To a certain extent, at least in my experience, NightWalkers are essentially demigods; while not immortal, they are DAMN close to being such.
Unless you had a means of zapping the thing to a crisp with Lightning or Light Elemental Attacks, you could go on smacking the thing all day long without ever killing the damn monsters; that leaves really only two ways to deal with them, both of which I have ample experience with doing.
The first is to overpower them by a large margin, stacking up damage to a point where the monster isn’t able to recover any longer. This was the case when I fought NightWalkers with a significant gap in our Ranks.
Like Say me, who was a Gamma Ranker at the time, Facing Alpha-Ranked NightWalkers, in that case, I was generally able to beat them either into submission or to such an extent that their defenses weren’t nearly enough to stop the onslaught.
However, when it came to those who were on par or stronger than me, I had to get crafty, and after a lot of wasted time, resources, and effort, I finally learned about the Energy Core.
All that an Energy core is are small rocks that act like an engine for the NightWalker, both generating and maintaining its Annihilation Aura.
After doing numerous experiments on weaker monsters, IE, cutting them up and removing the Energy Cores, I learned quite a bit about how they function and what occurs once it’s left the body.
Of Course, I had never really expected to need this information in the future, but since I was trapped in the Negative Realm for some time, it was a necessity if I wished to survive.
From the beginning of this battle, my group was at a disadvantage without Lightning Elemental Talent Wielders, meaning we would be forced into a long, drawn-out battle that would yield little results in the beginning.
So, from the get-go, I needed to get everyone acclimated to the weird fighting style of the monster. Frankly, until Xilia proved otherwise, we technically had zero way of breaking through the NightWalker’s Defense to get at its Core, so that wasn’t even a possibility at first.
However, that all changed in an instant.
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Just like a hammer hitting a nail, my pillar attack drove the arrow home, or in this case, through the body of the NightWalker, and with several loud cracking sounds, the Dark Arrow pierced through the creature’s back, knocking free a fist-sized black rock.
We may not be able to destroy the Energy Core due to it being stronger than diamonds, but then again, destroying it was never my purpose to begin with.
Swiftly augmenting my legs, I disappeared from my position and snatched the Core off the ground before storing it safely in my inventory, just in time to catch a jetblack leg to the chest.
"Fuuuckk," I managed to curse through grit teeth as I flew through the air, thanks to the brute-like strength behind the kick.
"NEXUS!" I heard Brenden, and not so strangely enough, Piniki shout loudly while I arched through the air like a kicked soccer ball.
"THE ANNIHILATION AURA IS DOWN, KICK ITS ASS!" I shouted as I continued through the air…and over the edge of the platform into a hundred-plus-foot freefall toward the ground.
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’Four broken ribs and my legs are tingling…that fucker kicked me hard…should have seen it coming; I know how pissed NightWalkers get when their Core is stolen.’ Feeling lightheaded as I plummeted down, I had enough sense to bring my arms and legs in so they didn’t get shattered when I…
BOOOM,
Hit the mountain side, and began tumbling down the steep incline; thanks to my armor, I didn’t have to worry about getting torn up by the rocky surface, and the shock wasn’t too bad, but with a lot of my bones having only just healed, the impact was enough to open up several of the more severe breaks that hadn’t fully healed up yet when I was chugging potions.
Eventually, my descent came to an end, with my laying on the ground at the foot of the mountain, covered in debris and balled up.
’Fuck…let’s not do that again; I was more worried about securing the core than anything that would happen to me…’ laying there for a moment as I self-diagnosed the damage to my body. I couldn’t help but sigh, which hurt, by the way, thanks to my ribs being splintered and threatening to pierce my lungs.
’If I weren’t at 6C, I’d no doubt be dead, if not from the initial kick, then the accumulated damage I’ve been working through this whole time…even my legs are in bad shape from my augmentation.
Struggling, I tapped a hidden recess on the palm of my glove with my index finger and felt a needle jab through the flesh on my arm before a warm sensation coursed through my body.
YEP, I had my good ol injection gauntlets up and working again, and right now, a concoction made of Stamina, Health, and PC Potions was flowing into my veins along with some Beta Particle Water.
Having administered the concoction, it was only a matter of time before I was back up on my feet, so in the meantime, I went ahead and checked in on the drone feed, and…well….things weren’t going great from what I could see.
Of the four other squads, only one had everyone still on their feet, and unsurprisingly, it was the group that had the most people, i.e., the one where some players had stayed back to help.
With a massive number advantage, they were using a human wave tactic to take on the monster, with Varying levels of success. From what I could tell, it wouldn’t be long before they were able to take their opponent down, and then my eyes drifted to the other live feeds.
’Useless, even with four extra people over my squad, a weaker opponent, and all the cards stacked in your favor, you fuckers can’t handle such an easy job,’ I thought while watching the other three squads struggling to land even a single hit on their NightWalker’s which appeared to be in the Alpha-Rank.
Sure, even at Alpha, the NightWalker would have low to Mid-Beta-Rank stats, but even so, they had not one but two lightning wielders in each group; they should have easily been able to fry the monster and move on to aid another squad.