The named boss’s HP figure beyond the realm of understanding.
No special gimmick-type structures in the battle area.
Chris’s Raid Party had no choice but to clash head-on for now.
“The named boss’s patterns are faster than expected!”
Deathly Death was struggling just to counter Balgar’s quick attacks. Fearing aggro might flip, even the ranged DPS couldn’t rashly deal damage.
Balgar rushed in with his huge body and swung heavy fists continuously. His legs firmly rooted in place didn’t move.
“For now, we need to watch the situation until Death gets used to the patterns!”
Chris moved quickly while sharply observing the entire battle area. With that level of HP, it would take quite a while to reach the special pattern too.
Time-based pattern? Pattern according to HP? Anyway, they can only grasp it after the battle progresses to some extent.
Whoosh!
Balgar stretched his fists left and right, and greatly rotated his body.
Balgar’s fists, as big and heavy as rocks, gained momentum from the fast rotation speed and swept the surroundings.
“Hup!”
Deathly Death’s eyes flashed fiercely.
As Balgar’s fist approached right up to his nose, his hands moved like flowing water to position up and down, taking a firm counter stance.
[Counter (B)]
[Counter the enemy’s attack]
[(B rank) 0.5 second invincibility on successful counter within 0.5 seconds]
Whoosh whoosh whoosh!
Deathly Death countered Balgar’s first rotation at the exact timing. Balgar made two more consecutive rotations, but couldn’t pierce through the invincibility judgment of the counter.
Immediately after, Deathly Death’s rising fist, aiming for the gap in the large movement, exploded on Balgar’s body.
Boom! Boom!
Chris exclaimed in admiration.
“Just Guard!”
The advantage judgment obtained by blocking or countering the enemy’s attack at the exact timing.
Deathly Death succeeded in excellently obtaining the invincibility judgment despite the penalty of synchronization rate.
“It’s just like real boxing. You need to measure the subtle distance well, and match the timing perfectly too.”
Boom! Boom!
Deathly Death’s body kept moving left and right, pounding Balgar’s body.
The reliable tank of Chris’s Raid Party, Fighter Deathly Death was excellently utilizing the Just Guard judgment.
“Indeed, the special training was worth it?”
Chris snickered, recalling his reckless special training method.
Now that Deathly Death had switched from defense to offense, other DPS could comfortably deal damage too. Cherni and Bae Merong also poured out skills without worry.
Boom boom boom! Boom!
[2nd Named]
[Lion Balgar]
[HP 19,000,541/20,000,000]
The concentrated attacks of four people who had finished outpost farming. Balgar’s HP started decreasing at a fast rate.
And when Balgar’s HP decreased by 5%, the first change occurred in the battle area.
Click.
Chris hurriedly turned her head towards where the sound came from.
The tower wall. What protruded from there was… a giant saw tooth?
Whirr!
That saw tooth soon started rotating strongly.
Boom!
At that moment, Bae Merong’s fireball exploded towards the saw tooth. Chris gave Bae Merong a thumbs-up.
“Nice, Bae Merong!”
“Dribbling, right? I can tell just by looking!”
She, who had been trained in sphere dribbling with Galovan in the outpost, reacted without delay here too. If the saw tooth goes towards the tank, Deathly Death would have a very hard time.
Whirr!
The saw tooth soon started moving towards Bae Merong. Bae Merong dribbled the giant saw tooth so as not to overlap with other party members’ movement lines. While doing so, she didn’t forget to deal damage towards Balgar too.
And when Balgar’s HP became 90%, a second saw tooth revealed itself from the wall.
“Is it my turn next!”
Boom!
Cherni also immediately reacted to dribble the saw tooth.
And the third saw tooth that appeared shortly after was taken by Chris.
The three ranged DPS of Chris’s Raid Party, tempered by numerous dungeon clearances, maintained their continuous offensive towards Balgar while dribbling the saw teeth.
Balgar’s HP was already pointing at 80%.
Crack!
When the fourth saw tooth came out, the saw tooth that Bae Merong was in charge of first shattered. The saw tooth that chased Bae Merong while hitting the wall had run out of durability.
Bae Merong quickly moved towards the fourth saw tooth to start dribbling again.
If only the saw tooth pattern is threatening, it’s not a difficult named boss to clear even if it takes some time.
“Good! The HP is certainly enormous, but we just need to maintain concentration! Let’s steadily chip away while dribbling the saw teeth!”
Chris encouraged her party members.
[2nd Named]
[Lion Balgar]
[HP 8,216,331/20,000,000]
Balgar’s HP decreased below half. The battle situation flowed unchanged.
The ranged DPS dribbled the saw teeth while steadily chipping away HP. Despite being a simple task requiring concentration, Chris’s Raid Party pulled the battle along without mistakes.
The 2nd named clear passed the halfway point.
Balgar certainly had threatening normal and special patterns, but they weren’t enough to stop Chris’s Raid Party’s smooth advance.
If it goes on like this, they’ll clear without problems.
The party members’ faces started to show a bit of color.
At that moment.
Thud!
An unexpected change that no one predicted occurred.
Suddenly, Balgar took a strange movement.
“Kuoooong!”
Thud!
Balgar, who roared once, beat his chest with both fists.
“What!?”
“Special phase? Weren’t the saw teeth everything?”
The party members tensed their bodies and watched Balgar’s movements. However, Balgar, who had only beaten his chest twice, started attacking towards Deathly Death again.
The first to detect something strange was Deathly Death, who was facing the patterns at the front.
“Ugh! Something’s wrong!”
Chris hurriedly checked the party member status window. Deathly Death’s HP was decreasing at a fast rate.
Did he allow an attack? That wasn’t it. Deathly Death was still responding accurately to the patterns.
Then, there was only one fact that the current situation pointed to.
“Attack power greatly increased!?”
The damage reduction rate of the counter, it became strong enough to pierce through that.
“Damage isn’t going in!”
“What is this!? Did the defense increase enormously!?”
The second to detect something strange were the ranged DPS.
The rate at which Balgar’s HP decreased slowed drastically.
The ranged DPS kept pouring out skills, but Balgar’s HP bar didn’t budge as if it was fixed in place.
And at some point, Balgar stretched his arms to both sides.
Rattle rattle!
Chains instantly extended from the shackles on Balgar’s hands, binding all of Chris’s Raid Party members.
“Kyaah!?”
“Kugh!”
“Th-this is!”
Along with the cries of surprised party members, all party members were dragged towards Balgar’s surroundings.
At the same time, Balgar punched the floor.
Thud!
Chris was dumbfounded.
The precursor to an area-of-effect pattern.
But everyone’s movements were sealed.
They can’t respond.
Boom boom boom boom!
Soon a huge explosion centered on Balgar occurred, sweeping across the entire battle area.
“What is this!?”
Chris was thrown into confusion. The 2nd named clear that was going well was instantly shattered.
“Even if we can deal with the chains if we know about them, the attack power and defense increased exponentially. With so much HP to begin with, we can’t continue clearing like this.”
It was as Deathly Death said. Chris bit her nails, not hiding her uncomfortable expression.
“Surely the clear was progressing without problems. The HP wasn’t at a point where a special pattern would come out either.”
“If there were other special patterns, they would have come out earlier. The saw teeth appearing every 5% must be everything.”
Cherni, who had been thinking about something for a moment, joined the conversation.
“Remember that bus customer from before? The one who said he had experience with popular raid games from decades ago. I heard from him that among classic raid game bosses, there were ones with a pattern called ‘berserk’.”
“Berserk?”
“It’s something like becoming impossible to clear if you don’t take it down within a certain time.”
“A kind of time attack.”
Deathly Death nodded. Bae Merong asked as if unable to understand.
“All the named bosses that have appeared so far didn’t have such patterns, right?”
Chris shook her head.
“No. If you think of the 2nd named Statue of the Family Head from Demon’s Tomb, and the 2nd named Galovan from the outpost, it’s certainly possible.”
“Hmm. It was a structure that got increasingly difficult the longer the battle went on.”
Statues of knights rising one by one, Galovan’s demonic energy mines gradually filling the battle area.
The longer the clear time, the more restricted the battle area becomes. Monsters pile up, and eventually, it reaches an impossible-to-clear situation.
“Of course, with 4-person party firepower there’s no problem clearing, but those can also be seen as a kind of berserk in a way.”
Bae Merong stamped her feet.
“Th-then what should we do?”
“One of two things. Either there’s something we missed, or we lack absolute DPS.”
“Considering the time taken to adapt to the early patterns, we might be able to get past it if we focus hard on DPS.”
But more than 40% of the named boss’s HP remained at the berserk point. Even if they focus hard on DPS, can they shave off an additional 40%?
Chris shook her head.
If even their DPS is insufficient, no party would be able to clear it.
“There must be a way to decrease HP through a gimmick. I have a guess too. Anyway, we need to experiment with various things.”
* * *
[2nd Named]
[Lion Balgar]
[HP 3,553,007/20,000,000]
Whoosh whoosh whoosh!
I obtained the Just Guard judgment on the 1st rotation, blocked the 2nd rotation as it was, and used counterattack on the 3rd rotation.
Whirr!
I slightly turned my eyes towards where the sound came from. A giant saw tooth approached right up close. I twisted my body slightly to narrowly avoid it.
“Kuoong!”
The saw tooth that passed by brushing me gouged Balgar’s body.
Balgar’s entire body was already full of wounds dyed red.
The sight of Balgar spilling blood from wounds gouged by saw teeth was incomparably bizarre.
At first he looked somewhat human-like, but now covered in blood, he’s no different from Bloodfang.
I checked that sight and smiled slightly.
“Time attack pattern. Gimmick clear type boss.”
I have cleared all dungeons alone so far.
Inevitably, I faced many time attack patterns.
As soon as I saw the 2nd named’s HP, I could intuitively tell it was a boss that would trigger a time attack if the gimmick wasn’t performed.
After confirming the reflection of the first saw tooth, I also understood how to use the saw teeth.
Basically, in the game system, a named boss’s attacks don’t damage trash mobs, but there were exceptions like with Kraxas.
Then I thought the opposite case might be possible too, and that thought hit the mark beautifully.
Crack.
One of the saw teeth chasing me shattered. While avoiding Balgar’s fist rushing in, I launched my sword toward an additional saw tooth that revealed itself.
[Flying Sword Technique]
[Attack by throwing the sword towards an enemy within 15m range and then retrieve it]
Swish! Clang!
The Flying Sword Technique’s attack power is terrible, but it could be used to bring recognition.
The saw tooth that recognized me soon started flying in on a straight trajectory connecting me and Balgar.
Wounds accumulate when the saw tooth brushes Balgar’s body.
I couldn’t directly confirm the enemy’s status effects, but as the visibly apparent wounds accumulated, Balgar’s HP also decreased at an increasingly rapid rate.
Whirr!
Three violently rotating saw teeth flew in at once.
I avoided one by twisting my body, used counterattack on the second, and quickly moved to the opposite side using the power of Flash Strike when the third saw tooth passed. Along the way, I also slashed Balgar’s body once.
“Kuooong!”
Along with Balgar’s pain-filled roar, 3 rotations flew in again.
Clang clang clang! This time I blocked in place.
From now on, I don’t even need to take him down with my own DPS.
There’s no need to obtain the Just Guard judgment, and counterattack only needs to be used to avoid saw teeth.
Balgar’s HP was already decreasing by hundreds of thousands per second.
I flashed a broad smile towards Balgar’s miserable state.
“I won’t hit you anymore?”