System Change

Derek’s shout hadn’t had the effect he hoped it would when he did it. Instead of everyone rushing to retreat into the Time Prison, there were some party members that had no business staying for the fight, who chose not to leave—they didn’t want to be left out of yet another possible chance for rewards. Things may have been different if Derek had called out his warning once everyone got a look at the boss, but currently, it had yet to make its appearance.

Since it had yet to be summoned yet, it gave Derek some extra time to prepare and think of a way to convince the others to retreat. However, just as Derek was thinking about what to say, he received another set of notifications—ones from the other system.

Boss Rank Outside Purview of Current System…

Reducing Stats…

…

Stat Reduction Successful…

Continuing Summoning…

Derek quickly looked around at Avery and Vanessa to try to get a read on the two—he wanted to know if they were seeing anything other than the messages from the Great System. Seeing that neither one of them looked out of the ordinary or confused, he was almost one hundred percent certain that he was the only person receiving the extra notifications from the other system.

With a sigh, he surveyed the rest of his surroundings. Fortunately, all the healers and most of the support members of the party had heeded his command. Elena, Walter, Jasper, and Tristan hadn’t thought twice about retreating to the Time Prison when he called out, and along with them, Jasper took his Drake and Tristan brought Ciera with him. Her legs were healed, and looked to have been completely regrown for a while, but there still seemed to be some atrophy and she still wasn’t steady on them. Basically, even if they were healed, they were new and she would need to learn to walk on them once again.

For the support members, all but one had retreated into the prison. Leave it to the lowest level support member to throw caution to the wind. Timothy Nash had retreated, but still stood outside the Time Prison. Derek shrugged—it was good enough… probably.

It was the fighters that were being pains in Derek’s ass. There were five of them who didn’t meet Derek’s criteria to stay and fight, but only one had retreated and two had distanced themselves closer to the Time Prison. Derek was about to shout at them once again, but before he could, the notification he was dreading popped up before him.

Summoning Complete…

Summoned Starfury Leonarus…

Along with the message came multiple bright, illuminating lights that started on the ground and made their way up. As the light traveled up the summoned creature’s body, Derek took in its massive form. The beast had four legs, each ending in brilliant silver claws that looked devastatingly sharp.

From there, the beast’s legs were covered in midnight blue fur and speckled with shimmering star-like dots. As the summoning lights continued to move, Derek was able to see even more of the beast—eventually, the long, whip-like tail of the same color appeared and was tipped with a crystal-like edge on the end.

Next, the beast’s mane came into view. The mane was a swirl of reds and purples—looking almost galactic. It didn’t take Derek seeing the rest of the beast to realize what they were about to face. It seemed a massive lion the size of two double-decker busses and just as long was going to be the final boss. And, according to what he could see, the lion had some type of space or star affinity.

His guess was proven correct as the beast’s head finally made its appearance. The lion’s teeth and fangs were the same silver as its claws, and the beast’s eyes shined a glimmering white that seemed to have galaxies rotating within.

“What the…” Derek heard Avery’s voice sound out from beside him. He agreed with the archer’s sentiments.

“Maybe it’s not as… strong as it looks?” Vanessa’s unsure voice came next.

“No,” Derek answered. “It’s going to be stronger.”

Once again, it seemed Derek was proven correct, because as soon as he finished speaking, the Starfury Leonarus finished its summoning and let out a devastating roar. When the wave of energy created by the roar hit him, he felt some of his buffs leave him one by one. It didn’t completely rid him of all the buffs applied by the support members, but he only had a couple left.

“Forget the plan!” Derek yelled. “Do what you can to fight and survive. Use your best judgement,” he commanded.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” beside him, dragon wings sprouted from Avery’s back and he took to the skies. Vanessa followed with her own wings of darkness.

Rocky’s small form dove into the ground and disappeared while Tyron backed away slowly. Derek didn’t have time to look for the rest of the party. It was time to move.

‘Looks like we’re hitting it first,’ he sent to Silvi.

With Harbinger in his hand, he loaded up his most fierce attack—one that came so much quicker with his newly improved wisdom stat. With the attack ready, he disappeared. When he reappeared, he was directly above the massive beast with a near perfectly visible image of his blade overlapping Harbinger. As Derek began the motion to swing down and activate Multi-Strike—as he had done countless times—he was interrupted.

He hadn’t even noticed the tail arrive beside him before it crashed into his armor covered body. It was a direct hit that he hadn’t seen coming, and it was overly effective. Not since the very first Void Beast that he fought had he experienced such internal distress.

Even with the protection displayed by his Dark Wyvern Scaled Armor, the organs in his torso were made mush and he was sent flying. The pain he experienced was immeasurable and hurt even worse as his high vitality and endurance worked overtime to repair him.

He didn’t even know how far he had been sent flying, as he had spent the split second after he’d been hit to activate Greater Meditation and increase his grip on Harbinger so as not to lose it. Derek didn’t even have time to look at his health pool, as, before he hit the ground, the massive lion appeared out of nowhere and whipped its tail at him once again.

Panicking, Derek activated Void Shift in hopes of avoiding the blow. The panicked move worked… somewhat. It was enough for him to move himself out of the way of the tail strike before the beast broke him out of the void. It didn’t give him a lot of hope, but it was something.

Evading the tail also gave Derek a front-row seat to the massive Void Lightning Bolt that crashed down onto the lion from well above the range of its tail. It seemed Silvi had already realized Derek’s mistake and chose to not make the same one.

The lightning hit the top of the beast’s head and stayed for a moment before vanishing. All movement in the lion ceased and a spark of joy ignited inside of Derek. Is that it? Derek loaded up his strike again, swinging it before it was fully charged because he didn’t want to give the beast any extra time to come back to.

But before his strike hit the beast, it let out another roar. It seemed that Silvi’s Void Lightning Bolt was only able to stun the beast momentarily—an even shorter amount of time than he had been able to with the wyvern when he hit it with his unenhanced void covered fist.

This time, the roar caused a rift to open in the space in front of Derek’s attack—a rift that swallowed both the physical arc and the void arc that followed. As soon as the spatial rift closed, Derek heard a scream from behind him, and a notification alert appeared. He didn’t have time to look at it, but from a quick turn of his head toward the scream, he saw Ray Fergus motionless on the ground in front of his Time Prison.

It didn’t take much for him to connect the dots and realize that the Starfury Leonarus had swallowed his attack with its spatial rift and redirected it at one of the fleeing members of the party. He also realized that if he opened the notification, he would see a kill notification—one for Ray Fergus.

Fury blazed through Derek’s body as he tightened his grip on Harbinger and vaulted off the void using Void Steps. The beast looked directly into Derek’s eyes and he could almost swear that he could see a smirk on the corner of the massive maw of the beast. Derek’s rage increased even further—the lion was enjoying the fight—it was enjoying the hunt.

But Derek wasn’t alone. As the lion prepared another attack for him, shadows shot out from the ground and wrapped themselves around it as the earth beneath it softened, then began heating up. The shadows pulled and pulled until they dragged the gigantic beast knee deep into the loosened, now lava laced earth.

Derek continued his dive toward the beast’s head, and he channeled as much void energy into Harbinger as he could. Unfortunately, the lion didn’t seem to be in a panic. It continued to lock eyes with Derek, then opened its maw once again. But this time, as soon as its teeth parted, gray-ish drills appeared almost out of nowhere and shot into its mouth.

The unexpected weapons caught the beast off guard and caused its next attack to falter. For the first time in the quick fight, Derek saw a dribble of blood flow from its mouth as Avery’s drill shots tore through the inside of its throat.

Derek, with Multi-Strike already spent, came down as hard as he could onto the beast’s head. And just like when Silvi’s attack from before hit it, his strike caused the beast to be stunned. Just after the attack connected, Derek felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise along with a massive amount of heat. At first, he thought the heat was coming from the lava below, but then realized it was much too hot for it to be that.

Not taking any chances, Derek used Active Void Shift and moved himself at least fifty feet away from the beast and the heat. But soon, his confusion turned into a smile as he saw the enormous flood of dragon fire raining down from the sky above—a flood of fire coming from the smallest spout possible—a spout by the name of Silvi.

He and the others all watched on as the fire drowned the whole of the beast in its intense flames. No one dared get close to the flame. Only Derek knew that the dragon fire being spouted by Silvi was backed by both 1500 wisdom and 1500 intelligence. It was truly a trump card for the murder bunny—one that she would only use when absolutely necessary.

The reason for this wasn’t because of how much it took out of her. No, it was because if she ended up killing something with the dragon flame, then the body of the whatever was hit by it would usually turn to ash and there would be no ingredients left after the fact. It was truly a hard decision to for the chef bunny to make, but she had sensed the power of the monster before her and chosen to use it.

Her flame also continued to occasionally get stronger the longer it lasted. Derek knew that this was because of the low level it had started at. Using it on such a monster would rapidly increase its levels, even if it was a skill that was hard to level. In the short time the skill was being used, Derek counted five times that the power of the flame increased.

Derek continued channeling the void into Harbinger—even as long as Silvi’s skill lasted, he had yet to receive the kill notification and was starting to get worried. He could see the same worry on the others’ faces, too. Soon, Silvi’s flame died down—her mana was almost spent. In an instant, she appeared on the ground next to the Time Prison.

‘Your turn,’ she sent, then vanished inside the prison.

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