich Lord Trollbone seemed to up the ante be effortlessly flicking his sword through the air. Darkness roiled about its body and arm, feeding into the faint slash to unleash a massive crescent of scything energy. "Geist!" I could not help but call out, using a simple Geist followed by a combination of Slash Geist and then the entire 360 Geist.

The standalone Geist struck the dark crescent and shattered with no noticeable effect, the combination of Geist and my weakest attack skill barely fared any better by lasting for a full second in clash. The 360 Geist that met the enemy's attack in melee range, though, unleashed a flurry of ghost blades that struck and shattered against the dark crescent. Although, the dark elemental attack began fragmenting under the barrage of my second strongest Geist attack.

Still, this silver lining was nothing compared to the immensity of the storm cloud that passed over me. Stripping me back down to half health as well as sending me flying back as most of my frontal defenses were shattered, Trollbone's attack finally dispersed after having struck its target. For a brief moment, blackened fluids flowed out from my armor and shells.

Rising up higher into the air, Trollbone once again makes audible noise in the form of a clacking cackling before my head was filled with the sound of his voice. "Good! Good! You should be capable of at least this much after all of the nonsense you spout. However… look at you, little ant, stuck upon the ground with only the ability to look up and dream of the heavens. Your power is nothing!"

Little ant? Stuck upon the ground?

"You have only seen the power of my sword and a glimpse of my true form," I say darkly as I reach into my belt for the items I had been pulling from my player inventory just before the update. Retrieving a large pair of fiery golden colored eagle wings from, I immediate Assimilate the trophy items of the sun eagle Cweeper once slew while experimenting with a junk crossbow I had given her.

"Here, have a taste of my limitless potential!" I cry out with abandon, uncaring for how I looked or sounded to the hundreds of people present as I reproduce a pair of my own wings that tear free from my back.

Either golden wing was tarnished with jagged bands of rusty red that spread out over the almost metallic crystallized feathers and each wing was almost ten feet in length. With a single flap, I shot up into the air at the same speed as a blurring Quick Step. Straight for Trollbone.

Clashing swords with the lich once again, I use a slight tilting flap of my wings to carry the momentum of my attack as I roll up and over Trollbone's sword to fall behind them. Using the brief moment of surprise granted by my new flying attack as I start to fall out of reach, I instantly use Flying Guillotine to smash my sword into the his spine only for the sword in my hands to jar and shudder from contact with a seemingly indestructible object.

Switching tactics into another midair 360 Edge, I send Trollbone careening back down toward the ground while throwing myself higher up into the air. Of course the lich lord was able to catch himself before ever touching the ground, but by then I had already flapped into a steep and swift dive. I did not even bother using Hauntings but instead bodily rammed into them from behind so that we both slammed down into the ground with enough force to lightly crater the ground around us.

I took another ten percent of damage from my own attack after hitting the ground, but Trollbone himself was now missing over twenty percent of his own health. Sadly, being an undead entity of nearly pure mana, the lich lord was already back up before I could pick myself up and lashing out with his sword. The only thing I could think to do was to close my wings around me.

Black crystalline blade met golden metallic wings and the feathers of my wings began shattering from the force, removing my newfound ability to fly until I could recover from the injury. Ten percent of my health was gone just like than and another twenty followed when Trollbone's sword smashed into my defenses and bit into my ribs. Before I knew it, I was flying through the air once again but with no control whatsoever.

Dropped to ten percent health, I felt a very real fear eating at the edges of my mind as my vision blurred at the prospect of losing my first life so shamelessly.

I hit the ground and bounced so hard that more of my defenses broke away, taking with them one percent of my health for every bounce. I barely had enough time to cast First-Aid again before the lich lord was upon me, crossing over sixty yards in an instant with his sword raised. That same sword buried itself in my back, punching straight through my defenses and body to plant itself in the ground beneath.

I was almost instantly back at critical with less than ten percent of my health remaining and I was unable to move as darkness began eating at my body. Reaching down with his free hand, Lich Lord Trollbone grabs the scales of my helmet to pull my head back and force me to look up at his skeletal grinning face.

"Close the gateway? Protect this world? Ha! Remember these words, boy," his voice orders me in my mind. "You. Are not. WORTHY!"

Then, the lich lord began pulling at my body from my head, forcing his sword next to my spine to begin cleaving my body. However, just as I found myself with only a few percent of health remaining, the world around us suddenly rocked and quaked with numerous explosions of different energies. Fire and lightning dances, ice and wind shredded, and the very ground beneath me began to open up as if trying to swallow us.

Those last four words echoed like thunder in my mind as Lich Lord Trollbone was thrown aside from the myriad attacks pouring down around us. His sword was still impaled through my body but I could at least use First-Aid to recover from some of the damage. Still I was returned to critical all over again as I pushed myself up against the sword and freed my body from the ground.

'You are not worthy'.

Watching a Trollbone also levitates up to his feet, I see another barrage of attacks come flying in from everyone who had run to follow the battle. However, Trollbone simply raised a single empty hand from to greet the attacks. None of them every made it passed his hand, as if striking a massive wall of pure energy that prematurely detonated their attacks outward away from him.

"Look at your fellow ants," Trollbone continues to taunt as I open and part my body to let his sword simply fall to the ground. I could barely hear his new words over the echoing declaration but there was no way that I could not understand his telepathy. "Just like ants, rushing to their deaths without an inkling of an idea about the heel coming down on their heads. Watch me, Chosen of Melpomene, and witness real power!"

Easily waving away the explosions of energy before him, Trollbone unleashes a wave of darkness that seems to tear through space itself with an odd warping of the world around it. This wave of energy flew at speeds almost too great to follow, zeroing in on the front lines of the three clans that had made it this far in the raid. Then, it struck.

'You are not worthy'.

Layers upon layers of physical and magical defenses were ruined in an instant, whole bodies exploded into puffs of bloody mist that looked like smoke, and black flames ran rampant through the ranks. Everything was in such disarray that I could hardly pick out the armors of my own team among the destruction. I could only see a few of them.

How many died just now? How many of my friends had to experience their first deaths because I provoked the raid boss? How could I be so weak as to let something like this happen?!

'You are not worthy'.

Questions raced through my mind and every time the lich lord's declaration would echo as if in answer, causing a creeping sense of cold futility to fill me. This guy was this strong and had a hundred times more health than I could hope to. Trollbone had pretty much done nothing but playfully slap me around this entire time and I somehow thought I could face this boss?

'You are not worthy'.

"FUCK YOU, TROLLBONE!" I find myself roaring at the top of my voice, casting First-Aid so that I had the strength to move as I start haggardly lumbering forward toward the giant skeleton monster. A burning rage, so intense that its heat washed away the cold futility of my fear, was erupting within me. Taking out several potions from my belt, I splash them against my body and Devour to almost immediately recover my health and mana.

"Do not belittle us ants," I go on as I pick up strength and speed in my gait, shrinking myself down to my normal body as I forsake its Strength and Endurance in favor of my own Agility. "We might be ants, but we have the support of beings that you turned your back on long ago. Let me show you the error of your ways. HELP ME, MELPOMENE, YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE!"

Then, a reassuringly calm and soothing voice sounded in my mind, drowning out the lich lord as well as the still echoing declaration as a large black mask of tangible energy forms over my face.

[You are worthy… of me]

[Massaquerade Activated. All starts are raised by sixty points for: The Duration]

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