Everyone suddenly saw the surrounding ocean turning dark with chilling dark green wind whistling ominously—one of the four Dreadspire Element, Withered Wind, and also the one she boosted with the boon she selected, enhancing its characteristics’ potency by 500%.
Unlike Mira, who had to use skill to travel through shadows and darkness, Lily easily teleported through the darkness she created with her SS-rank Darkness elemental mastery.
Her daggers carved gloomily glowing ‘X’ on Leviathans’ bodies before they glowed and withered their flesh while slashing further as the carvings turned into solid X-shaped energy blades.
She appeared from darkness lingering over Leviathans one by one, leaving an ‘X’ mark on their bodies that would deal dreadfully focused damage, penetrating their scales, skins, and flesh. This technique was something she derived from her Weapon Art: Umbral Reaper’s Shadowy Gloom’s first stage.
Although she hadn’t learned her weapon art’s first stage—Dance of Gloomy Reaper, the experience of dying hundreds of times at her clone’s dagger under this first stage while observing and understanding it gave enough chemicals to her brain, which reacted once she broke through to SS-rank in Darkness elemental mastery, hence creating this move—X of Dreadspire, which had four types of attacks with trigger-based effects, one for each Dreadspire element.
X of Withered Wind was the first style she tried here after visualizing this concept and only training in it briefly before entering the Labyrinth, but her SS-rank Darkness mastery made it all the easier for her to make this move.
The first ten Leviathans she struck were heavily injured, but none died. Nobody could kill them in one shot except for Almond, who didn’t focus on the attack at the moment and instead was cooking a stronger attack.
However, the next ten Leviathans at the back that Lily marked with X-rank were slashed into four pieces swiftly as she empowered with them Umbral Shards! (Click me)1
The scores skyrocketed with everyone’s efforts, be it attack, defense, and support.
Fighting and holding on against these many Leviathans of Small, Medium, and Large variants was consuming time while everyone was steadily performing with only a few hiccups that Almond prevented from affecting the party.
When the countdown reached 0:20, over half of the Leviathans had died, but the remaining ones glowed and turned into motes before gathering into a giant pearl in the next two seconds.
Everyone quickly chugged potions while those who fell into the water due to sudden shift were teleported by Almond along with the entire party as he relocated to a new island.
“New form!” Marcus shouted.
“Get ready!” Noah somberly nodded.
“I’ll bring out my new gun, which can kill and heal both,” Natalia grinned as she used her newly acquired growth-type skill—Nexus of Aurora Light! (Click me)1
Everyone was getting ready when they saw the giant pearl emerging with not one, not two, but three frigging-headed Leviathan this time.
Almond summoned his remaining spirit wraiths for the final burst to give their all.
When the countdown hit 0:15 as the boss wasted 5 seconds in transformation again, its three heads screeched loudly, dispersing Lily’s dark area while summoning dark clouds in the sky.
“Looks like we’ll have to give equal focus to defense this time,” Marcus muttered. “My defender’s instincts are telling me this shit is annoying.”
*Crackle!*
Dark green and dark blue lightning danced in the clouds all over while the new three-headed Pearl King Leviathan dived into the ocean.
“Kayla, Eliara, Noah, Jian, and Jemma, pour your focus on support and defense with your skills. Only my defense alone might not help us, especially because nobody except for Lily, Natalia, and I have armor sets.”
As soon as Almond finished speaking, the countdown was at 0:10 and the first lightning bolt streaked at the group with terrifying speed.
It struck in the middle of the group, destroying Almond’s Devouring Veil while rattling everyone with powerful shockwaves, injuring those closest to the impact, but Marcus’s Geoprime General’s Halo shared the damage while reducing it.
Almond could block it completely, but he also wanted to focus on preparing his next attack and didn’t want to exhaust himself just for defending, so he adjusted accordingly.
Meanwhile, Natalia with her Nexus of Aurus Light, Sylvia with her massive support, Jemma with her cleansing effect and healing, Kayla with her healing from Nine Purestar Doe form healing, and Starlight Beast with his Twilight Regeneration healed everyone quickly since the damage was shared.
Chimera Crystalist and Nyssara focused on defense upon Almond’s command as an icy crystal coating appeared over everyone, which Chimera Crystalist empowered further.
Four more lightning bolts swiftly struck in the next four seconds, but the defense and recovery kept up the group’s vitality as well as increasing their adrenaline rush at witnessing such dangerous attacks up close and surviving.
When only five seconds were left, the Pearl King Leviathan emerged from right below their island, shattering it into pieces.
Almond was aware of its movements and had already teleported everyone to another island.
Enjoy new tales from empire
Maya unleashed her freezing arrow immediately which she was preparing, while Amir, Emma, Talia, and Xavier who had no business in defending or healing unleashed their long-range attacks.
But right before their attacks could strike, Almond’s eyes glinted.
Divine Divider’s Harvest! Halving its Strength and adding it to his own!
Almond immediately swung his sword, using Sword Bending Motion and unleashing three strikes of pure devastation—two horizontal and one vertical slash, all three gleaming black with eccentric golden patterns weaved through it, and despite releasing this attack later, his triple slashes struck first as all three heads opened up dreadful gnashes, splitting its middle-head into two as it hanged while cutting almost 90% of its neck-area on all three upper bodies.
The total score jumped from 2,329,504 to 3,874,200 with this attack!
And then struck the other attacks as the score increased by approximately 300k.
Alfred, Galvaren, Dark Pope, Infernal Knight, Chimera Frank, and Viperfiend attacked with their strongest moves by emptying their Mana reserves, while Natalia also joined by releasing beams from Nexus, emptying her Mana as the score was increased by almost 100k from assaults of spirit wraiths and Natalia.
The boss was regenerating fast while three more lightning bolts struck in the last three seconds, causing many to groan in pain as injuries were inflicted and damage was shared.
But everyone’s eyes went to the countdown after the last lightning bolt as it reached 0:00!
[Congratulations Grim Breakers. You have successfully completed the Heroic Challenge—Leviathan of Pearl Belly with a stellar performance.]
[Your party, Grim Breakers, ranks 1st in the Grimworld leaderboard of 6th Floor’s Heroic Challenge with your score surpassing the previous 1st rank party by 398,506. Congratulations.]
[The rewards will be generated shortly. You can rest or look at the Heroic Shop in the meantime.]
“Hahaha, we did it again!”
“Rank one!”
“Let’s fucking go!”
“We really fucking did this without equipment aside from weapons or extra items…”
“We did it, that’s all that matters, boys.”
“Although Almond is MVP, as always, this time, he shouldn’t be MVP. Instead, he should be the MGP! The Most Godly player!”
“Indeed, Brother Amir is preaching truth, hahaha.”
Everyone cheered with excitement while Lily and Almond smiled as they looked at the party going crazy with the win.
[Umbral Shards]
-Type: Passive (Growth-type)
-Rank: SSS
-Cost: —
-Umbral Shards: [0/10]
-Details: Any dark-type skills you use will generate Umbral Shards, up to 10.
-Effect(s):
—> You can infuse an Umbral Shard in any of your skills that deal damage, increasing its dark-attributed effects by 50%, damage by 50%, and penetrative power by 50%.
[Nexus of Aurus Light]
-Type: Active (Growth-type)
-Rank: SSS
-Cost: 20% of Maximum Mana. Additional Mana to infuse Light energy in the Nexus.
-Aurus Light: [0/100,000]
-Details:
—> Using the skill, manifest a Nexus that gathers and stores light energy from your own Mana and also from lightness and brightness in the surrounding atmosphere to generate Aurus Light. You can then use Nexus to release Aurus Light effects from your body, with gestures and intent aimed at targets visible in your sensing range.
—Effect(s):
—> Aurus Lightburn Pierce: Unleashes a fast, piercing burning beam to any target within your sensing range, dealing damage based on Aurus Light consumed to release this.
—Aurus Light Healing Beam: Unleashes a pure positive healing beam that expells harmful energies from an individual and heal their wounds, external or internal.