Through various effects Bloody Edge instantly healed for more than 500 HP. But he was not done yet. A fierce combo of skills followed, stealing another three thousand HP from the boss. In the end he revealed one of his newest skills. It was a summoning skill called [Blood Thrall], something rather unusual for thieves to use.

A portal reeking of blood appeared next to Bloody Edge and a strange figure came out. It was thin, with coarse skin, and thin black hair. It only had the size of a child, with two small wings on its back. Its clothes consisted of a pair of old trousers, its body smeared with blood.

This blood thrall had all of Bloody Edge’s stats but only seventy percent of his damage. It was able to copy one of his skills. Its HP decayed by 3% per second and Bloody Edge would heal for 25% of the damage it dealt.

With a mental command Bloody Edge ordered the blood thrall to attack. The ugly, impish figure immediately pounced on the stone dragon, striking with its claw-like hands.

Of course, Bloody Edge wouldn’t be the only one fighting. At this point everyone was attacking the boss more or less fiercely. Watchful Eye and Cyclone had to painfully find out that the boss was extremely strong against elemental damage to the point where there was almost no point in using related skills. Watchful Eye switched entirely to normal attacks and Cyclone used a mix, betting on her passive to trigger.

Meanwhile Liam was not much better off. His holy and dark attacks were only slightly more useful than elemental damage. It turned out the best way to fight against the boss was good old physical damage. A black light flashed, and Korn tried to claw at Loro’s shoulder, but the cultist bent forward slightly and escaped the blow.

A few dozen seconds passed. Loro’s HP slipped below 85.000 points but other than Quickstep the friends had most of their skills on cooldown. Radiant Shield braced himself as the lance once again pushed him away. His stance had been reduced by a third.

“You are resilient, adventurers! Yet, before the might of dragons you are but ants!”

Loro’s face was calm as he let his eyes wander over everyone. He picked up the scale hanging from his neck, placed it between his lips, and blowed. A sharp whistle sound pierced everyone’s ears.

“Ah! Is this a mental attack?! I’m about to get tinnitus!”

Cyclone complained as she put her fingers into her ears. The others reacted similar. Although this was not even an attack, it was indeed difficult to endure.

As the sound spread everyone noticed that the dragon souls circling below the ceiling became agitated. Red light shone in their eyes. They stared at the players below, their expressions filled with malice.

Suddenly one of the dragon souls made the first move. It opened its maw wide and unleashed a fireball. Its speed wasn’t too fast but surrounded by dreadful heat it still felt like a miniature star descending.

“Why me?!”

Fortune was annoyed as she noticed the fireball coming towards her. Due to her long cast times, she hadn’t used all her skills yet. She was in the middle of casting when the new threat approached. Fortune took a deep breath and gathered her concentration. Thanks to her new passive she had increased proficiency in magic and mana control. This made it easier for her to move while casting or to use flash step.

Boom!

The fireball crashed into the ground and exploded. Fortune watched from the side, feeling somewhat proud. She had pulled off a flash step without interrupting her cast. Cyclone and Balm not far away also praised her as Fortune completed her cast and unleashed [Magical Bombardment].

A point of extremely condensed mana suddenly formed next to Loro’s body. It voraciously devoured the mana around it. Loro felt the danger and tried to get away but he skill only charged up for half a second before suddenly erupting. An explosion of mana violently stirred the air, spreading a powerful shockwave in all directions.

[-193!]

The explosion was ferocious but with Loro’s magical resistance the damage was somewhat lacklustre. Thankfully the skill didn’t end there. As long as it hit an enemy it would erupt again, up to six times. The sound of a raging river could be heard as water attributed mana appeared around Fortune’s staff and fused into the skill.

[-193!]

[-118!]

[-193!]

Explosions caused the hall to tremble. Unfortunately, after the third one Loro managed to steer his stone dragon mount away and the skill ended prematurely.

While all this was going on the friends were unable to pay much attention, though, as the dragons in the sky were now attacking in full force. Fireballs rained down on the friends as if the starry night sky was falling. Although they were slow, with how dense they were the friends had no choice but to keep dodging continuously. Hardly anyone was able to spare any attention to Loro.

Liam was riding Drasky, the elegant fox jumping left and right. They were slowly approaching Loro. The veteran planned to implement an old trick. During attacks like these, where indiscriminate attacks came from the sky, one could usually hide below the boss. He remembered doing so in previous battles against Loro.

Taking a step back Liam allowed a fireball to pass right in front of him, the searing heat caressing his face. The fireball passed and he got a good view on Loro. Yet he froze in surprise as the boss had landed on the ground, rendering his strategy unusable! He had never seen this happen before! Or at least not with a boss at this level.

“Mirage!”

A shout suddenly woke Liam up. He felt the burning heat attacking his back. His thought raced and he reacted on instinct activating Drasky’s skill [Yin-Yang Shield].

The celestial fox waved his tails, which erupted with white and black lights. A shield formed from mysterious black and white patterns, endlessly changing. It was in the nick of time as a flaming ball crashed into the shield. However, the expected impact didn’t occur. Instead the white and black light momentarily surrounded the fireball before sending it back the way it came from.

Liam admonished himself. He didn’t watch the fireball, knowing that it would not deal any damage to the dragon souls in the sky. He would rather focus on evading the rest of the attacks.

No one cared much about Liam’s blunder. The friends were darting left and right, doing their best to evade all the damage. After a few seconds they got used to the tempo and things became easier. However, Loro decided not to let them off like that. The boss repeated his earlier skill. His bone lance turned a deep red colour, and he stabbed forward. Lance shadows suddenly rushed towards everyone.

“What?!”

“No!”

“Careful, guys!”

The party was caught off guard. As the red lance shadows flashed, they reacted too late. Multiple members were caught between a rock and a hard place. They were forced to decide between getting hit by the weapon or a fireball.

Everyone realized that the situation was dire. Silver Blade and Radiant Shield did their best using [Aura of the Bulwark] and [Sacred Barrier] to provide support. But this was all they could do with the time left. Finally, the lance shadows reached the party.

The situation turned chaotic as Bloody Edge and Balm were hit by a lance while Fortune and Watchful Eye suffered from a fireball. The one who had it worst was Bloody Edge. He had already sacrificed some HP previously. Now that the boss’s attack reached him, he suffered more than 12.500 points of damage, almost forfeiting his life. Fortunately, Radiant Shield had the presence of mind to protect him with a [Sacred Barrier], allowing his friend to survive.

The others suffered similar amounts of damage. Balm immediately went to work with her healing skills. If nothing unexpected happened everyone would be back to full life in at most ten seconds.

Fortunately, the boss had no more surprises up his sleeve. The friends managed to recover while dodging the raining fireballs. About a dozen seconds later the dragon souls seemed to become tired and stopped raining down flames. Everyone sighed in relief. Now it was time for revenge.

The friends still had most of their favourite skills on cooldown. They could only attack normally. The sole exception was Quickstep. Due to running around so much her Storm had been completely filled up. Her eyes began to shine in a sharp silver light as she entered [Hurricane Mode]. Like the incarnation of a raging storm she shot towards Loro, covering the boss in powerful attacks. Physical damage mixed with water and wind damage barrelled down on the boss. Hurricanes surrounded him and Quickstep’s blade flashed like the sharpest light.

And with Loro sitting on the floor and not moving for the moment, Quickstep didn’t hold anything back. Even her ultimate skill was used.