𝑜𝐕𝓵xt.𝗰𝞸𝐦
Unsurprisingly, once the debilitating pain Riekan felt had subsided as he laid on the cold, stone ground of the room, multiple profanities could not help but escape his mouth as he noticed Valyr heading to where he was.
“To think you would resort to such boorish tactics, human!” he exclaimed as he summoned the silver sword that was slightly far away from him back to his hands. “You’re no different from the man that locked me here!”
“Is that so?” In response to Riekan’s words, Valyr raised his eyebrow in slight intrigue, opening his mouth to reply just as he had arrived in front of the still lying Riekan. After that…
Bang!
‘-75!!’
Without any shred of hesitation whatsoever, Valyr unceremoniously kicked the being in that area once more, feeling like he had to do so out of spite after hearing something like that.
Naturally, yet another wave of debilitating pain washed over Riekan’s body as his face contorted into various weird expressions, vividly expressing the amount of pain he felt from having that part of his body kicked twice. Of course, seeing that his opponent was open to attacks once more, Valyr sent a quick [Strong Pierce] towards Riekan’s chest, thinking that the attack would connect without much problems.
However, contrary to his expectations, Riekan was still able to move his body amidst the debilitating pain, moving the silver sword he had summoned up to his chest to meet with the tip of Valyr’s spear.
Clang!
Seeing that his attack was ineffective, Valyr chose to strike out once more, aiming for a general spot this time just to increase his progress in killing the opponent before him. Unfortunately, before he could do so, Riekan fired a ball of mana at him through the blade he held, forcing Valyr to distance himself from the being to dodge the attack as the former took this opportunity to finally get back up.
“[Mana Barrage]!”
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Then, seeing that Valyr was a fair distance away from him, Riekan extended out his free hand, shooting out a barrage of magic bolts towards Valyr, to which the latter all dodged with great ease thanks to all of the attacks having a straight trajectory.
Nevertheless, such an attack from Riekan made Valyr realize that the opponent he was up against was not just proficient in the fighting style of a magic swordsman, he was also proficient in using magic spells as well.
‘A magic swordsman fighting style, and a pure magic fighting style,’ Valyr inwardly muttered. ‘Given the possibility that he might also be greatly proficient with just the sword, I think it’s understandable for someone like him to be locked up in this dungeon.’
‘The only thing that sucks is that I’m the one up against him.’ Letting out a light sigh, Valyr went ahead and used [Analysis] on Riekan, wanting to see how much health was still remaining before Riekan breathed out his last.
Ding!
————
[Riekan, Magic Goblin Swordsman (Mythic Elite)] (Level 15 | Boss)
HP: 4886/7000
MP: 1000/1000
Stats: 73 VIT, 68 STR, 55 AGI, 55 DEX, 80 INT, 38 WIS, 38 PER, 38 LUK
Remarks: What a miracle. You’re still alive.
————
“I just need to land a few more attacks like the one I did earlier and this boss I’m fighting will be good as gone.” As these words came out of Valyr’s mouth, Riekan sent out a string of attacks that were purely magic, as well as slashes imbued with magic, which most of them Valyr was able to dodge.
As for the unlucky few that hit Valyr, only a small part of them had truly hit him, dealing a small amount of damage that he healed with a single [Inferior Heal]. Nevertheless, while he was in the midst of figuring out how he was going to get closer to Riekan and land an attack, a thought could not help but pop up in Valyr’s mind, causing his expression to turn somewhat grim.
“Now that I think about it… does Riekan have a berserk phase?”
Whether it was a field boss, a dungeon boss, or a world raid boss, all of them would enter a berserk phase once a respectable chunk of their health was removed. Generally, the berserk phase drastically increased the boss’ AGI and STR, leading to more ferocious and hard-hitting attacks, such as when the Lesser Tidemother during the monster tide had reached its berserk phase.
With that in mind, Valyr could not help but wonder if Riekan, being the boss of this dungeon, had a berserk phase as well. Eventually, he just decided to think that the being he was fighting against did enter a berserk phase at some point, constantly reminding himself of it as he shortened the gap between him and Riekan.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Forcing Riekan to rely on his swordsmanship that Valyr thought he might have, Valyr sent out a string of normal attacks with his spear, with all of them aiming for various parts of the former’s body. In response to the attacks, Riekan could not help but scoff as he deflected most of the attacks Valyr sent at him, using some of the other attacks to get back at Valyr with an attack of his own.
Clang!
Of course, Valyr fully expected Riekan to use some of his attacks to get back at him, swiftly deflecting the sword attacks heading his way with a quick sweep of his spear. After that, the two of them engaged in armed combat for quite some time, with all of their attacks containing the intent to kill.
Though Valyr wasn’t able to parry or block as much of Riekan’s attacks as he would have liked to, the damage he had accrued from every hit was greatly mitigated by the set of armor he was waiting, reducing it to single digits as he healed the lost health with a swift [Inferior Heal].
On the other hand, with a robe being the only thing closest to a layer of protection Riekan had, not much of the damage he received from Valyr’s attacks were mitigated, with values ranging from the mid 60s to high 80s appearing above his body with each successful hit. In fact, there were two occasions that Valyr had landed a critical hit on Valyr, causing triple digit values to appear as Riekan slightly winced in pain.
Nevertheless, Valyr knew that if the two were to continue fighting like this, with both of them having high proficiency over their respective weapons, he would have long lost the stamina to continue fighting before he could reduce Riekan’s HP down to 0. With that, he went ahead and took Riekan by surprise.
“[Crimson Blaze]!”
While continuing to fight against Riekan while holding the spear with one hand, a ball of crimson flames appeared above Valyr’s free hand before swiftly ballooning to the size of a basketball, throwing it at Riekan’s face at an opportune time.
Bang!
‘-249!!’
“Agh!” Naturally, a fireball thrown at his face was not something Riekan had accounted for, nor the fact that the human in front of him knew magic. Nevertheless, seeing as he had given himself the opening he needed, Valyr unceremoniously went ahead and sent a spear straight towards Riekan’s head.
“[Offense Aura]!”
“[Robust Arms]!”
“[Venomous Strike]!”
Bang!
‘-3062!!!’
As his eyes widened in incredulity at the damage he had dealt to Riekan, Valyr felt his spear pierce through the skin of Riekan’s head before hearing a faint cracking sound resound from the impact. Unsurprisingly, Riekan was sent flying soon after, colliding with one of the walls before falling to the ground with a thud.
Though, just as Valyr thought that Riekan would take a while to recover from such a gruesome attack, what happened instead was that Riekan stared at Valyr with wide, bloodshot eyes, giving off the feeling that daggers could shoot out of them from any moment. Not long after, a faint red haze started to emanate out of Riekan’s body, informing Valyr of the fact that his opponent did indeed have a berserk phase.
“To think you’d actually return to using boorish tactics once more after engaging with me in proper armed combat. You’re truly despicable, human,” said Riekan as he slowly stood up. Gradually, the red haze surrounding him became more and more tangible, while the aura he radiated grew stronger with every passing second.
“Nevertheless, you’ve shown me once more why a culling of the human race is needed. And to start off this culling…”
“You shall be the first.”
Boom!