The Witch Slaves laughed wildly and plunged their fists into the body of the Aqua Bear. In terms of damage, this certainly did a respectable amount, but not enough to take more than 5% of its health.
Yet, the Aqua Bear trembled and howled in fear, trying with all its might to break the binding of Necrotic Hands as well as Illusion. As for the Shadow Tendrils, they had long been dispelled as Riveting Night's mana had bottomed out.
Roma was busy casting her next spell, so she couldn't stop to restrain the bear. Zaine grimaced heavily, as she was manually managing the illusion while multi-tasking.
The Rank 2 monster's fear and anger directly battered her mind as it did all it could to smash her illusion in order to escape. One could not blame it, as the monster's vitality was being sapped by the second.
Its HP bar was like a counter that was switching numbers, it fell rapidly. It lost almost 5% of its HP per minute, and this number was increasing as more Witch Slaves came to join the feast.
By the time its HP reached 25%, it finally broke free of Zaine's illusion, causing her to pale while a trace of blood leaked from her nose. She still had control of her telekinetic blades, which she used to try and pin the monster to the ground.
The bear got up a roared, shaking off all the Witch Slaves who were feasting happily. It then swiped at Eva wickedly, hoping to claw her in half. For that matter, Eva didn't dare to receive it.
Due to Rank suppression, her own defense was reduced by 30% and all incoming damage from the monster was increased by 30%. As an assassin class, her HP was already low and her defense was only barely above average, how could she cope?
But what Eva had was evasiveness. Her Abyssal Ring's passive skill made all attacks on her have a default 30% chance to miss regardless of source, and her evasion was boosted greatly by her skills as well as her set equipment.
Not to mention her Dexterity was almost at 100 points. Wanting to hit her was as hard as hoping that the universe would stop sheltering Draco in order to further its own goals.
Her form blurred like a shadow, and the rapid swipes of the Aqua Bear just barely missed her each time. As Eva continued to tank the monster, the Witch Slaves once again dashed in to steal the aggro off Eva.
At this moment, a cunning light flashed in the Aqua Bear's eyes as it used one of its three skills.
Water Pulse!
｢Water Pulse – Active skill
Effect: Send out a shockwave of high-pressure water that knockbacks all foes within 100 meters, dealing 25% water damage.
Cooldown: 50 seconds.｣
This wave erupted suddenly as the bear roared and raised its front legs up to the sky, then bringing them down with unparalleled force. The water magically erupted from its body and washed away all assailants within range.
Hikari quickly cast White Barrier over Zaine and then stood in front of Roma since she was in the middle of a cast. Her Witch Slaves should have taken this task, but they had moved in for the attack and had all been blown away.
White Barrier reduced incoming damage by 50% and restored 20% of the total damage as HP. So when the wave hit Zaine, she wasn't blown back but her face became slightly paler as she gasped.
-12,000! +4,800!
This meant that the skill dealt 24,000 damage overall, which was a crazy amount. Please do not compare the output damage Eva and co are able to deal, it was thanks to their cheat-like abilities as well as items.
One should not forget, at Rank 1, the average player would have between 5,000 to 20,000 HP, with tanks being on the higher end. Hikari and the Dark Knight had 100,000 HP because they were Dragons, Hikari a White Dragon, and the Dark knight a Metal Dragon, both supreme defensive sub-species.
Even Draco did not have 100,000 HP, only around 55,000 in total. So if the Rank 2 bear had achieved its aim, a ranged class like Zaine who had literally no armor would have straight died!
Luckily, Hikari performed her task. However, the three ladies couldn't help but wish to get Draco to make them specialized armors that suited their personalities.
Draco never bothered earlier because in the back of his mind, they would certainly be busy raising the kids. How could he have known that these four beauties of his would go around bullying monsters?
How could he have predicted that their combination would be so OP that even Draco himself - even if he tag-teamed with Qiong Qi and Clarent - would likely eat a loss?
He was decked out in the best equipment, his armor even being a part of his body that could evolve, having Divine items, a Legendary sword, and a Legendary bow, as well as a Divine class.
The ladies had mismatched levels, entry-level co-ordination, and chemistry, common clothes as armor, and no weapons to enhance or focus their attacks. Even Eva did not have her own Divine Class yet!
That was exactly why Eva was doing this. She couldn't wait to see the look on his face when they destroyed a whole Area Zone on their own. There would be pride, bewilderment, bitter acceptance, and embarrassment.
Roma was able to continue her cast thanks to Hikari's timely interception, and the damage dealt to her was only 3,000. Even with level and Rank suppression, even with Hikari being in her human form which reduced defense by 90%, even with her using no defensive skill but her raw body, it could only deal so much.
What was even worse was that Hikari sent out a mass heal by spamming White Light Healing on Zaine, Roma and Eva as well as 7 other Witch Slaves that suffered the most.
As could be expected, Eva evaded the attack. Her evasion was simply too high, unless one used an Area Zone tier spell, it would be hard to hit her. But with the Abyssal Ring's absolute 30% chance, even that would be doubtful.
This water pulse skill was an AOE one that washed over everything, so it should have been impossible to evade without something like a blink, and Eva's was on cooldown.
In such a situation, no amount of '+25% to Evasion' would save you. What worked here was the Abyssal Ring, and it manifested itself by making Eva's form similar to that of a ghost, letting the water pass through her harmlessly.
It couldn't be that one expected her to actually physically dodge it with the ring's help, right? Was the ring supposed to grab her by the neck and pull her away, assuming it was an Area Zone wide attack?
What was even worse was that Eva had cruelly equipped the Thunderbolt. Its passive skill resisted 40% of incoming damage automatically while reflecting 10% of it back to the attacker.
It was truly a useful thing, especially if given to a tank. However, what Eva relied on here was the 10% damage reflection in the form of lightning damage.
Did it need to be explained how lighting damage dealt exponential amounts of harm to water-based monsters? This was exactly why she redeemed the item in the first place.
The Aqua Bar howled in pain as it was shocked, receiving 2,400 lightning damage on the surface, but this was magnified to 7,200. This was why classes with lightning-based skills and spells were rare as hell.
Electromancers could display shocking power when dealing with water-based enemies, enough to make them hard to obtain. Not only that, but lightning spells also had a default stun ability, no matter the receiver.
So the Aqua Bear was zapped into temporary paralysis. How could the four beauties let this chance go?
Zaine's eyes flashed with hate and anger. If she hadn't given Loki to Hikari, her son might have suffered damage as well. Even if it'd do little to harm the little monster, she as a mother could not stand the thought.
As such, she held nothing back and used a fully-powered Illusion. This illusion was not only meant to beguile, but to damage! In other words, Zaine had entered a mental battle with the Aqua Bear!
What was even crazier was that at the same time, she channeled her telekinesis and used her storm of knives to rip the bear's tender and 'sacred' areas to shreds, making it howl in anguish.
Roma finally finished her cast and a large saber-tooth tiger made of greenish energy spawned before her, roaring majestically before pouncing on the Aqua Bear and proceeding to add its two cents.
Roma then displayed a cruel expression, as she was similarly enraged by this Aqua Bear's daring. Instead of happily sacrificing its life to become exp for them, it dared to try and harm her child?
Roma's personality changed whenever she channeled Mystic Arts. After all, this field of magic was made for evil old hags who resided in swamps and ate babies for a living.
Even though her special race of gypsies were the exception, she would always become callous and wicked when using her magic.
She also had the illusion passive skill thanks to her Mystic Arts, so she worked together with Zaine to add another layer to it. Now, the illusion was twice as strong, making it impossible for this simple-minded bear to resist despite its higher Rank.
Roma and Zaine did this on the spur of the moment, they had no idea their collaboration would be so powerful. Roma hardly used illusion because it taxed her mind, but her intelligence stat was even higher than Zaine's currently, so how could she fail?
This was exactly why Eva brought them out to fight. They simply lacked the experience that Draco and Eva had, so they made so many rookie mistakes like this despite being so OP.
After some more fighting like this, they would become competent. It wasn't something that could be skipped, not everyone had the privilege of skipping years of training with reincarnation benefits.
As for Hikari, she clenched her fits and went to check up on the children to see that they were fine. Even though Rila would not receive any damage whatsoever, it still made Hikari uncomfortable to think that she would be harmed.
Thankfully, they had been prudent and made preparations ahead of time. With Hikari here, it was impossible for the children to be harmed, and it was completely out of the question to leave the children somewhere else.
These heaven-defying babies, who knew if the gods would sneak down to steal them? The God's Envoy had plainly told them that the two of them were extremely valuable, and little Rila was especially in their sights.
At least when in their hands, they could control the situation and the Gods would have some scruples thanks to their commitment and Draco's existence.
With their rage burning, Roma and Zaine mauled the Aqua Bear horribly. Hikari paled and cover the eyes of the children quickly, not subjecting them to this horrible sight.
Even the Witch Slaves were stunned, silently gulping in fear. Even when the monster died and dropped some loot, Roma and Zaine desecrated its corpse and scattered it to the wind.
Eva, who had watched this all, couldn't help but take in a deep breath. This bear had truly courted death by trying such a means to harm them, inevitably condemning itself to death without a complete corpse.
As Eva looked at Zaine and Roma who were still heaving with hate and anger, she sighed. Draco hadn't planned to collect these marvelous women at all, their encounter with him could be said to be part fate and part luck.
Each of them was a pinnacle woman in her own right and when brought together, they became unreasonable. If they were to Rank up, would they even be able to slaughter Rank 3 monsters together at Rank 2?
It was extremely likely. Thinking like this, Eva finally felt like her actions right now might not be too wise.
If these three women were raised up in power… would the balance of the world really survive?