Cyberserk

Chapter 29 - The Miraculous Reward

The creepy monster terrified the player with its presence. But the young man found the strength to get down to work.

Dan Raven smiled and began to study the results of the battle. He had about 9 minutes to recover the mana needed to summon a new phantom.

The magical hobbits were the best! Two braves were able to inflict 24 attacks on the boss! Dan looked at the damage stats and saw that the skill Lucky Punch was falling out quite often and then the damage was doubled. A normal attack did 11-12 damage. But a few attacks contributed 20 points of damage each. 

Raven took his time and didn't pay attention to the boss's angry sniffing. He kept a careful count. The hobbits had done 336 points of damage! It was a victory! Not the Phantom skill, but the epic ring with the skill of summoning brave helpers was the main tool of the player's victory in this game.

Tom was good and was able to get to his opponent three times with his attacks. Samurai was able to deal 91 points of damage with his Devious Attack skill.

Dan Raven looked at the monster and whispered in a voice full of anger.

"You bastard, you'll be dead in an hour. You'll pay me for every hobbit and phantom!"

Dan couldn't believe that they had found such a good use for hobbits. 

The mysterious creator of the ring was a cunning and devious mage. Hobbits struck with long-range weapons. Surely this mage often caught his enemies in a similar trap. Two hobbits could attack from different directions and those attacks did great damage to a single enemy.

Dan Raven shuddered when he stopped being distracted by his anticipation of victory. He saw the stones that were covered in b****y footprints after the deaths of five phantoms and two hobbits. The entire floor of the vile place was covered with the marks of b****y battles.

The stench in the hall was unbearable. Now Dan noticed the horrible smell that permeated this hall with the creepy throne of horns.

The player forced himself to keep his eyes fixed on the mutant.

He could see the monster's flushed eyes looking around suspiciously. The boss was expecting an attack and was ready for any assault. The huge ax exceeded the height of an ordinary man. The monster's muscular arms held the ax tightly and were ready to deliver a swift Stunning blow. It proved to be a terrifying and fearsome skill in the boss's execution. A normal minotaur never had time to inflict two Stuns in a row and a human could strike back or try to dodge an ax strike.

The Minotaur King struck skillfully one after another. Sometimes the skill didn't work. Perhaps the skill had a cooldown. Dan didn't know the properties of this powerful skill.

But the player did know that he could defeat this monster with the help of his new friends.

The new phantom knew Dan's thoughts and calculations. He laughed and quickly ran to do his part of the job. Dan could not remain calm and shuddered when the experience came to him after the death of the clone. It was as if a cold breath had touched the player's back. An awful and unpleasant sensation. The phantom felt intense disappointment at not being able to be useful. This time the King again managed to interrupt the samurai's attack and the ax strike hit exactly the head of the suicide. The clone missed his enemy and died at the creepy monster's hooves.

"Don't rejoice beast. This is not the end. Soon more hobbits will come to our help and then you will wash away your b****y tears," whispered Dan.

He sat and waited for the mana to be restored. Unfortunately, five points of Intelligence did not speed up the recovery of mana. Maybe in the future, Dan could learn a useful skill to speed up mana recovery! 

The player imagined the name of the useful skill. Meditation! Such skills were often called Meditation in various games.

Then Dan stood up and summoned a new phantom. The samurai was not smiling. He snatched the daggers from his partner's hands and ran toward his enemy.

This time the king failed to stop his opponent. Tom fell at the bull's feet but he was not stunned! Two hands struck the king's leg. The mutant roared in pain and continued to strike at his opponent's back.

"Not bad brother. You did a good job. Next time you'll act with the hobbits," whispered Dan.

First, the player summoned the hobbits and explained to them the rules of battle. The braves removed the slings from their belts beforehand and loaded stones into their weapons. When it was time to summon the phantom, Dan applied the skill and handed his friend the daggers.

The three braves rushed into battle. 

This time the battle with the king was not so effective. The vile mutant showed the highest degree of prudence! 

Dan froze when he saw that the boss didn't pay attention to the samurai. The huge bull immediately jumped up against the wall and began beating the hobbit! Stones crashed into the monster's head. Tom struck with his daggers and blood poured down the King's arms. But the monster paid no attention to the phantom's attacks! The dungeon boss quickly finished off the hobbit and ran toward the other brave shooter! On the run, the King swung his ax away from the annoying samurai and Tom froze in place. 

The hobbit did not chicken out. He had time to put one stone in the head of a huge mutant. Then the hobbit died. Tom managed to leap up to the monster and make one double attack before he died.

Dan Raven looked at the boss with respect. These monsters proved to be special creatures of the game! Raven thought that this minotaur was much more intelligent than a human. It did not even occur to the player that the mutant could choose the most correct solution to avoid great damage to his health.

The young man calmly calculated the total damage from the three allies' attacks. 96 points of damage in one battle. It was an excellent result. Dan shook his head and frowned. He must have been anticipating a quick victory too loudly in his mind. Humility! Calm and Humility. He would long remember the lessons of this dungeon.

Nothing catastrophic happened in the end. The victory was a few hours away. That's fine. Either way, the fight wouldn't take more than three hours and it would be a wonderful result.

The new Tom lingered beside Dan for a few seconds. The clone whispered with admiration.

"I'm amazed at the cleverness of this monster! He's smarter than the two of us put together," the phantom turned and quickly ran toward the enemy.

The attack proved successful. The king managed to hit the body of the samurai and interrupt his attack. But the clone didn't get a curse and was able to cut the bull's legs. Dan looked with satisfaction at the b****y damage numbers above the mutant's head. The boss's health was down five points again. That's a good result.

Dan remembered how they relived their failure when they fought the veterans. They had knocked out a lot of level 7 skills. But they didn't get the new assassin skill! Tom had hoped that the wolf could bring a magic trophy and they would get the skill Bleeding. It didn't work out! Wolves and crows gave experience and rare skill boxes. The skills were very repetitive. Ravens specialized in Air Magic. Wolves left behind Fire Magic skills.

Veterans did not please players with the frequent appearance of dead assassins. In the end, friends resigned themselves to their failure. Perhaps now a powerful assassin skill could hasten the victorious outcome of this encounter.

The finale was boring and brought no joy to Dan Raven.

Shu. Boom.

The Minotaur King was stabbed in the forehead with a stone and dropped the ax from his hands. His body flew forward but did not knock the hobbit down. The nimble brave bounced to the side and jumped with delight.

"I am the best! I killed the Minotaur King!"

Dan Raven carefully read the message from the game.

[Congratulations! You have defeated the King of the Minotaurs! Reward: 1100 experience points! Warning. Level Difference 2. Multiplier applied. Reward increased to 3300 experience points! Special reward for destroying the Minotaur King boss: a Stunning skill scroll. The player improves the achievement Boss Killer Rank 1. All damage increased by 11% on bosses!] 

"You are the best. You're actually the best. Forgive me hobbit," Dan Raven applied the sacrifice skill. 

He could have bought the brave one a jug of beer. But that would not be fair to the dead hobbit. He would treat his faithful helpers in 25 minutes.

Dan looked at the Phantom skill symbol. A couple of minutes to activation. He had to hurry! The player began collecting daggers from the floor. He had time to collect weapons and even bought a new cuirass and shoulder pads for the phantom. The disappearance of things from the game was related to their durability. The lower the durability of a dropped item, the faster it disappears from the game world. The boss managed to damage the samurai's cuirass and shoulder pads pretty well. The gloves and boots looked as good as new. The greaves were also fit for the outfit.

Dan stood at the armor with a katana and a tanto in his hands. He saw the strange trophy that was left on the stone floor after the boss's corpse disappeared. But Raven didn't pick it up. He wanted Tom to do it. The clone deserved the honor.

Tom appeared and immediately began putting on his armor.

"We got a cool skill. Stunning is the bomb. I'm pretty sure no one gets this skill until level 70! We'll be able to kill all the bosses like little bugs now," Tom shared softly. "You better get the trophies yourself. Dan, don't play the noble knight. Get used to acting fast. Higher-level bosses will revive quickly like zombies! Ten seconds and the monster is revived and ready to snap at your neck when you reach for the valuable trophies!" 

"Ugh! You're scaring me with your speculations," snorted Dan but walked over and picked up a piece of old paper from the floor. The paper was thick and gray. The sheet showed incomprehensible symbols and inscriptions in an unknown language. The player took a closer look at the interesting object.

[Impenetrable Skin. ( The Drawing of the armor. Rank 6 - Epic).

Armor property: ?????

Requirements: Armorer Apprentice 2 Level] 

"A very strange reward," Dan grumbled and handed the page to his friend.

The clone took the trophy and began to study it as he went. He didn't want to stay near the throne of the evil monster that had killed him several times.

"A marvelous reward," objected the phantom. "The Drawing is money. Note to yourself. You can make epic armor at the apprentice level. I'm sure it's a very cool and useful armor. Too bad we're going the way of warriors and we don't need the leather armor of archers and assassins. We will trade this Drawing for a cool Drawing for the Blacksmith! And then we'll be millionaires!"