Chapter 329

Roar of a King (X)

Cain, Quinn, Lear, and the twins reunited some few days after the ‘trial’, with everyone besides Cain earning a reward of their own, mostly a fruit or a seed that permanently improved their stats. Cain remained silent on the issue of the ‘reward’ he’d gotten, especially because the ‘quest’ for it was for him to simply promise he’d fight. It wasn’t even to sign a contract or anything, but make a simple, verbal promise.

Though it weighed heavily on him, for the time being he put it in the back of his mind. There was no point in mulling over something that he’d eventually end up doing. As for the consequences... those he would face head-on when they would come. He was ready.

For the time being, he shifted his focus over onto the second Awakening. He had no clue where to go, but others did. Naturally, they’d have to leave this world--and nobody did seem to mind it. They all got at least something from it and though faintly tempted to stick around, they’d witnessed and experienced too many strange things. This world wasn’t like others that they’d witnessed; no other portal they took within the Prime World led them anywhere close to anything like this.

The group slowly took a trek back to where they first landed, though weren’t in a terrible hurry to get there since, according to Quinn and others at least, the way back won’t open for at least another month. The group took the time to simply take in the vistas--from the safe distance--as the world, though clearly not taken care of, was beautiful. After all, there was a certain level of cosmic beauty to the way the nature itself wove the tapestry of its making outside mankind’s influence.

“What are you hoping to achieve with the Awakening?” Quinn asked Cain as everyone else settled down and began eating. They’ve picked up the habit exclusively from Cain as all of them had long since stopped eating for leisure.

“Not sure, to be honest,” Cain replied. “More firepower? Maybe access to a few more elements? It’s hard to say without knowing the offers.”

“Firepower? You don’t need more firepower,” she rolled her eyes, as did the others. “Are you kidding me? You blew up a King with your current firepower!”

“It’s the items and titles,” Cain sighed. “Class-wise, I actually don’t have a lot of firepower. In terms of raw, base damage, I’m a fiddling kid, really. Sacrifice for the versatility, I suppose.”

“Then lean into being versatile,” either Harmony or Nature said. “Don’t try to be everything from the base. Items and titles are there to supplement our weaknesses and shortcomings.”

“I guess I could pick up a healing sub-class...”

“Oh shut up,” laughter rang out briefly before Quinn continued. “What does your party lack the most? Us included?”

“Experience,” he replied quickly. “Outside of you. With you? Experience still. I didn’t even realize it until I fought next to you guys. Hopefully, they’ll have grown considerably in my absence.”

“Besides the experience. Something tangible.”

“... magic firepower,” Cain shrugged. “Outside of me, I don’t think we actually have a proper mage. Everyone’s either some form of a melee fighter or non-magic ranged. They’ve never bothered looking for another mage, I think, since they figured I can just carry the burden.”

“Did you?”

“Oh yeah. But it will stop eventually,” Cain added. “I’ll have to specialize in a few elements and not stretch myself out beyond my means. We’ll have to find other mages to supplement where we lack firepower. But that’s for the future. For now, to be honest, we don’t lack anything. They’re a really talented bunch, you’ll see. They just need time to come into their own. What about you, Lear? What do you hope to get in the third Awakening?”

“Speed,” Lear replied immediately. “More speed.”

“Aren’t you already super fast?” Cain quizzed.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “But I want to be faster. I’ve went all-in on the element of lightning, which is all about explosive burst of speed and damage. So, may as well get more of it.”

“Smart,” Cain nodded. “The faster you are, the easier it is to run away from things.”

“Hey!”

“No knack, man!” Cain laughed. “I wish I had the speed to run away from my problems! I’d be leaving human-shaped imprints everywhere, I’m telling ya’.”

“Haah... is there a thing in this world that you take seriously?”

“Taking shit.”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“What? Taking shit is a serious business!”

“We’re eating.”

“You’re literally the one who cooked.”

“Sometimes I truly wish I could set you on fire.”

“I’d add the fuel happily.”

“Hey, this entire conversation,” Cain said. “It’s giving me a sense of deja vu.”

**

A bolt of lightning as thick as the trunk of a grown, oak tree split from the dark skies and forced Kramer to heave his shield up and take it head-on. Grunting, he spat out a mouthful of charred blood and knelt against the ground, though continued to hold his arm and shield up.

Shimmering light of grace washed over him soon after, his health pooled back up from the terrifying 15% that it had fallen to. It wasn’t the first time--it was actually tenth. By now, he was somewhat accustomed to seeing his health plummet from full to nearly the brink of death, but seeing it flash so rapidly was still a scarring experience.

In the meantime, Emma appeared in front of him and aggroed the adds, ten in total, allowing him to take a step back and let Yuki heal him back up to full. Looking around, he saw that everyone was woefully frustrated--they’d been fighting the boss for nearly four hours now, and that was without a single break. It wasn’t that the boss was particularly hellish or that they’d reached their ceiling as a party--the truth was far simpler. The boss took 80% reduced physical damage. That was it. That was the stoppage.

As it turned out, outside of Cain, the member of their party with the greatest damage output in terms of raw magical damage was... Emma. Their tank. As for others, Jamal would occasionally spike, but all his magical damage was extremely situational and entirely sporadic.

Because of this conundrum, the group had been forced to chip away at the boss’ massive health bar slowly. The boss itself was a giant-like figure clad in shimmering, plated armor, wielding four weapons in its four arms. It dealt a decent mix of physical and magical damage and would summon adds every so often.

Everyone in the party knew that if they had just dragged Lek along, they would have likely been done by now even while lacking their true magical DPS. However, they didn’t. In fact, it wasn’t even their full party--Ethan, Senna, Daniel, and Lek had stayed behind as everyone expected the dungeon to just be a short distraction for some meager gear upgrades. They were, however, terribly wrong.

Even Yuki was forced to assist in trying to damage the boss since he actually dealt more magic damage than Elypso, Kramer, and even Sigmund. The only truly scary part of the boss fight was the very lightning attack that Kramer just took head-on--somebody had to take it head on and the thing dealt base 60,000 damage.

Among Emma and him, Kramer could take the most damage head-on due to the nature of his tanking, since unlike Emma who relied on restoring her health through attacking and thus didn’t have many damage reduction skills, he did. Even so, mistiming anything could mean a potential death since there’s nobody in the party that actually can take 60,000 damage straight on outside of him.

As such, he was mostly tasked with just taking that strike on, with occasionally taking on adds for Emma for her to go and damage the boss since she was their main damage dealer in the fight. It was a frustrating battle all around, but it was also a massive eye-opener. They’ve been spoiled, namely in that they never needed to look around for a mage. Cain was always there and did the role of the entire party even in a raid-sized fight.

But now they had to fight without him--and though their lack of magic damage was something everyone was aware, nobody thought it would be this damning. It was also extremely scary as they’ve lucked out considerably. If the boss was harder, especially on Yuki’s Mana... they would have all died, unquestionably.

It was one of the many things they had to fix in Cain’s absence, but for now they could put it in the back of their heads as the clearer goal was right ahead of them: continue to chip away at the remaining 60% of the boss’ health and pray they don’t lose their minds by the time the curtain is drawn and the giant lays defeated. It was undoubted that many-a-spit will be headed its way, through no fault of its own.