Return to Jorgaldur Volume III: blood warrior

In group: seventh floor's boss (II)

Darkness required more mana to sustain as she leveled up, as it needed to hide more power. Therefore, her increase in the mana pool and its regeneration as her level raised wasn't enough to be hidden forever. At least, not without an exploit that she didn't have access to yet, and which she didn't know if it would still work.

Therefore, after recovering and replenishing her blood supply, she sent her assistant to retrieve the dagger, It was ignored by the millipede, but she knew it would detect her as soon as the spell was deactivated. Therefore, she decided to take advantage of it again to start a sneak attack.

She Backstabbed the base of the antennae again and jumped back, thus avoiding the crash of its head against the wall. This time, however, she changed tactics. Instead of searching for a spot for Darkness Pillar, she returned to the head, which was now recoiling from the impact.

She again attacked the base of the antennae, again the boss' floor crashed against the wall, and again she backed away.

"Heh, it seems I've found an effective way," she congratulated herself.

Undoubtedly, it was true. For a time, the millipede was damaged by the vampiress' attacks and by its own blows against the wall. From afar, the group watched her in amazement.

"How does she find these tactics?" Kruloz wondered aloud.

"No idea. It even seems easy," Kroquia admired.

"It was more fun when she was jumping here and there. Now she has it under control," Krongo almost lamented.

"At least, until this phase passes. It won't be long," Krinia worried.

"If she were someone else, I'd say it would be very difficult, but she..." Kroco admitted.

As expected, when the vitality reached half, the behavior changed. The millipede split in half, with a head and tail coming out of the split. Now, there were two.

"Like in the game, now we have two five-hundred-pedes," she said to herself.

Gjaki smiled. She had given them that name in the game, and had gotten Goldmi and Eldi's consensus that it was a very poor joke. She decided that it was better to not repeat it to her reptilian friends.

With two of those mana insects, she couldn't use the same tactic. In fact, the second one had already lunged at her, and had attacked her without caring if it hit its other half.

With the extra speed and strength provided by Blood Overload, she jumped back, landed on her hands and propelled herself again. This time, she landed on her feet on the first's back.

She stayed on it despite the Shakes Off, with the aid of Climb, and attacked the joints of the momentarily immobilized five-hundred-pedes. However, soon the other half released it and lunged at her, while spitting acid. At the same time, the first one began to Roll.

This time, she was prepared. She dodged the acid and waited just long enough for the second to arrive and hit its twin. It gave her time to jump in the opposite direction it had started Rolling.

The impact between them was terrible again, and she was forced to dodge and quickly move away, or the body that was being dragged would have crushed her. Nonetheless, she didn't give them time to recover. Just as the movement stopped, she used the whip and Grab to climb onto the second's head. She had first jumped over the first, before propelling herself to reach her destination, aided by the whip

It wanted to Shake off her, but this time it was the first one which attacked the position where Gjaki was, who was hardly caring about doing damage anymore. They did enough for themselves.

Similar scenes were repeated a few more times, while the reptilians watched the spectacle in awe.

This time she used the antenna as a springboard to propel herself up. The whip coiled on the newcomer to climb on it acrobatically. Right now, they were entangled in each other, their bodies huddled together. It was ideal for a new Darkness Pillar, which gobbled up both bosses. It was the coup de grâce for them to split up again. This time, there were four.

With four attacking her at once, it was much more dangerous. When she dodged one, the other ones slightly changed their trajectory to reach her, in addition to the continuous acid attacks. She needed to dodge over and over, consecutively. It was a bit exhausting, but also the damage they did to each other was much greater.

Once again, she dodged backwards. She used the whip Grabbed to an antenna to abruptly change direction, and narrowly avoided the razor-sharp legs of one of the two-hundred-and-fifty-pedes. It was so close that she received a painful cut on her arm. She used the body of the newcomer to hide behind it from the attack of the next one, which lashed out at this one and the one before.

The last one didn't stop, but kept going, so it dived too in the tangle of bodies. Their sharp legs continually damaged each other in their movements to get out of that tangle and attack again. The first, which was also trying to move under the other three, was cutting itself against the legs of its fellows.

It wasn't the first time it had happened, but it was the last. Seeing that they didn't have much health left, and that she had recovered enough mana, she created a new Darkness Pillar. It eliminated the last resistance of that dangerous floor's boss.

She sat on the ground, visibly exhausted, but with a wide smile. Winning a battle as demanding as this was extremely satisfying.

Soon, her companions came over to congratulate her. There was admiration in their eyes, especially Krongo's. He was a melee warrior, and felt deeply inspired. The reptilian didn't know if he would ever be able to move like her, but he had discovered an interesting path ahead of him to explore.

Kroco looked at him resignedly. His intuition told him that his job as a healer was going to get tougher. For a moment, he didn't know if he should feel irritation towards the vampiress.

They didn't stay there long, just enough to recover before moving on to the next floor. As soon as she arrived, the vampiress met a two-meter-long grasshopper.

"Another bug in the game that is real," she said to herself with a smile.

Jump was the main skill of those beings. However, in the tunnels, that skill could even backfire. The vampiress easily defeated it by taking advantage of its impacts against the walls and the ceiling.

She checked that there were no other enemies nearby before calling her companions. Those beings were at level 42, which made them very dangerous for the reptilians. The difference in level was beginning to be excessive. Luckily, they weren't enemies which relied on surprise attacks.