The mammoths stopped struggling against the traps when they spotted us. They faced us and let loose their thunderbolts. I used another charge to run to the side, heading to the direction of the forest. I planned to circle in front of them and cut them off from rejoining the herd. Other players rushed to the front to block most of the lightning attack. They probably thought that the duty to tank the damage fell to them because they were several levels higher than me. Some of them were hit by the magic attacks. It was devastating. We didn’t really have high magical resistance since the gear available to us was shit.

Magic was also a rare damage type in this mountain which was why we didn’t have a lot of experience dealing with it. Some random puny icicle spells were the ones I usually encountered, weak ass spells that I could easily shrug off. It was probably the same case with the others. Even Megiddo said so himself.

It was different this time. Way different.

Each thunderbolt took out about a third of the life of the higher leveled players they hit. All of us were surprised at the damage. Imagine if I was hit with that. I could see their life bars because we were in a party, of sorts. The one who made the party was an NPC and it was only for the purposes of the event which was why we could easily keep track of all the players who were participating in the Hunt.

The others reached the mammoths and started to attack them. Instead of fighting back, the mammoths stopped moving and began to glow. They held their trunks close together. An energy ball started to form. Their trunks started collecting lightning which they charged to the energy ball. Those bastards were charging something.

“Scatter!” a player said. He also realized that something was going on.

"Where do we go?"

"Just get far away."

“Here. Come here,” I shouted at them. I was standing in the midst of destroyed and trampled trees, wreckage left behind by the main body of the herd. “Follow me, we need to block their path. Let's regroup here. Hurry up.” I knew they were going to try to rejoin their herd to buff their boss and benefit from its aura. If they were allowed to regroup, it would be extremely hard to pick off one of them. All of us, even the NPCs, stopped attacking the mammoths and headed for my location. "Let's get away from them," I said as I also started to run away from the mammoths. I wasn't interested in whatever they were charging.

"Cast protection," someone shouted.

"We need protective sigils up," another said. "Increase HP sigils."

The mammoths trumpeted. I checked to see why they were making a racket. The energy ball they were charging has turned blue. With their trunks high in the air, they let loose an AOE, an area of effect, skill. Ripples of blue electricity swept the ground like someone dropped a rock in a lightning pond, and all of us were in that pond. The snow evaporated and the trees burned as they were hit by waves of lightning. Although we were trying to distance ourselves from them, the skill still caught up with us.

"Heal!"

"Spam pots, people."

"Fuck this is gonna hurt."

I hurriedly ate the health fruits in my inventory. Each wave of electricity was a different instance of damage. If I didn't eat them, I would have died. There was a large blue wall of lightning decimating everything. It was the last wave. It passed over us and blinded us momentarily. I made sure I had full life when it hit me.

“Wow, what the fuck was that,” I said. Half of my life was gone along with my shell. I thought my shell only blocked physical damage. Did that last wave have physical and magic parts? That would explain it. I tried to move but a tingly static sensation shot through me. “We’re paralyzed,” I exclaimed.

“Calm down, pansies,” our Healer named Mr_jizz27 said. That was his name. Serious. Given my own name, who was I to judge? It was refreshing to see names like these. Just like old times. First, he removed his paralysis and then proceeded to cure the others.

Another healer along with two other Foragers specialized in potion making from plants restored the life bars of our group.

“The mammoths are coming,” Mr_jizz27 said. “What do we do now?”

“I’ll get one of them,” I said.

“How are you going to do that?”

“Just follow me.” I galloped towards the mammoths. They broke free from the traps and destroyed the other obstacles the Pathfinders left for them. They buffed themselves and ran towards us. They were trying to chase after their boss. Damn, they were fast, probably because of the lightning buff. “We’ll go for the one with the lowest level. The one on the right. Our right.”

The other two mammoths took a swipe at us with their tusks and trunks but we kept out of their way. They smashed some rocks and logs but didn't pay us any more mind. Instead, they went past us and ran towards the heart of the forest. The last mammoth was coming close.

I cast Icicle Plating. Its tusks sparked, signaling another lightning attack. I kickstarted and charged forward as the lightning raked the place where I stood. Other players got hit. Sorry friends, you need to improve your reflexes. My charge was also high level. Only two more levels to ten and I could see if I wanted its rank up.

The Fulmenerian Behemoth reared up on its hind legs and brought its front legs crashing on me. I stood my ground and let it hit me. Shards scattered as it destroyed my ice armor. The damage from the shards barely tickled it. It was a fearsome monster. High magic damage, high physical damage, fucking tanky, it was also fast when buffed, and they really liked to buff each other. Unfortunately for it, I could freeze it. My ice armor could negate one instance of damage, and that was from the stomp, and freeze the one who attacked.

It was the opening we needed.

“Let’s mess this fucktard up!”

“Humans already hunted you to extinction!”

“We’re gonna hunt you to extinction.”

“Elephants shouldn’t have electricity!”

Oh yeah. I love the gaming community. Lots of colorful people. All of us fell upon the immobilized monster. This was the main weakness of tanks. Eventually, numbers could overwhelm them. I hoped to find some solution to that problem in the future.

Santi came up to me and said, “We already placed status effects on that guy, we’ll go ahead and try to slow down the behemoths lagging behind the herd.” Then he separated from us followed by other Pathfinders.

Since the players with me were damage dealers, we made short work of the mammoth. The NPC Hunter-Warriors also helped a lot. The frozen status didn’t last for long, but others stunned the mammoth when it broke the ice. It didn’t have a chance to fight back at all.

Encouraged by our success, we chased down the herd with renewed vigor. Santi and the Pathfinders were kiting two other mammoths. The mammoths were severely slowed down from all the status effects and disables applied on them. They were also confused as to whether they were going to stay and fight or to continue running forward to find their boss.

The indecisiveness of their AI spelled their downfall. One of them swung their trunk at my Icicle Plating and out came an Icicle Mammoth. The others locked him down. No way that mammoth was getting out of here alive. Santi waved at me and pointed forwards. I nodded. The Pathfinders went forward to find the next mammoths.

My Icicle Plating was still on cooldown when we killed one mammoth. But the other one was already terribly slowed down by the Pathfinders that those with stun were able to close in and start locking it down. A brave player rushed in and dodge its stomps and slammed its side with a powerful stunning attack. Once one stun got through, it didn’t wake up again.

This was working out beautifully.

“Come quickly,” Santi talked inside my head. A location on the minimap highlighted. It was pulsating red, indicating that the party members there needed assistance. “We’re trying to slow them down but four behemoths are sticking together. We can’t get close for too long. Too much lightning.”

We carefully navigated the flattened forest while trying to run as fast as we could. There were so many fallen trees. Other trees were burned by lightning attacks. This was some serious illegal logging going on. Wait, there can be no illegal logging if there were no laws about it.

Trumpeting alerted us to the presence of the mammoths. There were four in a close group as Santi said. The players employed hit and run tactics to slow them down with their skills. Lightning kept on surging out of the beasts like they were some kind of lightning ball in a science fair; I didn’t know what that ball thing was called.

“Let’s take on two at once,” I said. “We’ll kill them quickly while we evade the attacks of the other two.” The mammoths were showing no signs of separating from each other. This was our best bet. “Who can safely disable one? I’ll take one.”

“Me,” a level twenty-nine said. He was carrying large hammer, just like Balasi. He was the one who stunned the mammoths after my freeze wore off. A large tower shield appeared in his left hand. His large hammer was exchanged with a small knife. “I’ll slot my stunning hammer in my secondary gear and swap it out once I get close.” He held up his shield. “With this, I could probably approach one safely. My knife’s effect is added movement speed. This could work.”

Woah, we could do that? There were some mechanics like that in the game I used to play. Swapping different kinds of gear while in the middle of the battle could prove beneficial and give you an edge over your enemy. I was tempted to open my inventory to find the feature he mentioned but it wasn’t the time for it.

As we headed for the group of four mammoths, I said, “I can’t control who will get frozen. When one attack pops my ice armor and that bastard gets frozen, I’ll immediately pull back. I’m still kinda squishy compared to you guys.”

“Don’t run away from the fight,” Mr_jizz27 said. He cast a spell on me which caused nearly transparent shields to float around me. Then he cast a few more buffs to make me harder.

“Thanks for that,” I said. I threw my poison bottle to open the fight. "Lezzdothisshit!"

Two mammoths turned to face me. Santi came up in my peripheral view letting loose a volley of burning spears at one mammoth. I gave him a thumbs up as I hurried to get near the other mammoth to make it stop using lightning attacks. It swung its trunk at me, getting frozen in return after hitting me.

“This one,” I said at the others. The NPCs also attacked.

The Pathfinders were trying to distract the two other mammoths. They went wild, blasting everyone with lighting. One of the attacks hit me, shattering the protection Mr_jizz27 cast on me. I was also damaged but not much.

The last mammoth was successfully stunned by the player who volunteered earlier. We hastened in killing the two mammoths we incapacitated.

The remaining two mammoths, seeing our numbers, stopped and held their trunks together. Another energy ball was coming up.

“Stun them!”

“Wrong move fucktards!”

We were practically on top of them. Standing still to channel their spell made our job easier. They weren’t able to finish their spell because we disabled them. The players who had stuns made care to only use it when the previous stun was wearing off to maximize its duration. We also had other disables at our disposal but stuns were the surest way to stop the mammoths.

This made me realize that I should watch out for future enemies who could stun. If I was stun locked, I would be a lone fortress that couldn’t repair itself. No heal, no potions, no nothing. I should watch out for possible ways to deal with getting disabled.

Megiddo opened a line of communication with all of us. “What did you guys do? The boss monster slowed down a bit. It was going insane before, I barely could steer it away from killing the others.”

I answered before anyone else could. “We killed six of them. We’re going after you now,” I said as I zoomed out on the minimap to find them.”

I didn’t want this operation to fail so I was trying to pseudo take charge without appearing to order people. I was low level. That fact could make some people resent I was giving orders. Understandable. But the ones with me have already seen that even though I was sort of ordering them, I could back up my words. Now, I was trying to sound like I was deferring to the leadership of Megiddo. No one would contest Megiddo being our leader. Still, I wanted to have a say in everything going on here because I wanted to finish this Hunt.

“That would explain why the boss lost some of his buffs.” Megiddo then paused a bit. “I think we could take them on now. It would be safer for me to kill the boss while the others are disabled.”

“Got it,” I said. I found them on the minimap. “You’re not going to the place with the traps?” I was referring to the place deep in the forest the other Pathfinders were filling with traps.

“I’m taking a long roundabout route to give them more time. Head there now and add more traps. I will be leading them there now.”

“Sure,” I said. I made sure the chat was turned off. I looked at the others and shrugged. “I bet we could finish this without anyone of us dying,” I said to boost their ego and trust in me. We didn't know much about each other and only spent a short time fighting together but there would be a strong bond between us because we successfully took out the mammoths without a hitch.

“We even killed six of them without the help of Megiddo.”

"I other groups have casualties," another one said.

“Come on, man. He was the one who kept the boss busy.”

"Yep," I said. "We're lucky Megiddo was with us. None of us could do what he's doing now."

“Yeah. I dun think anyone of us cud ‘ave survived playin’ tag wid da boss.”

When we arrived at the location agreed upon. The others told us to be careful and take the path without bombs. There was friendly fire in this game. The others planted more traps, mines, fire bombs, spikes, vines. We prepared a whole lot of shit for the mammoths to step on.

Another group of Mardukryon players arrived. They were the ones with Megiddo. He sent them on first so that they could get past the minefield before he arrived with the party. Awesome heroic guy, huh? I smirked. A heroic guy in the game? Come on. He was probably just showing off his skills in staying alive. Or I was just assuming the worst out of everyone?

We grouped together in an elevated small clearing in the middle of the forest, surrounded by the thickest trees, slopes, rocks and large cracks. Around us were the traps we carefully laid out. My contribution were some weakass poison bottles. At least I contributed something. And I was the one who planned how to kill half of the herd.

The earth started to shake. There was a steady thudding as if a giant was playing giant drums, and these giant drums caused earthquakes.

“I’m nearly there,” Megiddo said over the general chat.

“You heard him,” I said, showing that I was acknowledging that Megiddo was the leader. “Let’s prepare.” Even when I was the one who said that we should prepare, the way I said it made people unconsciously think that it was Megiddo who said it and I was just repeating what he said. Megiddo might have implied it but I was the one to actually say it though.

This was my favorite trick to become more popular in a group that I just joined. You shouldn’t look like you’re one-upping everyone but you should also make yourself relevant, more relevant compared to others, which would involve one-upping others. This was a delicate balance. People have sensitivities, egos to protect, even if they wouldn’t admit it. Even if they did it unconsciously.

Inside the game, it might be something like dismissing a low level as a noob, which I sometimes did, but I mostly did that as a joke. Outside in the real world, it would something like looking down on your junior or a lower rank. If you’re the one on the lower rung of the ladder, it was quite difficult to get recognition. And more difficult to be considered an equal. Ones' opinion would mostly be dismissed in that case.

And I was at the lower rung; the others had a few months of gameplay ahead of me.

Our Healers, Blacksmiths, and Hunter-Warrior began casting support spells. Sigils of all kinds of colors floated high up in the air. The ground was covered with plants that gave regeneration, added life, added armor, every buff under the sun.

We were sure that we could support Megiddo to stand up to the boss.

Megiddo squeezed himself between two trees, followed by the boss mammoth. The boss mammoth parted the forest like Moses parting the sea. Megiddo had sigils floating above him, making him move exceedingly fast. He continuously looked back to evade the thunderbolts and the trunk of the boss mammoth.

We made some signs where the safe path to take was and he followed it, heading for us.

Boss mammoth didn’t care about the traps. It also stepped on the hidden poison bottles and fire bombs. All around us, the forest was set ablaze and different colored poisons mixed in the air. The other mammoths arrived but were impeded by the sheer number of obstacles. Only boss mammoth was heading straight for us. The others were struggling with the traps. They also bathed in the flames and gas, taking a large amount of damage. I doubt if I could survive this level of DoT, Damage Over Time. Any amount of buff would still probably be insufficient. We threw everything we had in this melting pot of traps.

“It’s like we cornered ourselves,” I said. We were in the middle of the poison inferno.

“We didn’t expect the flames and smoke to spread everywhere,” a Pathfinder said. "But our high position makes us safe from its spread."

“Isn’t this more fun?” CragHeadDave said. He found me and positioned himself beside me.

“Hell yeah, it’s more fun,” CragHeadBabe said. “It’s a do or die battle here, baby. Like battles are supposed to be.”

“A last stand,” Santi said. I placed myself beside him because I wanted to be sure he didn’t die.

Megiddo climbed a small snowy ramp leading to our position. He also cast buffs on himself. Everyone supported him. He faced the direction where the boss mammoth would come from. His skin turned into steely red while flames coated him. Holy shit it looked cool.

"I'll have to use everything I got. Continuously heal me unless I get a hit which leaves me at a low life. If that happens low life, don't heal me immediately." The Healers nodded. I bet he had that skill that Norman used before where they nearly get immune to damage when on low life for a few seconds. "Just time your heal bombs, okay?"

A large trunk peeked through the smoke and with a blur of speed, slammed down on us.

I thought we were pancakes but Megiddo caught it with his large battle ax. He swing his ax and swept the trunk away. But he lost half of his life. It was quickly replenished by the heals and the support. The whole head of the boss mammoth appeared out of the flames. He bent his head to hit us with his tusks. Megiddo aimed for the place where the tusk connected to the head. He was able to stop it. About thirty percent of his life was lost by blocking that attack.

All of us were holding our breath. If Megiddo dies, we all die.

"What are you waiting for?" Megiddo shouted. The boss mammoth began glowing. It was charging some shit.

"Stun it!" I said, snapping everyone out of their reverie.

All thirty odd of us jumped at the boss mammoth.

The boss was maimed, crippled, poisoned, stunned, faltered, dazzled, bleeding, fractured, blinded and a whole lot more. The statuses barely lasted more than a second because of the difference in strength between us, but we had more where it came from. You get the picture.

Even the strong will fall to numbers.