FB: Chapter 97 – Battle Against The Unmentionable Horror

“Black Swamp Gas is growing in concentration out of the center of the swamp, approaching our position,” a staff member stated. I let out a sigh.

“It seems we are going with the main plan after all,” Quant Z said.

“I will leave the organization of the operation in your capable hands Quant Z. Support team, buff me,” I ordered.

“Unbalanced Life Link.” This skill would shunt damage onto the caster, killing them before me. It was a great way to divert critical and super critical hits.

“Unbalanced Soul Shield.” This skill would protect my MP from aura drain effects of the Unmentionable Horror by taking HP away from the caster instead at a reduced rate.

“Unbalanced Second Wind.” This skill was similar to Unbalanced Soul Shield but would shield my SP.

“Blessed Aura Of Recovery.” One of the few aura skills that could be cast on others. It would boost my HP regeneration.

“Resistance Boost Plus.” This would boost my max resistances to all spell damage by 10%. This would be especially helpful with Poison damage allowing me to recover more than normal from such damage.

The support team cast their long-range support skills as icons began to appear in the corner of my vision one by one showing the skills were active on me. Normally I wouldn’t go this far, but this fight was going to be a massive headache. I needed every advantage I could get. In guild battles this would have been overkill in some ways and risky in others. There were hex skills that did damage based on the number of support skills one had applied. While rare, they were a perfect counter to this type of external skill stacking.

That was a really good way for a high-level target to get instantly killed. One use of Invert External Support and I would die very quickly. That was why this kind of boosting strategy was not used against other players or monsters who might know that skill. Another good one was Hexism, which dealt critical damage for each support skill one had applied to themselves.

There was a video I saw once of a battle where Champion of a guild had over 100 support skills to become some kind of super fighter. When Hexism was used to counter this individual, the ensuing blast was so large that a large portion of the guild members near this Champion were vaporized as well. That ended the short lived strategy of boosting that had been used previously.

My super guild had a specialized hex build in the past, but it was never necessary. When a guild finally decided to try this strategy they would be in for a very rude awakening when they were hit with hex skills and suffered a complete reversal. We had a member focused on such skills as a secret trump card to counter such strategies.

I pulled out a 10 platinum Super Ghost Poison and poured it over my mega blade Slice. This would allow my weapon to hit ethereal monsters for the next day and deliver 50% of the damage. The lesser versions of this potion transmitted less damage, which was why I had purchased this expensive version.

I didn’t bother to use my last set of legendary poisons. For something like the Unmentionable Horror, they would be of limited use with its level and resistances. That kind of attack was better against large groups or a difficult target that wasn’t specialized in poison. The Unmentionable Horror was the wrong type of monster for this tactic.

Leaving the command area, I made my way towards the Black Swamp where I saw a massive cloud blocking out the reflection from the night sky moving forward. “Anti-spawn flares!” The shout went up across the teams who were stationed behind me at a distance. Red flares shot into the sky above the Black Swamp, costing a gold each. There were a hundred, which meant every minute we would be wasting a platinum in this battle to suppress all nearby monster spawning.

We needed so many to cover a large area and to stack on top of each other to prevent high level spawns. “Cannons, ranged fire!” Four large beams passed me and struck the large clump of dark clouds that had a red tint to them from the flares. There went 40 platinum to fire these high end siege weapons. Using cannons in guild battles, I might as well just slit my wrists and bleed out platinum for how much they cost. The cannons themselves cost 100 platinum each. Hopefully they weren’t damaged or destroyed in this battle.

Massive explosions erupted creating giant shockwaves pushing away the cloud of mist and killing any Diseased Ghosts that might have been hiding. Boss monsters often had an entourage which should have just been vaporized. A thing made of too many limbs, blades, maggots, bones, and rotting flesh came out of the mist. There was our lovely Unmentionable Horror. Any attempt to take pictures of this monstrosity would just leave blurry images. One of the mouths was puking a constant stream of chunky barf. Lovely, just absolutely lovely. My mental sarcasm was clearly exceeding ‘S’ levels for this battle.

The entire thing was moving in my direction. The cannons would have only tickled such a high level boss monster. Since it was over level 400 and a boss monster of the zone, it wasn’t going to be easily killed and cheesing it would be impossible. QAI really ramped up the combat ability of higher level monsters and NPCs. I took a deep breath to center myself and brought up Slice as I advanced.

Another round of anti-spawn flares lit up the night sky. “I am God Slayer Foxy Blight!” I shouted out using my highest ranked title.

“Your soul will be a nice addition,” a screeching voice like nails on a chalkboard roared out from the monster as we advanced on each other. QAI really liked its dramatics, but I wasn’t complaining. This would only add to my legend. While the Slayer title track was known, I could tell that everyone would be speculating on my title. The fact that the monster responded showed that even the level 400 boss monster gave it some respect.

“Vortex Of Suffering.” That did not sound good as a massive tornado began forming around the Unmentionable Horror. I noted blades of darkness leaking green liquid began to form. Death blades combined with poison packaged with a tornado, how wonderful. Well thankfully I had planned for the Unmentionable Horror to pull out some kind of area effect nonsense like this. All high level monsters and NPCs had a similar skill.

“Seal Magic!” A hundred people in the distance used that skill at the same time. Over ninety of them sharded from receiving return super critical damage. The skill had a percentage chance of working based on a large number of factors. Their sacrifices were appreciated and necessary to fight the Unmentionable Horror since it wouldn’t be able to use Vortex Of Suffering while the people who had used Seal Magic were alive and within a certain range. Already they were being pulled back and covered by other guild members.

“Death Beam!” I swung Slice in front of me to tank the black beam. I was pushed back through the water for the couple of seconds the beam lasted as black specks with a white corona flew around the blade and hissed when they hit the water I was standing in. Unbreakable really was useful for a mega blade if one knew how to exploit that property to shield oneself. I was glad I had been practicing recently to take on ranged magic attacks.

The ranged attack stopped. I advanced towards the Unmentionable Horror as it roared and shambled towards me. A bone armed appeared out of its misshapen body and swung towards me. I used three Force Wall consumables at the same time, that I had ready in my off hand. All three barriers shattered and I was only slightly pushed back from the blow, while also using my mega blade to block.

“Vomitatis!” One of the mouths on the Unmentionable Horror opened to barf in my direction. That was my skill! The half second it took to unleash on me allowed me to pull out vial of Ultra Condensed Base Powder and shatter it. The acidic and poison barf hit me. The acid was countered by the 10 platinum consumable while the poison would only heal me. The smell was horrible but I was used to it. Even when some of the barf and chunks got into my mouth I didn’t panic.

I closed the last bit of distance and brought up Slice and slammed it down on the monster. There were just several sparks. It wasn’t a critical hit unfortunately and didn’t do any damage due to the absolute level advantage. I pulled my blade back and slashed at another point that might be a weak spot. More sparks, which was a visual indicator meaning no damage was dealt.

“Divinum posco.” That was bad. A Latin chant meant it was going to unleash divine skill. “Animam consumer.”

“Blink!” I quickly teleported away from the teams of people at the edge of the Black Swamp off to the side. I had no idea what divine skill this was going to do but I was already deploying five Null Shields and Force Walls as quickly as I could pull the consumables off my bandolier while planting Slice in the water in front of me.

“Horror Unleashed!”

Nothing happened for a second as my consumables ran their course. The Unmentionable Horror had all its mouths open. I frowned trying to think what was happening and then my eyes went wide in shock. I pulled out a consumable I didn’t think I would have to use, Concentrated Holy Water. I quickly opened the container and poured it over my head.

Black smoke began rising from my body. That had been way too close. It was some kind of curse skill that would probably transform me into a monster, with a high chance of lingering for a very long time or being permanent. Divine skills were messed up like that. High level battles came with high level risks. It was also how the game pulled people over to the dark gods at the higher levels to help balance things out. Once one started above level 120, things became much riskier.

I pulled out another Concentrated Holy Water and poured it over myself just to be sure. Each one cost 10 platinum, but now wasn’t the time to be stingy. Another round of flares were launched into the sky. The cannons fired once more. I squinted as four massive explosions erupted against the body of the Unmentionable Horror. There was some minor damage based on some visual scorch marks, but not much. It was just too high level for stuff like magical cannons to really work.

Thankfully the damage, however minor, should disrupt the divine skill if it was an ongoing skill. It was a good call by Quant Z. While I had mentioned the possibility, it was one thing to know and another to act quickly in the moment.

I rushed back in towards the Unmentionable Horror. “Blink.” I teleported a short distance to the side as the massive bone arm swept through where I had just been. I needed to reserve my teleportation skill for critical moments, since I wasn’t going to be able to kill this monster in one shot.

I tossed out several breakable containers of Condensed Mineral Water on the monster which began to smoke. It hesitated slightly as it reoriented its bone arm to swing back towards me. I needed to act quickly. I swung Slice. “Slice!” I used the weapon’s innate skill just before I hit.

The skill unleashed sparks, but this time I managed to land a critical blow. Green pus and black gas leaked from the wound around my blade. I got my blade free just as its bone arm swung again. “Blink!” I teleported to the side slightly just on the other side of the bone arm.

I swung again and delivered another attack to the Unmentionable Horror. The follow up attack just left sparks in its wake. “Death Beam.” I placed my blade in front of me to act as a shield as the black beam struck it.

The bone arm came back around, and Blink was still on cooldown. I used four consumables to create four Force Walls. Three broke and the fourth one cracked heavily from the blow. Another bone arm emerged from the Unmentionable Horror and swung down at me as the Death Beam finally stopped.

I grabbed my blade and dove to the side as the bone arm slammed down into the water where I had been. I quickly came to my feet as the first bone arm swung towards me. “Blink.” I teleported away. I quickly used various potions while looking at the monster.

It began to quickly shamble towards me, far faster than a monster that size should be able to move. Four more explosions struck it and made it stumble. That was another 40 platinum used up. Still any damage was appreciated, since this fight was a literal nightmare and the kind of fight I hated. One where I didn’t instantly win and had to spend a lot of money.