The ballroom was in absolute chaos, with bodies strewn everywhere. Most of the bodies were Gripplis, and they were shredded to pieces.
A Lizardman was standing in the middle of the room, reaching twice the height of every frogman in the room. He was sporting a maniacal grin, with his teeth covered in green blood.
In his hands, two jagged-edged swords were dripping with the same green-coloured blood. Astaroth scanned him.
Lizardman General Akro:
Level: 50
Grade: Rare (Zone Boss)
HP: 208’284/923’000
MP: 11’200/12’000
As soon as Astaroth scanned it, the Lizardman’s head snapped in his direction.
*Shaa!*
The Lizardman General hissed at the newcomer that dared scan him. Astaroth rapidly scanned the room with his eyes.
He found another high-level creature in the room, this one a frogman. But he looked in much worse condition than his counterpart.
Grippli General Chirk:
Level: 50
Grade: Rare (Zone Boss)
HP: 83’422/917’000
MP: 6’500/12’000
From this info alone, he knew the frogman general was on the losing side. But did he have time to waste here helping him?
“Astaroth, take Violette and keep going! Gulnur and I will help here!”
Astaroth nodded rapidly before swooping down to the ground, grabbing Violette in his arms like a princess, before kicking off the ground again.
ƥαṇdα- ηθνε|·ƈθm
As he passed over the Lizardman, the latter grabbed a spear from the ground next to him, launching it at Astaroth. Astaroth didn’t even take the time to look at it, trusting his friends.
Just before the spear reached him, Gulnur’s shield came flying in, knocking it off course.
“Thanks, Cap!” Astaroth shouted mockingly, accelerating through the halls.
“Fuck off, Morbius!” Gulnur responded mockingly.
Then the dwarf and Phoenix ran to get between the Grippli general and his Lizardman counterpart. They became serious, as they knew this would be a tough fight.
As Astaroth flew away, he started hearing the sounds of explosions and violent weapon collisions from behind him. He smiled, silently wishing them luck.
There were only a few hundred meters of hallway to traverse to reach what he assumed was the throne room. And from what he could gather from his occasional echolocation pulses, a battle was raging there, too.
He flew through them like a gust of wind, maneuvering the corridors with agility before reaching his destination. The door to the throne-room was slashed open.
It looked like a giant blade of some sort had rended into the metal-reinforced wooden door. Whatever was holding the door closed seemed to have shattered on impact.
Loud clanking was resounding from inside the room, with the occasional shake of the walls. Whatever was fighting inside that room was much stronger than anything Astaroth had fought against yet.
Astaroth landed before the door, putting Violette on her feet. His first meld was already half-used, and he would soon have to change back to another one.
But before that happened, he was fully intent on using the skills available to him to their fullest. He peeked his head inside the room, using Hypnosis.
His tongue clicking was half covered by the clanking of weapons, but he was sure it was working, anyway. He also used Sleeping Pulse in between his tongue clicks, to weaken the enemy even more.
Once both skills were used, he was disappointed the charm didn’t work, but the drowsiness effect still applied once, and the mental resistance debuff too. This made the fight less one-sided for the Lizardman.
That’s when he deemed it was the right time to join in. Astaroth signalled Violette, and dashed inside the room, taking flight again, to stay out of reach.
He then scanned his new enemy and who he was fighting.
Lizardman Warrior-King Angura:
Level: 50
Grade: Legendary (Boss)
HP: 10’731’753/12’598’750
MP: 62’500/127’500
Grippli Lord Marshall Kaillum:
Level: 50
Grade: Semi-Legendary (Boss)
HP: 7’406’185/9’460’000
MP: 72’500/99’000
Astaroth could sense another presence behind the stone throne, and he could easily guess that it was the king. And since task 3 of the hidden quest was to save the king, he knew who he had to fight.
He started swooping in, attacking from the weirdest angles he could, hoping to disrupt the Lizardman’s combat. But his damage was highly underwhelming.
The Warrior-King stopped defending himself against the attacks entirely after a few times, judging this and couldn’t take him down in a thousand years. But Astaroth wasn’t over just yet.
The cooldown on Sleeping Pulse and Dissonance Screech was not very long, and he could fire it off a few more times before his melding was over. He used it every time it came back, stacking the debuffs.
This was slowly pushing the battle in the Grippli’s direction, since the dissonance made the Lizardman miss more often, and the drowsiness was slowing him down.
The Lord Marshall used this advantage and went on the offensive. His aggressivity rapidly went up as his attacks rained down.
When Astaroth’s first meld was over, the battle was already at a stalemate, with both the Warrior-King and Lord Marshall being around fifty percent of their health.
Astaroth used Hypnosis again, trying to apply the charm, but it failed again. The Lizardman was fully aware of what he was trying to do.
Since his melding was over, he couldn’t reapply any debuffs for now, but he could still summon Morpheus. He hoped the Lizardman would keep ignoring his presence for as long as possible, lest he die.
But once he summoned Morpheus, things took a wrong turn.
The Warrior-King saw the bat being summoned, and he immediately launched an attack against it. That one attack took half of Morpheus’ health away, as it flew higher up, trying to stay out of reach.
Astaroth quickly melded with White, dashing at the boss, trying to act as a distraction. If Morpheus went down, the debuffs that were aiding them would time out in thirty seconds, and the fight would go in the wrong direction again.
Unfortunately, the Lizardman was wise enough to keep ignoring Astaroth, launching another attack at the bat, this time fatally wounding it.
‘Shit!’
But the fight wasn’t over yet. Astaroth used his meld with White and slashed at the boss with abandon.
Since the many debuffs on him slowed him, the Warrior-King couldn’t afford to block his attacks or dodge them, so he simply took them with his body.
With attacks raining on him from Violette, and his body being slashed non-stop by Astaroth, the Lizardman’s health was slowly dropping.
And then the debuffs ended.