Nyxfall 7: The Veilbreakers-Chapter 68: Second Try At Grimhorn Den 4

A pile of loot was accepted by Kai gladly. The only rare weapon among them was a staff. Some Spirit Users had unique skills that required a staff. All else was either uncommon equipment or uncommon ingredients. There was a robe too; it had +8 to Evasion — an Uncommon item.

The staff had +13 to Resistance and +7 to Magic Attack.

While they rested, Kai pulled out the purple orb too. It was also some kind of magic core — and a rare item at that. Without knowing what he could use it for, it was better not to mess with it. They divided the loot, and Kai received the orb. Mimi got the robe — he was curious to see how long it would take before she would burn it down with her flames. And Silentmaw received the staff.

The others, receiving low-level items, compared them to what their inventory already had and only kept them if they were better.

"Let’s go.." Xterminate07 said.

The Red Wolf guys were actually the most enthusiastic about going forward. They had already learned a method to defeat the second boss and now they could see what lay ahead, so when they came back with their own team — they would be prepared. Kai smiled; it wasn’t as easy. They could probably do it, but not without doing this for a few more days. By then, his goal of conquering this dungeon should have been achieved.

Kai got up, and so did all nine of his teammates. Before opening the door, he said,

"From here on, we won’t know what we will face. Stay alert, don’t panic, and let’s try to go as far as possible." 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Kai opened the door, and for a minute they walked without any problems — staying highly alert. The cave here had many more bones on the walls. Actually, there were more bones than solid dirt on the walls, some of which were lit up with eerie white light, illuminating the whole path. A turn came, and right after, they saw a twisted humanoid beastman draped in bones and talismans, a warped animal skull on his head. He was wielding a staff tipped with a glowing blue stone.

The second they entered his aggro range, a small, one-player-sized blood-red magic circle appeared beneath Xterminate07, who was on the frontline. The guild leader of Red Wolf Legion, with his quick reflexes, immediately used his vines to pull himself to the side with quite a force, almost slamming himself into the bone wall. Seconds later — if Kai had to guess, four or five seconds later — the red magic circle exploded, leaving behind high flames.

As all of them retreated together from the red magic circle, another blue one appeared a bit farther from the red one. The Shaman was still chanting unintelligible things constantly. Kai instantly released three arrows, one after another, towards the robed figure after seeing they were all safe from the explosion.

Before his arrows landed, however, the blue magic circle released two blue glowing Creepers. They were the same in shape and size as the Creepers they had faced before, but these ones looked dead? These were spirits, then? What a weird theme this beginner dungeon had! Couldn’t they have started with something less ugly?

Thankfully, unlike the Shadra, this shaman did not have an ethereal body, and three arrows were enough to kill him. 350 HP was revealed when his first arrow damaged the guy. Xterminate07 and Prince pierced the two spirit Creepers, and thankfully they didn’t seem any different from the normal ones, being killed easily in two or three attacks.

The shamans weren’t numerous, and they could be seen or heard from afar — not sneaking around. Once they saw what they did, it was actually quite easy to deal with them. Kai’s arrows never missed, and when there were more than one or two, Silentmaw also did her part spectacularly and bought him enough time to kill each shaman in seconds. The spirit Creepers were handled by others. Kai never let them summon more than two, though, before he killed them. So the Creepers were not as annoying as they were before. Everyone had learned to avoid the poison cloud they left behind while dying expertly by now.

This got problematic when the other monster joined in. The tag was revealed after damaging it: Horn-Bound Sentinel.

A massive, ogre-sized beast clad in bone armor with enormous spiraling horns. Their limbs were thick as tree trunks, and their hides were layered with rock-like plates. These were the straightforward monsters, pure physical might. There was no trick in defeating them; they had to engage in a fight and chip away at their 600 HP bit by bit.

The most annoying thing, however, was the shamans it came with. Along with their regular red and blue magic circles, these shamans now also started to do orange and white magic circles on the Sentinels. The orange one gave the huge Sentinel a speed and damage buff, while the white magic circles fucking healed the monster bit by bit.

This had gone beyond ridiculous. These were just mobs! Why were they made so hard to deal with that even the first mini-boss fell short in comparison? One or two were still manageable, but when three Sentinels and six shamans came at once — the fight was full of chaos.

Kai reached his peak focus, launching arrows after arrows, all hitting the shamans’ heads — not a single one missing. Still, they always left behind two or three magic circles each before he and Silentmaw were done with them. The spirit Creepers along with the charging Sentinel really tested the skill of the frontline players.

Xterminate07 was coordinating quite effectively with his guild member, but Prince, Mimi, Zayden, and even Bella were all over the place. They could fight multiple monsters individually easily, but coordinating with other players to damage a single monster effectively was not something they had really grasped yet.

When they fought boss monsters, Kai gave clear commands to each and every one — but when they had to decide how to fight together on their own, that was not going as smoothly as it could.