Climbing the mountain during the evening was already hard enough, the speed of the wind had picked up immensely, even though it was fast enough previously, it was now almost unbearable to even Reign and the others. Each step they took had to be careful and deliberate, otherwise, they might lose their footing and slip or even fall down, it didn't help that the wind would also move their body to the right during that time as well.
Falling down meant either being seriously injured or even dying at this point, the worst thing about all of this was that the monsters seemed to fare much better than them, most of the monsters occupying this part of the mountain were incredibly powerful and big, their huge, powerful bodies were enough for them to not worry about the wind that much. The only good part was that none of the monsters lived in packs, the bad thing was that they were all bosses and their level was anywhere from 45 to 49, thanks to their huge bodies however their defense was incredibly large.
Most of them were slow however and that was enough for Reign and the others to have a fighting chance, Tank, in particular, would always try to position himself so that the wind was blowing at his back, any time he was hit, the wind would help him stabilize faster, the bad thing was that if he didn't stabilize fast enough, the wind would propel him a bit forward which could prove to be dangerous when fighting against such powerful enemies.
During the course of the long climb, Reign and the others had to fight a total of 5 times, even without the wind those fights would be hard as they were up against powerful enemies, each of the bosses was a normal boss, that much was certain as there were no named bosses amongst them, compared to a dungeon boss they were all weaker, but their great size and defense together with the wind disrupting the party's movements were enough to make it incredibly challenging.
There were multiple instances where some of them got hurt from an attack they would otherwise be able to either dodge or properly defend against. The bosses they had to go up against were a huge gorilla, a mountain troll, a stone golem, a yeti, and finally a mountain giant which looked like a human but was over 6 meters tall.
The huge gorilla could move the fastest among the 5 bosses and it gave the party a headache when they encountered it. Its powerful muscles allowed for it to have erratic movement, that coupled with the incredible strength it possessed made it hard to block its attacks. Multiple times the gorilla tried to grab one of them, one time it missed and mistakenly grabbed a tree, the party was shocked to see the 10-meter-tall tree being crushed by the powerful grip of the gorilla without any difficulty.
Even Tank wasn't able to defend against such a boss properly as his shield wouldn't be that helpful if the gorilla managed to grab his body, luckily he was able to use the shields skill to block the grabs of the gorilla, but using it too often would tire him out too much so he tried his best not to lean too much on it.
The mountain troll fought with a club, to be more exact it fought using a tree-like a club. Each time its weapon got smashed to pieces it would simply grab another tree and use its strength to pull it up, even attacking the boss wouldn't change his mind when it came to pulling a tree out. That was the biggest reason why the boss was the easiest one to deal with, each time it got a tree, the party would focus their attacks on the tree to destroy it faster, of course, the long-winded attacks of the troll and its habit of smashing it against the ground with full force were already enough to destroy the tree fast.
It seemed that the troll didn't care much when it came to defending against attacks, it was incredibly slow and seemed to rely on its thick skin and powerful regeneration to mitigate the damage done by its enemies. Of course, Reign and the others weren't just any enemy and their offensive power was enough to completely lay waste to the troll and its powerful defense and regeneration.
The stone golem on the other hand, even though it was slow was still a tad faster compared to the troll. Its defense was also stronger but it had no regenerative ability, the pros it had however was the fact that it didn't feel any pain and had no real weakness on its body. The powerful stones that were infused with mana were strong enough to completely ignore the attacks of most monsters of the same level and even Reign and the others had trouble going through it.
Once they did, however, the rest of the job was easier, they mostly focused on attacking the golem's chest and soon enough they were able to get a glimpse of its core. The core of a golem was pretty much its heart and the only weakness it had, once the core was destroyed then the golem was dead.
Destroying the core wasn't easy however, it actually proved to be much harder compared to the golem's body. In the end, they all had to go all out in order to destroy it and Reign even used his [ Rage of the Kirin ] together with his black and white lightning. The attack that was powerful enough to go through most enemies met its match as even that didn't manage to destroy the core, but it did manage to make an ever so slight crack form on it.
The yeti was a monster nobody expected to find here as the mountain didn't have any snow. Yetis were monsters that usually liked incredibly cold places in most fiction, but somehow it was here. The yeti had an ability that let it control ice and even though it seemed to be incredibly low-leveled, it was still enough to completely change the flow of the battle whenever it was used.
The yeti looked similar to a huge monkey, but it moved and fought a lot more human-like, even its appearance was more human-like compared to monkeys as well. Since the yeti didn't attack them when it first saw them, the party thought that maybe they could simply keep their distance and go around it, but for some reason, it decided to roar after some time and charge at them.
The thick fur and the tricky ice ability made the yeti a powerful foe, not only was its defense strong, but its attacks were dangerous as well, punching, kicking, and grabbing, the monster did everything it could in order to win. It was only after fighting for over 30 minutes that the party was able to defeat it. After the fight they took cover in a nearby cave that probably belonged to the yeti, they had fought against 4 bosses and were incredibly tired so they needed to take at least a short rest.
After that came the final obstacle, a mountain giant. The giant looked exactly like a human, but only many times larger, it used a primitive-looking axe that it probably crafted himself. The axe was a big log that had a giant sharpened stone tied tightly at the end, although it looked extremely primitive and weak, the axe was able to destroy stones and cut, well smash trees with ease.
The mountain giant's long red hair and beard fluttered in the wind as it laughed wildly during the fight, it seemed to truly enjoy it. Even when it would get injured it showed no anger, the monster's eyes showed immense joy and gratitude during the fight as it seemingly gave its all during the battle.
As it lay down on the cold ground it smile weakly while panting a bit, still, it managed to turn its head around and face Reign and the others before flashing a great smile at them before finally succumbing to its injuries. Seeing someone enjoy a battle that much was a rare sight and Wolf even went to the giant and closed its eyes as a show of respect. They were all injured, their mana was running low and Wolf's arm was broken during the fight, but they had also managed to gather a huge amount of points from their trip up the mountain as well, each of the bosses dropped at least 3 transparent jewels while the giant dropped 5.
They didn't rest this time as night had already fallen, they didn't know how much more time they had left so they decided to get to the top of the mountain right away, luckily for them they only had about 100 meters until reaching the top. The wind was now blowing so fiercely that they weren't sure if they could even stand properly without Tank using his shields ability to shield against it.
The dome perfectly blocked it, but Tank reckoned that he might only be able to use it for about 10 more seconds in his current state, thanks to that they all hurried up the mountain and soon they were standing back on the top. The wind had mysteriously disappeared the moment their feet touched the ground at the top and they were finally able to rest.
The blonde-haired dragon-man was looking at them with a smile while the other players that were there looked like they had just seen a bunch of monsters arrive.
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