Chapter 100
100. New Elf
The feel of a double-buffed blade was beyond imagination.
It slid in without any resistance, like stabbing tofu or jelly.
I gripped the sword hilt I'd driven in and twisted my wrist. Holding the hilt, I used the power of mana reinforcement to race straight along the bastard's body.
-Kagagagagagagak!
As I ran, scales were sliced away and blood sprayed. For all its bulk and huge health pool, its defense didn't seem very high.
Even in a raid with fifty people or more, if the damage doesn't go through, the raid itself would be impossible.
So it must have been designed so challengers at around the 9th-floor level could still deal damage. If so, that's very convenient for me.
I'm not strong enough on my own to equal a hundred 9th-floor challengers.
But I'm strong enough to solo-clear each floor's boss, so I'm easily worth about twenty 9th-floor challengers.
-Kwagagak!
The others who landed on the snake-dragon's body with me were also swinging their weapons mercilessly, carving wounds into it.
Mercedes, who was just as strong as I was, the kingdom army corps commander Reinhardt, and even Eleanor.
Each of them stripped away the snake's scales and dug into its flesh in their own way.
If things kept going like this, we'd take it down before long. But of course it wouldn't go that easily.
-Wriggle.
The snake bound in chains shook violently. For those of us on its body, it was practically an earthquake.
And that wasn't all. Even immobilized, it could still use magic. A pitch-black magic circle floated in the air.
Countless black branches, the ones that had been draining the High Elves' life force, burst out from it and swept toward us.
-Kakang!
That branch attack itself wasn't much different from what the trash mobs running around near this thing used.
Each branch on its own was weak. We could deflect them easily enough.
But the problem was the sheer numbers and the added effects. If even one of those countless branches got through, it was over.
-Kakang! Kaang! Kaang!
Once the branch attacks started coming, most of the party was forced onto the defensive.
At this point, only a few of us could keep up the offense.
Only a handful, like Mercedes and me, could endure the branches with the protection of mana reinforcement.
Fortunately, among the kingdom army's elite troops, there were a few knights who could use mana reinforcement, even if they were a little weaker.
-Kurrrung!
As the knights wreathed in mana light leaped into action, the branches snapped one after another, unable to do anything. I kept up the assault too.
We had to pile on as much damage as possible while the restraint held. We'd probably never get a damage window this good again.
After shredding the snake-dragon's body for several minutes, the restraining chains could no longer hold and shattered—and the thing reared up.
[The World-Devouring Snake is enraged!]
At the same time, a notification window popped up before my eyes. Just like the community said, this was the berserk pattern that appears after a warning.
“Berserk, recall!”
I squeezed every last bit of strength out of my gut and shouted. The nearby knights, reacting to my thunderous voice, repeated it and spread it onward.
I operated the magic tool on my wrist. A moment later, teleportation magic recalled us.
Melee damage time over; next up, the siege weapons, freshly reloaded.
-Kwagwagwang! Kwagwang!
Countless mana shells flew toward the snake-dragon in its berserk state and slammed into it.
**
It was the kind of sight that reminded me of the artillerymen bragging, 'At this level, we could even carve up a mountain.'
The snake-dragon, more helpless than I'd expected, could do little but get pounded one-sidedly by the mana artillery.
They'd said the world boss only had insane stats and size, and probably wouldn't have any especially complex patterns—and they were right.
-Aaaaaaaaah!!
Even while being pounded by bombardment said to be able to carve up mountains, it somehow still felt underwhelming—only the screaming was loud.
“Looks like it has some kind of inherent damage reduction.”
Neither the mana artillery nor the physical attacks from the ballistas were really doing any damage.
The wounds we commandos had scratched into it looked, from this distance, like lines drawn with a ballpoint pen.
As expected, unless we targeted the weak point the community had mentioned, taking this thing down properly would be hard.
[Author : Kim Changjin#1421]
[Title : Guys, I think I found the world boss's weak point]
This is a photo Jinhyuk posted in his third post, and if you zoom in on it,
(photo)
Can you see this part? If you look closely, just one scale there is flipped upside down. I think that's the reverse scale.
The boss's name was something-snake-dragon or whatever, so if it has a weak point, I think it'd be this.
- Wow, holy shit, that's real? How the hell did you find that?
- This bastard actually thought to zoom in on it, lol.
- ㄴ Seriously, I was only zooming in on Dark Elf tits...
- ㄴ Above reply: the soccer-player-loving server-class guy, hurry up, stat.
- ㄴ 1772 warrior likes Shindu-hyung, haha.
- ㄴ Ugh, combat rating, lol.
- Do dragons normally have a separate reverse scale? Someone who's fought a dragon, say something.
- ㄴ No, but since it's a world boss, maybe it has one?
- ㄴ World bosses are supposed to have one weak point each, so you can strategize against them.
A single post that went up at the exact time the raid plan had been finalized and most people were just waiting for raid news.
One of the screenshots I'd uploaded had revealed a single reversed scale, and the guess was that it was probably the weak point.
Even those who had actually experienced a world raid said that, if they weren't mistaken, that spot would be the weak point.
A spot that would always crit the moment it was hit—that was the commando team's very first objective.
If the reverse scale had been found on the community even a little earlier, we might have been able to pinpoint its location before the battle began.
As things stood, the only way was to climb onto its body ourselves and find it by comparing screenshots with its location.
-Graaahhh!!
Just as the bombardment was almost over, the snake-dragon screamed and its berserk state wore off. It was the commando team's turn again.
Berserk lifts once enough damage has been dealt. The reason we were able to strip it so quickly this time was probably the early burst right after the raid began.
From the next berserk phase on, it won't be so easy to handle, and then the commando team won't get another chance to step in freely.
“This is the last chance. If we don't find it this time, it'll get much harder.”
We nodded to each other and used the recall device to teleport back onto the snake-dragon's body once more.
What greeted us there wasn't the same defenseless field of scales as before—
“What the hell is that.”
- It was a grotesque horde of giants with four arms.
**
Monsters with bizarre shapes, as if molded from clay, rose from the snake's scales.
Even from far away, they looked huge. The amount of mana radiating from them was no joke either.
“My God... just how far has it fallen.”
Mercedes, who was falling near me, muttered. No, she wasn't the only one.
Most of the elite forces aside from the kingdom army—the Dark Elves and High Elves—scowled at the sight.
I kept falling and swung my sword, brutally cutting down one of the giants. It wasn't that strong.
“Hey, what is this supposed to be.”
When I asked while kicking the chopped-up giant aside, the High Elf beside me grimaced and said humans wouldn't know.
“I don't know, I don't... but somehow I can tell. That giant is a being of the same kind as us.”
More giants swarmed toward me. Looking closer now, there was one distinctive feature on the black giant's distorted head.
“Because it swallowed the World Tree, could something like this be possible?”
Its ear area jutted up, like an elf's. So that was what being of the same kind meant.
It might look like a giant monster, but it was undeniably a life-form created through the World Tree.
Those giants were a new species of elf, created after Forest Elves and Night Elves.
“Don't think about it. This isn't the time.”
I said that to the unnamed High Elf, then charged at the warped elf giant.
It was big, but not that strong. I charged in while my eyes raked over the snake-dragon's scales.
But no matter how weak it was, taking my eyes off the fight to look at something else had apparently been a bad move.
-Whoosh, thud!
Something like a massive harpoon skimmed past my side. Blood sprayed out at once.
What was that? Not a branch—did that giant just make a ranged attack?
When I looked over in surprise, the weapon clutched in the giant's pitch-black four arms came into view.
“Ah, so this is because they're elves too, huh.”
In the giant's hands was a huge bow that gave off the aura of the World Tree.
**
Each giant held weapons—swords, bows, and more.
Glancing back while checking the wound in my side, I found the outlines of the weapons all strangely familiar.
Though they were pitch-black and clumped together as if molded from clay, they looked very much like the weapons of the other elves.
And that distinctive stance—I had seen it when I asked them out of curiosity to teach me archery.
Those bastards were using proper elven archery. A mysterious archery that traced magical trajectories and hit dead on every time.
Elven archery was broken to begin with, but it wasn't without weaknesses.
In the end, only the technique was special; the bow and arrows themselves weren't. You couldn't dodge them, but parrying or blocking them was easy enough.
But the bows those giants handled with four arms were no joke, and each arrow was the size of a whale-hunting harpoon.
On top of that, the arrows gave off the World Tree's aura, and no matter how I looked at it, they seemed to have some kind of special effect.
There were dozens of bow-wielding giants, maybe even over a hundred by rough count.
“What the fuck.”
Those insane bows being fired with sure-hit archery? That was shameless beyond belief, seriously.
Was it really possible to find the one and only reverse scale while fighting those bastards?
“Guess I have to, damn it.”
Well, since when had I ever done something just because it was doable?