Spiked vines whipped forward. “Incoming!” I called out, casting [Horde Stampede]. The three of us scattered. I didn’t have time to savor how exhilarating it was to yell ‘incoming’ because threads of light caught my attention. “The eyes are going to fire!”

We sidestepped spots where the sniper laser sights touched. A second later, thick beams scorched patches of the ground.

An intricate dance followed as we evaded lasers, vines, and thorns. Easy enough—we had plenty of practice fighting the Living Statue. It was also more forgiving as these lower-leveled Vinereavers, likely younger ones, dealt less damage. Spikes grazed Nitana and Megan a couple of times. Nothing serious. After healing them, I inflicted Mon Aleh, the biggest Vinereaver, with [Withering Brand], though I couldn’t tell if the debuff spread to the others.

Lvl. 6 Withering Brand: A long-forgotten incantation that targets an enemy with a curse, reducing its Movement Speed, Attack Power, and Magic Power by 30%.

Cost: 75 Energy

Duration: 15 Seconds

Cooldown: 7 Seconds

“What do we do?” Megan squealed. “Kezo’s dead!”

“Give up and try again?” Nitana shouted as she ducked beneath a vine. “We can wait for him outside.”

“Continue fighting,” I answered. “Kezo already damaged it. We can’t let it go to waste.”

The Vinereavers had lost a tenth of their health from Kezo’s attack. The five health bars were equally reduced—they probably had combined health due to their entanglement. A few more powerful hits, and we’d win. But how to do that without dying?

The ticket to winning was countering its reflect effect.

Before I could think of a solution, another problem presented itself.

“Dammit,” I spat. “It’s healing.”

Vines that had pierced the blue canisters siphoned liquid and pumped it up the main body. The Vinereavers substituted nutrients from golden crystals with Bawu’s mysterious brew, doing the same bullshit as Moa Manot. Little by little, Kezo’s work literally paid with his life was erased.

My poisons could cancel out the healing. But I didn’t know if the Vinereavers would reflect DoTs. If it did, I’d quickly die as a percentage of a boss’ life would be huge.

Megan planted her [Spell Bonded Totem] and raised her wands. “I’m going to—”

“Don’t attack! You might follow Kezo.” I stood in front of her Totem. “Hang on, he just messaged me.” I opened my inbox while running to the edge of the room as lasers hit the ground where my hooves trodded moments ago.

[Kezodilla: Sorry I died! Returning now.]

[Herald Stone: No prob. We’ll test something.]

[Kezodilla: Don’t die.]

[Herald Stone: We won’t.]

“Kezo’s on his way,” I told Megan and Nitana. “We’ll discuss strategies then. But let’s test the reflect while waiting for him.”

I explained that the damage of Kezo’s meteor attack was too high, so he instantly croaked when it was thrown back at him. He was also using his full DPS build—not necessarily a glass cannon, but he didn’t have that big a health pool to speak of. That said, he was still way beefier than us because of his higher level and top-of-the-line equipment.

“Take off your gear that increases Magic Power and damage,” I said, “including your weapons. Then hit the Vinereavers with your weakest spell. Wait for me to heal you or drink a potion; make sure you’re completely healthy each time you attack the boss. Gradually reequip and continue trying. Once you’ve worn everything again, work your way up stronger spells.”

“It’s like the brilliant brute-forcing thing,” Megan said.

I grinned at her erroneous judgment of my puzzle-solving skills. The downside of people having mistaken assumptions was trying to live up to them to maintain the illusion—not a problem for Herald Stone.

“That’s right. We’re looking for the sweet spot where you can dish out high damage while surviving the reflect. Of course, we’ll also take healing time into account.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Nitana said. Her staff disappeared from her hands. Her flowing cloak followed, then her gloves, vest, and so on. “Meg, be careful not to get hit, okay? Remember, our defenses also go way down when we remove equips.”

“Nitana stripping?” Megan giggled. “So scandalous!”

“We don’t have much time,” I said. “Twenty-five minutes.”

“Me first.” Nitana raised her right hand. Wild flames erupted on top of her palm, swirling into a ball. She gracefully threw the fireball, and it connected with the heap of vines. “Ow!” she exclaimed. A fourth of her health got chunked off even though she scarcely tickled the Vinereavers.

“Are you okay?” I asked. Something’s wrong. Why did it reflect that much?

“Like it’s not actually painful. Just surprised by the damage.” Nitana trotted away, drinking a healing potion. Bejeweled gloves reappeared on her hands. “Meg, you try before my next one.”

Megan used the same skill as her best friend and suffered the same consequence. They continued the test, adding one piece of equipment after the next in between fireballs. The scratches they made on the Vinereavers’ health bars became more noticeable with each subsequent fireball, but they disappeared the next second, swallowed by the Vinereavers’ regeneration.

This wasn’t going well. I doubted we could win even if we found the proverbial sweet spot. That’s what she said—wait, that’s a different spot. Anyway, the reflected damage shouldn’t be this high, given the puny damage dealt by Megan and Nitana.

Unless…

I maxed [Ancestral Constitution] stacks and refreshed [Greater Pyro Shell]. I also stood still to activate the defense buffs of [Band of Loamy Renewal]. Then, I changed out a shield for my slingshot and flung a stone at the mini-boss. My shell didn’t explode, but my life zoomed down.

“Herald!” Nitana protected me with her barrier sprite.

Although I half-expected it, I was still caught off-guard by the damage. I cast [Healing Touch] and searched my inventory for else anything useful, hastily consuming the [Frigid Yew Salve] I had made in front of Gula. “I’m fine,” I said. “It’s retribution. The mini-boss has insanely high retribution—what the?” My [Healing Touch] finished its cooldown, but I couldn’t cast it or any of my skills.

I was Silenced—the blasted side-effect of the [Frigid Yew Salve]. Even my [Cleansing Flames] was unusable. That’s a question answered at such an inconvenient time.

“Herald, what were you saying about retribution?” Megan asked. “Should we continue attacking?”

“Stop, stop,” I said. “Let’s leave so we can discuss in peace. We only have a short time to plan. The boss has already healed, so there’s no point staying.”

Kezo arrived as we exited the boss area. I told him about the shared health and our tests. Thus began a planning montage. Not really a montage because we didn’t have much time—a planning snippet.

“Less than twenty minutes left,” I said. “Let’s quickly go over what we know. The Vinereavers have both retribution and reflect. I hit it once and almost died. Very high retribution damage for their levels; it could be those five combined their retribution stats like their health.

“We’re also sure it has reflect because the damage Megan and Nitana suffered keeps going up as they re-equipped their gear. If it was retribution alone, the damage should be the same. No. Actually, it should go down since they’re increasing their Armor with each piece worn. The opposite happened. Kezo, you mentioned you called Jensen?”

“Just a short talk because he’s at work,” Kezo said. “The name of the Vinereaver he fought—the golem non-Blight version—was also Mon-Aleh but with a different title, so this information should be somewhat applicable. The golem has meager defenses but a huge health pool, way larger than you’d expect a mini-boss or even a boss at its level. That’s the reason for its massive reflect damage.”

Megan meekly raised her hand. “Sorry, I don’t follow. I suck at this.”

“Imagine you throw a fireball at someone,” I said, “with, let’s say, fifty percent reflect. The target has high Magic Resilience and Fire Resistance. Your fireball deals a tiny amount of damage, around ten percent of its full potential. Because of reflect, you’ll suffer half of that. Very likely, you’ll survive.

“In comparison, Mon Aleh is squishy but very bulky. Perhaps your fireball would deal around eighty percent of its max damage. You suffer forty percent as reflected damage. Painful, right? A large health pool means the boss is still tanky in a sense, even if lacking other defensive attributes.”

“Like thick blubber instead of a carapace,” Nitana said.

“I get it now.” Megan nodded. “I think?” She tilted her head with a confused frown.

“This is more difficult than the golem Jensen farmed,” Kezo added. “These are five Vinereavers, merging their health, retribution, and probably reflect too.”

“Uh-oh, do we have a way to win?” asked Megan.

“I asked Jensen for some tips,” Kezo said. “His advice was to add a high-level Healer to our party to power through the reflect. Use the strongest spell possible without dying from the reflect, heal to full, cast again, heal, cast, and so on. We’ll grind the boss down.”

“Sounds like brute forcing too,” Megan said. ‘Brute-forcing’ seemed to be her word of the day.

“This is the way people fight bosses with strong reflect. My lifesteal won’t work because reflect comes first in the calculation or something—Jensen didn’t finish his explanation because he had to go.”

“Do we have enough time?” I said. “And who do we ask to join us?”

“I don’t know.” Kezo brought up his interface and scrolled through it. “I’ll check my online friends. Better if they have mass ress spells, Jensen said, in case we make a mistake.”

I raised a brow. Resurrection?

“In the meantime,” Nitana said, “we’ll go back inside and test how high we can push our damage without dying.”

“Yup. Continue what we were doing,” Megan said.

“This’ll be so much freaking faster if we can just let it rip! Use our strongest spells.”

I raised my other brow. Strongest spell?

Kezo sighed. “Only a few Healers online. I’ll try messaging Cleo and Marshall. Fingers crossed, they’ll reply soon. How many minutes left, Herald?”

“Fifteen.” I didn’t say anything more because I was slowly opening the flaps of the box in the palace of my mind.

“Oh my gosh!” Megan exclaimed.

“Fuck, not enough time.” Nitana clicked her tongue in irritation. “If only this is like Zoar Elab’s fight that we can redo.”

Both my brows lowered. The spirit of Herald Stone ascended from the mental box. Redo…

“No one’s replying,” Kezo said. “Sorry, Herald, that—no, we’ll still try. Everyone, let’s return inside.” They all buffed up. “We’ll try our best, okay?”

“Use your strongest spells,” I blurted.

“But I thought—” Megan began to say.

“Use your strongest spells and die!” I interrupted, pushing my party mates along. “Go, go inside! I’ll explain!”