Belos

Somehow we manage to work around Belle for the next few waves of gladiators. It doesn’t really get all that much harder, waves 3 and 4 just have 40 and 80 lesser warriors respectively. The bigger number of them doesn’t change our fundamental strategy, although Belle continues to be a nuisance.

I’m almost regretting taking her in with us to the dungeon, but we need to learn to work together if we’re going to have a chance at beating Mathias in 3 weeks time. It’s also not all bad, despite being a nightmare to coordinate with, she is efficient at getting through this. She’s a powerful ally.

Wave 5 comes around and the announcer starts this one off differently. I recognise the tell immediately. “It’s gonna be a boss! Get ready!” I shout. Sprinting back to Skylar and Ivy to regroup, I’m pleasantly surprised to find Belle doing the same.

“THESE COMPETITORS HAVE GUTS! BUT DO THEY HAVE THE SKILL TO BEAT, THE ONE, THE ONLY, BELOOOOOOS!” The announcer screams through the arena. Out from the gate lumbers a huge figure, wearing leather and plate armour, and a strange looking helmet with one horn sticking out to the side. I recognise the boss from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.

I panic slightly on reading that Belos uses poison, because I’ve never really encountered poison damage before. I don’t know if the slimes dungeon counts, because that was acid, not poison. “Avoid getting hit, his axe does poison and fire damage! Belle, let’s-” I shout orders, but Belle is already away before I can tell her what to do.

I shake my head, sighing. “I’ll try to keep his attention with Belle. Avoid hits at all costs. Ivy, keep your mana for healing.” I tell the rest of my guild, before sprinting to the frontline to occupy the boss. As I get to the boss, Belle uses her concussive enchantment on her chains, staggering Belos. I take advantage of the opening and try to rip the shield from his hands, similar to the game.

I find that it’s pretty tightly secured, and realise in an instant that I’m probably going to need Belle’s help to pull it off. Instead, I blast him in the face with some ice, then back off slightly, dodging a vicious cut from his axe. “Belle, we gotta work together to get that shield from him!” I tell her. Belle grunts in response, and I let out a sigh of frustration.

“This isn’t going to work if you don’t work with us.” I remind her, dodging another axe cut from the boss. Belle ignores me and launches her chain at the boss’ shoulder. She rakes her blade across the exposed skin, leaving a thin red line. Spears of shadow appear behind the boss, stabbing into him at multiple points on his back. He shrugs off the blows and launches himself at Belle.

Sensing Mia’s prescence beside me, we press the advantage while the boss is distracted hacking away at Belle’s defences. She dodges and weaves her way through every ferocious axe slash, the heavy blade whistling through the air and glinting in the artificial sun. Mia slices the air towards him, while I let loose blasts of frost.

The intense blasts of magic manage to stagger him a bit, but not before he manages to strike a glancing blow on Belle, knocking her to the side. Mia and I go further on the offensive to make sure he can’t press his advantage against Belle. An anvil of shadow appears above him, dropping down and hitting him on the head. Mia blasts him with a powerful pulse of solid air magic, and I let off another barrage of ice spells, noticing his movement beginning to slow slightly.

The boss turns his attention to Mia and I. Mia, knowing to let me handle aggro, backs off slightly, while I press forward, conjuring small but powerful twin daggers of frost. Belos hefts his axe high above his head and brings it slamming down in front of him as I sprint towards him. I manage to move in under the strike, sliding under him and slicing violently across his legs, opening up deep cuts.

Standing up from the other side, I turn around to see the boss lurch forward, off balance. Mia and Belle both see their opportunities, and go in for their own strikes. Mia goes for an uppercut reinforced with magic, while Belle slashes across his shield arm once more. Belle’s blade whistles by Mia, just barely missing her.

Mia yelps in surprise, her punch thrown off. The aeromancer doesn’t have a lot of strength, but her magic usually makes up for it with attacks like that. Surprised by Belle’s careless attack, her punch barely makes an impact on the boss, while Belle opens up a deep cut on the boss’ shield arm. “Watch it!” Mia yells.

“Sorry.” Belle replies, uncaringly.

Seeing an opportunity, I launch myself at the boss, who is staggered off balance by Belle’s slice, seemingly having trouble hefting his shield. “Mia, Belle, help!” I yell, gripping the edges of the shield and pulling. This time, small hands of shadow grip the edges with me, and Mia adds her strength along with mine. Belle seemingly can’t find an opening to join us as we rip away the shield, despite us leaving space for her.

I hand it over to Skylar, who tosses it far away from the boss. Belos grips his axe in two hands now, and Belle instantly launches at him again, sending blasts of red mana at him. The powerful magic knocks into him, but he powers through this time, swinging his huge axe at Belle once again. She manages to dodge, and Mia and I go in to help her.

This whole boss fight really isn’t going how I hoped it would. Belle isn’t working with us at all, and it’s turned into my guild and I trying to figure out how to fight around her, instead of all working together where it’s most advantageous for us all in the fight. She’s not taking into account any of our strengths or where we can help each other. She’s just rushing the boss and hoping for the best.

That’s a fine approach for enemies on her level or below, but when she’s facing an enemy more powerful, especially with allies beside her, she can’t afford to rush in and try to overwhelm them with power. It’s just going to get her killed.

As is proved by what happens next. Belle only has slightly more endurance than Skylar and Mia, so she isn’t very resistant to damage. As a result, when the incredibly quick boss batters away at her defences, ignoring Mia and I trying to refocus his aggression, it only takes a few solid hits that Ivy can’t heal quick enough before she disappears, whisked away from the fight by the Fateweaving that Elsa put into place.

A part of me is interested by that, because I’ve never seen it in action before. Outwardly, I let out a groan. As annoying as Belle has been to fight with, she’s also the most powerful of us all levelwise. And with her gone, it’s probably going to be a lot harder to see this dungeon through to the end.

Conversely, the fight actually becomes somewhat easier after Belle is gone, due to the fact that we’re not worrying about working around her anymore. Mia and I work together in our usual fluidity and precision, trading aggro every time we get hit, to step back and let Ivy heal us, before we move back into the fight.

We slice away at the boss, cutting at his skin and blasting him with magic, staggering him a little more, hurting him little by little, until he stops, unleashing a shockwave of magic and forcing us backwards a few paces. He plants his axe in the dirt, screaming and activating his second phase. His entire body glows with orange energy, healing all his wounds.

He picks up his axe and flourishes it above his head, the blade turning a sickly green colour. That would be the poison damage that the observe warned about. A beserk state for bosses is pretty normal, it’s mainly the poison damage I’m worried about. Our strategy is unchanged, although Mia and I have to pull Belle’s weight, with her out.

With blinding speed, Belos rushes towards Mia and I. She flies away, out of reach of the huge boss, while I sprint towards him. He’s faster than me at full speed, but my ice magic can narrow that gap. Dodging left and right through strike after strike, I keep up my barrage of frost, not letting up so as to keep aggro on me.

I’m too slow with one dodge as he viciously cuts to the side, smashing through my armour and embedding his axe deep into my arm. The wound burns as I step backward, retreating so Ivy can heal me. Mia ramps up her aggression, turning his attention towards her so Ivy can heal me. She struggles for a solid ten seconds, the poison effect attacking my HP.

The wound has long since healed, but the damage to my HP is still going until the poison effect runs out. I’ll have to look into poison resistance at some point, because it seems really effective on me. As soon as I’m healed back to full, with Ivy having been **** to use some of her mana on vines to restrain Belos so he doesn’t overwhelm Mia, I rejoin the fray.

Bit by bit, we chip away at his health, cutting and slicing at the gaps in his armour, thankfully managing to avoid most of his poisonous strikes.

See Belle, this is how you work together to beat an enemy stronger than you. The thought crosses through my head as one big blast of magic from Mia and I, sends Belos dissipating into golden dust.