Chương 138: Warden of the Sun Below

The second the door split open enough for Denxy to move through, he jumped into the boss chamber, no questions asked. Alice was next, and I followed right behind her, with the others close enough that I could feel their breath on my neck. We ended up in a circular chamber with a high, domed ceiling, six carved pillars, and a floor made of black stone with gold veins that pulsed slowly, as if the chamber had a heartbeat.

At the far end stood a throne made of obsidian, and the boss sitting on it came alive almost instantly. Ajaw K'in, Warden of the Sun Below Level 25 Dungeon Boss He was easily three meters tall, clad head to toe in golden ceremonial armor, although when he stood, the weight of it made the whole place tremble, so I figured it was just as practical as it was pretty. An ornate mask covered his face, shaped into the same sun we'd seen on the walls throughout the whole cave, and a crown of small sunrays rising above it.

Behind the eyeholes, orange light burned, adding to the aesthetic. In one hand, he held a wide-bladed macuahuitl edged with glowing gold, and the first thing that came to my mind was surprise, as I knew the name of the weapon. It looked like a club, but it was flat, with golden molar-like metal pieces on each side. In the other, he had a round shield marked with a black sun. The chamber sealed behind us. I checked the time; we entered exactly when we should have, and thus, the thirty minutes had begun.

Ajaw K'in stepped off the dais, and a notification appeared. Sun Chamber Activating in 10 seconds! Healing received by any player restores Ajaw K'in's health. Standing still inflicts Burning Ground.

"No healing?" Denxy cried out.

"Are you kidding me?"

"You'll be fine, big guy," Desirae said.

"But I'm useless."

"Focus on buffs instead," I said.

"Shields, barriers, callouts. Anything that isn't a heal."

"And keep moving," Alice added, already picking up the pace.

"A continuous dot without Desirae keeping us alive is not something we can afford."

"This is going to be fun," Somnus said while stretching. I looked around the chamber. Six pillars, sun marks everywhere, golden veins on the ground. There would definitely be other mechanics throughout the fight.

"It's sun-themed," I pointed out the obvious.

"Probably immune to light, weak to dark."

"I wouldn't use fire, either," Redcap said.

"The sun is fire, after all." That was a good point. Sun Chamber Activated! Ajaw K'in moved a second after the prompt had appeared. He was slow, and each step made the gold veins in the floor flare brighter beneath his feet. We opted for a circling motion, keeping a slow but steady pace to avoid the DoT, while Denxy moved in a side-to-side pattern, closing in on the boss with his shield raised.

"Chain Aggression!" The boss's burning eyes snapped to him, and then the macuahuitl came down. Denxy took it on the shield, but he couldn't plant himself the way he usually did. The moment his boots stopped moving, flames crawled up from the floor around his ankles. -43 -43"Move!" Alice shouted. Denxy was already doing it, shuffling sideways once again, while holding the shield between himself and the boss. I could only imagine how weird it was for a Guardian to keep moving.

Tanks were supposed to anchor fights, but now Denxy had to hold aggro while circling, blocking, stepping, adjusting, never staying still for more than a heartbeat. Ajaw K'in attacked again. Denxy caught the strike, stepped back, pivoted, and kept moving.

"Annoying," he grunted.

"Keep it up," Redcap said, spear in both hands as he moved in from the side.

"Let's confirm immunities," I told Desirae while already charging up a Burning Arrow. She nodded and summoned a lance made of holy light, sending it right after my shot. Both attacks hit the boss's chestplate, exploded, and did absolutely nothing.

"Fire's dead," I called.

"So is light. Somnus?"

"Shadow Bolt Barrage." That one looked highly effective, so our deductions from earlier were on point.

"Alright," Alice nodded.

"Keep moving and burst it down fast." That was easier said than done. The circling motion worked well enough, but the whole thing immediately felt unnatural. Everyone had habits, and most of those habits were built around short moments of stillness. You stopped to aim, or to cast. You stopped to block, to dodge, to line up a skill, to decide what to do next.

Even a fraction of a second was enough for the Burning Ground to trigger, and while the damage was not insane on its own, it became much more serious when Desirae couldn't simply erase the mistake afterward.

"Guarding Grace," she cast, and a faint golden barrier wrapped around Denxy's shoulders and chest. Ajaw K'in's next strike landed on the barrier instead of his health bar, cracking it instantly, but the spell had at least absorbed the impact. The boss pressed forward, shield raised, macuahuitl coming in a second time from the side, and Denxy had to angle his shield while stepping back in a careful half-circle. He was doing well, but he clearly hated every second of it.

Redcap darted in from the boss's right side and drove his spear into a gap beneath the golden breastplate. The hit landed, and the Warden answered by turning his shield arm sharply enough to force him back. Alice came in right after, lightning crackling over her blade, and carved a line across the back of the boss's knee before moving out of reach again. I kept firing at the joints. The boss was large, and covered in enough gaps that a Ranger could work with easily, even while moving.

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"Piercing Shot." The arrow struck the inside of his right elbow just as he raised the weapon again. It didn't stop the swing, but it made his arm jerk wide enough that Denxy only had to take half the impact on his shield instead of the full strike.

"Good shot," Denxy grunted, still circling. I didn't answer, mostly because I was already moving away from a golden vein that had started to flare under my left foot. The Burning Ground never gave much warning. One moment the stone was dark, the next it brightened, and if you were still there after that, you paid for it. A sphere of golden light appeared near one pillar, and the boss's armor brightened almost immediately, powering up.

"Destroy the light!" I called. Redcap was on it before I finished talking, and a well-placed Sweep shattered the orb moments later, dimming the glow of Ajaw K'in's armor, easing the pressure on our tank.

"That's priority," Alice said.

"Orion, take the orbs whenever you can. Redcap, help him if they spawn low."

"Understood," Redcap said. The next orb bloomed two pillars over, too far for Redcap to reach, so I took it myself. I drew and let the Hunt answer. The arrow left Spriggan's Will on a flat line toward Ajaw K'in's hip, and the spirit shaft split off a heartbeat later, curving high before it dropped onto the orb from above. The bright light shattered, and the Warden's armor dimmed a shade.

I turned back to the boss immediately, and sent another arrow forward, once again, splitting, attacking Ajaw K'in from two different sides. Whatever the Hunt's arrows were made of, his immunities had no answer for it. We were doing steady progress. Denxy had adjusted to the new tank-and-move tactics, Alice and Redcap were carving chunks out of the boss, but our Acolyte had ever so slightly taken the lead on the DPS.

"Somnus," I called.

"He hates your stuff. Don't hold back."

"I never hold back." He was already weaving the cast of something I'd never seen before.

"Void Arrow." An arrow of dark energy streamed across the chamber and hammered into the boss's flank, dealing massive damage, staggering the Warden. An hour ago Somnus had asked us to carry him through a room full of shadows, but in a room built around the sun, the man who'd called himself deadweight in the maze was suddenly hitting harder than any of us.

"Oh, I like it here," he said.

"Hey, arrows are my thing," I grinned.

"You should trademark them, then." After three light orbs, Denxy had figured something out. He'd been catching the boss's club on his shield and giving ground constantly, but on the next swing he stepped wide instead of back, angling himself so the heavy blade carried past his shoulder and into the pillar behind him. The stone cracked down its length and came apart in chunks, and the orb that had been gathering near its base guttered out as it fell.

"There," he grunted, already shuffling toward the next one.

"The pillars are spawning them. Bait him into one, break it, and that's one less feeding him. They don't come back after." The Guardian kept holding the front in a slow, grinding half-circle, never planting his boots for more than a step before the veins under him brightened and forced him on, baiting the boss into destroying the pillars. Desirae stayed at his shoulder, trading the heals she couldn't cast for the barriers she could, catching the macuahuitl whenever the boss broke Denxy's guard.

Alice and Redcap worked the gaps in his armor from either side, and I kept to the rim of the room, preserving my mana for potential burst windows. After the last pillar came down, the Warden changed gears. He'd been ponderous until then, a wall we chipped at. Then his armor flared all at once, the orange behind his mask burning brighter, and the next swing of the macuahuitl came in at twice the speed. Denxy caught it on instinct and got driven back over two veins that lit the moment he stopped.

"He's faster!" Denxy barked, shuffling clear.

"Mark of the Eagle. Nature's Howl." The buffs settled over me, and I began firing with no restraints, Wild Hunt arrows bypassing the buckler in the Warden's hand, hitting him from all unguarded sides. He recoiled, and Alice was already inside his reach with lightning crawling up her blade. We dragged him under fifty, then under thirty, but the room kept punishing us every time we stopped. At least no more orbs had spawned, even though destroying the pillar was the likely cause of the sudden burst of speed.

"Nine minutes left!" Alice called.

"We need to start doing real damage, or we'll run out of time!" Constantly moving reduced our effective DPS by a lot, but we couldn't risk the DoT with no healing available. It was not a hard boss to fight; it just took time we didn't have. Redcap was at half health, and Denxy didn't fare much better either. Desirae was saved by Somnus's debuff counter once, but that had a major cooldown. At twenty percent, Ajaw K'in drove his weapon into the floor, and the chamber dimmed.

The veins disappeared, the fire behind his mask dropped to embers, and the others slowed at once, half-blind in a room that had been bright a heartbeat ago. I didn't slow, and neither did Somnus. Twilight Hunter peeled the gloom into shapes the instant the light fell, and the rest of the passive came with the sight: the small surge of speed and the extra bite in my draw that the dark handed me. Between my eyes and Somnus's Night Vision, we were the only two who could still operate, so we called it for the others.

Props to Denxy, he didn't lose aggro. He was blind, constantly moving, yet he kept the boss's attention throughout the entire fight. I read his swings before they landed and the veins before they lit, steering four half-blind people through a room that wanted them dead, while Somnus's bolts kept the pressure up. Alice's and Redcap's attacks were guided by my calls, although both of them had adjusted faster than most players would have.

The light returned after five minutes, Adaptive Growth was at the maximum, and each of my shots hit like a truck, punching through the gaps in his armor.

"Ten percent!" Redcap shouted.

"Push!" Ajaw K'in stopped. He drew up to his full three meters, planted the macuahuitl point down, and went still in a way we couldn't, while the mask split along its sunrays and white light began pouring out through the seams. The veins in the floor died completely once again, although Denxy found out that the DoT was still threatening us the hard way. And then a miniature sun had formed in the air. A notification appeared across my vision. In eight seconds, light becomes fatal. Seek the pillars for shadows.

"Eight seconds!" I shouted, then I froze just enough to eat a Burn for the first time. We had the pillars destroyed. The entire room was made of light. Four seconds. I looked around and saw the same conclusion settling on everyone's face. Everyone's, but Somnus's.

"On me!" he shouted, and there was no casual laziness in his voice this time. We jumped, we ran, we used whatever movement ability we could.

"Void Obscur." He said after we'd gathered around him, still moving. Darkness unfolded from him in a circle, spreading like smoke, replacing the light where it touched. The orange glare pouring from the false sun above struck the edge of the spell and bent around it, thinning, breaking, losing shape. Then the spell stretched across the floor toward us like a black tide, swallowing the broken carvings.

The darkness reached us with maybe a second to spare, folding over our heads into a dome just as the count ran out, and then the false sun let go. White light slammed outward in every direction, swallowing the walls, the floor, the broken throne, everything past the edge of Somnus's spell. It hit the dark and stopped.

The two met along a hard line barely a meter from where we stood, the glare straining to push through and the shadow refusing to give, and I could see the cost of it on Somnus's face as he held the circle together.

"Keep moving," he gritted out.

"Small steps. The ground's still hot." So we shuffled in place inside the dark, six of us crammed into a space barely wide enough to hold us, while the Burning Ground kept hunting for anyone careless enough to plant their feet. The light hammered against the spell for what felt far longer than it could have been, and then, all at once, it guttered and died. The false sun collapsed, and Ajaw K'in went down with it. The mechanic had emptied him.

The mask hung open along its broken sunrays, the fire behind it down to a weak flicker, and the Warden sank to one knee with the macuahuitl planted in front of him to keep from falling over entirely. It was staggered.

"Now!" Alice called, though I was already drawing. Adaptive Growth was capped, and the Warden had no shield arm up to read my shots. I poured everything I had left into the gaps in his armor, each arrow split by the Hunt so two struck for every one I loosed, while Somnus's Void Arrow caught the Warden in the side hard enough to rock the whole three-meter frame.

Alice opened the back of his neck, Redcap drove his spear up beneath the broken mask, and Denxy — free of holding aggro for the first time in almost thirty minutes — brought his shield down across the boss's wrist. The health bar emptied before he could stand. Boss defeated: Ajaw K'in, Warden of the Sun Below The light behind the mask went out for good. The golden armor dimmed to dull bronze, and the towering shape folded down onto the obsidian dais and stayed there.

"Time?" I asked, already bracing for it.

"Fifty seconds," Denxy said, and the breath he let out turned into something close to a laugh.

"Fifty." The far wall opened, revealing a passage. We gathered the drops fast — an Epic among the Rares — and Somnus, who'd dropped the spell the moment the boss died, was already by the opening with his usual slouch back in place.

"After you, arrow man," he said. We stepped through into a circular chamber, and two teams were already there waiting for us. Verdugo's people were sprawled across the broken steps on one side, looking like they'd settled in a while ago, while Cyrus's team held the other, Alysanna on her feet the second she caught sight of me. The last wall carving — the sun, the only marking still dark — flared to life as we crossed the threshold, and all three burned together. I found Cyrus's eyes across the room.

He raised an eyebrow.

"Took you long enough."