Chapter 198

As Rosalie rushed forward to score the initial strike—and seize hold of the beast’s attention as best she could—Zoey and her two other teammates also acted. Delta flanked to the right of the elemental, Maddy raised her weapon and started to cast her first spell, and Zoey, of course, did the same.

Aided by the specially brewed potion of spell alacrity, Maddy brought to life her first illusion quicker than ever. In many encounters, she would create copies of their opponent to goad or distract their target, but this time, she summoned something smaller: one of the rock-encased orange crystal beasts from early in their adventures. Either creating a copy of the boss would be too difficult, perhaps because it was too large, or Maddy didn’t think it ideal in this instance for some other reason. Zoey wasn’t sure.

While casting, Zoey also focused on activating Pressure Point. Even more than the average encounter, identifying the weaknesses of a boss could come as an enormous advantage. But as she scanned the four-armed hulking elemental, nothing jumped out at her. She received a number of natural intuitions, but all of them were obvious: that the elemental’s rocky armor was highly durable and that its gooey orange interior was what she should target. Its ‘weak point’. But there seemed to be no secret critical hit zone. At least none that Pressure Point identified.

Arriving at her target, Rosalie thrust forward. Her spear dove into a gap in the elemental’s rock armor, and when she pulled back, globs of molten goo erupted from the wound, dragged along by her spear. The goo splattered both Rosalie’s surroundings and the girl herself, who couldn’t dance away in time. The blonde cursed and retreated, wiping the material off as she went.

Her attack had done the job though: the beast roared in pain, then retaliated. It slammed both hammer and axe down in rapid succession, shaking the ground with the strength of their heavy metallic impacts. Rosalie dodged both, still scraping lava from her body, seemingly unperturbed despite the frenetic action. As expected from her.

Delta, in the meantime, edged in with her two daggers. She looked tiny in comparison to the hulking beast, but Zoey knew that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be effective. The moment Delta lunged forward to score her own attack, though, the arm with the spear in hand jabbed toward her in response. Not only did the boss have four arms, then, it had the coordination and awareness to fend off multiple targets at once. Delta at least wasn’t caught off guard: expecting retaliation, she aborted the attack and dodged away.

Finally, Zoey’s first ice spear finished forming, amplified by Burst. Since she had a full mana pool to work with for this last climactic fight, she would use everything she had. The sizable projectile burst forward and, to her delight, slammed true, burying at least a foot into the lava creature’s neck.

In one fluid motion, the hand holding the axe dropped its weapon, ripped the ice spear out, and tossed it aside—before reclaiming its blade, which promptly streaked down toward Rosalie like a meteor. Worse, ripping the projectile out meant lava went splattering down in a wide arc, impossible for Rosalie to dodge. Once again, their team’s frontline was briefly doused in the material—and unlike the lava they had waded through to get to the boss chamber, it was much more potent, leaving black smoke curling off the rock wherever it touched.

But Rosalie had several major resistances in both her bodysuit and the potions Zoey had made. By how Rosalie hastily cleaned herself and danced away, retreating, the substance hurt, but was nothing debilitating.

And so the fight continued. Rosalie and Maddy’s illusion took turns occupying various arms wielding enormous weapons. Delta snuck in where she could, occasionally pulling out her bow—which was her less-effective weapon, but which she was certainly proficient in. Since she was having a hard time finding openings, she was forced to use it a fair amount.

Zoey and Maddy stood back, benefiting from Rosalie’s competence as a frontline. Though perhaps that comfort worked against them. When the elemental suddenly faced them and, with no prior warning, launched its spear straight at Zoey, along with a gout of lava to accompany, the two of them were nearly too caught off guard to respond. They only barely managed to escape the spear itself, and definitely not the wide-spread lava gouts that came with it.

Zoey discovered firsthand how unpleasant the attack was, especially since she didn’t have Rosalie’s natural fortitude. At least she didn’t have to worry about dodging follow-up attacks: Rosalie and Delta dug into the brief opening, forcing its attention back while Zoey cursed and cleaned herself off.

Bit by bit, they whittled the boss down with their combined efforts. Strangely, it was both harder and easier than their fight against the second shard boss. Easier, because Zoey had significantly improved over her time training at Treyhull. Harder, for obvious reasons: shards became exponentially more difficult with each tier up. By all objective standards, this one was miles ahead of the previous. But Zoey’s hard-earned experience helped her feel not so out of place.

Then, it finally happened. The pivot in the fight.

Staggering backward after a particularly vicious jab from Rosalie, the elemental released a vicious roar that dwarfed any of its screams prior. Its body started to vibrate with the noise, lava rippling and coursing across its massive form, undulating in an ominous way. Rosalie retreated, sensing danger, and Delta naturally followed.

Its lower left and lower right hands dropped their weapons, the giant metal hammer and axe clattering loudly into the ground. Then, even more to Zoey’s shock, the arms themselves detached and hit the ground with a hefty thud. The appendages lost their shape, softening into an amorphous pile of glowing orange liquid with rock mixed inside. Then, like the boss fight had begun, those mounds themselves began to take shape. Slowly, they rose into two humanoid forms.