"Alright, so we'll play this safely," Axir said as he looked at everyone. "Yuta, you enter the first door."
"Kazuo, you enter the second door."
"And, who will enter the third door?" Axir looked at the girls.
Aoi, Lexi, and Selena looked at each other.
"Let's do rock, paper, scissors." Aoi grinned.
"Sounds good."
"Alright."
The winner turned out to be Selena.
"I'm going first. Don't miss me too much." Yuta opened the door and entered.
"ARGHHHHHH!"
Yuta's scream echoed out.
"What the fuck?!" Kazuo shouted.
Everyone was startled.
"Hahaha, just kidding!" Yuta laughed.
Kazuo snorted. "Bastard, you're dead."
Lexi rolled her eyes. "Idiot."
"What is there?" Aoi asked.
However, Yuta's voice no longer came outside, regardless of whether he was speaking or not.
"What's going on?" Selena frowned.
As if to answer her question, something happened.
The door Yuta entered suddenly closed, and an exotic X appeared over it, glimmering crimson.
Right after that, everyone heard a notification.
[ Party Member Yuta is dead. He will revive after one minute at the last visited respawn point. ]
"Damn." Kazuo gulped. "What the fuck?"
"It's your turn. Go, go." Aoi pushed him.
"I know, I know!" Kazuo planted his feet in front of the door.
After taking a deep breath, he said. "My luck is better. This is not a death trap for sure. And middle doors are usually the correct ones."
Opening the door, he entered.
Everyone blinked.
Wind whispered.
Huuuuu~ Huuu~
[Party Member Kazuo is dead. He will revive after one minute at the last visited respawn point.]
"The last one can't be a death trap," Selena confidently said.
'Well, she is right.' Axir looked at the third door.
"Logically, yeah." Lexi nodded.
Aoi chuckled. "Don't worry. At most, you'll die."
"I won't die. It's not logical." Selena shook her head while smiling and opened the door, then confidently entered.
They still couldn't see anything.
Seconds passed.
But even after ten seconds, her death notification didn't come.
'So this is it. The boss area.' Axir's eyes glinted. "Let's go. This is safe, I suppose."
Everyone entered inside and found themselves in a garden with crooked trees arranged in a neat circular array, and in the center was a strange magic circle.
[ Prepare to fight the boss of Wailing Mansion Moltimor — Wailing Wraith of Misery. ]
The magic circle glowed.
"The boss!" Aoi exclaimed.
"A level 50 elite boss…" Lexi gripped her sniper rifle tightly.
"Lexi, move back and aim," Axir commanded, and a card appeared before him. The 4-star card, Dark Rend Claws.
This card was utterly important for a normal party because this boss had strong regenerative power. But of course, he already had a weapon that could do that better.
He could solo this boss purely using his Ananta Sunborn Forge's armory. Those ten weapons were enough to destroy any boss because of the variety of crucial effects they provided.
And Librated Drift would allow him to dodge almost everything.
As for this boss, it had high physical damage resistance and was immune to stun, so the Roaring Impact Bat was useless, but he already had a perfect strategy to kill it with his arsenal, mainly thanks to his ten exotic weapons.
"Aoi. Focus, maintain distance, and try to hit it when you get a chance to inflict Verdict on it. But don't die if you want experience to level up."
SCREEEEEEE!!
The Wailing Wraith of Misery emerged slowly, as if being dragged into existence by unseen hands from the large magic circle covering 50 meters radius.
Its body was not solid, yet not fully incorporeal. A distorted humanoid silhouette hovered above the ground, wrapped in tattered, funeral-like robes that seemed sewn from shadow and regret. Long strips of spectral cloth trailed behind it, endlessly unraveling and reforming, never quite touching the ground.
Where its face should have been was a hollow veil of darkness, split by a vertical fissure that opened and closed like a screaming mouth. A deathly crimson eye. Vertical and large. Trembled violently.
Black chains phased in and out of its torso, some dragging along the garden stones, others piercing its own form as if binding it to suffering itself. Each movement caused the surrounding air to ripple, and normal grass and plants wilted instantly where its aura passed.
The garden reacted violently.
The strange crooked trees screamed, causing Aoi and others to close their ears.
The trees bent inward, leaves shriveling as whispers flooded the area. Not words, but emotions. Grief. Despair. Helplessness. The kind that made knees weak and thoughts sluggish.
[Accuracy -30%]
Everyone got a debuff.
The wraith's eyes stopped trembling, and it looked straight at Axir.
A translucent health bar burned into the air above it.
[Wailing Wraith of Misery]
- Level 50 | Elite Boss
- Vitality: 7000
- Mana: 5000
- Constitution: 700
- Agility: 250
- Perception: 300
- Arcane: 500
"S-Shit…" Aoi trembled.
Not just her, but Lexi and Selena also felt chills.
It was scary!
"Selena, destroy trees with this weapon! They are giving us the Accuracy debuff!"
The debuff was tricky because it was a forceful action. Even if they aimed correctly, it was their projectiles that were affected by 30% chance of going haywire because of those trees. They would fly in different directions with 30% chance unless they had a homing effect.
Selena hastily grabbed the weapon Axir threw.
It was Volstring Warbow. Axir had recalled it from Kazuo after he died.
[Volstring Warbow]
- Attack: 50 + (50% Arcane + Agility)
- Cost: 1 Mana per arrow.
—> Arrows ignite into charged flame constructs that magnetize targets, marking them. Follow-up shots automatically move toward marked enemies at a faster speed.
—> The more marks on target, the faster the arrows move towards them. If multiple targets are marked, you can assign the target of the arrows with your thoughts.
"Got it!" Selena's eyes shone as she understood why Axir gave her this. weapon. Because it was immune from Accuracy debuff!
Meanwhile, Dark Rend Claws hit the boss successfully as it hadn't begun moving yet when he used it.
The damage was just 3%, and it was healing, but slowly, due to a heal reduction debuff that reduced its healing by 50%.
The wraith screeched, releasing a ring-shaped sound-based AOE attack towards Axir.
Axir dodged easily by jumping high without needing to use Librated Drift.
A weapon appeared in his hands mid-air.
A chain-scytch with a blazing arc of purple flame on its curved blade.
[Pyrovamp Chain Scythe]
- Attack: 150 + (150% Agility + Arcane)
- Cost: 20 Mana per hit.
—> Each hit inflicts an unremovable burn that deals 1% of max health damage per second. Each stack lasts for 5 seconds, up to 5 stacks.
—> While this weapon is in hand, all burn damage from different sources from the user also inflicts heal reduction depending on the burn debuff on the targets, and bans heals if there are 5 or more stacks of burns on the target. Heals the user every second equal to the burn damage dealt, including burn damage from other sources.