Baron Lands

Those ten seconds were over pretty quickly, but thankfully they could meet up with the others on the courtyard where John had helped Kim and Kaen. The whole group was there, and none of them seemed to have any severe injuries on them, barely scratches even. As the countdown ticked down on John’s interface, the sky went instantly dark, as if night fell over them in a matter of seconds. Thick and dark clouds were blocking out the sun, as some sort of smoke was gathering in the courtyard around them.

The smoke gathered around a single point close to the group, and mere seconds later, a hulking, misshapen body built itself out of the smoke. The thing was at least 2 and a half meters tall, a lot bigger than any of them, and at least twice as broad with hulking muscles. The creature wore no armor on its upper body, only a leather skirt and an iron helmet. The smoke around them dissipated with a bellowing roar, and the beast charged towards them.

Now Playing: DOOM - BFG Division

That thing was going to give him a perk point? Hell yeah! Been way too long since he had gotten one of those, and he was curious to see what he could get for those now.

His enthusiasm for the enemy was cut short, though, as it still barrelled towards them. Dodging the thing wasn’t too much of a problem, but the following attack revealed some nasty tricks… As John struck the thing with his spear, the vampire beast screamed in agony and fell on its knees, but a pulsing red beam came from somewhere in the metallic structures, immediately rebuilding any damage the boss received.

John had to roll his eyes hard. That was such a standard mechanic in games, stationary objects in the area that were either shielding, healing or buffing the boss. John’s assumptions was that it were the Bloodbags somehow prolonging the life of the boss. Looking back, the whole group was dealing damage to the thing, and it didn’t seem like it was able to heal all of it immediately.

So, they were likely able to kill it by brute ****, but that seemed stupid as hell… Especially if there were better alternatives. John wasn’t the only one with the idea, apparently, as Hannah was gone already and the Bloodbag objective was already up to 15. Taking off himself to deal with the remaining piles, John jumped into the closest building, following one of the beams going into the boss. As he ascended to the level of the beam, he could see that it was indeed another Bloodbag, but something was different. The Bloodbag was tearing itself apart, screaming in agony, clawing into its own flesh with arms that were hidden before. As John tried to kill the thing and put it out of its pain, it lashed out and swatted John away with unsuspected power.

-15 HP

Okay, that hit wasn’t that bad, but it was really concerning that the Bloodbags were fighting back now. Observing them still technically revealed them as items though…

Bloodbag (Mad) (x2)
Crazed by the proximity of the Alpha, these will try to kill themselves the more the Alpha takes damage, further healing the Alpha through their pain and blood

Okay, so these things didn’t actually try to heal the boss, they were just triggered by the proximity and now seemingly had no other choice… Creating a Mana Dagger brought a quick end to the pile, ending the stream of blood with it.

Bonus Objective cleared!
Rescue Bloodbags 20/20

Great! Now they were done with that one, so it was only a matter of time before the boss would fall, right?

Looking outside, John could still see multiple bloodstreams going into the monster on the ground. He was receiving more and more damage, but it was also apparent that he wasn’t going down any time soon. With powerful fighters like Kwang and Wotan, this was likely going to be inevitable, but it would take way too much time and resources, so John was off to deal with the last two piles, or rather the last one since Hannah probably dealt with the other one.

Landing by the next pile confirmed exactly that, as the shadow mage was standing over the pile, impaling it with her staff. She quickly looked at him, “What are you doing?! Get the other one! The thing is getting stronger!”

Oh, shit! That was not something that John had noticed! That would be seriously bad! He quickly jumped towards the next beam, coming from somewhere underground. As he crossed the distance to the last pile, he was close enough to get another Observe on the mutant:

Shit, that thing gained 10 Levels in the last couple of minutes?!?

Okay, this was really bad…

As John got closer to the source of the beam, he could see a manhole in the ground, wide open and ready for anyone to fall into. Well, hopefully it would lead John to where he wanted to go. Dropping onto the ground in front of the hole, he slid down into it with the momentum of his jump.

As he was still falling down, he could already see the Bloodbag, probably the biggest one he had seen yet. This thing was massive, and counting the faces, there were at least ten people in there… Throwing a Mana Dagger into it proved to be a fruitless attack. So the thing probably had a lot more life than the other ones… Dodging the swiping hands, John hit the thing with a strike of his spear, again doing seemingly too little damage to kill the thing. The arms around him made it impossible for him to properly get back out to get enough space to use Charge and Vault without taking damage, and if this thing was tougher than the other Bloodbags, then it was probably also stronger. So John resorted to the ‘combo’ that was probably the second strongest thing he had right now.

Putting as much of his Mana as he could into his spear to use Mana Charge, he then quickly jabbed into the Bloodbag in quick succession, resulting in a Flurry Strike

36 DMG + 15 DMG (Light) + 5 DMG (Fire) + 13 DMG (Mana Charge)
27 DMG + 15 DMG (Light) + 5 DMG (Fire) + 9 DMG (Mana Charge)
33 DMG + 15 DMG (Light) + 5 DMG (Fire) + 11 DMG (Mana Charge)
36 DMG + 15 DMG (Light) + 5 DMG (Fire) + 13 DMG (Mana Charge)

Mana Charge, Lv.4
Physical Damage will now be increased by 0.15 instead of 0.1

That was thankfully enough damage now, dissolving the pile in its place.

He quickly returned to the ground floor and to the spot the group was fighting the enemy in, trying to see if the destruction of the last pile helped them.

The thing was bleeding heavily, but apparently, it still had one trick up its sleeve. It was screaming with an incredibly high pitch, forcing all of the combatants to cover their ears while they were slowly sinking to the ground, losing their consciousness. Apparently, even a high enough level didn’t matter if your body couldn’t handle specific attacks.

To avoid that attack, John took into the sky, higher than he even was while attacking the mob of Mutants. Pushing himself down with a Propelling Flash Step, he Charged the vampire, Vaulting over an invisible step at the last second, Mana Charging his attack and jamming his spear into the chest of the beast while screaming, “SHIIIISH KEBAAAAAB”

The beast was too perplexed to do anything else but look up as John plunged the blade into its heart and used a point of Edge.

Vital Area! 4x Damage!
Vault Applied! 3.5x Damage!
Enemy Crippled! 1.5x Damage!
Critical Hit! 2x Damage after calculation!
Physical Damage Multiplier: 21x

747 DMG + 180 DMG (Light) + 10 DMG (Fire) + 126 DMG (Vault) + 1397 DMG (Mana Charge)

The vampire instantly exploded in a cloud of smoke, and the sky was clear once again.

It was at this moment that John knew two things:

1) With a proper group, you can be pulled through everything

2) His powers, indeed, are the absolute epitome of bullshit! He just dealt that much damage to an enemy three times his level. Sure, he would likely be killed in a single hit as well, but the simple fact that he was dealing this much damage was bizarre. And all in all, that combo cost him 22 Mana and a point of Edge…

But, John wasn’t going to complain about this fact. If he could use the system to his advantage, even better.