Chapter 332

Roar of a King (XIII)

Cain steeled his nerves and instead of listening to his instincts which were screaming at him to blink away, he stood his ground--and let a barrage of chain-like tentacles pummel him. Every hit felt as though someone was pounding his body with a massive hammer, but he continued to suffuse himself with Mana, repeatedly casting several body-enhancing Spells that he had prepared specifically for situations like these, where he’d have to take to the frontline, at least temporarily.

In the meantime, Quinn had retreated and was being healed to full while also waiting for her defensive spells to come back up--both have quickly realized that nobody here could take more than a few hits from the behemoth without defensive cooldowns, which was why they were desperately looking for any other potential tank for the ‘just in case’ scenario.

At the same time, Harmony and Nature were trying to organize the damage dealers the best they could; occasionally, seeing their position, Cain would dodge a tentacle or two and let it crash, allowing melee fighters to contribute however slightly--every point of damage counted.

What frustrated Cain the most was the lack of conveniences--he had to intuitively figure out the cooldowns of his spells, how much Mana and Health he had, as well as how much health the behemoth had, not to mention everyone else. There was no easy way to track things and he had to simply take an educated guess on virtually everything.

The last tentacle lashed against him and finally managed to push him back, lacerating a small chunk of his upper chest. Though it had just barely broken through, he felt as though a giant boulder had slammed into him--taking with it an equally giant chunk of health. Retreating rapidly, he felt a shower of life wash over him soon after, trickling from several sources. At the same time, Quinn hurried to reposition herself to the front and began spamming every ability she had to try and draw the behemoth’s attention.

Eyes began to wiggle and Cain saw it preparing the wide-area attack once again, and he hurried to gather up the sand once more into a wall--the wall was smaller than the last time, however, on the account of the lost grains.

“Ah, fuck,” he mumbled when he saw the wall slowly collapse. “Another avenue where we all end up dead. “

At this point, Cain was contemplating retreat--as it stood right now, the situation has largely stabilized and people had either ran away or stuck around. Due to the rough start and on-the-fly attempt at coaching, there was little to no visible damage done to the boss. Furthermore, Cain himself couldn’t really focus on dealing damage as he had to constantly look after the tentacles and other attacks that got past Quinn and deflect them from others, not to mention saving Mana for when he had to take up the tanking duties.

Regrouping would allow both her and him to develop a proper timing in terms of going in-and-out, not to mention potentially finding an extra tank or two who could soak up at least a few attacks to buy them some time. It would also be a chance to form a proper raid group which, from the looks of it, was more than just an alternative way of dealing with the boss--it was likely a necessity.

Though they could continue as-is due to the fact that they did stabilize the situation temporarily, it would still be just stabbing blindly into the future while holding too few cards to change the potentially bad outcome. Running through all the possibilities, Cain waited for a while for his cooldowns to reset and to see whether the boss would do anything new before relaying his plan to Quinn.

“The next time he casts that wide-range eye ability,” he said. “We retreat.”

“Retreat?” Quinn arched her brows.

“Too risky,” he said. “We’ll just regroup and form a proper raid and treat this thing as a floor Guardian. Would you ever face a floor Guardian the way we’re facing this one now?”

“... no,” Quinn said, realizing herself just how insane just sticking around like this was. “Very well. I’ll let the twins know and we’ll coordinate a retreat. You hold the boss’ attention and then bolt away whichever way you can.”

“Ah, yes, leave the King alone. What fine subjects you are.”

“Yes, the best.”

“Alright, alright, get ready. It’s possible it might not just let us walk away.”

“Yeah, I’ll keep an eye out.”

Having configured a plan, both returned to fighting and deflecting the attacks, patiently waiting for the behemoth to ‘phase’ into attacking with its eyes. It happened some few minutes later, signaling to both that it was time to retreat. While Cain erected yet another wall of sand, this time with even less sand than the last, Quinn bolted back into the ‘audience’ and, alongside the twins and Lear, began quickly but precisely executing a retreat into the woods and beyond, away from the battle.

Cain remained floating in the sky as the wall crumbled, leaving him face to face with the innumerable eyes of the monster. For a brief moment, the world fell silent and unmoving as the beast’s eyes focused on him alone--he felt little, yet strangely emboldened within that gaze, and managed to squeeze out a grin before abruptly shifting around and bolting away with the speed of a thousand bolts.

He crossed the distance of several miles within a few moments and safely retreated as well, joining the others who were all still in a battle mode, in a formation with Quinn at the front, ready to intercept the behemoth if it broke into pursuit--which it didn’t. They remained affected still for nearly five minutes before finally sighing in relief and breaking down, their knees weak.

Cain landed and saw the scene in front of him, not unlike the one he’d seen a few times before after defeating a difficult boss. It was just that they hadn’t defeated it yet. Yet.

“A few more booked it?” Cain quizzed when he saw that the number of people had decreased yet again.

“Yeah,” Lear replied. “Didn’t feel worth it trying to hold them back.”

“Good choice. Let ‘em go,” he said. “Count?”

“Eighty-four people, us included,” either Nature or Harmony said. “What do you think? Enough?”

“Hell if I know,” Cain shrugged, taking out a beer from his inventory. “But what I do know is, I’m about to make eighty new friends. Lear, start cookin’ a meal for everyone,” Cain added. “While I hold one of my famous speeches.”

“You have famous speeches?”

“Oh, yeah,” Cain grinned. “They’re a thing of legends back home. And I’m about to make history here, too!”

“Wanna bet?”

“I’m jesting, geez,” he rolled his eyes, walking up to the mass of people that were staring at them with questioning gazes. Quinn and the twins were the only thrice-Awakened here, and even Cain seemed to have a certain degree of respect despite being ‘just’ Awakened. “Yo, everyone. As you saw, we almost got butt-fucked hard over there. That thing had so many cocks it’s a whore’s wet dream.”

“...”

“Wow. Tough audience,” he chuckled, taking a sip of beer before continuing. “Anyway, lame, decrepit pervy dad jokes notwithstanding, we were nearly fucked. The reason we retreated was to re-calibrate and form a proper raid group. While my party’s cook fixes up a nice dinner, we’ll rest and I want you guys to prepare to list out your skills and specializations over the dinner. We’ll form a raid party accordingly.”

“...”

“Alright, since a good chunk of you look just about ready to rod my ass,” he added. “Quinn here, a proper thrice-Awakened, will repeat literally everything I said, word-for-word, likely with the exception of all the dick jokes. Maybe, just maybe, your erection for my demise just might go away.”

Though he elicited a few laughs, quite a few people still looked at him with a level of contempt reserved for the purely Awakened. After all, there were only four people in total--him included--that weren’t at least twice-Awakened. And whatever little respect he managed to earn fighting, he lost making bad jokes.

“What?” he shrugged upon returning to Quinn, Lear, and the twins. “I really thought I read the audience well.”

“So, making one dick joke after another to an audience of old farts is reading the audience for you?” Quinn questioned. “Sometimes, just sometimes, I wonder whether you have a brain in that skull of yours.”

“Hey, I got a few chuckles. I just think they were too nervous to laugh.”

“No, no, pretty sure the reason they didn’t laugh was ‘cause it wasn’t funny.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I truly bombed. Oh well. I’ll just go help Lear with cooking. You know what they say--a path to man’s heart is through his bowels. Perhaps anatomically incorrect, but it’s a solid advice if you ever wanna be in a relationship.”

“... you’re helpless.”

“That does seem to be the consensus. Universe-wide, strangely enough.”

While Quinn and the twins relayed virtually everything Cain himself had said--short of bad jokes, of course--he joined Lear who was in the process of stoking flames while cutting up the meat. For the occasion, Cain decided to dig deep into his bag of spices and even pull out some expensive wine just to pour over.

“I thought a couple of jokes were funny,” Lear said suddenly. “So, don’t feel down.”

“Brothers in arms,” Cain hung his arm over Lear’s shoulder. “But let’s focus on cooking now. I’ll win those bastards over just yet even if I have to drug them.”

“...”

“What? It’s a hyperbole.”

“When it comes to you, I highly doubt it.”

“Brothers in arms my ass, you traitor. Keep cuttin’, I’ll start preparing broth.”