Afterlife Dream

The first attack on the boss activated the boss' HP bar immediately. A red strip showed the Fire Golem at full HP. ZhaoYun's one attack did not even scratch him. It probably hurt as much as a mosquito sting. The Fire Golem lazily moved his hand to smack ZhaoYun, but the latter already swung his body forward while hanging onto his spear. By the time the spear left the Fire Golem's body, ZhaoYun had already landed on the ground.

I positioned myself between ZhaoYun and the other four DPS attackers to be able to heal all of them in time. The Fire Golem roared and started to stomp on the ground. One stomp was equal to a decrease of 2000 MP at my side, and a considerable chunk of HP for my teammates. I healed the DPS attackers first before I rushed to heal ZhaoYun, who had to move around the Fire Golem to land attacks while dodging his attacks at the same time.

While focusing on both the boss movement and my teammates, I caught sight of more players hitting the ground in my peripheral vision. Then Livina shouted at me from the opposite side of the Fire Golem.

"ANTARES! ANTARES CAN YOU HEAR ME??"

"YEAH!" I shouted. "WHAT'S UP???"

"PINKLADY'S PARTY IS NOT DOING TOO WELL. I WILL SWITCH YOU INTO THEIR PARTY MOMENTARILY OKAY?"

"Wait a moment!" ZhaoYun said while crouching down to avoid the Fire Golem's mighty fist.

"Don't borrow him for too long! Our party is already well-coordinated!"

"I WON'T!" Livina screamed.

A second later, Livina already moved me into PinkLady's party and PinkLady was moved to my original party. I went around the rampaging Fire Golem and teleported the rest of the way to where my new teammates were struggling to fight. PinkLady, the level 63 Healer, was completely bloodless in the face. It seemed that she had been smashed to the ground too many times. Her face was smudged with mud and ash, and she looked as if she were close to bawling on the spot.

The reason for that was clear to me as soon as I reached the party.

The team consisted of one Spear Master, one Sword Master, one Axe Master, and two Aladdins. All of them were short-ranged attackers, and they had to spread in order to not catch a hit from the boss. And the Healer? The Healer naturally had to work extra hard to dodge the boss while healing the rest of the team. PinkLady must have gotten too close to the boss on many occasions and thus tossed to the ground brutally. Poor girl. Well, now it's poor me.

I had just finished exchanging Iron Body with Divine Guard with the Spear Master when the Fire Golem started to make a weird tapping movement while standing on his toes. He looked a lot like a ballet dancer in toe shoes. And then I realized what was happening.

"JUMP!!!!" I shouted at my teammates.

They looked at me in confusion, not understanding what I was talking about.

It was too late.

The Fire Golem jumped into the air and landed a split second later on the same spot, sending a shockwave in all directions and knocking everything and everyone off the ground. Those who had their feet on the ground got to experience the whole impact, while those who jumped up in the nick of time only had to suffer from 30% of the damage.

Warriors had high HP bars so although the attack hurt them a lot, they could easily recover through quick heals or quick potting. This was not the case with the archers, the rogues, and the mages that did not pay attention to their Mana Guard.

That first AoE attack effectively wiped out the two Aladdins in my party, and as I later found out, half of the DPS attackers in the squad.

Our thirty people had been reduced to twenty people. I heard Livina cursing at the side. She distanced himself from the boss to re-arrange the squad.

"GUYS I DON'T HAVE TIME TO TELL YOU YOUR NEW POSITION ONE BY ONE. HEALERS, PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR NEW TEAMS."

Roger that.

The twenty people were split into three parties of six, and two people had to fight without a Healer. They were both high-level warriors. ZhaoYun and a Sword Master who went by the ID BossKev. BossKev quickly complained.

"What the hell, why am I without a party? Livina, I am not willing to dish out that many HP potions for this run!"

ZhaoYun, who also had to go solo, shot BossKev a glare.

"Can you not survive without a Healer? Have some dignity! Go out of the map if you don't want to waste pots!"

The two warriors glared at each other, but eventually BossKev tossed one "Fuck" and then complied with the arrangement.

Only three Healers remained. I saw that PinkLady had made it. I teleported all the way to reach my new party. All of them looked battered but excited to continue.

"Welcome, Antares!" a Crossbow Master piped up.

I recognized him as one of the people that did the Fire Orb quest with me the previous day.

"Hey," I said with a grin. "Everything alright with you guys?"

"Yup, just trying to kill this beast already."

I glanced up at the Fire Golem's HP bar and unwittingly let out a sigh. 20% down. 80% more to go. We only had 20 people, three of which were Healers. I looked up at the digital clock that hovered over us. We had around one and a half hour left for the raid. We were not going to make it.

The Fire Golem let out another roar and started to do his funny ballet movement again. This time, everyone knew to jump in time. No one died in the second AoE.

After another thirty minutes, ZhaoYun approached Livina.

"I think this is enough for a practice run? Even more and we will waste more potions."

Livina gave him a pleading look.

"Just a bit more? We will leave in thirty minutes."

ZhaoYun shook his head.

"I know that you want to reach the 50% mark, but we are not going to make it with only 17 attackers!"

"Hey, guys?" I interrupted them. "If you guys already agree that we are not going to make this run anyway, mind if the Healers also try attacking? Maybe we can reach the 50% mark then."

ZhaoYun gave me a thumbs up.

"Do that, Antares."

I went back to my party and joined the fight.

I only had one skill point for each of the offense skills. None of them were going to be enough to yield enough damage to harm the boss. What I wanted to test was whether or not they could shield me from the AoEs.

I waited for the boss to cast the next AoE before I shouted, "Spiritual Meteor!"

My feet left the ground and I levitated off the ground while a bunch of tiny meteors hit on the Fire Golem's head. It roared angrily and smacked me at my side. I flew away and crashed to the ground five meters away from my party.

"Antares!!!" a few squadmates screamed in horror. "Are you alright??"

I tried to stand up but I couldn't. I pressed a hand to my side and felt a stabbing pain. My hand was completely drenched in blood. I must have broken a few ribs.

I just discovered a downside to raiding, or bossing in general. As a Healer, naturally no one, not even I, expected myself to have to face a physical attack from a boss. That was why I was completely unprepared. The fact was that players were vulnerable to physical attacks and other than the HP and MP reduction, there was also the physical pain to factor in the bossing style.

I took a deep breath and shouted, "Heal!"

A Green column of light engulfed my body and healed all my wounds, and with that naturally also recovered my full HP. Livina rushed to my side and crouched next to me.

"Are you okay? Does it hurt very much?"

I laughed.

"Not anymore."

I learned something good. Spiritual Meteor was not good for bosses like Fire Golem. I haven't tried Prayer yet, but I did not want to risk it. The Fire Golem would end up landing a punch at the top of my head and turning my head into a bloody mess. That would hurt too much, and it would definitely kill me off.

I played safe for the next twenty minutes. We did not reach 50% HP in the end. Livina asked everyone to leave the map one by one while she stayed behind to throw a few more throwing stars at the Fire Golem. I noticed that there were tears in her eyes.

When I exited the Lair, I landed in the entrance cave again. ZhaoYun and a few other players from Friends were there.

"Yo," ZhaoYun said when he noticed me. "Good job in there, Antares."

"You too," I said.

Everyone was exhausted, so we merely sat down and chatted. Five minutes later, Livina finally came out with reddened eyes.

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