The Eye of Heaven was huge, almost encompassing the scope of the whole sky. Its cornea was milky white and its pupils were a dark back. Its iris was strangely a golden color, giving it an incomparably mystical feel.
When it opened, its pupil darted around rapidly, as if trying to gauge its sight. Eventually, it settled and became focused. Its target was reflected in its black pupils, which were the members of Umbra.
At that instant, a terrible pressure washed over the members of Umbra, freezing them where they stood. It was a mixture of their instinctual fear and the aura of the Unique Boss.
Only Riveting Night was free from this effect, as her aura began to climb as well. Her body trembled with excitement and glee as she looked right into that huge eyeball.
Her mind rapidly whirled as she assessed the stats of the Eye of Heaven.
｢Name: Heaven's Eye – Captain Rank monster
Level: 14
HP: 300,000/300,000｣
It was extremely powerful for a level 14 Captain Rank monster, making the members of Umbra flinch away. Thoughts of retreating popped up in their hearts as they battled with their own natural terror and the sheer suppression of the Eye of Heaven.
However, Riveting Night stomped her foot, sending a shockwave through the area of the members. This shockwave acted like a wake up call for the members of Umbra, as their fear and the suppression from the Eye of Heaven disappeared.
After all, in terms of aura, this level 14 boss could not match up to either Draco or Riveting Night. By infusing that stomp with her purifying light energy and some Control, she was able to dispel all negativity.
"Form up! This is a Unique Boss! These types of bosses are exponentially harder to kill than their typical counterparts, but the rewards are proportionately greater! All players who assist in the battle get 30 UPs by default! Any other notable contributions will be rewarded handsomely!"
Riveting Night's voice became feverish as she gave out her orders. The players behind her also began to enter a state of madness as they heard the rewards being given out.
One should remember, 1 Umbra Point was equivalent to 1 gold. What was one gold? It was an amount that was but a myth to more than 95% of the current playerbase.
Once again, relativity reared its ugly head here. Draco and Riveting Night had devalued the rarity and preciousness of gold in our eyes due to their actions, but from the perspective of the common player, it was far too valuable.
Once again, the example of the homeless man and the rich man came into play. To the rich man, who due to certain reasons could earn $50,000 a month at the least, tossing out $100 to the homeless man, who couldn't earn more than $10 a week after scrounging and suffering for it, was nothing.
However to the homeless man, whose perspective was much lower, this $100 could allow him to buy a lot of things he needed to live longer. It was equivalent to inestimable wealth to him.
His wants were fewer and cheaper, so $100 was valuable. To the rich man, $100 could barely pay for his mansion's light bill for a week. His eyes were trained higher, on fancy cars and designer clothes.
So $100 was cabbage that he could easily earn.
This was the difference between the common player and these two Old Monsters. They had seen the top of the world, so something like what these players would be content with was but a joke to them.
They also possessed the skills and knowledge to earn money easily, making it seem less valuable.
This was why the members of Umbra were no different from rabid dogs as they frothed at the mouth. To earn 30 UPs was to earn 30 gold. Not to mention that UPs had far more versatile uses than gold in terms of development.
Assuming they even came from poor homes like Draco and were playing this game to earn money, 30 gold was $900,000, which was 300,000 bronze. One bronze was currently $3 at the Intermediary Trade Center, so one could imagine how intense it must feel to have $900,000 dangling over your head, easy to reach.
Rambunctious' eyes were no longer lax and arrogant, but were focused and serious. Even Sublime Notion was totally solemn at this time, her mind and body ready to battle!
"Ranged classes will be crucial to this battle! Tanks, form up and protected the ranged classes as well as the healers! Ranged classes, spam attacks on that Eye of Heaven until you drop! Healers, focus all your healing on the tanks!"
Riveting Night roared her orders as the players rushed to get into formation. It was a phalanx formation that had the tanks on the edges with their shields and the ranged classes within to deal damage straight upwards.
Of course, this left a good amount of players idle. They looked between each other with confusion before hesitantly questioning Riveting Night.
"Erm, Vice Guildmaster. What about us melee fighters?" A berserker class player asked.
Riveting Night spawned two short swords and got into a battle stance. "We have a different job to do."
Before they could ponder on her words, the Eye of Heaven charged up a bright beam that smashed into the earth around the members of Umbra. When that light subsided, an army of Mini-Beholders, Malicious Rodents and various other monsters of the Bizarre Domain were arrayed before them.
All the players here sucked in a cold breath. It was clear that the melee players wouldn't be able to slack at all in this fight.
In fact, it could be said that their job was the hardest, which was why Riveting Night chose to assist them instead of using ranged attacks.
"FIGHT!!"
With that roar, Riveting Night burst forth like a beam of light, her body submerging into the mass of monsters like a drop of water into the ocean. All around her were dazzling sword lights that denoted her extreme speed and precision with her blades.
A fog of blood, flesh and bones erupted wherever she passed, as she slaughtered any monster that entered the range of her short swords.
The other melee players were galvanized by this, and shouted out loud as they also rushed into the fray. Their blades, axes and spears pierced through monsters like tofu, their skills being tried and tested vigorously.
Their eyes became red as they lost themselves in the slaughter, their primal human instincts emerging as they dominated these weak beings.
The monsters weren't cabbage to be chopped though. More than a few of them managed to muster a counterattack, especially the Mini-Beholders who could also make ranged attacks.
This put the melee players in a tough spot, as they struggled to attack and defend. Their initial unstoppable momentum died down and they were placed into a conundrum that forced out their potential.
In media, it was easy to criticize soldier in war who died easily, but the thing about large-scale melees was that people did not have eyes in the back of their heads. They could only process what they saw in front of them, and the mass of fighters around them were indiscriminate in their attacks.
In such battles, forget the enemies, the major cause of death was friendly fire. It was a mass of chaos where anyone could lose their lives at any time, unless they had that heaven defying skill of premonition or precognition.
Most of these melee players did have something of the sort as elites with excellent combat talents. Even the most common member was a pro, so handling a mass of Private Rank monsters was somewhat doable.
Of course, they did not achieve this without receiving damage. Some of the fighters practically downed a health potion every 30 seconds because their health had fallen too low.
These potions had instant effects, making them more expensive than the types which had an over-time effect. They also had 10 second cooldowns, which was enough for these melee fighters to maintain their health.
On the side of the Ranged players, they had let loose their opening salvo on the Heaven's Eye. Fireballs, ice lances, wind blades, earth bolts, were launched from the four elemental mage classes within the party.
Arrows, crossbow bolts, throwing knives and javelins were sent into the sky by the non-magical ranged classes.
All of these attacks landed on the huge Eye of Heaven, tearing down its huge HP ever so slightly. All these attacks barely did 700 damage, rendering these players flabbergasted.
700 damage against 300,000 HP was just a tickle to this monster. They would have to wage an extremely protracted war against it in order to win. The problem was that their health and mana potions were limited and so were their stamina potions.
If they didn't finish this battle quickly, they would eventually be forced to rely on their auto attacks, which might not even amount to 10% of their current damage output.
However, there was nothing else they could do. They could only grit their teeth and spam attacks like madmen and women, continuously draining the HP of the Heaven's Eye.
However, was the Heaven's Eye a meatsack that would stand there and be attacked? It shot out beams of light from its eyes, assaulting the ranged players.
This was where the tank class came into play. They raised their shields up and took the blows from the beams of light, covering the ranged players beneath them.
At first, getting the timing right was difficult, since they would have to interrupt the ranged players in order to cover them. This caused a bit of friendly fire to occur, but it was quickly patched up by the healers.
After a few minutes of such combat, they soon matched their tempo perfectly, looking like a well-oiled unit that that seen many days of battle together.
This was one of the most fearsome traits of the human race; adaptability!
We were able to rise and dominate our planet, which had a plethora of deadly predators, solely due to our adaptability. An animal had too poor an ability to adapt quickly to changes, leaving them to become our playthings in the real world.
The tanks rose, blocking beams of light that smashed into their shields. These attacks tore apart their HP heavily, with them barely managing to stay alive thanks to the fact that damage was shared across them.
The moment they blocked one attack, the healers would synchronize their AOE heal spells that took very little mana and usually had a weak effect. However, with so many of them casting it, the tanks' health rose back to full in mere seconds.
Then, the tanks would crouch and the ranged fighters would rise, firing their most powerful spells or attacks. Their accuracy was not to be questioned, as they were pros at the bare minimum. Some were even stronger than that, so their targeting was exemplary.
These attacks were scattered at first, but as time went on, these pro players began to combine their attacks. Pyromancers would shoot their fireballs in such a way that their trajectories would align, allowing these spells to merge and climb a Rank.
Same thing went for all the other magical classes.
As for the non-magical classes, merging was easier said than done. However, their weapons were pointed and had extreme piercing power. What they did was to aim all their shots at one spot.
As each hit added on top of the other, the damage numbers that were black in color became redder and redder, signaling that they were getting crits.
From the first salvo that only did 700 damage, they were now easily ripping over 3000 damage away per volley. Since each volley took about 3 seconds due to the counterattack of the Heaven's Eye and defense of the tanks, it meant that they needed 300 seconds to kill this boss.
That was just five minutes!
Compared to majority of guilds who took over two hours to clear one normal boss, just five minutes was exemplary! Especially since they were fighting a Unique Boss!
In truth, their gathering of players in one guild was against heaven's will.
A normal guild would have a single pro, a few semi-pros and mostly average and above-average players.
For the purpose of comparison, let us call average players privates, above-average players as specialists, semi-pros as sergeants, pros as lieutenants, elites as captains, experts as majors, legends as colonels and God-tier players as generals.
In an army of 100 that were comprised of one sergeant, a few specialists and the rest being privates, moving to vanquish a giant fortress that was about as strong as a captain, they would struggle to succeed. They would have to pull out all the stops and fight to the death over a long period of time to win.
This represented a Common-tier guild fighting a normal dungeon boss.
In an army of 100 that were comprised of one captain, a few lieutenants, a good amount of sergeants and the rest being specialists, fighting that same fortress would be much easier, with a low time and energy consumption.
This represented a Rare-tier guilds prowess.
However, for the current 100 man team of Umbra, it was best to say that they had one general, two colonels, 42 majors and 55 captains.
To try to compare them on the same scale as the above mentioned examples when facing enemies of the same level was utter FOOLISHNESS.
However, although the Heaven's Eye was listed as Captain Rank, using the earlier scale, it would be classified as a major.
To defeat it was possible for this group of players, but to do so easily was simply naivety. They would have to put in more than just this amount of effort, otherwise the five Divine Guilds would have killed Unique Bosses easily.
The Eye of Heaven trembled strongly, nearly toppling everyone as the tremors of the earth and sky besieged them. The Heaven's Eye soon relaxed and a gleam shone within it.
A large mass of water gathered near its edges. When it reached the volume of a small water tank, it fell onto the players arrayed below the Eye of Heaven.
Was the Unique Boss… crying? That shouldn't be possible… right?
Even so, the tanks raised their shields and covered the ranged classes fully. Not even a drop of this strange tear would fall through the gaps!
However, when that liquid collided with their shields, they realized that they had been far too naive. The tear drop was worse than hydrochloric acid, in that it sizzled and burned like lava.
Luckily, before Update 1, items had no durability, so they wouldn't shatter easily. However, the raw heat energy created from the reaction, cooked the fellows alive in their armors.
It was no different from being pressed with a brand as a slave. Imagine placing your palm over the coil of a hot electric stove. Now spread that pain over the whole body and one could picture what they were going through.
"ARRRGHH!! I'M MELTING!! I'M MELTING!!!!"
"AOOWWW, THE PAIN!! MY GOD THE PAIN!!"
"MY CROTCH!! MY CROTCH IS COOKING!!!"
"OH GOD!! IT HURTS!! DADDY, SAVE ME!!!"
The fellows howled with pain and agony, twisting and turning in their armor like people going through seizures. This almost made the residual acidic liquid pour onto the ranged classes below.
Once that touched them, they would die immediately.
The healers quickly cast their best healing spells, bringing the fellows from the brink of death and alleviating their pains. They immediately covered up the flaws in their defense, preventing the ranged classes from being melted into goo.
The tanks' hairs were matted with sweat as they relived the horrifying experience of being cooked alive. Boundless felt 100% real, so they were naturally struck with shock.
The fact that they could even maintain their defensive formation showed their extreme skill and strong wills.
Riveting Night saw all this and frowned. Clearly the boss had entered phase 2 of its battle mode and the pressure on the ranged party was now higher than what was on the melee party.
After all, she had slaughtered so many monsters that her level had risen twice, reaching 23% of level 16. Not only her, but almost everyone in the party had leveled up between once to three times.
This was the difference between a game world and the real world. If such a fight occurred in the real world, they would only get weaker as such a fight wore on. But in a game world they would only get stronger, assuming that there was enough experience available to harvest.
Thinking that, Riveting Night leapt back and left the melee fighters.
"Melee fighters, handle the monsters here on your own! I'm going to assist the ranged fighters!"
Her orders were met with resounding roars from the melee fighters, who were still lost in the slaughter. If their own mothers saw them like this, they would doubt their beloved children could be so ferocious and bloodthirsty.
Riveting Night's eyes swirled dangerously, a vortex brewing within space.
'Since you claim to be an Eye of Heaven looking down on the mortal masses, lets see how you fare against my own Abyssal Eyes!"
"Izanagi!"
Immediately, space was torn around the periphery of the Eye of Heaven as a miniature black hole spawned there. Actually, it was less of a black hole and more of a space crack that could swallow mass.
However, its suction power wasn't too strong, but it was enough to disrupt the Heaven's Eye for a whole minute as it struggled to prevent itself from being swallowed up.
When it broke free, its pupils focused on Riveting Night. One could see fear and reverence reflected in them, but it still continued its attack!
