“HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Breadtalk was clutching his stomach rolling around the floor of the dungeon.

“H- He.... His rhymes are as bad as Jinx's sense of humour AHAHAHAHAHA”

Apparently Breadtalk was extremely entertained by Renfir's rhyme the moment he said it out.

“May i know what's so entertaining,

when your due date is arriving?”

“HAHAHAHAHAHA IT JUST KEEPS GETTING WORSE. ITS LIKE SOMEONE IS PREGNANT AND I'M THE BABY JUST KILL ME NOW HAHAHAHA THIS BOSS IS CRAZY LETHAL.”

In a flash, Renfir appeared before Breadtalk.

“Wha-”

Renfir's claw went up.

Soup just managed to throw himself in front of Breadtalk when the claw swiped down. Soup's health bar went down by half.

Xantos and I immediately cast lesser heal to heal Soup back to full but the image still shook my mind. The army we had behind were shocked to the point they did not even move after the small exchange.

“TANKS AT THE FRONT. NOW!”

While they were scrambling into formation, Soup was engaging Renfir but it was a shocking sight. His strength was so great whenever his claw met Soup's greatsword, it seemed like the one that was going to break was the sword instead of the claws. But what shocked me was the health bar of Soup. Despite the blocks, his health still went down. Xantos had no choice but to keep healing Soup. And if a clean hit took half of Soup's HP bar, it would amount to about 3000 damage. It would be enough to kill me almost twice. And any of us except Soup. This was no joke. The other times we could just regen ourselves up to full HP while managing crowd control but this was a monster that could take us out in 1 hit. There would be nothing to regen us back.

Just then, the army managed to regroup themselves and charged at Renfir. Apparently it looks like bosses had crowd control spells as well. Renfir raised his foot up and slammed it down on the ground, causing and earthquake and making everyone around him lose their balance for abit before letting loose a huge howl that was ear piercing. As I was relatively closer, I took about 1000 damage which was still extremely substantial. I saw his claw incoming thanks to my electrical impulse and only managed to dodge it with swift steps. My movement speed was already the highest among our party so if I could barely manage to dodge it, the others wouldn't stand a chance. This fight was absurd, just as a boss fight should be. However, I noticed another weird thing. While Soup was busy just now engaging the boss, Breadtalk managed to get many slashes in with his daggers and I managed to use a holy field and divine judgement as well. But his HP did not even go down by 1%. The bar was still full. The daggers were supposed to inflict poison and my holy field should do damage over time to undead monsters as well right. But in this case it wasn't going down at all. Soup was also in close proximity to Renfir so the lesser heals should have damaged him as well but nothing seems to be happening. The poison which could even work on a poison based monster king cobra was not even affecting this boss. Are they immune to status effects? If this keeps up we wouldnt even be able to last 10 minutes.

“Guys, retreat. Everyone go back to the village. Leave us here. This boss monster is too strong. Another one or two AOE spells like just now and we would get casualties for nothing. Go back.”

“Bu-”

“My orders are absolute. I do not want pointless lives being taken away. GO!”

The army turned tail and I asked them to shut the door behind us. It was just the 5 of us against this hell of a monster.

Soup managed to buy us more time with Xantos supporting him so he was permanently at full health but at this rate we were going to get tired. I dashed in and used gravity crush with holy aura at appropriate times but the result was not any better.

Poison doesn't work, light doesn't work, physical attacks do not work WHAT FUCKING WORKS? It's like fighting against another BOTs. Wait what? Regen?

“GUYS! I THINK IT HAS REGEN! JUST LIKE US!”

“YOU SUNNAVABITCH. YOU GENIUS!”

“If there was an exam paper on games, you would be top without a doubt bro.”

“One question. After deducing this brilliantly, WHAT THE FUCK CAN WE DO.”

It was true. Solving out the mystery of the permanently full HP boss was one thing. Tackling the problem was another. Regen was no doubt the right answer as Renfir has just been regenerating the damage from our attacks and even the poison. We did not have enough damage over time to take him down. His regen must be like 1000HP/s or something. I need to affirm this theory. I decided to make a big gamble.

“Divine Judgement”

A holy sword pierced into Renfir's skull and sure enough, I saw the HP bar drop slightly, maybe about 5% before it recovered back to full health almost instantly.

I just used all my mana, 4000 mana, into a divine judgement and it only grazed him for 5% of his total HP. This was not going anywhere as planned.

Soup was not really doing well either. His gladiator's rage buff time could not be increased as there were no minions around for him to kill to keep his buff going and he was at the receiving end of extremely fierce flurry of strikes by Renfir. He was definitely the one having the least fun this battle. Xantos could also do nothing but just heal, heal and heal Soup because the moment she stopped, his HP would reach critical levels.

“Where is the confidence you all had before,

exterminating my minions coming looking for more.

So tell me how much do you like it now,

When faced with an unsurmountable trial.”

Breadtalk was laughing too hard to help for the next 30 seconds after he heard that. I just don't get his sense of humour. In Renfir's defence it was pretty well done with quite a large amount of vocabulary for a wolf.

Suddenly, Renfir's claws had a red glow to them and I sensed trouble, I immediately casted an earth and holy element armour on him just to prepare for the worst and sure enough, Soup's parry got knocked aside like a chopstick versus a baseball bat and he flew from his position. He nearly died. That's like 5000 points of damage. Holy hell.

Renfir leaped to give the finishing blow and I quickly conjured a wall in front of his path and cast lesser heal simultaneously. Because I had no need for cast time, this was done just in time and his HP was back at full. However, if not for my holy and earth element armour, he would have died without a doubt. Renfir managed to break my wall down with one swipe and it was not something I have ever seen before. Looks like the threat I sensed earlier from his dark aura was very, very real. This was an opponent that made the whole quest make sense. This was a C difficulty class. What would a B or A look like.

I couldn't think of a way out of this situation. Almost every choice I had in front of me was not a way out. We had no chance of winning with a regen level that high. Suddenly, an hour was approaching since the start of the battle with Renfir and the chaotic melody buff was wearing off. Beathoven begun to cast Reunion instead.

“Beat, what are you doing? We need the regen!”

“It's pointless. We need to use reunion to gain inspiration first. This would last for hours if we used chaotic melody and nothing would change. It's just a matter of time before our concentration breaks and all of us die!”

I knew he was right deep down. We were fighting an AI monster who was seemingly still toying with us. He could have easily gone for me or Breadtalk instead with his red claw attack but it looked like he was the sort who liked to play with his food before eating it.

Suddenly, there was a flashback. I had a vision in my mind for a short moment about the first time I learnt the dispel skill from Xantos. I wonder why that vision even happened. Dispel was supposed to remove negative status from ourselves due to the holy mana vanquishing the impurities. Then there was a second flashback, this time back to when I was reading a particular paragraph from the book I was reading earlier today. “The Earth Goddess, Gaia.”

“Gaia had to take care of many things at once so she had to do many things in the form of buffs. She gave growing buffs to newly planted seeds, she used hardening buffs on certain rocks so that they would naturally become waterfalls over time after erosion occurs. Buffs are the basis on which gods use the most because they cannot micromanage everything they take care of. It would take too much effort to individually bless every one of their followers. So they just cast a buff on the things they take care of which will be self sufficient. However, these buffs can be removed. Especially with the mana of that of a opposite nature. The enemy of earth is fire. That's why Gaia's creations can be ruined easily by fire. A growing forest would become almost useless after a fire and the fire automatically purges the buff by gaia so the forest would not grow as beautifully nor quickly as it would be unless Gaia goes to rebuff the forest.”

Reunion was telling me something. And I would be an idiot if I couldn't piece these information together. The regeneration was not an in born passive ability of Renfir's. It was bestowed to him by a god. An undead god. And if i had a spell that could purge an unholy buff, it would be the spell that usually removes negative effects on myself through light mana.

“Dispel!”

Apparently it didn't work as his HP was still not going down. However, there was an immistakable look of shock on Renfir's face and he immediately directed his attacks towards me. Soup interrupted that with Berserker's call which apparently worked on boss monsters which was a good thing. From Renfir's actions, it looks like we were on our way to something.

I remembered that the dispel skill had a certain percentage of success so I decided to spam dispel with everything I got. Beathoven had already changed the party buff back to chaotic melody as I have gotten all that I needed to know. However I did not tell him anything so I guess reunion puts the same vision into everyone's brain at once drawing upon all our experiences. For this time, it looks like the secret to success lies in my experience.

“Dispel!”

And then I saw it, the HP bar that did not regenerate itself back to full. There was an immistakably slow drain on the HP pool no doubt from Breadtalk's poison that kudos to him he had been trying and trying to wound him time and time again with it and finally it paid off. Xantos was also doing minor damage with the heals he had been using on Soup. I went into meele mode and used my katana with holy aura and laid gravity crush after gravity crush on him.

Renfir could sense that he was being hurt. His HP bar was hitting 90% soon.

“How dare you ruin my invulnerability

You just decided your inevitability

Fun time is over you're going down

I'll never lose upon my crown.”

“HAHAHA ITS GOING DOWN, IM YELLING TIMBERRRR”

Before I could smile, the familiar red aura was now around Renfir himself, not just his claws. I could sense something bad coming. Renfir suddenly flashed and appeared directly in front of Breadtalk like how he first appeared in front of him from the throne. It was going to be bad. I imagined a holy and earth armour around Breadtalk and this time I focused on it harder and imagined both of them merging into one instead of 2 layers.

New Skill : Divine shield

Your desperation has enabled you to learn this skill which is actually a commonly used skill among the gods. Especially Gaia and Aether. This skill blocks one instance of damage completely.

Requirements : At least 30% affinity to Earth and Light

Mana cost : 1000 mana

Wait I only have 10% affinity to earth and light. Oh wait i have always wondered about affinity to nature. Looks like affinity to nature is across all elements due to the very basic understanding of mana itself. If that is the case I would have 32% now.

Renfir made one quick stab towards Breadtalk who was still laughing. Even in the face of death that guy would rather laugh at a joke than defend himself. But thats what makes him so charming at times i guess.

The shining aura around Breadtalk shattered and his health bar was unchanged. Soup managed to catch up in that time to cast berserker's call and take the aggro for himself. However this time, every attack would do insane damage so i used a normal earth armour around him and joined Xantos in healing him. Beathoven changed his buffs to buff our defence and lower his attack because lowering his speed was of no use, it was negligible as he was too fast. Breadtalk suddenly jumped into the fray of the battle but facing the entirely wrong way.

“Renfir is his name,

smelling is his game.

How can he stand smelling himself

with a huge nose like an elf.

He think's his rhymes are cool,

But I think it's quite true.

Cos they make me laugh so hard

I think I'm about to fart.”

Apparently an attack like that was quite effective against an opponent with a keen sense of smell. Breadtalk suddenly used Loki's Armoury again and swapped his dual knives. This time, what came out was something that couldn't possibly be used by many classes in RR. It was a fucking rocket launcher. He ran a few meters back and aimed it at Renfir. Who happened to be engaged in a meele with Soup as always. Before I could say anything, his familiar “YOLOOOOOO” came.

I had to time this to perfection so I needed to watch carefully. Just before the rocket hit either of them, I cast another divine shield on Soup. It had quite a high mana cost and it was only for one instance of damage so I could not spam it. What happened though was extremely cool. The rocket exploded and the radius of effect was no where as small as it thought it would be. I was about 10 meters behind Soup with Beathoven and Xantos directly behind me. Breadtalk was firing his rocket from a position about 5 meters on my right. All 3 of us nearly died even though we were a considerable 10 meters away from the start of the explosion. I immediately cast lesser heal on all of us simultaneously and wondered what happened to Soup. The explosion cleared up and Soup was looking at us with shining eyes that anyone could tell were saying “AGAIN AGAIN PLS AGAIN SO FUN AGAINNNN”. Renfir flew about 10 meters back into the wall and his HP was originally about 80% but now it was 60%. A single rocket dealing 20% of damage to a boss? Too overpowered hello?

“Breadtalk when you recited that stupid poem how much did Loki give you?”

“A nine. My first nine! YAYYY”

I wondered what a 10 would give Breadtalk. An atomic bomb?

In his defence though the rocket must have been a direct hit. Furthermore at such close proximity the damage was kind of reasonable. Renfir did not have high HP in the first place. It was his regeneration that was out of this world but since now that was out of the question, he was just a level 200 monster. I would estimate his HP to be about 50000 or something but he was still extremely lethal. One swipe could kill us. Even Soup if he struck in a clean hit at a critical spot. Breadtalk wasted no time shooting another rocket at Renfir. It seemed like Loki's weapons all did not need repair or loading of ammo. They were all magical. Not just magical. Mythical. God level items indeed. Renfir however took more notice of the rocket now. His main priority target now was also Breadtalk. He flashed towards Breadtalk and swiped furiously at him. Breadtalk's luck stat was so high however that all the attacks barely grazed him so it did not kill him instantly but he still almost died after being grazed about 2 or 3 times. Xantos was spamming heals and it was too close for Breadtalk to fire his rocket. He would instantly die no matter how high his luck stat was. But that wasn't something that stopped Breadtalk. He sang “I DONT CARE I LOVE IT” (By Icona Pop you should check it out its quite a nice song. Really go youtube it now.) and squeezed the trigger. I had enough mana for 2 divine shields so I quickly cast both of them onto Breadtalk to protect him from two instances in case Renfir got one swipe on him before he managed to squeeze the trigger.

“BOOOOM.” Renfir flew into another wall again and his HP reached 40%. Breadtalk was laughing like a madman in the middle of it and I realised the trickster title was really the perfect job for him. However I did not have much mana left. I was dry. I could not cast anymore divine shields for about 5 seconds because of the mana regen chaotic melody gave me. Soup managed to get off berserker's call in time to buy me the time I needed. Berserker's call could reset the aggro to Soup but it had a cooldown time so it was just a lucky coincidence that he could manage to use it. If not anyone Renfir decided to go on would die just there and then. Soup managed to keep the aggro on him and Xantos could heal him sufficienctly. Soup managed to get used to Renfir's movements so his parry's were alot better even though he was still taking damage despite the parries. Such was the enormous strength of Renfir.

After 20 seconds, I was finally back to full mana and we did the usual combo. Divine shield with impeccable timing plus giant rocket bazooka shot from Breadtalk. Renfir was now down to critical levels. Renfir decided to go kamikaze and this time he “teleported” to Breadtalk again, this time using brute force to snatch the rocket launcher away.

“HOLY SHIT HE HAS BRAINS.”

Breadtalk immediately ran towards us.

“Resummon your weapon!”

“Oh yea! Lok-”

Renfir squeezed the trigger. I had no mana to cast divine shield on all 5 of us which were grouped up together. We were going to die. I knew it. Suddenly everything slowed down again. Adreanaline rush. Of course. And i suddenly realised I could do something so simple yet so elegant. Mustering all my mana left, I used my trump card.

“Earth wall!”

This wasn't just some simple wall i made in front of us to shield us from some of the impact. I was sure the wall would just melt and all of us except Soup would die. I created the wall just in front of the bazooka.

“BOOOM!”

Renfir flew backwards and was found sprawled out on the ground with about 1% of HP left. Without doing anything, the holy field and poison from dual daggers if it still was in his system would kill him in about a minute. We all felt the fight was won. This hard fought fight which lasted for about 2 hours from start to end.

Suddenly, there was a bright light that appeared out of nowhere in front of Renfir and all of us had to shield our eyes to avoid being blinded.

Where Renfir lay, there were 4 beings now that stood in front of him. There was a hulking wolf about 5 times the size of Renfir. He did not look undead though, not like Renfir which was part bone and no flesh. Beside the wolf was a head of a snake appearing from the ground. The head of the snake alone was about the size of the king cobra. Beside the snake was a woman who looked extremely attractive, wearing a long red dress with black long hair and face as pale as snow. In front of the three of them stood someone that looked like a normal human being, an old man with a friendly face. One that I have seen before in Junad in the form of a statue. Renfir suddenly crawled up and walked beside the giant wolf, kneeling down, without a doubt showing signs of submission. His HP suddenly became full again as the lady in red cast some unknown spell on him.

“WHAT? FULL HP?” Beathoven cried out, outraged.

“Look at these guys we don't stand a chance.” Soup managed to mutter

“Loki? What are you doing here?” Asked Breadtalk.

“Well done boys. You have made me proud.” Loki said.

Quest Complete : Eliminate the Dark Forces

You have successfully completed this hidden quest that Loki has asked Valhalla, a demigod serving under his command to give to you. You have received the following rewards:

100000 EXP

5000 Gold

Leadership +1000

Sustenance and Perseverance +50

Intellect, Strength and Agility +100

Complete ownership of Éljúðnir Castle along with your party.

The last reward was completely out of this world.

End of Chapter 14