“Who picked Epic?” The leader of the Knights asked.
Dana gestured toward Karl. “Isn’t it obvious? Karl did the Epic version of the first two trials, now we all get to do the Epic version of the team trial.” “In my defence, I didn’t know that there was going to be a team event at the end.” Karl responded. It was too late to change anything about it now, even though they were going to have to face extra enemies at Epic difficulty because he had let the intrusive thoughts win and Lotus spent an hour just playing with the boxes.
Across the arena from them, a four-armed Giant with shining Golden armour over black robes appeared. The monstrous creature stood nearly ten metres tall, and Karl wondered how exactly they were expected to deal real damage to that.
Its lower legs were heavily armoured, and that was all that they could conveniently reach, while the rest of it was not showing any bare skin at all. Even its face was covered by a golden helmet.
“It looks like a mage special to me.” Tessa noted. There were soft joints, where the armour appeared to be leather, but none of those were in easy reach of the team, except for the mages, who had better ranged combat abilities.
“So this is what a modified difficulty Epic boss looks like.” Lotus announced, enthralled with the appearance of a creature that she had never seen before.
“Now, we just need to find a way to defeat it because the fight is starting.” Karl reminded her as the timer ran out.
When the timer ended, the Giant began to move, and the group scattered. Bob and Ophelia were headed forward, looking for an opening they could reach, while the Magic Knights were stepping through the sky to hurl blade attacks at the massive target.
Rae created a web to pull herself up into the bleachers, away from the main fight, and then hurled a boulder the size of a medicine ball at the four-armed Giant. The impact left a deep dent in the golden armour, and Karl smiled as he realized that while it was a deadly opponent, it was still Commander Rank.
It also wasn’t double-jointed, and when the Spider Golems got on its back, it had to sweep up with a club to knock them free, which wasn’t nearly as deadly for them as the fast purple demon had been.
[Rae, make a web net all around the arena for the Knights and Golems to fight from.] Karl instructed as he realized what the most effective tactic was likely to be.
If they couldn’t reach from the ground, they wouldn’t fight from the ground.
Rae worked fast, and made a loose net all around the arena out of super stretchy Royal Rank silk rope.
The fighters could land on that, grab it with a free hand, and then use it as a springboard to jump at the Giant when they saw an opening. Bob had superhuman strength, the same as Karl, and the Knights could walk on air, so it was an easy way for them to rest between attacks, and blows from the Titan’s clubs wouldn’t easily ruin it.
Karl tested the theory by taking a run toward the wall and jumping up on a completed section, then leaping off as he rebounded.
It launched him toward the Giant’s lower-right arm, which was hastily withdrawn to let Karl’s blade crash into an enormous club.
The [Chain Lightning] still spread through the creature’s body as Karl fell to the ground, thrown well clear of the stomping feet by the impact.
Not exactly optimal for Karl, who had plenty of his own ranged attacks, but good enough that everyone else saw what he was going for without having to announce it out loud.
Once they all knew, Karl switched back to his bow and began aiming for the vulnerable joints.
That was surprisingly easy on a target this large, especially when it was being swarmed by fighters who wanted to attack from close range, and tortured by spells from their mages.
One massive target against a team of thirteen wasn’t much of a fair fight, but the first time that one of the Giant’s clubs made contact, Karl realized it might not be as lopsided as he had thought.
A flick of the wrist caught one of the knights across the chest, caving in his armour and sending him rocketing across the arena.
If it was not for the stretchy net that Rae had created, his journey would have ended with a splat against the stone seating, but instead he bounced off and fell to the ground, coughing blood before falling unconscious.
Doug was at his side within seconds, engulfing him in a wave of green healing magic and peeling his armour open, so the chest cavity could be healed.
With the dented plate in place, the repairs couldn’t be made, and the Knight wasn’t conscious to remove it himself.
Doug gave a thumbs up to the group as he finished the emergency work and dragged the Knight into an alcove along the arena’s wall, where he was unlikely to be hit by any more attacks. Bob was their next casualty, when a club shattered his arm and destroyed his shield, sending him into the net right above his brother, who caught him on the way down and placed him gently on the ground.
The target was bleeding profusely from what looked like a hundred different wounds, but they were still closing, despite the effects of [Lacerate] and the battle was grinding on, with the human team slowly losing energy.
Thor wasn’t certain what to do. He couldn’t charge, the Giant was too big. He just had to stand there with Tessa on his back and keep the buffs up on everyone.
Being the support was important, proud work, but he did like it so much better when he could smash things.
Karl aimed high, trying to distract the Giant with [Chain Lightning] to the face, but with pure dumb luck, the first arrow flew straight through the gap in the visor, impaling one of the Giant’s eyes and sending electricity crackling across the helmet.
It flailed wildly, now blind on one side, and the Knights moved to take advantage.
A flurry of spells hit the Giant’s blind side, crippling two of its limbs, and tearing great chunks from its armour.
From there, the end was clear, or so they thought.
The Giant surged with power, and a wave of force erupted from its body, throwing everyone away and shattering most of their barriers.
The shockwave raced toward Karl, who was between the Giant and Doug, who was still working on Bob’s arm. Karl brought up [Earth Shield] as a wall, hoping to deflect the worst of the damage and keep the healer safe, but it didn’t last long, shattered to rubble by the force of the blast.
Everyone was at ground level now, and the Giant looked like it would collapse at any second, but the power was surging again.
[Golems, remove the head. It’s trying to self-destruct.] Karl instructed.
Rae summoned a new pair and began building little stone domes over the groups of Elites on the ground, as Karl retreated to Doug’s side to do the same for the wounded.
The air trembled with power as the next eruption peaked, and then it was gone, as were all the stone barriers and other spell effects, leaving the group standing in an empty coliseum.
[First Advancement Trial Complete. Calculating Rewards.]