“Well, that’s a classic,” Veyra said. “They trapped us in the boss room. Really?”

  I received another private message.

  Eveveeee: “Oh my god, so sorry! We activated the boss! Can you get out?"

  We could, in fact, not get out. Not with a solid wall of stone blocking our escape. “Can you break that?” I asked.

  “I could cast my ultimate at it,” Veyra said. “We’ll get killed by the guild outside, though.”

  “So we fight the boss?”

  A sharp claw attacked me from above like a sharp and long needle. I side-stepped just in time, and it pierced the ground with a loud crash. Cracks formed in the stone, and the ground shook lightly. The claw retracted slowly back to the boss. It must have been over fifty feet long.

  Broodmother Rathax moved sideways on the wall. It had two sets of claws, it seemed. Shorter, and bulkier, frontal crushing claws, and the insanely long and sharp needles poking out of its back. Its body hid well in the darkness, but its red devilish eyes and the shining claws at the end of its limbs glowed a bright red, easily distinguishable. Its foot moved at speeds that I really had to anticipate to dodge.

  Wonderwind typically had two types of bosses. The first was slow-moving, easily dodgeable bosses that players could weave around. Those types of bosses were designed to be dodged, and getting hit would get a player one-shotted.

  The second type of boss attacked so quickly that players required tank players to soak up attacks. Those bosses were usually not intended to be fully dodged, forcing players to carefully manage their heals and resources.

  This one seemed to be the latter. Its attacks wouldn’t instakill a high level player, but dodging the claws would be a hassle.

  I wasn’t a high level player, though. My stats were low. Even if these attacks weren’t designed to one-shot, I’d still die in probably a hit or two.

  On top of that, the room was filled with dripping lava and cocoons. For now, the cocoons were dormant, but I could presume that lesser spiders would be spawning as the boss fight went on. The only thing I could use for an advantage were the rocky columns, which I could hide behind.

  Veyra dealt with the claws using a much more conventional method: by spawning [Elemental Barrier] and blocking. She gritted her teeth. “It’s level three hundred!”

  “The eyes must be critical strike spots!” I shouted back.

  Veyra aimed her staff at the largest of the red eyes, and cast a large simple icicle. Her aim was perfect, and the target couldn’t really be missed.

  As the icicle soared through the air, the broodmother thrust its own claw through its tip, shattering the icicle. Veyra reacted in time with [Elemental Barrier], barely.

  “I’m losing mana!” she said. “Blocking costs a lot!”

  “Give me a portal!” I said. “Behind it!”

  Her staff glowed purple as a portal appeared underneath me. I fell in, and I found myself directly above the boss, falling sideways from the wall.

  I looked down, and now that I was closer, I saw its abdomen more clearly. It had hairs like normal spiders, but mixed within were red fluttering tendrils, like whips ready to attack anyone that attacked its abdomen. One of them grew in size and attacked me.

  I used [Shadow Dash] and moved past the abdomen, like dashing past the crest of a hill, and I found myself on the side of the broodmother’s head. I thrust my daggers into the first red thing I saw—its eyes.

  A loud screech resounded. The Broodmother panicked and shook me off violently. I found myself in a freefall, unable to hold on. I watched for the next attack, knowing it would try to kill me mid-air.

  [Shadow Dash] was on cooldown, and I couldn’t dodge in mid-air. I desperately lifted my daggers as the broodmother slashed at me with its shorter claws.

  An [Elemental Barrier] blocked it before the claws could collide. The barrier cracked and the claw came through, but by then I had fallen enough for the claw to miss. I landed safely back to the ground. My assassin class helped me avoid fall damage.

  I’d driven two daggers straight through its eye-ball for a critical hit. I checked its health bar.

  98%. The eye was perfectly fine. No fucking way.

  “What’s the chance it has a second phase?” I asked.

  “It’s acting calm,” Veyra said. “It’s only using simple attacks, and the eggs aren’t waking up. It must have at least three phases. One where the eggs start waking up, and another when it starts moving more erratically with new attacks.”

  Right. We were fighting a level 300 A-ranked boss. Cupcake Crew in its entirety would have struggled against it. The most common time for second phases to happen was at 50% health.

  “Can you portal us out?” I asked.

  “No, I need to see the end destination,” Veyra said, while dealing with another claw-attack.

  This time, she dodged it with a portal. While falling into the portal, her staff was already glowing. She moved to the boss’s left. Arriving on the other side, [Chronorift]’s cast time was already completed, and it shot immediately.

  The rift appeared directly under the boss. A perfect hit. Dozens of spikes jutted from the spell’s effects, piercing the boss’s underside.

  Its health bar dropped to a whopping 96%.

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  Meanwhile, a splash came near me, as red devilish cocoon fell from the ceiling. It twitched before a red claw cut through the cocoon from the inside. A spider spawned.

  I was fairly certain spiders didn’t grow in cocoons in real life, but I didn’t question the game as I hit the fucker repeatedly with a dagger through the head.

  [You have slain Newborn Demonspawn Arachnid. Experience gained.]

  Hold on. I can gain XP from these guys!

  An idea came. I quickly checked how close I was to my level-up, and found that I was only 40% off. If I solo-killed a few more, perhaps I could reach level 201.

  If I did, that would mean I could actually use my dagger.

  “Change of plans!” I called. “Try to get the boss to 51% health, just before the next phase! We’ll one-shot it at that point!”

  “And how will we do that!?”

  “Trust me!” I said. “Just do as much damage as you can!”

  She gritted her teeth. She cast [Absolute Zero], attempting to freeze its legs. That didn’t do much thanks to the boss’s resistances, so she cast [Chronorift] again, all the while desperately dodging and blocking the claws. One of them landed on her shoulder, taking her health bar to 60%. She continued blasting it with spells.

  I trusted she could keep herself alive, and I moved to the cluster of cocoons. I began slashing.

  [You have slain Demonspawn Newborn. Experience gained.]

  That brought me to 62% progress. I’d need to kill 20 more.

  I did just that, slashing wildly and killing as many of the cocoons as I could. They weren’t tanky, letting me down their health bars in less than five hits.

  [You have slain Demonspawn Newborn. Experience gained.]

  [You have slain Demonspawn Newborn. Experience gained.]

  I killed more and more, until I’d killed exactly ten. That was when the boss screeched.

  Around me, cocoons began cracking open. Newborn arachnids began spawning. The first cracked through its shell behind me. Three more around me.

  I attacked the closest one in hopes of killing it before I’d get swarmed. I had practice fighting the lesser arachnids now. Killing it wouldn’t be an issue.

  Except, while I was focused on that, the boss shot its claw at me.

  I gritted my teeth and twisted my body. That avoided a critical hit, but the claw grazed my left arm.

  [Oblique Transcendence - Blood Desperation Active Conditions Met]

  [Straight Attacks Are 100% More Effective When Under 40% Health]

  Fine by me! I thought as I pierced the newborn spider’s head, now one-shotting it thanks to the double damage effect. I didn’t take a health potion. I’d just need to ensure I wouldn’t take any more damage.

  Killing the spider brought me to 92% progress. I ran for the next one and jumped to avoid a claw. The ground underneath me cracked, bits of stone flying everywhere. By now, the battlefield was filled with screeching spiders and explosions from Veyra’s spells, too many flashing lights to make sense of.

  All I needed was two more spider kills.

  The first one took a defensive stance. I gritted my teeth and decided to avoid it, fighting one to its left that was in a more aggressive mood. I dodged first, then countered with my usual strategy of crushing its brain out.

  An attack came from behind, and I wasn’t sure if it was a miniature spider or a claw-attack. I used [Shadow Dash] just in time to avoid the explosive blow that destroyed the ground where I’d just stood.

  My dash took me straight in the face of the defensive spider. One more kill! I drove my dagger straight through its brain.

  [You have slain Newborn Demonspawn Arachnid. Experience Gained]

  [You Leveled Up!]

  Upon receiving that message, my body felt elevated. My right hand, which wielded the legendary dagger, transcended awake, as if some secret powers had woken up. The dagger’s effects filled my body with a feeling of power.

  Curse Of The Lich (Passive): Attacks with Cursed Lichfang deal 50% less damage to all targets. The reduced damage is stored inside the dagger. 0/20,000 damage stored.

  Curse Of The Lich (Active): Release all damage stored with a powerful blast of dark magic.

  I glanced at the boss. Its health bar was at 74%. It chased after Veyra, though it ran directly through a large [Chronorift] as if stepping through a spike mat. That spell seemed to work wonders against it, and the same went with [Elemental Barrier]. Combining those with her portals, she used a hit and run strategy, making the boss run through the rifts. If she had time, she weaved in icicles, though most of her energy went to drinking mana potions.

  Veyra essentially soloed a quarter of the boss’s health. That thing is level 300!

  But then again, it couldn’t have been in its final phase yet. We’d die if it reached that.

  And I still had a job to do.

  I ran back to the cocoon clusters, where I had to do more damage. Now that Cursed Lichfang was actually active, I felt like a totally different person. Each one of its slashes dealt serious damage despite the debuff. After killing just a few cocoons, the passive read, 4023/20,000 damage stored.

  The runic lines within the dagger shone a dark purple as it gathered power. I had no idea how much damage I’d need to store within the dagger to properly kill the boss—I wasn’t about to do any math right now—so I figured I’d gather as much as I possibly could.

  I continued killing the cluster of cocoon. 7546/20,000 damage stored.

  While I was mindlessly slashing, another claw came from behind. This time, I didn’t dodge, but I met the claw head-on with my dagger.

  A cling resounded, and the spider’s claw was rebounded off of my body. From that, the passive ate another 200 damage within. That was immediately followed by two spiders. I dodged, blocked, and killed them.

  That brought the passive to 12,471/20,000 damage stored.

  Ahead, Veyra was fighting the boss on ground-level now. She wasn’t attacking, but running away and drinking a health potion instead. The boss’s health was at 61%.

  A spider knocked her down while she ran. The half-drunk health potion fell from her hands. While falling, she cast a portal on the ground. She was about to fall in, when the spider pierced her foot, holding her up.

  I gritted my teeth and cast [Shadow Dash], killing that spider.

  Veyra wasn’t saved yet. The boss cast its claw at me. Up close, its attacks were impossibly fast, almost impossible to react to. Any other day, I would have probably failed.

  But I wasn't about to fail now. I felt locked in. I side-stepped and simultaneously hit it with Cursed Lichfang.

  It rebounded, and I ran forward. This better be enough! I thought.

  With Blood Desperation active, [Vital Strike] offering me over a thousand percent critical strike damage, and all of my items enhancing critical strike damage, I jumped and attacked the same eye as I had previously.

  My dagger pierced in. I activated the active ability, releasing all of the stored damage straight to the boss’s brain.

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