Spiteful Healer

Chapter 179: Extreme III

“Viewership is still climbing…” Shinji mumbled nervously from inside his editor simulation. He had screens containing multiple points of view around Aegis as he stood between the door of the inner sanctum and the void beholder as it began to emit its red enraged aura.

“Of course it is, it’s the first time anyone’s seen a beholder in the Shattered World Online. Not to mention, no one has ever cleared an Extreme III quest before. I’m having trouble striking down the other networks trying to leech his live feed.” Tommy replied through a call he was in with Shinji. Tommy was in his own, separate office simulation managing multiple screens that displayed various networks trying to broadcast Aegis’ footage themselves. “God damned parasites. Don’t they have enough of their own streamers?” Tommy grumbled angrily.

“Without any precedence of this sort of boss, it’s hard to predict what sort of mechanics will become active now that it is enraged. We can only hope that Aegis’ party and the mithral wielding Dark Elves will be able to handle it. He’s been doing great to come this far in this Extreme III quest, though. We’re in the final stretch.” Hae-won shouted as she stood in front of Aegis’ broadcast, talking to his audience of now 300,000 viewers with a look of anxiety and excitement. “Wait a second, it’s doing something new!” Hae-won noticed on the broadcast something interesting.

“Keep damaging him! Everything you’ve got!” Aegis shouted as he watched the giant red eyeball of the beholder begin to glow brightly, as if charging up an attack. He glanced up at his UI to confirm he still had a few seconds left on the Avatar of Eirene spell and took a deep breath, preparing to brace whatever was coming.

Over, around, and behind the boss he saw arrows, bolts, and cinders piercing into it’s body shot by Rakkan’s echo, Pyri, and Darkshot. He watched as Viella and Lina shadowstepped rapidly around the boss, slashing it from all sides with their daggers. He saw Rakkan’s echoes mix in with Krael and Kur’aktos as they slashed their powerful weapons up at its body from below. Their damage numbers kept appearing around the boss, but it wasn’t going down.

“Come on… how much health can this guy have left?”

“Some bosses can enrage at 20%, others at even 30%, there’s no way to really know!” Lina replied to Aegis.

“Okay, then everyone stay focused. Don’t treat it like the fight's almost over, it could be just beginning. Here it comes…” Aegis shouted anxiously as the spell on the boss’s eye finished charging, and a blast of red energy as wide as the large eye shot forward at him.

It was quick, but not so fast that Aegis couldn’t brace it, reducing the damage of the attack as much as possible.

You take 59,630 Void damage.

Level Up!: Void Resistance has reached Level 11!

Avatar of Eirene has expired.

Aegis went momentarily deaf, as all of his muscles ceased to function. His knees buckled as his back slammed up against the door of the inner sanctum behind him, and he collapsed forward, going limp. He felt and saw nothing but pain for the next 2 seconds, until it subsided thanks to the game’s immersion of pain only lasting that long. Despite the pain being gone, though, Aegis still felt weak and had trouble standing back up.

Lina shadowstepped beside him and grabbed his arm to help him get back to his feet. He looked up at Lina’s face and saw her shouting something at him, but he couldn’t make out her words as his ears continued to ring. He then saw Seliolara run to his side as well and began healing him. This caused Aegis to look up at his health bar and see that he had nearly been one-shot. In the time that Seliolara managed to heal him twice, Aegis saw that the boss was bearing its teeth and preparing another bite attack on him.

Lina just managed to get Aegis back to his feet in time so that he could knock her away and hold his shield out in front of himself, bracing the attack as Seliolara hopped away to avoid it.

You take 14,017 Slashing damage

You take 5,411 Void damage.

He braced it, but the damage from the attack had gone up now that his Avatar spell had worn off, and it felt more powerful. He was forced back against the door of the inner sanctum again. Luckily, though, despite the pain in his arm and muscles that surged outwards through his body from the point of impact due to the void damage, his hearing and coherence of the situation was returning to him. Seliolara had healed him just enough that he was able to survive this second attack.

“Heal, healing wind. Fuck me.” Aegis said as he quickly cast on himself and took a deep breath, preparing for another bite attack. He was only thankful that the boss wasn’t repeating that eyeblast attack over and over, but instead it began to do something else. Aegis looked up and saw that suddenly, all six of the eyestalks on its head began to glow red and were selecting targets randomly from his party members.

“Heads up! All red! Everyone on your toes! Figure out which one is looking at you and dodge it!” Aegis said as he spotted it, turning from the eyestalks to his party members. There, he saw them glancing up at the eyestalks and backing away from the boss anxiously.

They were having difficulty discerning who the eyes were staring at, and worse yet, they were standing so close to one another that the likelihood of them dodging into each other's decay beams was extremely high.

“You guys have got to spread out, give each other room to dodge without being hit by each other's shots. Focus!” Aegis called out desperately. He wanted to give more instructions, but he had no time, he had to prepare for another bite attack from the boss as his attack speed had increased.

“Uh, I think I got two on me.” Darkshot announced anxiously.

“Can you dodge them?” Aegis asked him.

“Yeah no problem…” Darkshot looked up anxiously at the two stalks pointed at him, while Pyri had one aimed at her nearby and attempted to clear away from Darkshot to give him space. Meanwhile, a stalk was aimed at one of Rakkan’s echoes, one at Viella, and one at Snowflake who was flying above the platform off in the distance.

“Snowflake, get out of here, it’s not safe.” Aegis commanded his gryphon, who squawked obediently and began to dive away off the side of the platform. A few moments later, the six red beams began firing, but not simultaneiously. The first to fire was at Viella, who was able to shadowstep out of its path easily.

The second to fire was at Snowflake, who was already in motion, thus the beam missed just barely, shooting behind Snowflake’s rear as he disappeared below the platform they were fighting on, while Rakkan’s crossbow echo hopped off of Snowflake’s back to land on the platform at the last second in order to stay in the fight. The third to fire was at Pyri who quickly dashed to the side to avoid it.

The fourth shot fired at Darkshot and he dashed out of its path, but the fifth beam had itself timed to fire as soon as Darkshot’s dashing movement had stopped, giving him no time to dash again. Luckily, a shield of fae magic wrapped itself around Darkshot and blocked the spell, despite it hitting him.

“You got hit?” Aegis asked as he saw it happen.

“Yeah, but it ain't nothin’ for my buddy Darkwing. Told you my bird was a badass.” Darkshot smirked back confidently. The sixth beam, aimed at one of Rakkan’s echoes, began to fire, so Rakkan unsummoned the echo with a snap of his finger, thinking this would be enough to dodge it.

What Rakkan didn’t realize, unfortunately, was that this unsummoning of his echo caused the red eye-stalk to lose its target, and it immediately picked a new one just as it was firing. It picked Darkshot, and he wasn’t ready for it.

Mid sentence, bragging about his pigeon, Aegis watched as damage numbers to the tune of 250,000 appeared over Darkshot’s head, causing him to immediately disintegrate. His bow and a pouch of coins dropped to the ground while Darkwing let out a panicked coo, finding himself flapping his wings suddenly when he’d been patiently sitting atop Darkshot’s shoulder a second earlier.

Aegis didn’t need to confirm it, but did anyway - Darkshot had hit 0 health in his party interface and was forced to log out.

“What the hell just happened?!” Aegis shouted out in confusion - not fully grasping why the stalk had switched targets. Rakkan, however, understood it and looked back at Darkshot’s disintegrating body with a look of shock. fr𝐞𝐞𝚠e𝗯𝗻ovel.c𝐨m

“I… I thought if I unsummoned my echo to dodge the beam, it’d be okay. But it swapped targets…” Rakkan explained nervously. Aegis glanced between Rakkan, then the others as they continued fighting.

“Okay, don’t worry about it. Focus, don’t try that anymore.”

“I… yeah, I won't, I’m sorry…” Rakkan replied weakly. From there, Aegis watched as Darkwing flew around aimlessly, not sure what to do.

“Get out of here, go join Snowflake, it’s too dangerous!” Aegis shouted at the pigeon, but it either didn’t hear him, or didn’t understand him. A few seconds later, after another bite attack, all six eye stalks began glowing red again.

“He’s doing it again Aegis!” Pyri called it out.

“I think he’s going to just keep doing it.” Lina added as she spotted two eyestalks pointed at her.

“Spread out as much as you can so it's easy to tell who they’re pointing at. If you don’t have one aimed at you, you gotta do as much damage as possible. Take this guy out NOW!” Aegis shouted, trying his best to keep his cool, but it was clear to everyone that Aegis was getting worried.

“There’s one pointed at Darkwing!” Pyri called out, but then saw that two were pointed at her.

“Get the damn pigeon out of here!” Aegis shouted. Kur’aktos, too, had one pointed at him, but he backed away and eyed it carefully, preparing to dodge. First, the two shot at Lina, which she easily shadowstepped away from.

Next, one fired at Kur’aktos, which he dashed to the side to avoid. Then, one at Pyri which she avoided and continued sprinting to the side as the second one fired at her. Lastly, one shot at Darkwing as he flew around in place, in confusion, not taking any action to avoid the shot. Instead, Rakkan sent his crossbow-wielding echo forward and jumped in front of the shot to protect the confused pigeon. Rakkan was hoping that the damage from the attack would not transfer fully to his true body, but that was not the case.

Aegis watched in horror as a 250,000 damage number appeared above Rakkan and forced him to log out, causing all of his echoes to vanish and drop their weapons on the ground.

“Damnit!” Aegis shouted out in frustration. “Get that pigeon out of here!” Aegis shouted, and Pyri nodded, creating bursts of cinders around Darkwing to scare him away from the battle. It worked, and he anxiously flew away and down below the platform out of sight just as Snowflake had done.

“The less targets those eyestalks have, the harder it’ll be to dodge.” Lina declared worriedly as Aegis braced another bite attack and healed through it. Now, due to him taking increased damage and having shorter intervals between the attacks, he saw that his mana supply was beginning to drop.

The next set of glowing eyestalks appeared, selecting their targets. This time, there were two eyestalks targeting Seliolara, one on Lina, Viela, Pyri, and Krael. Aegis turned to his side to see Seliolara staring up at the eyestalks with a look of terror on her face.

“Go, just run. Run in a circle around the boss, and don’t stop running, and they won’t hit you.” Aegis instructed her. She glanced at him and gave an anxious nod before breaking into a sprint. “Steer clear of Seliolara’s eyes while you’re dodging your own.” Aegis instructed the others.

Level Up!: Leadership has reached Level 75!

Through his instructions, all of them were able to avoid the shots and were given a small time frame to deal damage before the stalks began to wind up again. This continued on for a good minute into the enrage, until Aegis witnessed the red eye of the beholder begin to charge up its powerful eye blast attack again.

“Oh shit. Okay.” Aegis took a deep breath and watched it carefully. “I can’t brace this attack, it’ll one shot me. I’m going to have to dodge it. Everyone steer clear!” Aegis announced to the others as they nodded back at him anxiously. He bent his knees and watched the glowing eye carefully. Having seen the attack once before, he had a sense for its wind-up time and the moment the blast fired out from the eye, Aegis dashed to the side to avoid it.

Instead, the red eye blast shot forward and hit the door of the inner sanctum that Aegis had been standing in front of, exploding the doors inward and decimating them into tiny splinters as they blew into the chamber. Once the dust had settled, Aegis and the Dark Elf NPCs all looked on in horror to see that the boss now had a clear path forward into the inner sanctum.

“Shit, he breached the door!” Aegis declared.

“No!” Seliolara called out.

“You mustn't let it destroy the core!” Kur’aktos commanded him.

“I won’t!” Aegis quickly dashed back to where he’d been standing, positioning himself in the now open doorway in front of the boss. Behind him, as he briefly glanced back, he saw the circular chamber where thousands of tiny white roots extended down from the roof of the chamber, converging on a single pure white glowing orb that had several glowing white halos rapidly rotating around it at various speeds, at various angles. That, without a doubt in Aegis’ mind, was the tree’s core.

“HAHAHA! I SEE IT! SUCH PURITY MUST BE TAINTED! BECOME ONE WITH THE VOID!” The boss roared out excitedly as it attempted to hover forward.

“I don’t think so!” Aegis shouted back at him, jumping forward and slamming his shield into the head of the beholder. He’d realized now that the key which was keeping the elite bosses' attention on him would no longer work. He needed to actively keep the boss's attention on himself. Slamming it in the eye with his shield seemed to be quite effective, luckily, as the moment Aegis landed from his jump-shield bash attack, the pupil of the beholders main eye swerved from the tree’s core to glare down at him, and he let out a ferocious roar.

“YOU CONTINUE TO INSULT ME, EIRENE PRIEST. YOUR GOD HAS NO POWER HERE!” He screeched as she lunged forward at Aegis, completing another bite attack which was braced. Following the brace, Aegis retaliated with another shield bash.

“HURRY UP AND KILL THIS THING!” Aegis shouted at his party, and they didn’t need to be told twice. Viella and Lina went right back into shadow dancing, Krael and Kur’aktos swung their blades, and Pyri multi-casted her maximum amount cinderbolts despite it draining her mana rapidly. All while this happened, the six eyestalks on the beholder's head began glowing red again and picking out targets.

They were all in sync now, accustomed to the attack patterns of the eyes. Even in the case that one of them got targeted by three eyestalks, no one got hit by a single beam. Aegis was so focused on bracing and shield bashing, then healing himself up, that he lost track of time. As the fight went on, he felt his frustration growing that the boss wasn’t going down, and eventually, the eyeblast attack came off cooldown.

“No fucking way. It’s still not down?” Aegis shouted as he saw the central eye beginning to charge up.

“It’s possible that it is enraged at a higher health than normal.” Lina suggested as she saw it.

“I can’t block this, or I’ll die.” Aegis shouted, then turned to glance back at the tree’s core behind him. “But, if I dodge…” Aegis took a deep breath, turning to face the eye and preparing to block it knowing full well it would kill him.

“I’ll block it. I’m out of mana anyway.” Pyri shouted as she dashed forward at the last second.

“But…” Aegis looked at her with wide eyes.

“If you go down, it’s over. Teamwork makes the dreamwork.” Pyri shouted back at him as she pushed him to the side, positioning herself in front of the eyeblast at the last second. The blast of red energy shot out from it, and she crossed her arms to protect herself from it as best she could - but she stood no chance at surviving it and was taken out by the massive amount of damage it dealt.

Luckily, though, the blast did not go beyond her. Aegis watched as her health hit 0 in his interface, and a pouch of coins fell to the ground where she had died. Aegis looked from his interface to Lina who returned a nervous glance.

“It’s gotta be almost dead!” Lina yelled as she broke back into shadowsteps, slashing out at the boss desperately with her daggers. Each slash released a flash of holy light from Aegis’ bless buff, but the boss continued to hover forward menacingly.

“DIE ALREADY, DAMNIT!” Aegis jumped into the air and slammed his shield into its eye desperately. With five targets remaining, though, the boss’s mechanics became more difficult to manage.

“You will not destroy this city, fiend.” Kur’aktos yelled out as three eyestalks targeted him, and three targeted Krael. They were forced to sprint and run half circles around the boss away from each other to avoid getting hit. They’d both managed to do so, but by the time they dodged, then ran back to the boss to continue attacking, they were targeted by new sets of eye beams.

Even though they were surviving, because they had so few people left alive it was becoming difficult for anyone to find time to deal damage. Seeing it, Aegis became desperate to add in as much of his own damage as possible by repeatedly shield bashing the bosses eye, forcing him back away from the inner sanctum’s doorway somewhat and letting Seliolara focus on healing him up from the bite attack damage.

Still, it was inevitable. Another minute went by where Lina and the Dark Elves had little time to do much more than dodge the red beams of death from the eyestalks. Then, the eyeblast attack began charging up once more.

“Shit… it’s coming again…” Aegis said with the sound of defeat in his voice. “Why is he not going down?!” Aegis shouted angrily.

“It’s okay. I’ll block this one.” Lina shadowstepped in front of Aegis. “Your varibhadra is almost up again. Just hang in there, okay? You’ve got this.” Lina said encouragingly to him, turning and giving him a weak smile as she stood between Aegis and the boss, her back facing the boss as it released its fourth eyeblast. He watched the blast hit her, and her body disintegrated from the damage, dropping one of her daggers and a coin pouch on the ground.

“I am sorry, about your companions. But please, do not let my people die.” Kur’aktos begged Aegis desperately, seeing the look of panic in Aegis’ eyes.

“I, no, we won’t. Don’t worry, we’re otherworlders, we don’t really die. Just focus and kill this thing please, we can’t block anymore of those attacks.” Aegis replied.

“HYRRRAAAAH!” Viella shouted out angrily as she desperately shadowstepped around the boss, slashing out at it. Seeing her enthusiasm, Aegis joined in and bashed his shield into the bosses eye repeatedly a few more times.

“IT IS FUTILE. THE WHITE TREE WILL FALL. YOU CANNOT STOP THE LORD OF THE VOID!” The boss cackled at them as its eyestalks began to charge up once more. It was just Aegis and the NPCs remaining, now, and at one point Aegis saw four of the six stalks target Viella. Luckily, in Aegis’ eyes, she was the best target as she could dodge them easiest without disrupting her damage much.

He was sure, with those bless enchanted mithral blades, that the boss had to be going down any second now. He continued to brace, heal, and shield bash. Any second now.

Brace. Shieldbash. Brace. Shieldbash. There can’t be much health left, right? Aegis thought. As time went on, he felt the dread building up inside of him. Sure enough, the boss was still standing by the time its main eye began glowing red again, charging up the eyeblast.

“This is the end.” The boss grinned as it squinted its glowing red eye, aiming it at Aegis.

“Keep attacking it. Don’t give up. No matter what.” Aegis said defiantly as he stood, determined with his shield held forward as he prepared to take the attack head on, knowing full well it would kill him.

He closed his eyes shut tight as the blast was released, putting the fate of the quest in the hands of these elite NPCs. Instead, though, he took no damage, and when he opened his eyes he saw that Krael, instead, had taken the blast by jumping in front of Aegis.

“Krael!” Viella shouted in horror.

“No!” Aegis yelled angrily as they watched Krael’s body disintegrate.

“Do not let our city fall, surface lord.” Krael’s last words left his mouth as his body vanished, deleted from the gameworld. Kur’aktos, Viella, Seliolara and Aegis all froze for a moment as they watched him fade. They were broken out of the trance by the cackling of the boss, which turned their emotions into anger.

“RRRAAAAAH!” Aegis felt himself filling with a rage he didn’t know he was capable of, lunging wildly forward at the beholder and slamming his shield into it repeatedly, rapidly, and from multiple angles. His stamina began to dip, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t comprehend why this thing was still alive, he knew it must’ve been taking insane amounts of damage. Had it enraged at 30% life? 40%? It wasn’t far, it was too hard, it was…

“Fucking extreme III bullshit!” Aegis shouted, reminding himself of Darkshot’s words. He saw by looking under the body of the boss that Kur’aktos was swinging his mithral blades, and Viella’s shadow dance had come off of cooldown allowing her to rapidly jump around the boss and cut at it from all sides. Seliolara was using the last of her mana to heal up Aegis, giving him more time to deal damage.

But it wasn’t long before the red eyestalk attacks came in again, aiming at all of them now, including Aegis. Aegis was surprised to see it, but was able to compose himself enough in time to dodge the two eyestalks that had pointed at him. He utilized minimal movements to dodge them in order to jump in and continue dealing damage as quickly as possible after they had fired.

Every bash he placed into the creature’s eye, he’d hoped it was the last one needed, but it never was. After a few, he instead looked into his skills and saw the cooldown on Varibhadra getting close to completing. Just as Lina said, it would be up again soon. That, without a doubt in Aegis’ mind, would be enough to finish it off.

He found himself staring intently at the cooldown timer as he bashed the boss, braced it's bite attacks, and dodged the red eye beams alongside the three Dark Elves.

Just as the cooldown timer for his varibhadra hit 5 seconds, however, he saw that the red eye blast attack of the boss began charging up again.

“What? But, that makes no sense, it’s a minute cooldown isn’t it?” Aegis shouted angrily as he saw it. “Come on. I NEED 5 MORE SECONDS!” Aegis shouted as he positioned himself in front of the blast desperately. The boss stopped all other outgoing attacks while it charged its eye blast attack, pointed at the tree’s core. Aegis made sure he stood between the core and the boss, shield up, staring at the cooldown on his skill.

“THREE SECONDS!” Aegis announced, but the blast attack was finished charging. He’d seen it enough times now, it would fire before his cooldown came up - he was sure of it. As the cooldown hit 2 seconds left, the blast of the boss was released, shooting forward out at Aegis. It didn’t hit him, though. Instead, it hit Kur’aktos, who dashed in front of Aegis to block it on his behalf.

“Do not let my people die.” Kur’aktos said as he looked Aegis in the eyes, his back towards the eyeblast and his face pointed towards Aegis, towering over Aegis’ shield with his tall elven stature. He released his grip on his mithral weapons as his body disintegrated in front of Aegis.

Quest failed.

“NO! MY LORD!” Viella screeched.

“KUR’AKTOS!” Seliolara screamed. Once his body had completely disintegrated in front of Aegis, he was left with nothing but a clear view of the grinning boss.

“VARIBHADRA!” Aegis shouted as loud and desperately as he could, releasing a shockwave of holy energy around himself as the red transparent arms extended out of his body. As the spell encased the body of the boss, he watched a damage number to the tune of 3 million appear above its head. Several messages appeared in front of Aegis’ interface, confirming that he’d killed the boss. He gained several levels in experience, but his mind went blank as the beholder disintegrated in front of him, dropping several item orbs onto the ground.

Aegis, instead, dropped to his knees and stared blankly ahead at the various colored orbs rolling along the planks of the inner sanctum's outer platform.

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