While the battle underneath the feet of the mantis is happening, many other players have noticed the changing stature of the mantis. That also includes Kaisar who was also busy killing minor monsters because he can't get close to the mantis due to the number of other monsters attacking while heading to it, plus the swamp's ground hard to move on, making it more challenging to make a progress going forward.
"Leader! I spotted that a few rankers are now currently fighting beneath the raid boss! And just by looking at the state of the boss, it seems they are indeed doing some real damage! I think you also need to head over there as well!" one of the players who are part of Kaisar's guild reported.
"I can see that! And since you were here, deal with the monsters I am handling and I will head there as well! I can't just let them gather more fame than they should have!"
"W-WAIT!" the player didn't get to stop Kaisar as monsters started flooding and he had no choice but to fight back.
Kaisar went ahead enthusiastically, trying to make sure he can get there in time. But the more he moves towards the boss, the more he finds it hard to go through especially since the mud is trying to stop him from moving.
"Move, dammit! Ahhhh, move it!" Don't just let me stay here in the mud!"
The more he screamed, the more his feet gets stuck in the mud. He tried so hard but the feet he tried to move with just put him stuck.
"GAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"
The little monsters took notice of his screams and immediately rushed toward his location. And because he has a hard time moving due to it, before he can even scream, the monsters drowned him out, killing him as a result, and sending him to the cathedral.
The poor bastard didn't even get near the boss and got killed instead, what a waste of time.
...
...
...
...
While Kaisar's body was sinking into the mud, everyone else continued to bombard the feet of the mantis with all of their strongest attacks. It didn't seem like their ultimate attacks were doing anything but after a few more attempts, the attacks slowly seemed to be doing some good amount of damage the mantis was moving in a more erratic way.
"Keep it up, guys! We are making progress in dealing with it! We are dealing damage against it!" Sigma shouted as everyone else continues to bombard their attacks on it.
As soon as they repeated another set of attacks, one of the legs of the mantis shook and exploded to pieces, causing the mantis to fall over as it goes outbalanced the moment one of its legs exploded. Mr. Teddy took this chance and looked at Bladeheart's father. The latter took notice of the signal and two nodded, immediately releasing [Destruction Punch] simultaneously, landing both hits straight to the other feet of the boss to stop its movements altogether.
BANG!
With both attacks being done, one of its legs immediately gave away as it fell to pieces, as two of its legs are now gone, the remaining legs of the mantis could no longer support the weight of the mantis and fell into the swamp mud. Everyone immediately activated their wings and started flying off into the sky to avoid being squashed by the huge body of the boss.
"Enemy down, we have to perform an all-out attack before it can recover again!" Harmless Sparrow shouted to inform everyone about it.
"Then, let's unleash all of the sh*ts we can throw into this boss and force it to trigger its next phase!"
Pulling out their inventories, they took out a few black bombs, ready to explode.
"These bombs are specially crafted to ensure to deal strong damage against enemies who have been downed and are currently in a weak state to move. Use this chance to bombard the f*cker to death. Throw them straight to the boss, and let the magicians and those who can't use magic throw any kind of fire magic straight to them. Let them explode and spread the little chaos, that way, the next phase should begin much faster than it should, and that would also allow you to get much stronger than you should be."
After recalling Bladeheart's words, everyone throws the bombs at the boss. Of course, there isn't just a single bomb but multiple bombs are given to each and every one of them.
"Now!"
Dolly, Harmless Sparrow, and Topaz, three of the players who can release fire magic started to gather up their flames. Dolly and Topaz, cast their strongest flames, [Sun Ray] while Harmless Sparrow is gathering the flames on her sword to release her usual flame attack, [Phoenix Drive].
Once the casting of the flames is ready and the [Phoenix Drive] has reached its limit, the three unleashed the full might of their flames and bombarded the boss to burn everything around them, turning the little swamp full of mud into a swamp of flames.
Followed by the flames swallowing the whole area as well as the mantis, the bombs thrown at the boss immediately caught the flames and explodes to pieces, causing destructive explosions that the others didn't expect to be too strong that even when they were up in the air, they were almost caught up in the explosions as well.
"Holy sh*t, those explosions pack a lot of punch. I wonder how the heck Bladeheart has been able to make these kinds of stuff without us knowing. I am already wondering how capable he was in making various of trinkets here and there," Hagane whisted.
"That's easy, you can gain some recipes from monster drops and treasure chests as well as some secrets found in dungeons or special quests, If Bladeheart was able to learn most of that stuff, Bladeheart must have obtained most of them and crafted them to level up his ex jobs. After all, I also gained some stuff that can only be crafted by craftsmen as well as some blueprints," Iron explained. After all, with all of their random quests taken from other players and NPCs as well, they are bound to get random stuff like blueprints as well. Of course, those things go straight to Bladeheart as he is the only player from them who has the ex-job to craft stuff aside from food. Those stuff goes straight to Bladeheart's mother as she has the best ex-job for food.
"I didn't know that. Damn. Perhaps I should give it a try?"
"Are you sure? Have you seen how hard that stuff was? I have seen him do it once and I was confused as he was literally making stuff like it was processed for real. It's not just an automatic process, my dudes," Dolly immediately stopped Hagane, knowing how lazy Hagane is in terms of things like that.
"Uh... then nevermind... That would be too complicated for my style," Hagane shook his head.
As the explosions continued, they suddenly heard a loud shriek from the flames. Soon, the mantis seems to be moving again. But then, they immediately realized that this was no longer the mantis they are facing, it is now the true face of the raid boss and the current phase that was forced triggered by them due to the explosion and destruction of its current host.
"Get ready guys, the next and final phase of the boss is here!"
Soon, the final boss emerged, standing from the top of the burning mantis body. A monster that seems to look like a giant spider but is too thin that it looked like the framework of an umbrella without its covers and leaves only the metal stuff that moves the umbrella whenever you open or close it. And on top of it, is the former mantis head, severed and being used by the current monster as its current head though with the body that was described earlier. It also revealed its name and status as well.
[Brain Jacker] Raid Boss
HP: ????/????
MP: ????/????
Traits: Parasitic
"SH*T, this is one of those products of nightmares I keep hearing and being used in movies and stuff about brain-controlling monsters that take over the brain of their hosts and uses the host's body to move. Why the f*ck is that monster appearing here out of all places?!" Iron who was normally calm started to shiver.
"Yo, calm down man. Even if it was a brain-controlling freak, all we needed to do is beat the sh*t out of it before it can do something funny alright?" Hagane joked.
"Still, be careful. Bladeheart wouldn't even give us a warning if this boss was easy, to begin with. Don't even think this boss is easy just because it was much smaller than the former form it has earlier."
Sigma bit her lip. According to Bladeheart, since the monsters they are facing are parasites, the likeliness of the raid boss to reveal itself as a parasitic monster will be very big but to think it was indeed one still made her amazed. She is now convinced that Bladeheart might be someone she indeed knew in the real world.
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