Angelic Champion

“Okay now I know you’re taking from Darksiders!” I yell to Gaia, grinning. The loot looks pretty interesting and I’m looking forward to the fight. The champion brandishes its sword and starts to charge at us. Mia flies upwards while Skylar, Ivy and I dodge to the side. I quickly give out orders.

“If this is anything like the game, expect lots of melee attacks! Skylar, Mia, focus on the gaps in its armour! Ivy, stay back and get ready if any of us are knocked away! Watch for the shield bash attacks!” I yell. I try the same strategy as the regular enemies, blasting its wings with fireballs. The champion’s wings are visibly singed, but it doesn’t have anywhere near the same effect as the other angels.

Skylar stays at a distance and launches spears of shadow at the champion. Mia winds up for a similar swooping tactic to the enemies we faced before. I find that I’m right in my assessment of the Angelic Champion’s attacks, and instead of using its wings, it suddenly rushes forward with the shield.

I roll out of the way, launching more fireballs at the wings. The champion swings its sword and I duck, keeping up the barrage of fire. The visible damage to its wings completely stops, and I take that as the cue that only a certain amount of damage can be done, and switch to a different strategy.

I draw my axe from my inventory and with my other hand, let loose a freezing blast. There was no need to try to slow down the fight with the regular angels, it was much easier to drop them out of the sky first with fire spells. With the boss engaging in melee, slowing it down could help expose more weak points.

With that in mind, I send out waves of freezing magic as I dodge and weave between the champion’s strikes. I keep its attention focused on me, and all the while, Skylar and Mia are chipping away at the gaps in its armour, which are especially pronounced on its back. Small icicles form around the boss and its movement visibly slows under the onslaught of frost.

I dodge one more swing from the champion easily, thanks to its slowed movement speed. Gripping my axe with both hands, I swing as hard as I can into the back of its knee. The swing connects and its knee bends forward, staggering the boss. Whirling my axe around, I slam the weapon up and into the champion’s face.

The angelic champion stumbles backwards from the impact, recovering slower thanks again to the stacks of frost magic. Pressing my advantage, I charge forward and unleash a deadly cut aimed at its neck, my axe glittering in the sunlight. The axe stops dead as soon as it makes contact with the boss’ skin.

The champion’s head snaps up to look me straight in the eyes, the layers of frost flaking off its massive form quickly. Before I can react, the angelic champion releases a shockwave of golden energy that sends me flying backwards. I come to rest, having managed to turn off mana shield before I landed, half my mana bar gone and my health bar down to 250HP.

“Phase 2, watch for the shockwave attacks!” I yell, probably unnecessarily. Ivy is by my side a second later, starting to heal me. Mia and Skylar redouble their efforts in attacking the boss, to give Ivy time to get my health bar back up. I support their efforts with an occasional mana bolt, but mostly stay behind to recover.

Now that I’m not the primary threat to it, it focuses on Mia next. She dives down as the boss looks at her, ready for her next move. She readies her sword, but instead of attacking, she drops to the ground as the champion swings his sword at her. Mia rolls and immediately takes off again, slashing at the champion’s exposed back.

A thin cut is opened up, but that doesn’t seem to slow the boss down in the slightest. It launches itself into the air to catch her, slamming into her and knocking her out of the air. Mia goes crashing to the ground and the boss flies higher into the air. “Slam attack, jump over the shockwave!” I yell, recognising the windup from the game.

Mia stands up and we prepare ourselves as the boss dives straight down with shocking speed, slamming into the ground and unleashing another golden shockwave of energy that ripples across the ground. It’s powerful but still low enough to the ground that we can jump over it. All four of us manage to jump over the attack.

“I’m good now, help Mia.” I tell Ivy. She nods, running over to the aeromancer as I rush forward to re-engage the champion. The boss swings its sword at Skylar who dodges backwards. It’s about to follow up with a shield bash, when my first spell hits it. An ice bolt, one of the few I’ve used in this fight, to get its attention. A hail of fireballs aimed at the wings follow it up.

It turns to me, Skylar forgotten. “Treacherous invader!” The angelic champion yells, slamming it’s sword into the ground, sending a wave of golden energy towards me. Instead of being a less powerful shockwave all around itself, this attack is a more powerful directional shockwave, aimed straight at me. I dive to the side to avoid the attack, the powerful wave of energy missing me by a hair.

As I get close enough, I send more waves of freezing blast towards it, hoping to slow it down. Icicles form on its armour, but nowhere near as many as before. It’s much more resistant this time. I send a mana bolt careening into the boss’ face, and it swipes that massive sword at me.

Acting purely on instinct, I manage to jump over the blade, using the momentum of my jump to slam my axe down, aiming to split its head open. The boss manages to dodge somewhat but not enough, and the head of my axe makes contact with its shoulder. I can feel the impact jarring through my arms, and I welcome the feeling.

Dropping down, I swing again for the boss’ side, but the champion moves its shield and instead of the satisfying hit to an enemy, I get a disappointing block from a shield. The boss swings its sword in an overhead blow, and I manage to deflect the massive weapon to the side with my axe. Blocking against that thing would be suicide, so I don’t even try.

A few more spears of shadow pierce the champion’s wings, but it doesn’t even flinch. It goes for a shield bash next, and I try to dodge, but the edge of the shield still clips me. Spinning off balance, I manage to recover in time to sway backwards and avoid the next sword slash. Mia comes down once more to slash at the boss’ neck.

The attack connects, and a golden liquid spurts from the wound. Taking the opportunity, I unleash a barrage of mana bolts, all aimed at the champion’s head. Skylar gathers her energy and sends a wave of spears to widen the wound Mia created. The combined onslaught from the three of us manages to finally make the boss slump over, disappearing into golden dust.

Quickly spending the new statpoints Ivy and I received, we gather up the loot and exit the dungeon. Ivy and I are level 54 now, which is pretty good all things considered. Skylar’s managed to gain another level, now being level 33. I’m still worried about how we’re going to get her to level up more, but we can figure that out later.

We get back inside the palace and happily sprawl on the couch. Ivy and I check on our cats, to find them still fast asleep. As their food bowls can attest too, they did wake up to eat, but went straight back to sleep. We refill their food bowls quietly, before starting to examine the loot that we picked up from the dungeon.

The first thing is a stack of angel feathers from the regular angels. It’s a crafting material, and I decide to put it into storage for later. I’m really hoping to get something that Ivy can eat to finally fill that material bonus slot, but I’m not sure if she’ll be able to swap between different material bonuses, so we’re waiting to find something decent.

The next item is what was listed as Halo, on the loot table for the boss. I laugh as I realise that it’s a copy of the first Halo game. “Gaia loves her puns.” I say, handing the game to Mia. “I love her so much. That’s terrible, I love it.” The aeromancer replies.

The holy book is next, and I make a face when I read the description of it. It’s not a skill book that teaches any special magic or anything, it’s just a religious text that teaches how to be ‘holy’, at least according to the standards of the angels we fought. “Anybody want this?” I ask, looking around. Universal head shaking is the response, and I list the item on the auction.