Hidden Boss- Slumbering Bandit [3]

'This guy… is good!'

They already saw his skill once against the Slumbering Bandit but seeing it again in full flow against the Pork Emperor that was supposed to be an extremely difficult opponent, they were stunned.

This Lord Doom didn't seem to know how to miss a single attack.

From the moment that he used Mana Burst to make the Pork Emperor stagger; the final boss endured an unrelenting combo of rapid attacks.

At just level 5, Warstar RPG characters have very few skills but with the little skills that he had, Noah played like a level 20 player, mixing normal attacks in his barrage to keep up the combo as blood flew like rain.

But in Warstar, skills cannot be used endlessly. Every skill has a cooldown, calculating cooldowns and using it to your advantage is one of the big differences between a casual player and a pro player.

"Now, attack!"

After his rapid barrage of attacks, as Noah said this, he disengaged from the final boss who just collapsed to the ground, about to rise back up.

Death Note and Silky Strings didn't let the final boss rise back up though as charging in, the Blademaster hit the stationary final boss with a Whirlwind Slash, knocking it back down with the skill's sweeping effect.

Just before Death Note could attack, he heard Noah's order.

"Flame Wave!"

The Elementalist froze for a brief moment, but then he quickly executed it.

Flame Wave is an Elementalist spell that sends out a wave of fire that engulfs enemies in a cone, causing extended burn damage over time.

With the boss still knocked down due to Silky String's Whirlwind Slash and with Death Note's Flame Wave active, Lord Grim and Deadly Musician joined the party, spamming attacks against the final boss.

But that was the problem, compared to the more technical Slumbering Bandit with normal HP, the Pork Emperor had a truly despairing amount of HP.

Afterall, it was the brute type of final boss.

In exchange for that, its attacks were pretty predictable.

The Pork Emperor had no magic attacks, it had only its size and its club going for it. But one hit from that club had the capability to one-shot a cloth-armored class like Death Note's Elementalist, so they had to be careful.

Their flurry of attacks took a chunk of HP from the final boss but again, it tried to stand up to attack.

But predicting its movements perfectly, Noah ordered again.

"Musical, Whirlwind Slash!"

"M-m-musical…?" The Blademaster was stunned. "It's Deadly Musician!"

Even as he complained, this Blademaster already activated the skill as sweeping with his sword, the Pork Emperor was forced to the ground again.

And with that, they resumed spamming attacks on the boss.

Just like that, the Pork Emperor that was supposed to be a formidable adversary was tamed, reduced to a predictable punching bag.

The other members of this raid party were amazed. They knew that the attacks of the Pork Emperor were pretty predictable, but taking advantage of its predictable attack patterns was a whole other thing. It was incredibly hard.

They knew that this elite performance was all because of one player, Lord Doom.

He seemed to always know the next move of the Pork Emperor before it made the move, reading it like a book and warning them ahead of time. This way, with the 2 Blademasters rotating between their knock-down skills and the Elementalist's own skills, the threat of the Pork Emperor was neutralized.

The Pork Emperor's HP was steadily dropping but this was a risky maneuver. A single mistake from one of them could spell their death.

It didn't take too long before one of them made a mistake though. It was Silky Strings, the other Blademaster who mistimed his usage of Whirlwind Slash, enabling the final boss to rise up again.

"Ahh…, sorry!"

Before the mistake could prove devastating, in a blur, Noah's Lord Doom already rolled in front of Silky Strings' Blademaster.

As the gigantic Pork Emperor's club descended, about to cause devastating damage, Noah used a skill.

{Arcane Riposte=}

It was a combat mage skill that parries an enemy attack and counters with a burst of arcane energy, stunning the attacker.

Silky Strings failed to knock down the Pork Emperor but with Noah's timely Arcane Riposte to save the day, the final boss was stunned, achieving the same effect as the others kept on spamming attacks on it.

"Don't make another mistake". Noah warned.

"Yes boss". Silky Strings hastily said.

After that, there was no more mistakes and just like that, it seemed that they would easily kill the Pork Labyrinth's final boss till something changed.

…they forgot that the Pork Emperor was not their only enemy.

Bzzz!

By the time that they heard the sound of shadows stirring, the Slumbering Bandit who had been quiet since already made its move, using the thief skill, Shadow Step to ambush one of the players.

The Shadow Step skill teleports the Thief to a nearby enemy, delivering a quick attack upon arrival but the hidden boss didn't stop at that.

Having retrieved a dagger from its sling bag at some point, it turned the attack into a combo, using the thief skill Back Stab as blood blossomed.

During the past few seconds, Death Note, the Elementalist's high DPS class led the damage stats and was why he was first on the hidden boss' radar.

Not only did the attack of the hidden boss have unnecessarily high damage, Back Stab also had side effects of leaving its culprit stunned and weakened, reducing all its attributes, including HP and MP by half.

In that one attack, Death Note's HP dropped by 1/3rd!

"…!" The other party members froze.

If the Slumbering Bandit was allowed to chain a few more attacks, Death Note would be insta-killed.

Alas, they never had any chances of winning, but then…

Bzzz!

The blood from the Back Stab was still blossoming when the sound of space shrinking reverberated.

{Blink Step:}

Blink Step is a battle mage short distance teleportation skill.

In an instant, Lord Doom appeared behind the Slumbering Bandit and before it could attack the Elementalist again, Lord Grim's battle lance already struck, launching the hidden boss into the sky again with another Empowered Slash.

"…!" The others were stunned.

Lord Doom was thinking and playing at a level that their mundane minds could not keep up with at all, they were always lagging a step behind.

Thankfully, Noah did give them orders.

"Death Note, use your strongest attacks!"

The Elementalist snapped back to life.

"Strings, Musical, focus on stalling the Pork Emperor. Melody, support them". Even as Noah instructed, his Lord Doom never stopped attacking as chaining one attack with another, he juggled the tiny Slumbering Bandit.

From the very beginning, this was the scenario that Noah played out in his head, the only scenario he saw of winning this extreme challenge.

He always knew that pursuing the Slumbering Bandit was not optimal, the bastard was just too slippery. And he also knew that the hidden bandit was too intelligent to just watch them as they kill the Pork Emperor.

This meant that it would attack when they least expected it, and its target would definitely be the highest damage threat.

Elementalists specialize in manipulating the elements, fire, water, earth, and air for powerful offensive and utility abilities. They excel in dealing high elemental damage and controlling the battlefield.

From the beginning, Noah knew that after some time, Death Note would quickly climb above him in the damage stats but he predicted that before the Elementalist's overall damage could eclipse his own, making the final boss' aggro to OT, the impatient bandit would have made its move by then.

And he was right.

Unlike the Pork Emperor that had a mountain of HP, the Slumbering Bandit's HP was much more normal.

What went for this hidden boss was its nimbleness and cunning which always confounded lower-skilled players but for an elite player of Noah's caliber, the Slumbering Bandit was the perfect fit for him.

Noah was confident in one-shotting the Slumbering Bandit alone with time, the question was could he do it fast enough before the Pork Emperor would kill his teammates?

This was why since Death Note was close by, he instructed the Elementalist to help him get rid of the Slumbering Bandit.

In that moment, Deadly Musician finally understood Noah's masterplan from the beginning, this player could not help but be impressed.

'What is he? A God?'

He didn't hesitate though; he had a lumbering final boss to stall.

While he and Silky Strings focused on stalling the final boss with Healing Melody providing them support, Death Note and Lord Doom focused on the Slumbering Bandit.

No other 2 players could one-shot this hidden boss but at this moment, the other members thought if anyone could do it, this Lord Doom definitely could.

Bam! Bam!

Lord Doom's battle lance never stopped moving, attacking non-stop, coordinating with Death Note's powerful attacks.

As he attacked, the game algorithm counted above the hidden boss' head.

{6 combo attack…}

{8 combo attack…}

{12 combo attack…}

{18 combo attack…}

{22 combo attack…}

'What the f*ck!' Death Note felt like he was seeing ghosts.

This was not a random log of wood, this was a level 5 hidden boss, the Slumbering Bandit and yet Noah juggled this poor hidden boss like a stationary object. It already tried to no avail to escape the attack combo.

In the end, the Slumbering Boss' HP finally went below 10% and immediately, it entered red blood state.

"Move back!" Noah warned.