Harem Online: My Party Is Full of Beautiful Celebrities-Chapter 49: Fire Thunder Bolt

"Let’s do it, NukEncore," Martin shouted, urging her to get up and move behind him.

He needed thirty meters to trigger his shield’s unique mechanic, and the boss was so obsessed with him that he kept pressing forward too. They were running out of time.

NukEncore nodded and got to her feet. She tried to stay careful without losing too much speed.

The crystal shards hammering Martin’s shield and ricocheting away did nothing to calm her nerves, but NukEncore clenched her hands and kept going.

"You’re doing great," Martin said, as if he could read exactly how she felt. "We need a decisive, sharp final attack. Do you think Final Fireball will do it?"

NukEncore murmured, thinking out loud. "It hits hard on impact... but if the boss is going to get yanked all the way to our side, wouldn’t a blade like Alexandra’s twin swords be better?"

Alexandra? When did those two get so close?

Martin shoved the fleeting thought aside and answered his mage.

"Yeah. Think Fire Bolt can do it?" he asked.

NukEncore’s combination of two skills had become Fire Bolt, and she had practiced it constantly during the prep runs. Most of that practice had gone into sharpening her aim with Kill Clause’s help so she could actually hurt the boss and feel like a real part of the team.

Clearing waves of monsters mattered too, sure, but the boss was the boss. The real star of fights like this had always been Alexandra, slicing through the battlefield like she owned it.

NukEncore had never really minded that. Well, maybe only a little. But this was different.

She had never prepared for the moment Martin would look past Alexandra, choose her, and trust her to finish the boss.

How could she have?

"It can do it, and it will do it!" NukEncore swallowed her insecurities and answered with confidence.

Martin fed that confidence immediately. "Yeah, you’re definitely the one who can do it."

[Kill Clause: 29 meters.]

[Emperoar: Thanks.]

"You heard her," Martin said. "Let’s do it."

"Yes!" NukEncore shouted, thrusting her hand forward.

Because of how her fireball skills worked, she usually conjured two of them. This time was no different.

Her two fireballs spun together and crashed into each other with a hungry howl, fusing into one violent mass of flame in front of her hand.

Normally, that would have been the shape of Final Fireball. This time, though, NukEncore forced another skill into the spell’s core and dragged the flames outward, stretching and sharpening them into the outline of a lightning bolt.

The magic resisted her, and the flames thrashed like furious hounds straining against a leash, refusing to change, refusing to bend, refusing to become anything except what they already were. Heat blasted against NukEncore’s face. Sparks burst against her sleeves.

The air in front of her warped so badly that even the crystal storm seemed to blur around the forming spell.

Just listen to the music of my heart and become the answer I need!

Mana poured out of her in a torrent. At her feet, she ground the scattered mana crystals under her boots just like Martin had, and the loose energy surged up through her body hard enough to make her knees tremble.

The spell swelled as flames twisted around a crackling spine of light. Orange fire wrapped around white-hot sparks. Jagged strands of electricity snapped out from the core and lashed at the floor, leaving black scars and tiny explosions in the crystal dust.

For one wild second, the spell looked like more power than any Level One Mage should have been able to hold.

Then NukEncore held it anyway.

Then the system answered.

[You have created a new skill: Fire Thunder Bolt (Epic)]

Epic?! Really?!

No one in the party had an epic skill. NukEncore was so overwhelmed with happiness that she almost lost control of the spell, and it threatened to slip away.

She forced herself to focus.

Sparks crackled all around the Fire Thunder Bolt, as if the lightning itself had calmed the beast.

"I’ve got it, NukEncore!" Martin shouted.

He cut a sharp half turn around NukEncore and ended up behind her. Just like that, the thirty meters were secured, and Devil Control’s Shield triggered its unique mechanic.

The boss screamed from across the room as a crimson-red tether snapped into existence between him and Martin’s shield.

A split second later, the line went taut.

The Goblin Boss lurched so violently it looked like something had yanked his whole body out of alignment. His heels gouged across the crystal-strewn floor. His claws scraped for purchase.

Blue shards exploded around him as he was dragged through the throne room in a shower of scraping crystal, broken fragments, and fury.

He tried to resist, but it did not matter.

The tether kept hauling him in, brutal and absolute, dragging him straight toward the shield line he hated so much.

NukEncore held the Fire Thunder Bolt steady with both hands locked in place, but the closer the boss came, the more one terrible detail punched through the panic.

The wounded side was the problem.

Martin had shattered the side of the boss’s armor. Alexandra had cut through there too. That was the opening. That was where the damage had to go.

And she was lined up wrong.

Her eyes widened, and she tried to angle the spell.

It barely moved at all.

The Fire Thunder Bolt was too dense, too violent, too overloaded with mana to redirect now. It shook in her hands like a living beast, fighting her every attempt to redirect it. Heat scorched her face.

Her shoulders trembled. Her boots ground into the floor as she tried to force the spell sideways.

It would not budge.

Martin’s warhammer shattered the side of the boss’s armor... if I hit him from the front like this, won’t I slam into the crystal armor part? Wait, but... he shattered it, so maybe it’ll still go through... no, no! Even his hide was tough as hell! I need the bruised part. I need the side Alexandra cut through! But I can’t... I can’t move this damn Fire Thunder Bolt! Martin!

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The boss had been whipping toward NukEncore the whole time, his body smashing and bouncing across the floor like a rag doll. He was completely stunned and unable to move on his own.

That only made NukEncore fear the worst even more, certain it was about to happen.

Just then, she heard a heavy step behind her.

[You have used Bulwark Rush (Rare)]

Martin exploded to the side, dragging the tether with him.

His boots dug hard through the crystal dust. His shield arm jolted so violently that the force ran from his shoulder straight down his spine, but he still locked both hands onto the handle and threw his full weight sideways.

The tether snapped tight at a brutal angle.

The Goblin Boss’s body twisted with it. Crystal scraped. Armor shards snapped loose.

For one ugly, perfect second, the monster’s wounded flank turned into view.

Martin’s whole body strained to hold it there.

He didn’t know if it would be enough. He didn’t know if NukEncore could fire in time. But when he cut a glance toward the opening they had forced into existence, a savage little sneer tugged at his mouth.

There was the opening.

"Go, Encore," he whispered.

A heartbeat later, the boss slammed straight into NukEncore’s Fire Thunder Bolt.

The impact burst into a thunderclap so violent it ripped across the throne room like a shockwave, blasting apart every incoming crystal shard in a ring of shattered blue light.

Then sound seemed to collapse.

The Goblin Boss’s scream tore through the silence as the Fire Thunder Bolt punched into his wounded side, drilled through flesh, and burst out the far end of his body in a blazing spear of fire and lightning. Blue crystal fragments exploded off him. Scorched flesh split around the wound.

Flames poured through his torso from the inside, bright enough to shine through the gaps in his broken armor.

He did not just get hit. He got skewered clean through, and the spell kept burning anyway, chewing through everything inside him until there was nothing left to save.

Through it all, NukEncore heard nothing except the intoxicating sound of the critical strikes Martin had drawn out of her on their first meeting.

[Critical Strike!]

[Critical Strike!]

[Critical Strike!]

[Critical Strike!]

It almost felt as if the thunderclap had killed every other sound just so NukEncore could once again hear the reward for her hard work. Deep down, though, she knew Martin had made it possible for her to hear that melody again.

This is such a beautiful rhythm and melody... I want an encore, not a crescendo!

The moment NukEncore’s mana ran dry, the Goblin Boss dropped.

For the briefest second, his huge body hit the floor flat and hard, as if the entire throne room needed to feel the weight of what had just died there.

Then he broke apart.

Red particles burst out of him in a rushing cloud and scattered into nothingness. Across the room, the remaining goblins followed, dissolving one after another until the throne room was suddenly, unnaturally clear.

The crystal storm was gone, and so was the noise.

NukEncore stood frozen with her arm still extended, chest heaving, staring at the empty space where the boss had just been. Behind her, Martin was still planted from the strain of the pull, as if his body had not yet caught up to the fact that they had actually done it.

And then the system hit them with something even bigger than the kill.

[You have killed The Dark Blue Goblin Boss (Elite) Lv. 5]

[You have cleared the Level One Hidden Dungeon.]

[You’re the first party and players to clear the Level One Hidden Dungeon.]