CHAPTER 155: THE THIRD BOSS

The multiple monsters per round were becoming more frequent as well. The party failed to rest up during the regular monster fights as much as they had previously. Someone had to go fight another monster.

Round 25 brought two monsters simultaneously. Round 26 and Round 27 went back to one. It was probably their fatigue, but it made the monsters feel stronger than before.

"We’re not getting much rest anymore," Roman said, wiping sweat from his brow.

"Stay focused," Lucille replied. "It’s only going to get worse."

On Round 28, instead of the expected one or two monsters, three emerged from different gates. The party had to split their attention, with some members providing support to others as needed.

"This is getting hectic," Ning called out as he fought a crystal-scaled lizard.

Jax held off a four-armed monkey on his own, fighting it with absolute focus. He trusted his party to take care of the other monsters on their own, so he fought his own monster.

Melayne and the rest dealt with the third monster.

This was the first time they had fought 3 monsters at once, but that would not be the case going forward. They would get more and more monsters per round.

Round 29 brought two more monsters, which they handled more or less with no difficulty.

As the rounds progressed, the party noticed something disturbing happening above them. More and more names were disappearing from the sky. The number of remaining parties was shrinking rapidly by the minute.

"So many..." Roman said, his voice holding a hint of sorrow to them.

"Not all have died. Most of them have hopefully noticed the difficulty in staying here and have hopefully left alive," Lucille observed grimly. "But either way, there are fewer and fewer parties left. We have more chances of getting higher tickets."

"We don’t have to last all 60 rounds, right?" Ning asked. "If all the others fail before that, we might get the 5-star ticket too."

"Who knows how they are going to determine that," Lucille said. "We can only hope to do both to be safe."

"Focus, you guys," Jax said, his axe ready. "The third boss is coming."

They nodded and prepared.

But when the boss emerged, it was unlike anything they had faced before.

Instead of a single massive creature, ten figures stepped out of the gates. They were all knights clad in metallic armor, all identical but one. Nine of them carried bows and arrows, while the tenth wielded a sword.

The sword-bearing knight was a head taller than the others, and intricate runic patterns covered its armor, glowing with a faint magical light.

"If that one’s not the boss, I don’t know what is," Melayne muttered.

"I knew this was coming," Ning said with a sigh. "I was wondering if any of these bosses were going to have some lackeys, and here they are."

"Lucille, analysis!" Jax called out, even as he began charging toward the sword-wielding knight.

The Analysis spell was used, but it would take some time to activate. "Give me a few seconds."

But before anyone could respond, the nine archer knights nocked their arrows and aimed at the party.

"Incoming!" Melayne shouted, quickly producing a shield from her inventory.

Using the shield would reduce her damage output as she couldn’t swing one-handed, but survival came first. She positioned herself protectively in front of Roman, holding the shield above them.

Arrows flew through the air in a deadly barrage. Melayne’s shield deflected several aimed at Roman and her, while Ning leaped in front of Lucille to protect her from the projectiles. He spun his spear before him, creating a shield that blocked the arrows that came for them.

Jax ignored the arrows completely, his armor absorbing the single one that struck him as he closed the distance to the boss.

The sword-wielding knight raised its weapon to meet Jax’s charge. Their weapons clashed with a ringing sound of metal on metal.

To Jax’s amazement, the knight’s sword bent in half from the impact.

"What?" Jax said, surprised by the unexpected weakness. Were they mistaken? Was this not the boss?

But he didn’t let the surprise slow him down. He pulled his axe back and swung again, the ghostly afterimage of his weapon following behind as he used the Spell stone embedded onto the axe’s handle.

The first strike dented the knight’s armor, digging into it, and the ghostly second strike landed with the same force, cleaving completely through its neck. The knight’s head flew from its shoulders, and the body collapsed.

The boss was dead.

Jax stood there stunned, staring at the fallen boss. That was... too easy. He shouldn’t have been able to kill it that quickly. Was this really not the boss?

"Jax! Look out!" Lucille’s warning came just in time.

One of the archer knights had approached him from the side, but now it was carrying a sword instead of a bow. More importantly, it was taller than before, and runic patterns were slowly spreading across its armor.

Jax jumped back right in time as the sword missed him by a few inches. The knight followed and Jax struck back to stop it. At the same time, the others raised their bow, preparing for a second volley of arrows.

"What’s happening?" Jax asked, stepping back from the transforming knight.

"Be careful, guys. It’s a weird boss," Lucille said as she read the analysis that had finally activated. "It’s called a Knight Host. It’s something taking over the bodies of the Knights. The boss inhabits one of the knights and when one dies, the boss moves to another."

She paused to duck behind Ning’s protective stance as more arrows flew past.

"We have to defeat the archers first if we want to kill the boss," Lucille said. "But we need to pace through defeating them."

"Pacing?" Melayne asked, deflecting another arrow.

"If we kill too many too quickly, the boss absorbs their power and becomes stronger!" Lucille explained. "We don’t want it to get too strong too quickly."

"Got it," Jax muttered, activating his Divine Threads spell around the newly transformed boss knight.