Supreme Lord of Soulnight

Another Day, Another Hunt

Stagra shifted his feet to slam his broadsword on RagingIngerno. But Stagra’s attack was suspended when Valeria’s arrows rained down on him and his surroundings. Two seconds after the arrows were embedded on the ground, Stagra fell asleep. His unmoving form paused, arms stopped midway. Even the broadsword seemed to enter a state of hibernation—the red glow dimmed and pulsed weakly.

It was also the exact moment that Blade and the rest finally joined RagingInferno. They did not waste time and attacked the still form of Stagra. Valeria’s sleep is only effective for three seconds considering her low level against Stagra’s defense. He is a boss for a reason. And a boss always takes offense once attacked.

Three seconds were up and Stagra moved. His attack finally finally landed but it caught air instead of RagingInferno. Stagra roared, neck muscles protruding. His red eyes focused on RagingInferno beside Blade, hatred too evident you can almost taste it. His aggro is still very much focused on RagingInferno so he’s quite indifferent to the rest of the team.

Stagra jumped, raising his broadsword to deliver another attack very much familiar to them especially RagingInferno; the jumping cleave. Stagra was a Warrior after all, fallen he may be but he is still equipped with a high-level Warrior’s skills and attacks.

“It’s a cleave!” Blade shouted. “Be ready to disperse or else—s**t!”

He miscalculated Stagra’s speed. Before he could complete his sentence, the boss landed his cleave on RagingInferno. Jayson’s character was caught fleeing. RagingInferno was stunned on the spot. Another swish of his broadsword and Stagra hit RagingInferno with a simple stab on his midsection.

“Val!”

“I’m on it, cap! But it’s not working! RagingInferno’s health bar is still on a decline!”

Liwan saw on his screen Valeria’s frantic casting of healing spell on RagingInferno. Yet, the red bar above RagingInferno’s name in their party window continues to drop.

“Bleed effect!” He exclaimed.

He slapped his own forehead, berating himself for forgetting that vital information. Stagra’s weapon has a bleeding effect when using normal attacks like stab, poke or s***h. The damage may be minimal compared to skilled attacks but the bleed effect is very detrimental to one’s health points.

“B-Champ, Shadowstrikes, let’s take over. Use all of your skills. We need Stagra to transfer his aggro to any of us. RagingInferno won’t last! Val…” Liwan trailed off.

The stun effect on RagingInferno was finally lifted. He dashed away, trying to get out of Stagra’s attack range. Blade, Shadowstrikes and B-Champ blocked Stagra. He was trying to follow RagingInferno.

The moment RagingInferno got out of the boss’ range, Stagra paused as if confused. It was then that Blade landed his double s***h on him, followed by Shadowstrikes’ windcut and B-Champ’s punch barrage. Stagra turned to them, focusing his crimson eyes particularly on Blade. The monster let out another loud roar and charged towards the Chevalier.

“The aggro’s on me. Keep attacking,” Blade said. “Jay, status?”

“Not good man, my health bar keeps dropping. How long is this bleed effect for?”

“Base duration is five seconds. But Stagra is a boss, so I guess up to twenty seconds.”

“I’ve already used half of my potions. Valeria can’t help me until I have at least eighty percent of my health back, she’d be busy with you three.”

“It will be difficult but we’ll manage. We’ll wait for you,” Liwan declared. “Guys, we’re on our own for now.”

“Yes, captain!”

“Val, you’d have to multitask. Alternate between heals and casting sleep.”

“Okay!”

With their current gears, Blade will find it difficult to handle Stagra’s aggro. But thanks to B-Champ and Shadowstrikes who seemed to get comfortable with their playing as time passed by, Blade was able to stay in the game without dying. They’d have to be patient and wait for RagingInferno to join the battle though.

Liwan gritted his teeth, punching keys after keys in succession. His eyes never left or strayed from his screen, watching Stagra’s movements. The problem with boss monsters is that their attacks has no patterns. They’re unpredictable unlike human players. It’s not possible to observe and predict the boss’ movements no matter how long it takes.

He knew because he used to believe he would find an obvious pattern or sequence on those NPCs behavious and attacks once confronted. But it was just a foolish notion. All the monster boss’ attacks are random, dishing out skills after skills without obvious reasons.

The only breather Blade could have is during Valeria’s successful casting of sleep spell. Stagra pauses for a while, allowing blade to use his health potions to replenish his health points. Of the three, Blade had it harder because Stagra has marked him.

“I’m here! Let’s parteyyyy!”

RagingInferno’s exaggerated announcement made Liwan sigh with relief. The rest of the members let out an encouraging hurrah as soon as RagingInferno stood beside them, unleashing his own attacks on Stagra.

It became a seemingly endless exchange of blows between Liwan’s team and the monster boss. As time dragged by, everyone felt the pressure mount. Liwan on his end was getting tired, the ache on his back slowly creeping towards the back of his neck and shoulders. Valeria was getting impatient, having been in-charge of healing her team mates and disabling the boss.

“Is there no end to this?” Valeria complained.

“Stagra hasn’t been on the aggro stage yet,” Shadowstrikes remarked.

“How long are we going to keep this up?” B-Champ asked.

“Patience, guys. We’re almost there. Now is not the time to lose our cool. Any moment from now Stagra would enter the aggro state. I need you all to be vigilant or else one wrong move and you’ll be trapped in his aggro range,” Blade reminded everyone.

“Yes, captain,” they all chorused, voices now strained with obvious fatigue.

“Remember, we still have a lot of bosses to slay. We can only depend on hunting for to complete our gears. Soulnight has no official online shop that sells equipments, it’s part of the game’s charm. And as soon as crafting is enabled, we could upgrade our gears further. No pain, no gain.

Nor it would have in the future. Soulnight will maintain their stand against putting up an online store that sells player’s equipments. There would be an ongame store but the currency is not even purchasable by money. Barter trade is the norm inside Soulnight’s markets and stores are owned by players instead of NPCs.

NPCs are only limited to stores like potion shops, the taverns, and blacksmiths. One can purchase basic items like armor sets and weapons from the blacksmith’s shops but they’re all of low grades. Soulnight encourages hard work for one to appreciate their characters with the amount of time they spend on the game.

“He’s gonna aggro!” B-Champ shouted over the com link.

“Now!” It was Shadowstrikes.

They all ran away as fast as they can to get away from the boss’ agrro radius. Stagra screamed, eyes and broadsword flaming as he did so. He threw his head back and screamed at the blue sky, startling a flock of black birds passing by.

He then threw his broadsword in the air. The weapon landed in front of the boss with a cracking sound, like the ground splitting. Something rumbled, as if big boulders were rolling down the hills. But nothing came. All they saw was the flaming broadsword, half of it’s length embedded on the ground as multiple cracks appeared.

Fiery blow. Liwan was all too familiar with that skill because he saw RagingInferno use that many times. But unlike RagingInferno’s fiery blow, Stagra’s damage covered a much larger scale.

“Holy crap. Imagine yourself at the center of that attack,” B-Champ breathed.

“You’re dead meat for sure,” Shadowstrikes agreed.

“That’s one scary son of birch.”

Liwan laughed at Valeria’s choice of word.

“Too shy to curse now?” He teased.

“I’d like to keep my vocabulary diverse, thank you.”

“How many waves of aggro this time?” B-Champ asked.

“Two. Time to move!”

Everyone hurried to attack.