MMORPG: Birth of the World's Luckiest Player-Chapter 181: The Mist Vortex

It was time to get serious.

"Desperate Strike!"

-2000, -2100

The numbers made Marcus’s jaw tighten. The damage was noticeably lower than before. The Two-Headed Mist-Tear Fiend’s Mistform Illusion had slashed his output by thirty percent, turning what should have been devastating fivefold damage into something barely scraping past two thousand. Against a Gold-tier boss, that simply would not cut it.

This was not a fight he could brute-force. Marcus reined in his momentum, already thinking several steps ahead, and decided to wait for a better opening.

"Desperate Strike!"

-4300, -3500

There it was. A sharp breath escaped him as the numbers flared higher. A double critical, one from him and one from Pebble, finally landing together after three attempts. The fiend’s Agility was absurdly high, making every clean hit feel like a small victory.

With that opening secured, Marcus did not retreat. Instead of charging straight in, he spurred his Nightmare Dragon Steed into motion, veering wide and circling the spring at the center of the courtyard. The fiend shrieked and gave chase, its massive form pounding across the stone as Marcus deliberately led it on a long, looping pursuit.

He was faster, and more importantly, there were no other monsters in the area. The terrain was his ally. As long as he kept his distance, the fiend could not trap him inside its most lethal skill, the Mist Vortex. All he had to do was kite it cleanly and wait for Desperate Strike to come off cooldown again.

The fiend, unable to close the gap, screamed in frustration and switched tactics. Ranged water magic blasted toward him in rapid succession, but Marcus, Pebble, and the Shadow-Stained Gryphon King worked together without a word exchanged. The damage was spread cleanly among them, and with the steady two hundred health per second from his Large Health Potion, Marcus’s health bar barely dipped.

For the moment, everything was under control. The fiend could not touch him.

"Desperate Strike!"

-2100, -3000

Thirty seconds ticked by, and the skill was ready once more. Marcus glanced back over his shoulder and sent another gleaming longsword flying. The fiend took the hit and roared, its twin heads throwing themselves back as it slammed its fists into its own chest, the sound echoing through the courtyard.

The roar was so violent that Marcus’s stomach clenched.

’Don’t tell me it’s evolving again.’

"Mist-Tear Roar!"

The sound was deafening, but this time there was no surge of power, no transformation. Instead, water energy pooled in the air and crashed down beside the spring, coalescing into two level thirty Mist-Tear Minions.

They moved immediately, splitting apart and circling in the opposite direction, clearly trying to cut off his escape while the main fiend continued its relentless pursuit from behind.

"Charge!"

"Dragon-Roar Critical Strike!"

Marcus did not hesitate. The minions were nothing compared to the main body. He surged forward, accelerating hard, and he and Pebble struck the minion on the left with a perfectly timed Dragon-Roar Critical Strike. It shattered instantly, dissolving into mist before it even had time to retaliate.

He ignored the second minion entirely and pushed forward, unwilling to slow down for even a moment. Letting the main fiend catch up now would be disastrous.

"Damn it!"

Luck finally turned against him. A water spell clipped his side, and the worst possible effect triggered. The freeze proc locked him in place, rooting him for three seconds. The remaining minion lunged at him, while behind it all, the Two-Headed Mist-Tear Fiend let out a triumphant roar as it closed the distance.

Three seconds was not long, but it was enough.

The fiend crossed into melee range, stopping just three meters away. Its passive Aura of Purity washed over him instantly, dragging down his attack and movement speed. Even worse, he was now squarely within the range of its Mist Vortex.

There was no running anymore. This had become a head-on fight.

Marcus glanced at the Adamant Shield in his hand. The cooldown counter flashed in his mind. He could still activate its absurdly powerful Shield Wall once more today.

This was the moment.

"Adamant Shield Wall!"

The freeze effect prevented movement, but it did not stop him from acting. Golden light exploded outward from the shield, forming a radiant barrier around him just as the fiend and the minion struck. Their attacks bounced harmlessly off the shield, the force of the impact even pushing them back.

-200, -200, Miss, -200...

His relief lasted less than a heartbeat.

’Crap. Mist Vortex.’

As soon as the freeze wore off, the fiend surged forward again, its hands weaving through the air. Thick white mist spiraled around Marcus, swallowing his vision. Both he and Pebble began losing two hundred health per second immediately.

The damage was absolute. It ignored defense, ignored mitigation, ignored everything.

Marcus reacted instantly, downing another Large Health Potion. The regeneration perfectly canceled out the vortex’s damage, keeping him stable. Pebble was not so lucky. Without potions, its health plummeted alarmingly fast.

Worse still, with his movement speed crippled by the Aura of Purity, he was no longer faster than the fiend. The kiting strategy was dead.

There was nothing left but to stand his ground.

"Attack!"

"Dragon-Roar Critical Strike!"

Inside the vortex, his potion’s healing was completely neutralized, meaning every hit he took was permanent. Even so, the Adamant Shield’s monstrous defense turned the fiend’s attacks into little more than a hundred damage per strike. Painful, but survivable, for now.

He, Pebble, and the Gryphon King assaulted the fiend together, blades, claws, and magic colliding in a chaotic blur.

Marcus briefly glanced upward. The Gryphon King circled safely above, just outside the vortex’s reach, completely untouched. A bitter pang of envy hit him. If he could switch to his Violet Thunderwing Steed, he could simply take to the sky and bombard the fiend with Desperate Strikes until it fell.

But the system update had removed mount-swapping during combat.

The frustration burned.

-1000, -1200, -1100...

Under the Aura of Purity, his attack speed and damage were both reduced by thirty percent. Even his triple-damage Dragon-Roar Critical Strike struggled to break a thousand damage, and some strikes missed outright.

Forty agonizing seconds crawled by before the mist finally thinned and dispersed. The vortex ended. Marcus immediately healed, barely stabilizing his health at just over a thousand.

It was not enough.

The fiend still had more than nine thousand health remaining. His Adamant Shield Wall would expire in twenty seconds. After that, the Mist Vortex would be off cooldown again.

If it cast it one more time, he would not survive.

As if the situation were not dire enough, Pebble’s health hit zero. The Temple Guardian vanished in a flash of white light, leaving Marcus alone against the fiend.

The pressure closed in.

’Looks like it’s time to use my Ring of Resurrection,’ he thought grimly, already summoning a new Temple Guardian.