But even though Tom had done his best, Lars would still be out of commission for at least a few days, as long as he didn"t visit a hospital.As such there were only two people left to deal damage to the Rat Lord. Tom didn"t have any attack skills yet and Susan wouldn"t fare much better than Lars if she tried to get close to the rat.
Now with the addition of the tail, it became even harder for Ivan to dodge and block the attacks of the Rat Lord. If he was alone, it wouldn"t be that much of a problem, since he could have killed the monster much faster. But since it was supposed to be a team effort, he could only deplete its stamina, together with Tina.
The two of them continued their attack onto the huge rat until finally, its shield broke. After that, an arrow entered its eye, enraging the Rat Lord. Surprised by the sudden increase of its speed, Ivan didn"t manage to evade the tail. The hastily positioned blade too was unable to stop its momentum. More or less unhindered it crushed into his chest, throwing him back like Lars. But unlike Lars, his body was much stronger so the strike didn"t manage to break any bones.
The Rat Lord, who had just gotten rid of him, rushed towards the one who had shot the offending arrow.
"F*ck", Tina cursed and hastily tried to retreat behind one of the columns, but in the heat of the fight, she had distanced herself quite a bit from it and now it came back to bite her. Being of a much lower level than the Rat Lord, she was much slower than it and in the blink of an eye, it had reached her.
She could only helplessly stare at the claw coming her way since she was unable to dodge it. Just when the claw was about to reach her face a flaming blade slid through s.p.a.ce directly before her.
It was so close to her face that her eyebrows were burnt by it, but more importantly, it slid through the incoming claw.
"Squeak!!!", a pain filled scream sounded through the hall as the Rat Lords claw got mangled. It completely forgot about Tina and instead focused its red eye, which he was left with, on Ivan. This eye was filled with rage and hate as well as a sliver of fear. But the rage and hate heavily outweighed the fear and so it switched target and rushed towards him.
Ivan who had just stood up and released his flame blade was now faced with the angry Rat Lord. Unable to use his flame blade again he could only throw himself to the side in the hope of dodging the teeth of the incoming monster.
Because the inside of its mouth was a weak point, the Rat Lord hadn"t used his teeth yet to attack, but now it changed its behavior. At the same time, Ivan pulled out the Blood Essence Crystal he had gotten during his adventure and activated "Burning Blood".
As soon as he activated the skill, the crystal crumbled and he could feel something flowing into his body, which heated up his blood. Unlike the time something went wrong with his bloodline, it was a gentle heat, that made him feel very comfortable.
Together with the comfortable feeling came the feeling that he was just a bit faster and stronger. This slight increase in speed enabled him to dodge the attack from the Rat Lord. At the same time, he counterattacked with a swing of his sword. Because of his unstable stand, he wasn"t able to put much strength into the swing, but it still managed to injure the Rat Lord. But this slight injury only managed to enrage it even more. Making it completely throw away any concern about being injured.
In this state, it became much harder for him to successfully dodge its attacks, which made it impossible for him to counterattack. Tina, on the other hand, could now once again fire her arrows at the Rat Lord, since it was now fully focused on Ivan. And while it ignored these arrows it strength was still sapped by the additional wounds created by them.
It didn"t take long until all its energy was sapped away and it fell down on the floor. Not quite trusting the situation, Ivan carefully moved towards it, to check if it really had exhausted all its energy. As such he was ready when the Rat Lord suddenly snapped towards him. He hurriedly evaded and then rammed his sword into its throat, finally slaying it. Unlike the other monsters in the dungeon, the ones that are cla.s.sified as bosses wouldn"t vanish into thin air shortly after being slain. For the System to cla.s.sify them as dead, it was necessary to take out their core, which was commonly found in their head. This was so that the bosses could use a variety of tricks, like playing dead.
After having verified that it was dead, Ivan dug out the core of the Rat Lord. It was a crystal the size of a marble and it shimmered in a dark red color, making it quite beautiful.
Only after he had dug out the core did the body vanishes, leaving behind a silver coin and a teeth. He picked them up and threw them towards Lars, who was in charge of the loot.
< congratulations="" you="" have="" finished="" the="" quest="" "clear="" the="" catacombs="" (1)"="">>
< congratulations="" you="" have="" unlocked="" floor="" 2="" of="" the="" training="" dungeon="">>
< congratulations="" you="" have="" been="" rewarded="" with="" the="" skill="" book="" "frost="" shackles"="" for="" clearing="" floor="" 1="" of="" the="" training="" dungeon="" in="" nightmare="" mode.="">>
< congratulations="" you="" have="" completed="" the="" hidden="" quest="" "the="" spirit="" of="" the="" training="" dungeon="">
By not relying on only the strongest member of the group, but instead making it a team effort you have lived up to the spirit of the Training Dungeon. Keep it up!
This quest is only available in Nightmare Mode.
Select one of the following rewards:
- Skill Box
- Pill Box
- Material Box
>>
"Wow, a hidden quest.", Susan exclaimed in elation. After all, hidden quests are rare and always have good rewards.
"Whatever, let"s get Lars to a hospital first.", Tom said. They could accept the rewards for the quests later.
On the side of the hall opposite to the entrance they had come through a portal had appeared, which would lead out of the floor.
"Ivan come help me carry him.", Tom ordered and together they carried Lars through the portal. They appeared once again in the entrance hall and Tina speedily selected to leave the dungeon.
They then appeared on the training field. On one side of the field, there was a small house were a few doctors were on standby, whenever the school had such a team training. As soon as the appeared one of those doctors spotted Lars and hurried towards them.
"What happened?", he shouted towards them while running in their direction.
Tom was the one, who answered him since he was the only one that focused on healing in their team. When the doctor heard that it was only a broken rib he was relieved. Before there was a group where all five were heavily injured and one of them even had his innards showing. Luckily they were still in time, so they were able to save him. Because although the System allowed resurrection for those that died because of injuries taken in the Training Dungeon, being resurrected would heavily impact their strength and often times would leave a mental trauma, stopping them from ever fighting again.
After checking Lars and confirming that it was truly just a broken rib, he complimented Tom, "You did a good job treating it." He then used a skill to preliminarily fuse the rib together, so it would easily be able to heal in the correct way.
"There you go. Don"t put any stress on it for a week and you will be ok."
The group thanked the doctor and moved to the resting area beside the field.
"Alright, let"s review the run while it is still fresh.", Tina then started the after action review. "The fighting against the normal rats wasn"t really a problem since both Ivan and Susan were able to handle tanking them, but the boss was a real problem. I think there were two main mistakes that we made. One was for Lars to try to attack the boss at all. The difference in strength is just too much for us to try melee combat. The other mistake was for me to distance myself too far from the safety of the hallway."
After that, they continued to point out the small mistakes they had made and what they could do better. When they finished, the sky had already darkened and most of the other groups had come out too.
Not far away from their table, Greg and Serge sat together with Irena seeming to wait for him, so after they had said goodbye to each other he went over to them.