Chapter 48: Residual Absorption
Max and the party gathered at the edge of the inner ruin corridor.
He took ten steps away from it and turned around. He gauged the distance and said, "32 meters. Can you shoot at this distance, Rhayne?"
Rhayne was dumbfounded. She walked and stood beside Max, staring at the enormous, terrifying Mireborn Broodmass at the center of the Chamber.
She closed her left eye and stuttered. "I might miss a few times."
Max heard her and dazed at the Mireborn Broodmass. Suddenly, his eyes landed at the spawns and his eyes lit up.
He recalled the effect of the Demon Investigator Set.
[Residual Absorption (Passive): After defeating a demon entity, 7-10% of your mana is restored.]
7-10% of his mana was 30.24 to 43.2 and his Arcane Bolt only cost 14 mana points.
He narrowed his eyes and scrutinized the spawns.
They are just lesser demon fragments. They are individually weak but they overwhelm us through sheer numbers. I can only cast Arcane Bolt every less than 2 seconds. Even I could dual cast Arcane Bolt simultaneously, even that alone wouldn’t be enough to stop them.
Max reconsidered the plan. The plan was supposed to attack the boss and the spawns at the same time—with him and Rhayne attacking the boss at a distance and the rest of the party members to attack the spawns.
He was silent for a while, as the party members felt anxious every second the silence passed by.
After a while, he said, "Let’s forget about the boss for now. Let’s annihilate the spawns first. Rhayne, conserve your stamina and the fire arrows."
The party members didn’t question his sudden change of decision, as they finally took their stance.
Jasper was behind Eva and behind him was Clara and Ethan.
Max was behind them, with Rhayne on her side.
After a moment of silence, Max casted the Arcane Bolt and it landed to the nearest spawn, instantly ending its life.
The other spawns noticed the death of their kin and the Mireborn Broodmass was awakened. It turned its body around and faced Max.
As expected, it couldn’t move. Max assumed that the rift residue crystal made the body so heavy it was immobilize. Only the rift residue crystal to have fully been consumed by the Mireborn Broodmass could allow it to move.
The Mire Spawn, after receiving the order of their mother, didn’t hesitate to aggressively ran towards Max.
They were small malformed humanoid creatures and some were even disabled that they could only crawl, but their sheer amount terrified Max and others.
Eva even took a step back, followed by others, but the continuous attack of Arcane Bolt, killing them one at a time regained their courage.
Eventually, the first Mire Spawn arrived at Eva, who killed it with a single swing of her sword. Just then, another followed, but Jasper attacked it on her stead.
Then another followed, but Ethan had already aimed the arrow and pierced through its head. Then another one, which Rhayne pulled the string and ended its life.
Then another one, where Max saved Eva the remaining amount of time to pull her sword and attack again.
At this point, each round of their attempt to repel the Mire Spawn caused them to take a single step back.
Eventually, a minute passed that it was like already an hour. Eva was already exhausted. Even when her health was always full with the help of Clara, her stamina couldn’t be restored.
Jasper was also injured, failing to retreat back on time, but Clara immediately healed her.
Hence, Clara was beginning to feel exhausted, as well. If it wasn’t for the buff of her equipments, she might have already consumed another mana potion from Max and also failing to efficiently heal her allies.
Even when they were already exhausted, they knew they couldn’t give up. Max was also being consistent—not once he missed a target, not once his arcane bolt’s rhythm slowed down, and not once his countenance changed.
If their leader hadn’t showed a sign of clear exhaustion, why would their movement begin to wane?
Hence, they lasted for another minute, until the Mire Spawns’s numbers began to dwindle conspicuously.
The Broodmass could only produce one Mire Spawn per minute.
The party killed twenty before another could emerge.
Hence, it would only be a matter of time before they could annihilate the Mire Spawn and began attacking the Mireborn Broodmass at a distance to kill it.
When they finally reduced the numbers of the Mire Spawn less than ten digits, Max had his party members rested, taking the front line. He discovered that Ethan had already consumed all the wooden arrow, leaving behind fifty heavy arrows.
Rhayne was the same, albeit she still had the fifty arrows on her storage.
Max stood at the edge of the inner ruin corridor and constantly killed the Mire Spawns produced by the Mireborn Broodmass.
He gazed intently at it and when he finally had the chance, he attacked it.
The Arcane Bolt successfully landed at the body of the Mireborn Broodmass. With the added effects to his damage because the Mireborn Broodmass was a demonic entity, the Arcane Bolt’s total damage against the Mireborn Broodmass reached 135 magical damage.
Max finally saw the health bar of the Mireborn Broodmass. He was elated to know it was only a 1,596 HP.
To his horror, the damage his Arcane Bolt inflicted suddenly disappeared. The Mireborn Broodmass’ regenerative abilities was monstrous.
He paused, shocked by what he had seen.
Not only the HP of the MIreborn Broodmass went to full, the damage on its body, which the Aracen Bolt peeled a skin, recovered and returned to normal.
Max’s face turned grim.
This must be the effect of the Rift Residue Crystal. If that’s the case, then just me and Rhayne alone’s attack wouldn’t be enough to kill it.
We have to get closer to it.
Max closed his eyes and sighed. His party members didn’t notice his reaction as he tried his best to hide it from them.
He turned around and kept the same countenance he wore.
His party members were lying to the floor, a bit far from the mountain of Mire Spawn’s carcasses they created.
They were resting with a smile on their face, knowing they only had a single opponent.
When Max turned towards them, they simultaneously turned their heads towards him and stared at him with anticipation.
Because they were assured that under his leadership, they could reclaim the Watchtower Outpost without casualties...
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