Chương 74: (B2 Chapter 25)

As soon as Hannah successfully lured the knight away, I turned towards the others.

"This is a tricky one," said Lucas, his eyes following Hannah as she ran along the wall of the cavern, the knight thundering behind her.

"I don't understand it. The more we hit it, the more our resources go down. And then there's the mouth, which takes away seemingly everything from us and makes it stronger. How are we going to beat this thing?" asked Marcus.

"I have a theory," I said, and everyone turned to look at me.

"I think there is a possibility that this boss is on a fixed pattern. First, it is completely invulnerable no matter how we attack it, and the more we do attack it the sooner we run out of resources. So, attacking it during that time looks to be impossible. But I don't think the dungeon would have made a boss that is invulnerable, don't you agree?"

The others nodded at my question, so I continued, "Then that makes what happens during the second phase of the pattern extremely important, but at the same time very tricky. I think the second phase of the boss, when that mouth appears, is when the boss is completely opposite to the first phase, in that it is completely vulnerable to our attacks. I say this because even though I went at it head-on and struck it right in its mouth at the crystal, the knight didn't react in any way to defend itself.

I think the tricky part of this boss is that we only have the chance to attack it when it is draining us dry and we are feeling weak, not to mention we can't communicate either as the thing drains all sound as well from the surroundings," I finished my thoughts as the others went deep into thought.

"That's a lot of assumptions," said Sam.

"It is, but Alex's assumptions are often right," Lucas immediately defended me.

"So, this is basically a race against time. We need to kill off the boss before it drains us completely," summarized Marcus perfectly.

"Exactly, and I think we should go all-out right from the start instead of waiting around. The more time it gets, the stronger it is going to become and the weaker we'll be. Soon, we won't even be able to do anything," I said, wanting to signify the importance of attacking it quickly.

"That's a good plan, but what do we do if attacking the knight doesn't damage it even when the mouth appears?" asked Madelline.

"I still don't think the dungeon would have an unbeatable boss, so the next logical point would be that crystal. Perhaps there is a set number of times that we have to destroy that crystal in the mouth for the boss to die, and the sooner we destroy it the less we will lose. This was what I believed at first to be the way to defeat this boss, but I don't think this is the way. If it were, the knight would actively defend the crystal instead of simply letting it be destroyed and starting another round," I answered.

Ever since the knight had first revealed that nightmarish mouth, I had been thinking about how to defeat this boss, and I believed that what I had thought about made sense. If it didn't, then repeatedly destroying the crystal is still an option, and if even that doesn't work, then I'm sure something else would, we'll just have to think about what it could be. We delved into a hurried discussion, keeping a constant watch on Hannah to make sure she was alright.

The plan was to go in with a simple physical attack to see if the knight could be damaged or not. If it could, then we would go all out in attacking the thing, but if the knight remained invulnerable, then we would start destroying the crystal as fast as possible while thinking of other possible solutions to the problem.

"It's changing!" Omar interrupted our discussion suddenly, and we all turned as one to see that the knight had paused and was once again revealing its monstrous mouth.

"Let's go!" I said as I stepped towards it, eager to solve the puzzle the dungeon had thrown at us. We all ran towards the boss and managed to reach it right before the mouth started inhaling. As I was the fastest, I reached it first and struck it in a gap in its armour on its knee. The dagger sank in, but this time it faced actual resistance and I felt that it had struck something!

I excitedly took out my dagger and turned to inform the group, but before I could get a word out the horrible sucking sound sounded out from above me. A feeling of weakness immediately hit me and I saw everyone stagger on their way over. I knew I wouldn't be able to verbally inform them that it looked like the idea had been correct, so I instead waited for them to look back up and then flashed them a huge grin and thumbs-up, while at the same time nodding furiously.

They immediately understood, and Madelline and Omar started preparing their spells while Sam and Lucas rushed in. I turned around and launched myself with quick step, managing to reach its head again and confirmed that the crystal was once again there. However, instead of targeting it, I struck a piercing strike right in its neck, while I clutched the chest plate by my other hand to remain in place.

My blow seemed to have struck something as a visible tremor spread through the knight, but otherwise it remained unmoving. Lucas and Sam had reached the boss by now and were repeatedly driving their swords into its knees, and the massive knight soon went down to one knee while I kept slashing at its neck and releasing a few wind bolts at the same spot I was slashing at. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

We kept at it, fighting through the constant and painful drain. Madelline had already hexed the knight with both her spells when Omar finally finished his light lance spell. It had taken him much longer than usual, which wasn't a surprise as even I found it much more difficult to make my far simpler wind bolt spell during this draining the knight was doing. The light lance was released and screamed its way to the knight, hitting it right at the neck which I had been busy hacking away at.

The knight, already down on one knee, was blasted back by the immense impact and was about to hit the ground when it suddenly moved its hand and caught itself. At the same time, a groan sounded out from the monster and a shockwave was released, exactly like it had earlier. The mouth vanished and the knight rose back to its full height, helmet back in place. Did Omar hit the crystal?

"Omar! Did you hit the crystal?" Lucas mirrored my question.

"Hey! We can talk again! And no, I did not! I hit its neck!" Omar said in a defensive tone. It did hit its neck… maybe crossing a damage threshold also makes this phase of the knight stop…? However, that gave rise to another question now. If damaging it beyond a certain threshold creates the same effect as destroying the crystal, does that mean taking out the crystal damages it as well as stop the devouring of our stats and resources?

If that's the case, then wouldn't it be smarter to destroy the crystal, as that would take far lesser time. The knight in question didn't care about any of my thoughts, and instead raised its massive sword and swung it down at Lucas, who put his shield up just in time. The blow was much more intense than anything the knight had unleashed earlier, and Lucas had to take a couple steps back to stabilize himself.

"It's gotten stronger again!" shouted out Lucas. The knight was stronger and much faster now, and it was actively pushing Lucas and Sam back now. However, it still seemed slow, at least to me. I opened my status to do a quick check and saw my stamina was at 47/100, while I was good for mana at 234/285. However, the alarming thing was that each of my stats now had (-6) written beside them, and I could now actually feel the difference.

My endurance was now merely at four, but luckily the dropped stats didn't seem to have any effect on my resources, otherwise I would have a maximum stamina of 40 and would have already run out of stamina. But what will happen once a stat reaches zero…? I shuddered at the thought, and instead focused back on the fight.

"Lucas! I'll take over at dodging the knight, both of you conserve your strength and rest!" I shouted, running over and attacking the knight with a dagger strike to the same knee we had targeted earlier. Surprisingly, the knight shrieked as if in pain, and moved its leg away from me even though I had felt zero resistance when I had struck. The damage we do sticks even after the mouth disappears! That means I was right! Taking it down when it is devouring is the right way to win!

A speedily approaching massive sword rudely interrupted my thoughts. I ducked below the blow and found myself facing the approaching massive shield instead. I instinctively used quick step to avoid it, the wind pressure from its passing destabilizing my footing for a second. The knight was much faster now, but at the moment I was still ahead in terms of speed.

"The boss's knee is still damaged! Its neck is probably in a much worse shape! We were right!" I shouted in between dodging the boss's constant attacks. I was easily staying ahead of the knight's speed, but dodging the attacks in this manner was too risky, so I took a page out of Hannah's book and started kiting the boss around the cavern. I was running along the wall while still thinking of this fight, the knight thundering behind me.

As I passed near the others, I shouted a few things to them, such as having Omar prepare his light lance spell in advance so that he doesn't take so long when the boss is inhaling. A few minutes later, the boss's loud movement ceased, and I turned around to see the helmet had just vanished, being replaced by the horrible mouth.

"It's happening, get ready!" I shouted, though Marcus had already alerted the group before me and they were charging at the boss. What followed was a repeat of what happened earlier, and this time we reached the threshold much quicker than we did earlier, which was good because all of us were now noticeably slower and weaker by now. The phase ended, and the knight's helmet appeared back on its head. It took a step forward and raised its sword towards Lucas, before it paused.

Its head turned to the right, and I followed its gaze to see Hannah had collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily but probably completely out of stamina. Not only was she the lowest level out of all of us, but like me, she hadn't focused on endurance, so she probably had very low stamina. Omar, Madelline, and Marcus also had low stamina, but they hadn't been running around the cavern kiting the boss earlier. As a moth to a flame, the knight turned and started limping towards the helpless girl on the ground.

Lucas and Sam taunted it but were outright ignored, the knight even had the gall to turn its head towards Lucas when he taunted it but then turned it back and continued on towards Hannah. All of us tried to strike it to stop, and while our repeated strikes to its damaged knee slowed it down and even staggered it, the knight kept doggedly advancing towards Hannah before it finally reached her. The knight raised its sword, as Hannah stared defiantly up at her approaching death.