After several seconds without feeling anything other than a slow heartbeat, Benny gave up and reached over to the non-aged demon. Unlike previously, the instant he focused, he noticed a swirling heat from within the creature’s chest and scrunched up his face in thought.
“Haiz, so the old demon’s Codex has either been entirely powered down, or all its Mana was drained. Unfortunately, without one of the brothers present, I have no way of figuring out the specifics. Still, I can say without a doubt that the old-looking one is utterly devoid of any Mana particles in its body.” Benny stated as he reached over to the old demon, grasped its head, twisted forcefully, and broke its neck, ruthlessly killing it.
|You have successfully Killed a Level 20, Peak Tier-1 Virtual Begraz Demonoid.|
|You have received 5 Obelisk Kill Points.|
|You have received one KCP (Kill Counter Point).|
|You have received one 1000 Essence, XP Crystals.|
|You have received 3 Merit Points.|
“Let’s clear them out; I’m at 230 seconds left until the respawn begins, and we still need to kill off at least four more before we can comfortably
wait out the clock,” Benny stated as he punched the unaged demon’s head, exploding it like a watermelon.
|You have successfully Killed a Level 20, Peak Tier-1 Virtual Begraz Demonoid.|
|You have received 5 Obelisk Kill Points.|
|You have received one KCP (Kill Counter Point).|
|You have received one 1000 Essence, XP Crystals.|
|You have received 3 Merit Points.|
Nodding, Selene stepped forward and instantly killed off three nearby demons, while Benny killed the remainder, leaving only two alive.
Looking at the two remaining demons, who were shaking in fear, Benny shook his head in disappointment.
“What’s wrong?” Stepping up beside him with her spear resting on her right shoulder, Selene asked.
“The timer was thrown off. At least we stopped that demon from killing everything too fast. If we hadn’t, then the respawn timer would have been decreased to almost nothing.” Benny said as he pushed over one of the demons trying to crawl away on its hands and knees with his foot.
“No kidding, I don’t even want to think about having a revolving door of enemies. So long as we keep the respawn at 5 minutes, we are good.” Selene huffed as she fought the urge to smack the second crawling demon with the butt of her spear.
“During the first group, we were able to waste six minutes; it took us a minute to kill off the right amount, and then we burned the full respawn timer.” Glancing away from the injured creature and up to the timer, which showed 05:17, Benny frowned.
“We spent a full 37 minutes dealing with the creatures and still have three minutes until they respawn. Ideally, I’d like to spend 30-45 minutes per group, but if we face another situation as we did with that black demon, things will get tricky.”
“So from now on, we kill those things the moment they appear, no if and’s or butts.” Turning away from the clock and meeting Selene’s gaze, Benny stored both his weapons on his back and crossed his arms.
“Alright, no biggy, 30-45 minutes plus five means we should have to fight something like 7-10 more groups if all goes well,” Selene replied as she carved the math out on a nearby pillar. Since it was never her strong suit, even with high INT and MIND stats, Selene still had difficulty doing number calculations in her head; even the simplest ones would leave her stumped for a couple of minutes. So when Benny checked her math, he sighed and felt the need to explain.
“Un, the problem is though, we will have to face more groups than that if we each want to earn the required points. Right now, I have thirteen KCP, while you only have eight. So I will need 137 more kills, and you still need 142.” While he spoke, Benny held up one hand representing Selene and the other himself as he counted the total of enemies slain on his fingers.
“The fact that we need to kill 300 or more demons and only have a little over five hours to do so means that we will have to reduce the timer further, so we will have to manipulate the clock in 30-minute intervals or go crazy at the end.”
“Hold on, if we do 30-minute intervals, that’s ten groups which make the maximum number we can see what….” Selene started asking while chewing on her bottom lip and carving out ten times 30.
“It’s 300; even Selene. However, that is the ABSOLUTE BEST CASE, which only happens if we consecutively hit 30 demon groups the whole time. The time we need to waste increases or shortens depending on how many enemies spawn in the waves.”
“If we hit a shit luck streak and consecutively hit ten creature groups, we can’t allow the timer to go on for too long. So starting from here on out, here’s what we do.” Walking over and taking the spear from Selene’s hand, Benny carved the numbers 10, 20, and 30 on the pillar in an open space.
“If a group of ten demons spawns, we blitz them. The goal is to evenly split the pack before killing eight as quickly as possible, leaving only two alive.”
“This triggers the five-minute respawn timer, and we will hold out until it counts all the way down before wiping out the final two, as we are doing now.”
Circling the number ten with a large bubble, he wrote “kill eight demons evenly ASAP” and continued speaking.
“Our target completion time for the small group should be no more than 7-8 minutes, of which five is the respawn timer, so I want to clear it within 2-3.” Quickly adding the minute goal, Benny scooted over and circled the number 20.
“For the medium-sized group, 20 demons, things are slightly different. Even if we evenly split the pack in half, that is still ten creatures each, and we will have to kill 18 quickly. With this group and the larger 30 demon group, there are a lot of wildcards in play.”
“For example, in the group we are finishing, there were two boss monsters, the Ogodoth and Veb’lema, who were both Tier-2. The blue guy had to be separated from the others due to its size and danger, making it harder to clear our way through the smaller opponents. For this batch, we take out the threats first, the Tier-2s, and then pick apart the little guys.”
Benny quickly wrote down Target Tier-2s and then split the group.
“The estimated timer for 20 creature groups is 15-20 minutes, factoring in the respawn timers, that means 20-25 minutes total.”
Pausing for a moment and checking the clock, Benny noted that there were only 90 seconds left until they needed to kill the two remaining demons and moved over to the number 30.
“Lastly, we have the largest group, and the one that will not only give us the most points but also pose the biggest problem regarding time constraints.”
“As we know, there will be three Tier-2 creatures spawned in this group, and we need to account for that. The strategy will be complicated for whoever has to do it, but one of us needs to peel off all three bosses, leaving the other person to wipe out 25 of the Tier-1 creatures single-handedly.”
“I say 25 because two must be left alive, so we don’t affect the respawn timer. Once the bulk of the demons is dealt with, and there are two cripple creatures left over, only then can the second person join the fight against the three bosses.”
Although Benny was constantly throwing out numbers because he was writing it all down, Selene was able to follow, so she committed the plan to memory and was focused on his following words.
“Now, if we get another demon with that weird Affinity as a boss, I will be the one drawing their aggro and leading them to the far side of the room, where you will be unrestrained in dealing with the Tier-1s.”
“I would LIKE to set the ideal time for clearing the 30 group packs as high as possible, but if we spend too much time, we run the risk of not only not getting enough kills to complete the challenge, but we also become more prone to accidents.”
“So for now, I have to cap the clock at 35 minutes, with the respawn timer included.” Finishing up his plan, Benny stepped back and reviewed his written strategy in silence for a few seconds.
“Well shit, Benny boy, where was this plan when we first started?” Smiling at the boy, lost in thought, Selene commented.
“I had the barebones when we killed the first group. But it wasn’t until I saw the black demon’s Affinity that I had to toss everything aside and focus on the rest of the challenge.”
“It was paramount that I figured something out fast since going into wave three, our scores were already pulling away from each other, so I had to find a way to even them out.”
|The Respawn Time will elapse in 30 seconds.|
|The Current KCP Count is as Follows, Benjamin Sanford: 13, Selene Nilsson: 8.|
|Generating opponents for the Next Wave.|
“Ok, get ready,” handing Selene back her spear, Benny briskly jogged over to the demon he had kicked over earlier, unsheathed his Estoc, and pinned it to the ground with the blunt side of his weapon.
“15 seconds.” Benny calmly said while Selene got in position and waited for his signal.
“10.”
“5.”
“NOW!” In unison, the two killed their poor excuse for an enemy and received the notifications, bringing Benny up to 14 points and Selene to 9.
|Now spawning Thirty opponents, Chosen Race: Demonoid.|
|Spawning Ten Peak Tier-1 Begraz Demonoids, Five Peak Tier-1 Ollmarug Demonoids, Five Peak Tier-1 Tiz’gog Demonoids, Five Peak Tier-1 Vir’eth Demonoids, Two Peak Tier-1 Bar’an Demonoids, Two Early Tier-2 Ogodoth Demonoids, and One Early Tier-2 Tolmoth Demonoid.|
“MOTHER FUCKER!” Selene screamed anxiously as she noticed there was not one but two Ogodoths they would have to deal with now. With nervous eyes, she watched the particle storm descend and break off into three separate clusters, which then became 30 shapes by the time it touched down on the ground.
“Don’t get distracted; I will deal with them until you can get rid of the rest, steamroll them, Selene, and waste as little time as possible.” Kicking off the ground and rushing forward, Benny manifested three [Water Spears] over his head with his left arm and threw them directly at the two black demons and the new fifteen-meter tall, obese orange demon called a Tolmoth.