A couple of mobs trundled towards Kara. They were a mixture of human and tree, each having a large hunch of wood growing on their backs. It encroached into their flesh, guiding their movement. With widebodies and large claws, their weak spots seemed to be the spots where the wood did not fully cover the flesh and very close combat.

She released her sword from her grip, letting it trail by a thin thread behind her.

There was little reason for killing them. The boss was better prey.

She began to jog towards them, bending her back nearly parallel to the ground when they swiped a claw at her, and jumped forward when they struck from above.

She maneuvered in between them, dodging their clumsy attempts, and then ran past, increasing her Song Bar by a few extra percentages.

Their attacks were fast when they began it, but they signaled it beforehand with a predictable attack pattern. It would have been great practice for Nilbog, considering that this was basically the tutorial for the low levels. It required tactical skill and planning instead of pure reaction speed, a vital skill for fighting efficiently, but unfortunately, she could not spare the time or resources.

Another mistake could ruin their Mission, and they didn’t have that luxury anymore.

They were already behind the crowd by a hundred levels. There was a lot of catching up to do.

Kara increased her pace, skipping by a few more mobs until her jog became a full-on sprint.

Finally, Kara arrived at the entrance to the bosses lair.

Flames blocked her way. They rose high into the air, burning everywhere. She could hear sounds of fighting ahead. Someone was a Thermal Mage, it seemed, and had wisely begun to burn everything to a crisp.

Goodness, is that--

"Yeah. That's we got a powerful Titleholder here. All of that is his Zone Control."

Focusing Life Force into her eyes, she could see the boss through the flames.

Kara?

“Mehm?”

I was talking about the fire…Fuck, what’s the point. Please don’t burn me too much, it’s very hard to fix.

Kara chuckled. A few minutes in and he already realized any pretense of bodily safety would be fruitless with her.

She breathed in the rotten air, letting it fill her lungs. It felt good, to feel the wind molecules part before her as she sprinted head-on into the flames. Moments before she crashed into the inferno, Kara leaped into the air, grabbed her sword from her side, and swung diagonally from the bottom right to the top. She kept spinning, straight through the flames, climbing higher and higher into the air as she used up her entire Song bar.

You have entered a Static Control Field!

Aspect Of The Flame

All Thermal Energy is 15% more powerful.

Energy Conversation for Thermal Energy is 10% lower, while Energy Conversation for all other Sources is 10% lower.

The casters own flames will inflict 30% less damage towards themselves.

These effects are doubled for the caster's party.

This should make things easier--Third Movement: Deviation.

The flames which were busily devouring the walls was sucked into the flaming tornado as Kara spun in the air. They followed the tip of her sword as she soared through the air, but she was far too quick for the flames to catch up. They trailed her as she dove back into the ground, roaring like a dragon.

The tip of her sword struck hard flesh, the momentum carrying the poor metal all the way to the hilt.

It was a large humanoid with at least five times her own height. Its body was made of some type of brown material, the vines bulging on its muscular body. There were two holes black as the abyss in place of its eyes and no mouth.

The sword had gone through its neck, right above the collarbone.

Kara did not stop moving. With a single stroke, she released her grasp on the sword, letting the momentum with the guidance of Deviation and Kinetic Energy spin her far away as two thorns thrust from its eyehole.

The flames finally caught up with the steel. They smashed into the monster with an explosion that instantly melted away the thorns in their intensity and that only threw Kara further away. The ground shook as a vicious sound of wood breaking reverberated through the entire liar.

It was a scream.

Complete Penetration!

You have dealt 97 damage!

You have dealt 313 Fire damage!

You have dealt 50 Fire damage!

You have dealt 34 Fire damage!

You have dealt 53 Fire damage!

You have dealt 23 Fire damage!

You have dealt a deadly blow to a raid boss!

You have dealt 18 Fire damage!

You have dealt 15 Fire damage!

Kara did not land on her feet, unfortunately, though she did roll a couple of times as she landed on her shoulder, reducing the damage taken to only a few points. She stood up, flexing her shoulders as she stared at the flaming pyre.

There were eight other people hunting the raid monster. A quick glance and Kara could see three bow users, two warriors, one fat rogue, one little girl who seemed like a rogue, and one spell-sword responsible for the inferno enveloping the lair, most obvious by his flaming sword. He wore little clothes other than the cloth covering his groin--he was the wielder of the Control Field.

Seven stared at Kara in disbelief, frozen still. The only one not frozen was currently aflame from being caught in the blast radius.

Kara held her nose high, but tried her very best not to smirk or giggle. Considering that she had killed a thousand different monsters stronger than it, she shouldn’t have been proud.

But it just felt so damn good! The sensation of having the sword sink in, of flesh parting tenderly, the movement-the rhythm-the explosion! It felt exhilarating to have the beast roar and falter, and the audience certainly did not hurt.

Death Siren’s Song, Dance Of Thorns has finished with great flair.

Another explosion resounded. A wave of Life Force blew from the center of the circular room, ruffling her short hair. All the flames around the raid boss dissipated, though fortunately, those at the edges remained strong.

Grasping Eyes, Kara muttered.

level 120 Incomplete Undead Ent Core

Incomplete Undead Ent Core is the true boss monster created by the rank C difficulty Game event.

After siphoning enough Life Force from the forest life, the Giant Undead Ent began to catalyze it within its heart. Becoming Undead, this Ent was able to combine flesh into its growth, allowing it to begin its evolution into a conscious, human-like being. The more organic life perishes around it, the stronger it becomes.

Ent Core poses a powerful body capable of morphing. Its intellect is low, causing it to have predictable behavior, and remains an instinctual being. It has high defense and a high HP pool. Not only is its flesh sturdy with wood resistance to slash attacks, but it is also covered with a layer of Life Force, further increasing its armor.

That does mean, however, that its armor would fall significantly with repeated attacks.

It posses strong single target attacks but has reduced AOE effectiveness.

The more damage it takes, the higher its power will become.

Failure to kill Incomplete Ascended Undead Ent Core will cause this monster to finish its evolution, increasing the difficulty rank of this Area into B rank difficulty raid mission.

HP: 1430/2640

Not bad.

That attack had taken her entire Equanimity bar including all but 5 points of her Energy, and in return, it had dealt approximately a quarter of a raid boss’s HP. It was a shame there was no bleeding damage--the flames cauterized the wound.

Arrows flew, and the warriors moved in. The lair boss swung his arm around, trying to catch the pesky things. Each swing causing the air to blow away at the end, but the warriors were adept; they either stayed out of his range or struck from behind. Sometimes it feinted a charge forward and instead spun around, but that only worked the few times, evidenced by the crumbled bodies at the edge of the room.

Finding no hold, the Ent Core began to sprint towards the archers. Its muscles bulged hideously, and each stomp threw it forward at a horrifyingly fast rate. The warriors and rogues were supposed to step in at that point and at the very least hinder its movement, but none of them wanted to risk anything for other potential enemies.

One Ranger sprinted out the way, though when she realized she could not outspeed its charge, she changed directions and went towards the wall. She leaped onto it and fired an arrow at it at the same time that she jumped off.

She ricocheted it off of the wall with unbelievable speed, climbing higher in the air as the Ent Core crashed into the wall, shaking the entire lair. She fired three arrows, each one piercing through and throwing her further back as the boss turned around.

When the Ent Core thrust pulled its right shoulder back and raised its left leg high into the air, as if to throw something, the Ranger instantly knocked an arrow towards the ground.

When the Ent Core’s arm thrust forward and extended like a whip, the Ranger fired her arrow towards the ground, bumping her up a few precious feet. She landed on the end of the spear-like hand, an arrow already aimed, and began to charge it. When the Ent Core began to return its right hand and prepared to fire its left, the Ranger jumped backward, releasing the charged arrow when she was upside down.

Even from where Kara was standing she could hear the air explode from the arrow’s power. It threw her well out of the range of the following thrust, and went into the boss with a loud crunching noise. Normal arrows did not fully penetrate, but the arrow was drilled forward with an extra bud of Kinetic Energy, allowing her to cause quite a bit of damage at close range.

The young woman landed on her feet a safe distance, panting from the large amount of resources she had used for her skills, but had already nocked an arrow in case the Ent Core pursued.

It didn’t, and was instead approached by the melees, now with further caution of the extending limbs.

“Was that the first time it extended its limbs like that?” Kara asked one of the bowmen to her side. He had been standing, nodding his head in approval.

“Ye. That girl is something,” he said, and then moved closer towards the boss, wanting to get his own shots in.

Kara whistled. That mage was only a human, barely looked to be in her twenties, but was skilled enough to go toe with toe against a raid boss using a bow and Kinetic Energy--it was a tough combo to master. Sitting from the sidelines and predicting the enemies movement is quite easy, but It takes quite a bit of talent to be able to predict a monster’s attack pattern without any previous knowledge in the heat of the moment.

Still, the system was being extremely considerate in these stages. It was no coincidence that the Core Ent used its surprise, ranged attack against a Ranged unit who was already a distance away. It was both to ensure that the Ranger had escape tools, as every ranged unit should have if they desired to stay alive, and for the others to keep in mind that bosses usually had ranged attacks.

It would have been a disaster if it had simply used its swipe attack in the early stages to catch those staying just at the edge of its normal range.

Unfortunately, as easy as it was, it was still out of Nilbog’s skill level. She did want him to get a taste of a raid boss, considering that they would be meeting them often from now on, but the risk was far too high. She hadn’t even seen him fight mob monsters yet.

Duel Duet

You have 2 minutes 15 seconds remaining until you are forcibly removed from this Dancer.

Walking over, Kara picked one of the swords laying on the ground. It was nothing special and would have a hard time penetrating the hard flesh of the boss unless it received a large wind-up, but Kara already had a decent, if slightly daring plan in mind. She picked a dagger for the other hand.

She picked up two more swords, attaching a string of Life Force to their hilts for each hand. After a pause, she also picked up a spear from under a mangled corpse, attaching a string around it for her right hand. She dropped all three close to the center, around where the Ent Core was battling.

Life Force

32/156.4 (2.3/Minute)

Not bad. Each weapon took a few points to bind, much lower when she had forcibly taken over.

In the back of her head, she could feel Nilbog becoming very, very nervous, oh that sweet heavenly child.