Chapter 118 116 - The Boss
Once the team arrived at the boss room, Milo instructed Alucard to scout out the room from above. Alucard did as he was told and flew up to near the ceiling of the boss room to see what exactly the team would be facing. He soon returned with a report for Milo.
According to Alucard the boss appeared to be a giant three headed wolf of some kind, along with this, there was a pack of blackfang direwolves as well. In total there were 9 enemies. The boss, along with the 8 wolves that were acting as its guards. Learning this info, the team formulated a plan focused on defeating the direwolves before then killing the boss. By doing so they would be able to avoid the most injury and would also be able to isolate the boss.
The team pushed into the room, Milo would be pushing forward as a close combat dealer rather than fighting at range this time. As soon as the boss's guards noticed the team, they all pushed in together. The boss was indeed a giant three headed wolf. It had black fur covering its body. From the maw of each head, slobber could be seen dripping between its fangs. The three headed wolf reared its heads back and howled and as soon as this happened, the blackfang direwolves seemed to get faster all of a sudden.
Seeing the change, Milo immediately activated his inspect skill on the boss to get any extra information he could about the beast.
[Heroic Tier Beast]
Species: Ebony Haired Cerberus
Status: Healthy
Disposition: Aggressive
A heroic tier beast that is often found as normal beasts in the highest tiered gates. Unlike other beasts their size, they are extremely agile. Their best weapons are the jaws of each head as well as their sharp claws. The alpha is able to boost the power of the pack by howling.
[clear]
Reading the boss's description, he was able to learn that the sudden increase in agility of the smaller wolves stemmed from the Ebony Haired Cerberus's ability to buff their pack. He made the call out and each member of the team knew to be on higher alert, as the direwolves they fought previously would be weaker when compared to the wolves they were about to engage. He wanted to prevent any members of the team underestimating their opponent.
After making the callout, Milo reminded himself that this was a heroic tiered beast. The strongest beast he'd ever fought outside of a simulation. Once steadying himself, he engaged the 3 wolves that were coming his way. The three wolves were rushing towards him at full speed. To slow them down he threw up a wall of ice in their way. Once he did, the group split to go around it. Thanks to this move, Milo was able to surprise the one on its own with an ice path. Freezing the wolf's paws to the floor. This would buy him some time to take care of the other two. When the other two got in close, he used Soul Siphon to drain the strength of one, boosting his own strength in the process, while he did this, he used his Hunter's Eye to check the weak points of the wolves. Once this was done, he used the swordsmanship that Mikael had been drilling into him, using quick flowing slashes that cut through the first wolf, before dispatching the second the same way. By this time, the third and final wolf had gotten free from Milo's ice path and charged him. Milo changed Ghoul's Bane into its whip mode and wrapped the wolf up in the bladed chain, before pulling it back tearing into the beast's flesh. With the wolf wounded, it took no time at all for Milo to finish it off.
With Milo finishing up with three of the wolves on his own, he swapped over to attack at range in order to assist the twins who were also facing off with the smaller direwolves. Conner had successfully killed one so far, meaning that only 4 more wolves remained before the team would tackle the boss.
While this was happening, the supports were focused on keeping the tanks healed as each of them took on one head of the 3 headed boss to allow Milo and the twins to kill the members of its pack. While the tanks had the boss tied up, it couldn't buff the other wolves. To nullify the original buff that the boss used, Alucard flew over the wolves using his Wings of Strife skill to drain the magic fueling the boost. Once this was done, 3 of the wolves had successfully lost their buffed status, making the fight with them much easier. After close to 5 minutes of trading blows, the twins with Milo's backup had successfully finished off their opponents, leaving the boss by itself.
Once the boss saw it was alone, it made some distance between itself and the team. Once it had done so, it looked at all of the members with hatred. The three heads then roared before the beast charged again, only this time, the beast looked even faster. In the blink of an eye, the beast crossed the room and was right in front of the tanks, without skipping a beat, its claws swung out and struck Ken, the team's brawler. At this point, his Berserk ability had amplified his resilience, but he was still sent flying across the room before striking a wall.
As soon as Ken was sent flying, the team was shocked. The power of the wolf itself nearly doubled after the team finished taking out its pack. As if on cue, Navi could be heard in Milo's head.
"Warning, the boss has activated its enrage skill, its attack power and pain tolerance have significantly increased. Avoid receiving damage from here on out," she said. Hearing about this change, Milo noticed Pixie had run over to check on Ken, according to her, he was still breathing, but had multiple broken bones and was only unconscious. It would take some time to heal him, so the team would be without one of their tanks for the fight. Milo then made the call out about the boss's current state. The team took note of its enraged state and would have to avoid attacks from here on out. Any attack that landed would definitely take them out of the fight, for the non tanks, it could even kill them.
Milo took this split second to order Alucard to use Wings of Strife on the beast. Unfortunately the beast knew better than to let the falling feathers touch it, causing it to jump out of the way before the magic energy draining feathers could contact the beast and nullify its buff. The beast then jumped up attempting to bite at Alucard. The Crimson Wing Spiny Viper dodged at the last moment while in flight, twisting his body to do a barrel roll. After doing so, Alucard quickly returned to Milo's side. Not wanting to risk Alucard getting hurt Milo said "return," after doing so Alucard was pulled into the Beast Vessel Ring. Milo then got to work.
Forming a spear using his Ice ability, he focused on making one as sharp as possible rather than making a bunch of them. In seconds the wicked sharp spear was formed and Milo accelerated it towards the wolf, the boss was currently chasing after the twins who had drawn its attention, they were barely staying out of reach thanks to the boost they received from their ability, but would soon run out of running room. The spear was moving too fast, and soon pierced the leg of the boss. When it made contact, the ice that pierced its leg spread, causing a mass of frost to cover the leg that was hit. This seemed to slow the wolf down as the twins finally created a good enough distance to escape.
Seeing that the prey it was chasing was now too far away, it turned to Milo who had thrown the spear. Thinking that because of the ranged attack that Milo would be slower, the beast charged towards him. Unfortunately for the beast, this was exactly what Milo wanted. He activated the Soul Siphon ability, stealing the boss's strength. He then used Reinforce to boost hit strength even further before punching the huge dumb dog in one of its three faces. The beast was knocked back, obviously stunned from the sudden attack. Milo then sent an ice spike up from the floor piercing one of the heads through its bottom jaw, pushing through its brain.
Black blood could be seen dripping to the floor as the head that was pierced was now drooping limp. The other two heads howled as if mourning the death of one of their comrades. The beast then leapt towards Milo again, attempting to bite at him with its two remaining heads. When it got close, Milo activated his discharge skill on his chest plate. This stunned the beast as it had electricity sent coursing through its body. Milo then linked the bind skill with the stun, locking it in place. With this, it couldn't avoid Milo attack using Ghoul's Bane, as he used the whip mode to wrap around the neck of one of the remaining heads and pulled it hard, lopping off the second head of the boss.
After two of its 3 heads were killed, the boss backed off to reassess its situation. It now was being more careful, keeping its last head back and out of the range of Milo's attacks. It swiped its massive tail at Milo who dodged while throwing up an ice wall to avoid the attack. Even if Soul Siphon had drained some of its power he didn't want to get hit. While this was going on, Pixie had healed Ken to a more stable state. The tanks had also received healing and were now ready to assist Milo in holding off the boss.
Milo went to dodge another tail attack, this time however a massive body stepped between Milo and the tail. A loud clang could be heard as the tail made contact with a massive piece of metal. Harvey had stepped into the middle receiving the attack with his shield.
"Thanks for stalling Milo, you've done good work thus far, let us handle holding the beast off," Harvey said, as the beast struck his shield again. Milo was exhausted at this point having killed two of the heads on his own.
He distanced himself from the tanks to give himself a breather, and for the rest of the fight used his ranged attacks, staying near the supports and ranger. Soon the boss's last head had been destroyed with the full help of the team aside from Ken who was still unconscious. Harvey picked up Ken, who was still out cold, and placed him on his back as the rest of the team gathered the essence cores and useful beast parts from the boss and the pack of wolves that was present in the boss room. After all their looting was complete. The team returned to the exit of the gate.
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