Chapter 94: The Grave of the Forlan Hero (2)
‘Let’s just think about the skills I can use right now.’
Ian, who had put aside his thoughts on Pin’s skills for now, slightly glanced at Ly and Halli, who were each moving in order to carry out their roles.
Grrr- Grr-!
As Ly had always soundly taken on the role of a chaser in Ian’s hunting starting from some point, he was gathering the monsters skillfully, while Halli quickly learned from watching Ly and was doing his part as well.
While looking at Ian, who was returning after successfully gathering the monsters in all three directions like that, Fiolan urgently yelled.
“Ian, come quickly! The Glacial Curtain will break soon!”
As long as the sanctum’s Health wasn’t completely gone, it would have been fine if the Glacial Curtain broke, but as they were gathering over such a large amount of monsters, the sanctum could break in vain at the slightest mistake.
‘Euh… We’re cutting it closer than I thought.’
With a slightly nervous expression, Ian checked the cooldown time of Ddukdae’s Abyss Hole.
‘3, 2, 1, now!’
“Ddukdae, Abyss Hole!”
Ddukdae’s Abyss Hole, which the cooldown time was over, was invoked for the second time.
However, because it wasn’t in a narrow canyon this time, Ddukdae wasn’t able to tie down all of the monsters.
Both of Ian’s hands began to move busily.
It was in order to fire Current Proliferation towards the remaining monsters and paralyze as many as he could.
Za-Zap- Za-Za-Zap-!
And he didn’t forget to let out commands to his Familiars with his mouth as well.
“Ly, Halli! You two kill the monsters that are the farthest away with joint attacks!”
Grr- Grr-!
The two Familiars that received Ian’s command quickly charged towards the monsters, and Ian fired his Current Proliferation skill without rest again.
Of course, he didn’t forget to maintain his Spirit Magic well so that he didn’t run out.
Lake was fighting well even without Ian having to give him a separate command.
• Familiar ‘Lake’ has invoked their Inherent Ability ‘Breath of Lava’.
The tied down monsters began to be quickly wiped out from the combination of Lake’s Breath of Lava, Ian’s Current Proliferation, and Fiolan’s Ice-type AoE magic.
Even after Ddukdae’s Abyss Hole effect was finished, with the overlapping of the additional effect attached to Ian’s Current Proliferation, paralysis, and the additional effect attached to Fiolan’s Ice-type magic, freezing, a synergy formed and the monsters couldn’t help but be continuously tied down.
Thanks to that, Fiolan was able to cast AoE magic skills more safely than when she was protected by Herz.
Bang- Ba-Ba-Bang-!
And before 10 minutes had pa.s.sed since the second phase had started, a system message notifying that the phase was over rang out.
• You have succeeded in protecting the ‘Sanctum of the Hero’.
As the message rang out, both Fiolan and Ian’s attention turned to the elapsed time.
• 00:13:24
At the second phase that finished in an unbelievable time, Fiolan was astonished.
‘We’re more than two times faster than when I entered with Herz!’
It was because Ian proceeded with the phase at an extraordinary method, but it was also because Herz’s damage was remarkably lower compared to Ian, which was a characteristic of the ‘Knight’ Cla.s.s.
Fiolan braced herself.
‘We might even be able to get a rank higher than B from the first go.’
If this speed was maintained, arithmetically, S-rank wasn’t impossible, either.
However, the reason why this speed was possible, was because the two peoples’ skill combinations were specialized for AoE group-hunting, and starting from the third phase, as it proceeded with a different condition, it was realistically impossible to maintain this speed.
And shortly after, the dungeon’s third phase began.
• The ‘Giants of Hatred’ have woken up from their sleep.
Fiolan urgently spoke.
“The biggest one among the three is the one that uses the stun skill! It will probably be the one in the middle.”
“Is there nothing to be cautious of for the other two?”
Fiolan’s response continued.
“The one on the left carrying an iron mace lets out a shock wave, but as its activation speed isn’t on the fast side, it’s easy to avoid. However, if you can’t avoid it, you can get caught in a slowing effect, and since you could get stunned as well on top of that, you need to be careful of that.”
“What about the right?”
“The one on the right holding the hammer is just a monster with an outrageous amount of Offensive Power. However, I remember its Vitality being the lowest.”
Ian, who roughly finished understanding, nodded his head as he organized his thoughts.
‘The most dangerous-looking one even when I watched the video seemed to be the one in the middle. I need to tie him down with Halli’s stun skill as much as possible…’
Thanks to ‘Smash’ one of Halli’s Inherent Abilities, he had a 10% chance of causing the opponent to faint with normal attacks.
And if he used the ‘Guardian of the Wind’ skill and maximized his Agility, Halli’s attack speed would have more than doubled.
If that happened, he would be able to make it so that the fainting effect continued to the point it would be difficult for the giant to even properly move.
This was what Ian was aiming for.
If he could constantly give the fainting effect to the giant, no matter how dangerous of a skill it was, it wouldn’t matter as it wouldn’t be invoked at all.
However, as he had used the Guardian of the Wind skill during the first phase already, he needed to wait 6-7 more minutes in order to use it again.
‘Since the final boss will have a strong immunity to status conditions anyways, I’ll use the Guardian of the Wind skill for this phase.’
While looking at the giants that approached them slowly with loud footsteps, Ian asked Fiolan.
“Fiolan, does that middle one use the stun skill from the beginning?”
Fiolan, who had caught onto the intention of Ian’s question, quickly responded.
“No, not from the beginning. I realized that it uses its stun skill after half of its Vitality is consumed. That’s why we killed that one last whenever we did a dungeon attack up until now.”
“Okay, then let’s attack the right one first.”
“Alright!”
Ian drew a rough picture in his mind.
‘We’ll catch the one on the right as fast as possible. Then, we’ll attack the one in the middle until the cooldown time of Halli’s Inherent Ability is over.’
The one on the left was the one that Ian thought was the lowest threat.
Although the slowing status condition could be a threat, if the activation time was slow, wasn’t there no reason to get hit by it?
Not just Ian, but Fiolan, whose control ability was quite good as well, wouldn’t get hit by a skill like that either.
It could get annoying if a shock wave kept on flying towards them from the side while the monster in the middle started using its stunning skill, but Ian was planning on preventing that threatening element with Halli’s continuous stun.
If they could kill the middle one within the 2-minute duration of Halli’s ‘Guardian of the Wind’ and then attack the remaining one on the left, a perfect scenario would be completed.
Ian, who had completed the map(?) in his head, placed Ddukdae at the front and began to move towards the Giant of Hatred on the right.
“Everybody, focus your attacks on that one!”
Because the cooldown time of most of the Familiars’ Inherent Abilities weren’t over, they needed to attack with just normal attacks, and Ian needed to face the opponent with as much control over each Familiar’s movements.
‘I’ll save Ly’s Thirst for Blood skill for a bit.’
He was planning on invoking Thirst for Blood once the cooldown time of Halli’s Guardian of the Wind skill was over.
Just then, Fiolan yelled.
“Ian, please buy me some time!”
Ian realized that Fiolan was planning on casting a high-ranking attack skill, and let out a command to Halli.
“Halli, grab the attention of those two!”
Roar-!
Even if Halli’s damage was momentarily excluded, because the amount of damage that would be dealt by Fiolan if her magic attacks were successful was much greater, there was no hesitation in Ian’s command.
And as Halli threw his body, Ian shot out a magic sphere towards the giant on the right.
“Over here!”
Continued, Ian’s ‘Weak Point Capturing’ skill was invoked.
“Fiolan, you remember this skill, right?”
At Ian’s question, Fiolan smirked as she nodded her head.
“Of course. This was your bread and b.u.t.ter before you reset. I see you’ve somehow gained it even after resetting?”
“It just happened.”
Fiolan began to cast her magic towards the giant’s weak points, which were highlighted by Ian’s Weak Point Capturing skill.
And slowed the movements of the three giants as much as possible using Current Proliferation.
Za-Zap- Za-Za-Zap-!
As the three giants were in close range, Ddukdae’s Abyss Hole was once again invoked.
“Ddukdae, now!”
Whoong-!
Ddukdae successfully got all three giants within the activation range of Abyss Hole, but as they were Boss-rank monsters with large and heavy bodies, the effect wasn’t as good as when they faced normal monsters.
However, because they were within the expected range, Ian wasn’t fl.u.s.tered.
‘Since I just needed to buy Fiolan time to cast her skill.’
And just like Ian antic.i.p.ated, Ddukdae’s Abyss Hole was enough to buy that much time.
“Ha!”
Along with a short shout, large ice spheres began to launch from Fiolan’s staff.
“Ice Storm!”
Bang- Ba-Ba-Ba-Bang-!
The projectiles that flew out while drawing a raging spiral lodged exactly into the weak points of the giants.
‘Now!’
There was no way that Ian would not catch the giants that momentarily stumbled from Fiolan’s attack.
Whoong-
A blue magic sphere slid down Ian’s staff and was launched into the weak points of the giant continuously.
Pung- Pu-pung!
• As the Magic Spheres have hit the target, 4973 damage has been dealt to the ‘Giants of Hatred (3)’.
• As the opponent have been successfully hit, 5 Spirit Magic has been recovered.
Fiolan, who had succeeded in hitting the opponent with her strong, high-rank magic skill, continued shooting out magic attacks that were a lower-rank with no cast time and attacked the giants.
Swaaeek-!
And at the two people’s perfect connected attack, the giant’s Vitality disappeared in an instant.
Thud-!
As the big figure of the giant collapsed, the two people quickly changed their target.
Fiolan naturally, like she did her previous runs, left the middle one and tried to attack the one on the left.
However, Ian stopped her.
“Fiolan! The big one first!”
“Huh?”
Fiolan was taken aback for a moment, but she thought that Ian had some sort of idea, and followed his words without any other questions.
Ian checked the cooldown time of Halli’s skill.
‘Nice, 2 more minutes and the cooldown time for Guardian of the Wind is over!’
Ian and Fiolan gnawed at the middle giant’s Vitality little by little similarly to how they dealt with the right giant.
As time pa.s.sed, the two people’s control became more refined.
‘Alright, the cooldown time is over now…’
There was still more than half of the giant’s Vitality left.
If that was the case, using the skill immediately would be inefficient.
‘Since it’s almost time for this one to start using its skill, once I see that it’s moving to use its stunning skill, I should invoke Guardian of the Wind then.’
And just like Ian predicted, one of the giant’s fists started to s.h.i.+ne a bright red shortly after.
“Halli, Guardian of the Wind!”
After that, everything proceeded smoothly just like how Ian planned.
No, rather, as Halli’s stunning started to burst continuously, they were able to get rid of the giant easily as if in vain.
Puck- Pu-puck-!
• Familiar ‘Halli’s Inherent Ability, ‘Smash’, has been invoked.
• The ‘Giant of Hatred’ will go into a ‘stunned’ state for 1 second.
As the largest, second giant also collapsed, they were able to finish off the remaining one very easily.
This was because, aside from when they used skills, its attack pattern was very similar to the other two.
“Okay!”
Fiolan, who had knocked down the last giant, clenched her fist.
Shortly after, the two were able to check the system message that notified them that they had successfully cleared the third phase.
• You have killed all the Giants of Hatred.
Around 23 minutes had pa.s.sed.
Fiolan let out a dispirited laughter after checking that.
“Wow, even though we’ve done this much, 23 minutes have pa.s.sed. How exactly do they expect us to clear with an S-rank?”
They needed to kill the boss within the remaining 2 minutes in order to succeed in clearing with an S-rank.
She had said this because it was impossible.
At Fiolan’s complaining, Ian smirked as he replied.
“I think we’ll be able to shorten it even more.”
“Huh? Really?”
Ian nodded without a word.
Soon now, the Sanctum of the Hero will scatter in the air and the dungeon’s boss, the ‘Forlan Giant’, will appear.
The two caught their breaths as they stared at the ‘Sanctum of the Hero’.
“It’s the end. Let’s focus a little more.”
“Sure. Even though we don’t get an S-rank, we need to get an A-rank, right?”
“Yes!”
As the concise conversation of the two people finished, a system message popped up in front of both of them as if it was waiting.
• The Hero of Forlan will now awaken.