CHAPTER 164: BOTH WEAKNESS

The fight dragged on, and Jax was getting seriously frustrated. Every damn time they managed to crack the beast’s armor, it would just regenerate like nothing happened. They were stuck in this endless cycle of waiting for Lucille’s fire blast, attacking during the brief window when the ice softened, then backing off to wait again.

"How much longer on that spell?" Jax shouted, dodging another ice crystal that shattered against the ground behind him.

"A few more seconds!" Lucille called back, her octopus protecting her from the spike that came flying toward her.

The boss roared again, and the cone of icicles came flying out. They managed to dodge the icicles, but the cold wind that came along was damning as well.

"Shit, my arms are getting stiff," Melayne muttered, her sword swings getting noticeably slower and clumsier.

Jax felt it too. His fingers were going numb, and his legs felt like they were moving through thick mud. The cold was seeping through his armor, making everything harder.

Roman waited on his spell, not immediately helping any of them. He knew that the boss could cause frostbite, so he needed to prepare so that he could heal them the moment they were hit with it.

"We just have to push through it," Jax said, though his voice was tight with frustration.

When Lucille’s next fire blast finally hit, the heat that came off the attack was their solace. They went through the same routine again. The armor cracked and hissed, with no snow in the area to help heal it. They all rushed in to do as much damage as possible before it healed. But as the cycle repeated, the boss healed again.

They began fearing that the boss wasn’t just healing its armor, but also itself. What if none of their damage until now had mattered at all?

"We’re doing this all wrong," Lucille said as she realized something. "This thing is weak to fire and bludgeoning damage, but we’re barely using either."

"What do you mean?" Ning asked, moving around the boss, dodging its attacks. "We’re hitting it with fire."

"Not enough. My fire takes time, and Melayne’s isn’t strong enough. Fire is not it’s only weakness. It is also weak against bludgeoning damage," she told everyone.

She had mentioned it before, but they hadn’t cared for this bit as much as they had for the fire.

"Melayne’s got some fire enchantments on her sword, so that’s something. But Jax..." She looked at him pointedly. "You’re not doing either type of the damage it’s actually weak to."

Jax looked down at his black sword. She was absolutely right. He’d been basically useless this entire fight, just flailing around with a weapon that wasn’t doing much of anything.

Ning had his own unique way of fighting, Melayne and Lucille were dealing damage through Fire, and Roman was a support. They were all doing the best they could, but he alone was left behind.

"I’ve got a hammer if you want it," Melayne offered, pulling out a small smithing hammer from her inventory. "It’s not really a weapon, but it’d do bludgeoning damage at least."

Jax took the hammer and weighed it in his hand. It was way too small, meant for working metal at an anvil, not fighting monsters. The handle was short, the head was light, and he could already tell swinging it would feel awkward as hell.

It was bad, but then, so was using the sword against that monster. He needed to use this, or he needed fire somehow.

Just then, something clicked. He remembered the fungus fight from a few rounds back, how he had caused his threads to catch fire.

"Actually, hang on," he said, tossing the hammer back to Melayne and dropping his sword entirely. "I think I’ve got something way better."

Brown threads started flowing from his fingers, Earth threads. They were naturally denser and stronger, but he pumped as much Navi into them as he could manage, making them as strong and heavy as possible.

Jax turned toward the boss and whipped the threads at its armor like he was using a massive whip. The impact made a satisfying crack that echoed through the arena, and he could see small fractures spreading outward from where they hit.

"Bludgeoning damage," he said with the first real grin he’d had since this fight started. "The threads hit like clubs when they’re this thick."

"Oh, that’s clever," Melayne said.

"Not just that," Jax said, pulling the threads back. "Can you light them on fire?"

Melayne got it immediately, bringing her flaming blade to the tips of his threads. Fire started crawling up the strands, slow but steady, like a fuse burning.

The threads burned away, but Jax just kept creating more and more threads to stay ahead of the flames, constantly feeding new material into his makeshift weapons.

Now every hit was delivering both types of damage the boss was actually weak to—the bludgeoning force of the thick threads and the fire climbing up them.

"Finally!" Lucille shouted as her next fire blast hit at the same time as Jax’s burning whips. The combination was devastating. Huge chunks of ice armor fell away and for the first time, they weren’t growing back fast enough.

The whole dynamic of the fight changed instantly. The beast couldn’t keep up with the damage anymore. It started moving more frantically, throwing ice crystals in every direction, roaring constantly like it was panicking.

"Keep it up!" Ning called out, searching for the next spot through the gaps in the broken armor. He finally saw one.

As the fight continued, Ning got his chance and stabbed it in its liver, hitting the second Critical Spot.

The boss roared in pain. Then, its made a sound like an entire glacier breaking apart. The rest of the armor in its body suddenly shattered, throwing shards of ice outward.

The group protected themselves and looked back at the boss, who now had many of those shards floating around him in a ring.

"Oh great," Ning said, gripping his spear tighter. "Here we go with phase two."