Chapter 128

Servant of the Council (III)

“CHARGE!!!” Emma roared as she brandished her warhammer, a huge grin on her face, clearly excited about the newly-acquired strength.

“So... you have chosen Death, Mortals...” King Albadesh mumbled as he heaved his trident and stabbed it into the ‘ground’, shaking it.

Right after, eight vortexes appeared seemingly out of nowhere, one behind each member of the party, including Larua. And then another... and then another... eventually, eleven vortexes hovered behind each member. Just for a moment, however, as they began drifting to those in the same row and combined into much larger versions spitting out repeated bolts of crimson. Each now sapped 10% of Vitality per second, though it wasn’t nearly as bad since Diya, too, gained access to much higher-tier Skills of Illuminity.

She waved her staff and summoned seven exact replicas of herself which, immediately after, guided a golden array of light and linked themselves to individual members of the party, healing them continuously.

“We follow the same plan!!” Cain exclaimed. “Focus on Abladesh! Emma, you take him -- Lukas, Senna, and Larua, keep other Servants busy!!”

“Aye, aye!” Senna exclaimed with a grin, already riding a ‘ship’ she conjured up from nowhere, hundreds of weapons hovering around her, at a ready.

Emma slammed her warhammer into the ground and cause sun-gilded tendrils of smoke to erupt around her in a circle, burning away at the ghastly darkness. The King wound up the trident, forcing Emma to duck sideways and dodge ‘Frayed’. At the same time, Daniel had snuck behind and started a flurry of attacks while Jamal attacked directly, starlight burning off the surface of his skin.

Taima swiftly buffed everyone, further increasing their already inflated stats, and focused exclusively on Emma thereafter, keeping her topped off. Her Health continuously went up and down, like a heartbeat, though it never dropped below 60%.

In the meantime, Lukas slammed his gauntlets together and launched himself at the other ten Servants, driving their attention toward him. Though they, too, were technically servants, they were nowhere as strong as the King and could be mostly considered as 'elite mini-bosses'. Larua flung her wings and turned toward the sky, weeping a thousand tears in the form of rain that turned into clawing arms of the ghosts that attacked the servants.

Senna’s weapons followed right after, each exploding upon contact and further separating two battlefields until they were nearly a hundred yards from one another, the maximum distance at which Diya could comfortably keep both groups topped off.

Cain, having no reason to concern himself with Mana or anything, immediately began his own barrage, focusing mostly on conjuring up very hard-hitting, single target spells. He charged Creation, Fire, Aether, Earth, Blood, and Wind in a single breath, startling himself more so than anyone else, conjuring up a vortex of his own above his head that repeatedly fired off beams of burning light at Albadesh.

Maintaining it passively, he further charged Creation, Phantasmal, Aether, Wind, and Ruin, conjuring up a ghastly apparition to latch onto Albadesh’s back, dealing over time damage and debuffing him in the process. It didn’t last long, however, as the King dispatched the apparition with a single punch, dissipating it into cosmic ash.

Right then, he pushed Emma away with a swift kick and slammed his trident into the ‘ground’ once again; the massive vortexes behind everyone shuddered abruptly and began bleeding, droplets of blood liquefying into streams that rapidly traced back to the trident.

“In Their Name... I make this Sacrifice of Blood!!” the trident erupted in the bloody mist for a moment, one that cried out a cry of a thousand ghosts before manifesting into eight Wights -- skeletal creatures that hovered slightly above ground over toward the vortexes.

“Leave them to me!!” Cain reminded, his voice barely breaking past the thundering sounds of the battlefield. “Focus on the boss!!”

He charged Life, Aehter, Blood, and Chaos, condensing eight tiny, pebble-sized seeds that shimmered in milky-white as they made their way over to the Wights rapidly, injecting themselves into the bony skulls and erupting from within, blooming into brilliant, lotus-shaped flowers that ejected upward rain that latched onto the escaping ash, normalizing the conditions momentarily.

King Albadesh returned to duking it out with Emma who relied far more on taking hits directly now that she had access to more Skills, retaliating as hard as she could in return. The battle had been going on for just over thirty seconds, but the group had already shaved 5% of his Vitality which, considering he still had full layers of armor, was remarkable speed.

Just then, Cain saw a ghastly-dyed ember appear in front of him, alighting in eerie gray before beaming out toward Diya. He rapidly Blinked and landed near her, ensuring that when they switched places, they wouldn’t lose too much time adjusting themselves. The switch happened almost immediately, but the two continued doing their jobs as though nothing happened.

Daniel ducked and dodged a backward stab of the trident, coating himself in shadows and ripping through them landing on the King’s broadened back and executing a flurry of nearly 30 attacks within a few seconds, finally managing to pierce the thick armor with a few, inflicting some basic afflictions, though nothing that would slow the boss down.

He dipped back and landed squarely, immediately tossing himself to the side and dodging yet another stab, disappearing into shadows as Emma regained the King’s focus by slamming her light-empowered warhammer against the King’s knee, denting the armor there slightly.

Jamal charged his blade with Starlight, milky-white tendrils wrapping around him like cradling arms, seemingly carrying him aflight at the King. He repeatedly slashed and stabbed, sending arraying blades of light that seemed to deflect against the armor... but he did slowly put in more and more chinks and dents, ensuring that at least a few strikes got through, dealing more damage.

Just after landing from another attack, he let go of the blade that ended up levitating in front of him; slamming his palms together, the white light erupted from him into beaming links that composed four more bodies coated in light. The four charged, Jamal in their midst, a flurry of blades screaming out in a chaotic onslaught. He abruptly took the King's attention from Emma and got stabbed cleanly through the shoulder with the trident, losing half his HP in one go. Immediately after, however, a golden beam of light surged through him and healed him back to full, also leaving him with a valuable lesson that he shouldn't play a hero.

The battle continued, with the King summoning eight Wights shortly after and with Cain once again dispatching them the same way. Though he unleashed a continued elemental barrage, he didn’t do any massively-consuming Skills as most of the damage was still being absorbed by the armor.

He repeatedly glanced to the other battlefield to see whether they need assistance, but thanks to Larua -- that, Cain suspected, would be far harder to fight as a raid boss -- their side seemed to be doing even better. Since she was midair for the entire duration of the fight, nobody could attack her as cleanly, ensuring she had free reign to do whatever she willed. She repeatedly unleashed one ghastly attack after another, her phantoms lurking in the nebulous dimensions of beyond before diving out and striking at one of the servants.

The winds she made by merely fluttering her wings summoned an army of Dragonkin ghosts that had no fear of death, oftentimes taking the brunt of Servants’ attacks and saving Lukas some headache.

Senna worked in concert with Larua, often waiting for the ghosts to open up some defenses before commanding her weapons to attack. Cain noticed that almost everyone was mostly using the Skills they already had, just the empowered version.

It wasn’t strange, however, as, unlike Cain, they no experience with what it means to ‘Awaken’ or even what most skills they got did. This was also one of the reasons why their DPS wasn’t beyond optimal since they weren’t using the full array of Skills they had at their disposal. Jamal, for instance, continued to combo the Skills he already had, while using those he just got when his main ones were on the cooldown, not realizing that he could maintain sustained DPS without a break for nearly 1 minute, with only 10 or so seconds of downtime after.

Similarly, Daniel relied too heavily on the flurry-based attacks instead of charged, pinpoint accurate ones that could easily open up the King’s armor.

The best showcase was definitely by Diya who was remarkably good at adjusting to her newly-obtained Skills; in part, it was because she had to in order to keep everyone repeatedly topped off while their Vitality was being sapped, but in part, it was because of her high comprehension.

Five minutes would pass in a slightly stagnant style, with the focus mostly being on the raw output of sustained damage and dealing with Wights. The closest to danger it came was when Diya and Emma got linked, forcing Cain to babysit Diya so that she wouldn't accidentally get squashed during the random switch.

At a five minute mark, King Albadesh was at 77% Vitality, 77693 HP. Though it seemed as though their DPS was abysmal, the truth was that the King’s healing played a big role in keeping it that way, especially when both Emma and Jamal accidentally got hit by ‘Frayed’, healing the King for almost 15% of his Vitality through their combined, much larger Health pools.

The pace is good, Cain noted as the King's health slowly continued to drop, inching closer to the 70% mark when the second phase would begin. The other side is handling this well, and with worse defenses, our DPS should increase considerably even through empowered healing.

Cain maintained his constant DPS, rotating through four Skills almost exclusively without expending too much effort, saving most of it for the latter parts of the fight that would grow far more hectic. Even starting with the second phase, the vortexes will start attacking periodically, forcing everyone to constantly be moving, not to mention Ghouls that will increase Albadesh's attack constantly. Even if, in theory, in the worst-case scenario, he wouldn't even get a 10% increase in total, that was if his healing was excluded completely.

In reality, even at their optimal DPS output -- not including the new Skills they obtained since it was impossible to adjust to them like this, on the fly -- Cain expected an increase of anywhere between 15% and 20%. It will put some strain on Taima since he’s in charge of keeping Emma topped off, and she’ll have to dodge far more attacks than she is dodging now, but it will be doable. His defenses were likely scaled since, without Larua’s buffs, we wouldn’t stand a chance, Cain also realized. Or was this just par-for-the-course? Would we even get the option to challenge him if she wasn’t in our Party? We’d be lucky to even break through his defenses as they are now, and we definitely wouldn’t be able to outpace his healing...

The whole scenario stunk of another set-up that he fell for, but now was not the time to mull over it -- especially since the King surged with a storm of Mana for a moment, knocking Emma good fifty feet away and stabbing the trident into the ‘ground’ once again.

“Enough, puny Mortals!! I have played with you enough!!” he exclaimed as the storm of Mana began dripping directly into him, melting his armor partially in the process. “Your Servant beckons You, o' the Great Ones!! Give me the strength to heed Your mission!! Empower!!"

Well, Cain mused with the faintest of smiles. This is where the fun begins...