The Slime King didn't shoot at me, most likely because I never tried to hit a slime, or even itself. It must think I'm some kind of coward. What a mistake that is. Unfortunately, I might as well be a coward, because how the hell am I meant to hurt this thing with my fists? Its stretchy, bouncy surface would negate my fists' impact completely! It might even try to swallow me!

Maybe if I use the axe... No, I said unarmed, I'm doing it. The mass of players is scattering around the Slime King now, and it's stopped. Some of the faster melee DPS are already poking at it, dodging its attempts at self-defence. I can't go in like this, not with my red name. Speaking of which, I'm not being snuck up on, am I? After a look around myself, I see no one.

Is Crush doing fine? Is it still mad or has it calmed down? No, I can see that it's still mad by its trembling surface. But it stopped, so that's good.

"Good job with the swarm, Crush. Don't recklessly charge in like that, okay? You made me worry. I get it, this guy's twisted all these members of your species into a zombie equivalent, but we'll make him pay for that together if anything, alright?" "Kyuuu..."

"The problem is, I have no clue how we're supposed to do that. Punching it seems like a bad idea. You don't think you could, like, poke a hole in it and suck its water out that way, right? It'd suck YOU in if you tried that. Although, if I help... Yeah, would that work?"

The thing was already covered in people, what with it being only about three meters across and slightly taller than me. If we were to use that strategy, we'd have to have all of the players' cooperation. Look at how little damage they're doing to it, though, it's such a fine line! Is that even 1% of its health? I expected fire spells to be more effective.

After a good three more minutes of bashing and slashing, the Slime King unleashed a big spiral of goo and actually jumped out of the encirclement, then went back to its slime-barrage position. Its health bar was exchanged for another counter, this one somewhat smaller at 4,800 slimes. That last phase took off maybe 5% of its total health, what a disappointment. I think I've found a weak point to this phase, though. It stays still during it, like it can't do much more than spam slimes.

"Okay, this is our turn! Biiro, Crush, come with me, we're gonna get this thing from the back! Biiro, help me deal with the slimes that spawn. Crush, do you think you can suck it correctly?" "Pi!" *courageous chirp*

"Okay, let's do this!"

We move in on it from behind. I don't doubt that it thinks I won't hurt the baby slimes, but while they're cute, if they're mindless they don't feel pain. Crush isn't the only one with gripes against this thing. Still, even though it's got less slimes, this time there's five streams, huh? It's getting faster as it gets smaller, that makes sense but it's still a pain.

We get in close and I stick Crush onto it, like a suction cup. It goes red in the face as it tries its hardest to suck the juice out of the Slime King, and seems to succeed. It's slowly getting bigger, and the King doesn't like that. I was right, it doesn't have the ability to defend itself. The phase must go on!

With a big honk from its mouth, a whole lot of slimes rise up at once. This'll be hard. I kick, stomp and jump around in the slime pile, punching at them when they jump at me,Biiro doing divebomb after big peck after divebomb. Still, this is bad. I can handle myself somewhat, but I underestimated its ability to defend itself in this phase. I have to defend Crush from these things. Thankfully, they don't seem that interested in it, focusing on me instead. The King knows I won't let them touch it, so he's going for me, knowing if I die, they die with me.

I can see that, in the top of my HUD, the counter took a side show to the power struggle between Crush and the King, with little cartoon icons on both ends of a green and blue bar. The green is slowly retreating, but at this rate, the phase will be over before the bar reaches halfway. I see, it was never supposed to die from Crush's Big Succ ability. This is softening it up so the crowd can finish it off-- everybody knows Field Bosses are tougher than Raid Bosses, after all.

With its attention divided between our little flesh-digging operation and the two hundred or so people, it has barely any ability to resist Crush's power. Its Gel nature might make it seem smaller, but it's actually just denser. This makes its pull small, but hard to resist. The slimes spawn faster and faster now, though, even as the maximum on the counter goes down by ten a second. This is bad. I'll be fine for a bit more, but will the players on the other side be alright? Do they see the indicator?

They don't matter, I have to keep kicking, punching, slapping, faster and faster. So many... I can see some of them fusing, in pairs or trios, behind the rest, then charge in. Are they doing that on the other side now as well? How tough IS this thing and what is its level, like 20?! The counter's down to 2,178/4,500 and going down faster now, at maybe twelve a second. My Stamina won't hold this long! I need some kind of advantage!

"Biiro, do you have any special attacks that could help us? You might not be a boss anymore, but you're still Unique, right?"

Biiro took to the air with a squeaky warcry and stayed in place, a small vibration or... something could be heard. Is it a lightning attack? It is, isn't it? Of course, it's based on speed. A small glow starts to form on his wings. Let's let him charge it up and focus on the swarm. The big ones are a pain, they take bigger hits to kill. There must be a skill for quick attacks like these, why can't I gain it? Like Barrage of Fists or something? I must be swinging at least three times a second. And it's not wimpy bitch-slaps, either. Please, counter! How much, now? 2,587/4,378? That's like ten seconds!

With a screech, Biiro lets out the attack he's been building up. Where I thought it was a lightning strike, it was wind blades. Loads of them, all over the slimes in front of me. The counter jumps up by at least 70 at once.

"Now that's an attack! I can see why you were the boss before, Biiro! Come down and help me, okay?"

With a quick glance in Crush's direction, I punch a slime that had slipped past me and was climbing up the boss. Good thing I put it up high, I get an excuse to punch the boss! I have to turn around and focus on the approaching swarm once more, though. They just keep spawning faster and faster. That wind attack consumes mana, right? Biiro's mana is down by a quarter. What a shame, it's so good. Surely he must have a non-charged version as well, right? Like continuous wind blades? I'm getting distracted, no good!

I'm on 13 Stamina, no wonder I'm getting distracted. If I reach zero here, I'm dead.

"Crush, I'm running out of juice! Get ready to get off! Biiro, can you use the wind thing as a continuous attack instead of a burst?" *chirp of confirmation*

"Okay, use it! Crush, go!"

I turn around and grab the thrice-heavier Gel right off the Slime King, turn left and run away to recover.

Dexterity has increased by 1!

Y-yeah! Everything helps, I guess. Though that timing is awful. I've taken quite some distance with Sprint, but my Stamina's at 2 now, so I sit in the grass. The slime counter stopped at 3,421/4,203. We took quite the chunk off, huh?

"Take some time to re-compress yourself, Crush. We won't be able to do this again."

*chirp* "Good, you're alright too. That's good. We're not done yet, though... This next phase'll be real hard."

Thanks to Rest, I've recovered up to 35 points of Stamina, but I have to move now. The slimes are getting kinda close. I ran to the side instead of straight out, so I get to see how the other players are doing. They seem to be fine, if a bit more on edge because there are now chunks in the flow of slime. The counter's going up faster than ever, though. I'm gonna jog their way a bit. I'm sure the more observant ones already noticed I'm carrying a blue Gel, which was the icon in the struggle, and the less observant ones can see my name is red and I've got a big flow of extra-chunky goop following me.

The counter just hit 4,000. The next phase is about to start. I have to get rid of my trail first, so I put Crush down.

"Okay, Biiro, get ready to beat 'em up!" "Kiiy!" "Oh, I forgot you're actually a combatant as well. Whoops. Whatever, let's have a go!"

I resumed beating the shit out of a big series of slimes. Some were getting quite big now, where a single-size is as big as my head, these were as big as my torso. It's not quite small, you know. It took three good kicks to get them down, and while I was helped so I didn't have to back off, standing my ground wasn't exactly easy either. My chunks were bigger than theirs, so it looks like the Slime King has a grudge.

As I get rid of the last extra-large slime, the counter hits 4,203, the new limit. Time for the next phase. The king lets out the slime equivalent to a roar, turns to me and fires a massive hose of goop my way. I barely get out of the way in time. That was very dangerous. We did a lot of damage, though, its health bar went down to between halfway and one third. That must be at least 20% of its health gone in one phase. It's fucking pissed, but it completely ignored 200 people just because of me. I'm kinda proud.

"What's wrong, big chonko? Can't beat a single human? Maybe you don't deserve the title of Field Boss after all!"

I should not have said that. Its slime minions were low in number now, because of the phase, but it attacked the players with renewed vigor, as if to say "You'll see if I deserve it, you little shit!" What do you know, it really can beat a single human-- ten at once, in fact. Those tanks got rekt. Oh God, that's bad. Charging in, it decided to change tactics from the last time it used this phase, and attack one player at a time instead of trying to hit them all at once. This proved far more effective, the strength-based melee DPS couldn't get close without getting decked.

I decided to use that time to sit down and rest, to recover some stamina. There were only a few slimes here and there, and I could see Crush didn't have a stamina bar. Looks like gels can't get tired. Man, I'm gonna get so much XP after this. Oh, that one got flung real far.

Rest has leveled up!

Nice. Real nice. When my Stamina completely filled up, I stood, dusted myself off, and casually stood there on the sidelines. No way I'm getting close to that. I already won anyways, and it knows that. It got mad, I got lots of minion XP, if the XP on that thing is based on contribution then I wonder how many levels Crush is gonna get. Seriously though, this thing is insane! I get the old trope of more damage = more strength, but isn't that from anime and not videogames?

Alright, let's wait it out. Everyone else is focusing on it right now, so it's not like I can get a hit in. I think Biiro can, though.

"Hey Biiro, you think those wind blades will work on the Slime King?"

*chirp, nod*

"Yeah? Show me."

I got a bit closer, as Biiro took up a position above it and began charging an attack. The glow, like before, starts white, but this time the charging takes a good 30 seconds instead of just 10 and as the glow gets stronger, it turns slightly bluish. Eventually, Biiro releases the attack, a single, clearly visible blast of compressed air opening a huge gash on top of the Slime King. I could see the HP gauge go down at least 4% from that alone. It almost took all his mana though.

I'm so proud of this little tough boy, even though I played no part in making him that tough.

"Well, you showed me. Take a break, you deserve it. Crush, take care of him while he recovers. I'm gonna try something out."

Clearly, the King is far more vulnerable to magic than physical damage, but it's not like these players are weak. They're pretty much all higher levels than me for sure, and the only reason it hasn't succumbed to its wounds yet is its massive, ridiculous HP pool. What I want to try, though, is these people's reactions to my presence, especially the red name. Will some of them disregard the boss in favor of a much easier PK kill, or will they let me join in on the fun? It seems like the second is a much more viable answer, since they don't seem to care at all.

The King abruptly jumps out of the encirclement, like he did before, but this time, it's different. It seems flaccid, like it doesn't have enough fluids to maintain its form. It tries to compress itself into a workable state, struggling to do so. It manages to do it, though and after about twenty seconds, it's much smaller, going up to my abs at most. A counter shows up on my HUD again, reading 200. Slimes spawn from the boss again, but this time, they're green and each one is as big as a two-blue fusion.

Since the King managed to kill quite a few players, our numbers are down to 150, just about. A fourth of us, decimated. This thing is OP, plain and simple. I run back over to my partners to see that at least 8 are specifically for me. Thank God I maxed into Strength, otherwise I never would've been able to one-shot the blue ones. That's the only reason I survived the swarm back there, nothing else.

They're faster than the blues, and they also seem smarter, less suicidally beelining. Let's see if they're tougher as well. As the first one reaches wind-up distance, it jumps at me, throwing me off. I thought it'd let me kick it. It didn't manage to get a grip on me, but I feel like I really shouldn't let it happen. It hits the floor and instantly bounces back at me, letting me swing my fist into it. It's heavier than I thought, and I couldn't push it as much as I'd planned, only moving it aside by a bit. The second one's reached me by now, and doesn't jump unlike the first, running right into my outstretched foot.

It's like kicking a medicine ball, but it works and I send it careening back, flopping through the air and landing on the third. No time to rest, though. I once again throw a haymaker at the jump-happy first slime, and I'm ready for the weight this time. No holding back. It was also ready for me, as I feel that it's significantly harder than last time-- partial hardening. Great for blocking or for fighting using spikes. This didn't work out, though, and it breaks around my fist, dripping off then dissipating into red dust.

Since I knocked the second into the third, they both reach me at the same time. This is where Crush and Biiro come in, though, rushing into one of them, leaving me to deal with the other. I wind up to kick it, but feint and stomp it instead. As I suspected, there's a dark spot where they harden, and the rest of their protective outer layer gets thinner when they do it. It bursts like a water balloon, then dissipates into red dust.

The deadly duo seem to be doing fine, so I rush ahead to beat the fourth, checking the counter on the way. 58/200. It's not so bad, I don't get why they can't kill them with their sharp things faster than I can with my body alone. No time to dawdle, I gotta beat these damn things. My fists hurt from the weird physics governing their bodies.

This one's a jumper too. A hard right-handed uppercut sends its predictable path into a wobbly line upwards. I back off then smash it as it comes down, cracking open on my foot.

"Fuck, that hurt! How many more of you are gonna show up?"

Four, it seems. No more were showing up. A quick look behind me tells me my two pals are doing just fine, their slime having several holes and a cracked hard-spot.

It spawned exactly two hundred, huh? I can work with that. I get a run-up to the next slime and shoot it at nothing. There was no bluff, but it had clearly learned from the one I did bluff, because it formed a useless hard spot on its top. An easy kill.

Crush and Biiro finished off the one behind me, but the three ahead of me weren't gunning it for me anymore. All the slimes that were left, 46 according to the counter, retreated back to the King and formed up into 23 double-greens. Oh, shit. This boss fight is so hard, and it had already been going for like an hour before I showed up! Even more of my fellow fighters were dead now, the new slimes appearing to be just as good at focusing down an enemy as their leader. There weren't many frontliners left.

I'm really starting to wonder if this is our last stand or theirs.