The fall of the tortoise was a long and arduous one. Reign and the others had fought for over 1 hour against the tortoise and its brethren.
The constant attacks from the Tier II monster and the other ones had made it hard for them to fully focus and commit to attacking one tortoise and breaking its defense, which made the whole fight much longer than it needed to be.
The tortoise had a few more tricks up its sleeve, instead of only using its ability and attacking them that way, it would also occasionally retreat to its shell before using its ability in order to launch itself toward Reign and the others.
The huge tortoise would destroy anything in its path after being launched, but it would simply bounce off if it hit any of the smaller tortoises, making the move one that had no real weakness.
The other tortoises, however, had no such things.
Compared to other monsters, they were much more focused on defending while occasionally attacking Reign and the others from long-range with their abilities.
It took them a full 13 minutes just to finally break through the shell of the first tortoise. After doing that, the rest was easy as the defenseless tortoise was barely able to take a couple of attacks before dying.
It wasn't only because the tortoise was weak without the shell, but also the fact that it had taken tens of attacks before that, and even though they were blocked by the shell, the impact would produce a small shock that would go through the whole body.
The tortoise was already heavily injured from all of the internal injuries it had suffered before the shell was broken, making it incredibly easy to finish it off.
As for the others, they all followed the same path the first one took. Compared to then, the next four tortoises became easier and easier to deal with. There were fewer of them than before, which meant that the damage would no longer be split the same as before.
It still took Reign and the others about 45 minutes to deal with all five of the tortoises. They were already incredibly tired at that point, their bodies were littered with wounds, even more than before when they had fought against the lizard.
The tortoise, however, fared no better.
Even though it didn't seem injured, it was exhausted as constantly attacking Reign and the others with numerous attacks had drained its stamina and mana reserves. By the time Reign and the others had started fighting against it, it was already running on fumes.
It would occasionally lash out and use its ability, but unfortunately for the tortoise, offense was never its forte. The incredible defense and the array it had with the other five tortoises was what made it so incredibly difficult to deal with.
When left without that, it was weaker than most Tier II monsters, but still possessed higher defense than normal.
It was a bother to defeat it.
It took Reign and the others more than 20 minutes, maybe even half an hour before they were able to crack its shell.
After cracking it, the shell suddenly became much less difficult to damage.
The tortoise cried out in pain multiple times, but Reign and the others would have none of it. The only thing on their minds was destroying the monster that had made them fight for so long.
The shell hid the soft flesh of the monster that was easily damaged by Reign and the others who mercilessly started slaughtering it.
In their excitement to finally win, they had forgotten that the tortoise was still a Tier II monster. It used its ability one last time, this time producing an attack that was much more powerful than any before.
The earth some 400 meters around the tortoise shook as if an earthquake was happening before numerous spikes and small craters appeared.
Some of the spikes even broke off the moment they appeared before being launched high in the air and falling down on the tortoise.
The first 100 meters around the tortoise were filled with the spikes while the other 200 meters weren't as almost all of the spikes had broken off and were launched into the air.
There was nowhere that Reign and the others could escape in order to evade the attack that came so quickly. They all gave it their all and defended against the spikes, most of them getting injured in the process.
Tank was almost impaled through the stomach by one of the spikes, but luckily Wolf was right next to him and he was able to position himself in the front and block the spike with his sword.
The ones that suffered the least from the final attack were Beast and Laura who were attacking from afar.
The tortoise as well was injured from its final attack as some spikes had fallen down on it and had managed to pierce its body through the damaged portions of the shell.
Some of the spikes hit each other before a flurry of rocks started falling down on Reign and the others.
The rocks, although much less threatening compared to the spikes, were the worst ones as they were the hardest to block or evade.
Only Tank, with his skills, could block them successfully, but when faced with so many rocks and rock spikes that were falling down on them all, he was simply unable to last for a long time.
After the attack passed, Reign and the others were left exhausted and injured. There was nobody that didn't have multiple injuries on their body.
The tortoise was still alive, but it was in a pitiful state. The final attack cost it all the mana it had left and it was heavily panting. Its shell was broken even more from the attack blood could be seen flowing out from the many wounds on its body.
Shadow was the one that delivered the final blow. He stabbed the now visible head of the tortoise with his two daggers that were covered in darkness before forcing the shadow swords to explode inside the head.
None of them were too happy with the result of the battle. They had won, and there were no critical injuries, but they had taken a long time and had spent all the stamina and mana they had in order to deal with the tortoise and its brethren.
They barely gained anything from the battle either.
They gained barely any usable info from the battle, except for the fact that they now knew that Tier II monsters could be very different from one another. They all thought of the lightning-fast fox before shuddering a bit.
Just how fast would it be during a battle?
The tortoise didn't really drop any usable items either. They only received one rank S item and numerous rank A items.
The rank S item was a shield, but it was a very different one compared to any of the shields that Tank had used in the past.
It was a buckler.
For Tank, who was used to using large shields that would cover a large portion of his body, this kind of shield was simply unusable.
He struggled a bit at first, wanting to try and use it, but the simple act of putting it on and trying it out made him very uncomfortable.
They decided to simply sell off the shield, or perhaps have Adrian take a look at it and see if he can make it larger by using the shell of the tortoise.
The shell was the only usable part of the body.
Most of it was unusable as there were many cracks on the shell, but there were still some parts that the system was able to salvage from the body.
They all returned back home.
The plan for today was to deal with both the tortoise and the wolf, but they had spent too much time and energy on the turtle which made it impossible for them to have another fight of such magnitude today.
They spent the whole rest of the day resting and tending to their wounds.
They tried going to Adrian to see if he could take a look at the shield, but the old blacksmith did not answer the door.
There was no sound they were able to hear from inside the smithy, which meant that he probably wasn't working at that moment, but where else could he be?
What they didn't know was that both Adrian and the elf were inside, they were sitting down and having tea. They had decided to rest up a bit before continuing their work.
They didn't only have Wolf's armor to make, but a bunch of weapons and armor pieces that the other players had ordered. They pretty much had no day off and would just take breaks such as the one right now.
To finish a break early was impossible, they simply didn't want to do it.
Which meant that the clueless Reign and the others would have to come back tomorrow. And that they did.
Upon seeing the shield and the shell, Adrian sighed before telling them that they will try. Although the chance of success was low, there was hope that the shield could end up being a good one.
They all said their goodbyes to the two blacksmiths before heading to the mountain again.
Today's target?
The wolf.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺