C91: Some Unexpected Wisdom Pt1
Originally Longer than usual but had to cut in half since I had something planned right after this. Originally I wanted to channel sadness into this chapter but I'm stuck in pretty much apathy, so let's turn to rage. I like that one much more and it's easier to channel.
As such, let the boss fight BEGIN.
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Pushing open the door reveals a garden. A garden of the same flowers I saw down below but to a far greater degree here. The lumenflowers, as they are known, appear akin to sunflowers but I guess for the moon. In the center of the field is a giant lumenflower, honestly it's to such a magnitude of awe that the flower seeds appear metallic with the center being just a black hole…or would it be an eyeball…
Regardless, in front of the center is a single creature, similar to a celestial emissary, those tiny blue guys with some of them having white tendrils. Yet these are slightly taller than normal humans, though at most equal to my height. It stands between me and the massive sunflower.
The Living Failure raises its arms as a concentrated bubble of arcane energy is gathered. I zoom forward and my saw cleaver tears this creature asunder. This one vanished and its health was cut down by a big chunk…there is just one problem. The orb it summoned isn't gone. Instead it hovers in front of one of the central giant flower faces.
The black center pulses as the arcane bubble is siphoned into the tree and soon enough a pulse shatters the silence as an army of the same creature I just vanquished begins to appear before me. Yet they don't quite look the same.
Row after row of these failures begins to appear. Each row showcases a difference of physiques. The first amongst them are as if that living failure had gone to the gym and snorted Whey. A Grindset mindset style attitude to being a total buff cake as this row charges at me, quickly surrounding me as they do synchronised swipes at me with their arms.
I use shadow teleportation to arrive on the other side of this, only to be met with a fast moving barrage of giant nebulous orbs coming at me.
BOOOM
I hover above the ground as I use my magic combined with chaos shift to fly at high speeds. I look below that the first group that charged at me are simply gone and no damage was done to the already decreased health pool of the boss.
Throughout all that I've seen just now. Firstly is that it is possible that self sustained damage doesnt apply to them, meaning that they can't hurt themselves in the long run. Though how they erased their own comrades doesnt make sense in this regard. Second, these are all possible illusions which means I need to either escape the illusion or find the main body. Thirdly is that, I can only harm them myself to actually damage them, though this falls under the assumption that number two was wrong and that these aren't illusions.
Though the strangest thing is…that I can't find the original one I hit, did it's body really just dissolve or did it simply flee to a place that I can't get to or sense.
Swish swish. I am forced out of my thoughts by some of these 'living failures' possessing the miracle of flight. I dodge their claws and escape their reach as my speed far surpasses their own. Though now that I see their wings, it's black shimmery and slightly oily feathers, I realize.
They mutilated the crows!!
Upon realizing this, I stop my flight and simply hover above the arena itself as I condense fire and air around me, mixing the two together as the wind increases in speed and movement until a flaming tornado descends upon the whole arena.
The flying failures burn up in the first wave. A fourth which seems to have been another set of mages unleash a magical barrier with their powers combined but it barely lasts a few seconds before it too shatters and the rest including waves 5 to 9 all burn up. The Lumenflowers all turn to soot.
The health bar noticeably drops but far less than the initial strike. With some proper free time that isn't reserved for just thinking, I activate the Lunar moon and instead of illusions disappear. I see that the flowers rapidly recover and just like the central giant flower, all the heads begin to turn towards me. Their seeds pulse in arcane energy as they begin to fire beams of energy towards me. Similar to the blacksky eye projectile. They have a unique shift in their form that gives it weight rather than being pure energy.
I am once again forced to escape as I travel in circles around the edge of the arena. I swipe at the nearest flowers and they shatter with no signs of returning. With the idea of weakening their combined attacks further. I unleash a combination of earth and water to create mudwalls similar to a pokemon move, muddy waters that I unleash upon the whole garden. Trapped beneath a ton of water and dirt. The force of said attacks destroys the vast majority of the flowers.
This leaves just the central pillar of a flower by itself. It had also been the one to unleash the greatest variety of attacks on me. From summoning a giant nebulous cloud which drops arcane asteroids on me to beams of arcane starlight.
As I go about and shatter the various flowers, the number of projectiles naturally decreases but i also notice that the gaps between the various projectiles also disappears. It is as if the energy they are unleashing is becoming far more concentrated and focused on me and the central flower.
To amend this change. I bring out Null and activate it's greatsword serrated edge, which is pretty much all I ever use it for, before throwing it at the central lumenflower until a barrier of arcane coated grass and other flowers near it sprout out as barriers to block it.
"Aha motherfucker. You did get absorbed by the flower. Thats why I couldn't find you. I do have to thank your inventiveness, passing your consciousness through your magic to a new body is pretty hardcore. I applaud your methods but you're still dying here" I speak out to vocalize my thoughts lest I forget some vital part for no reason.
I then bring out the saw cleaver and Moonlight greatsword before using both to cleave through all the remaining flowers. For the further away ones, I use the saw cleaver like a boomerang that I bring back to myself using air manipulation.
Finally all the lesser lumenflowers are destroyed and all the arcane energy is concentrated fully in the central flower. That surely makes it more dangerous to me but also more predictable from where all the attacks are coming from. Just a matter of dodging at that point, if I fail, it's only a skill issue.
I rush in with chaos shift and bring both weapons down on the flower as the flower shines bright like a diamond and release a surge of energy similar to my gamers memory of Rom where it did this to ward off the hunter so its minions could get him.
I use a thick amount of mana, about 250 of it, to block the pulse. With my chaos side, I had attempted to convert the plants arcane power back into my mana but my formula collapsed and it just gave me a randomized effect of turning piss into acid. Thankfully I'm immune to my own effects as otherwise that would have hurt like a motherfucker.
I kept better attention to the formula this time around so I could protect myself against it should I ever encounter it Since the plant obviously doesnt have piss, it was completely unaffected by this formula. Fortunately, my attack did land but just like the fire tornado I unleashed earlier, it only does a bit of damage. Granted I was under the belief that even my regular attacks would do a crap ton so I didn't bother using my buff skills to stretch the fight out a bit but I seem to have made a mistake.
It seems the bosses default body was super weak which was why I did so much damage with one hit. That is not the same with this flower body. It is far more durable than I expected as my dual weapon strike did less than a 20th of its health. Two +9 weapons did quite a bit of damage but this is a possible ng+100 grade boss. It has a lot of health, far more than a regular boss from the game. Less than an 20th is too little to actually matter in this scenario.
With my dodging all sorts of attacks and not wanting to completely run out of mana for no reason since a hidden twist could appear once it's health reaches 50%. I need all the resources I can keep.
Firstly I rush backwards out of reach of the giant flower boss as spikes of plantlife shoot out at me. More appear behind me as I retreat but one benefit of Chaos shift skill merger is that friction and gravity seem more like suggestions to me. As such, my backwards moment simply transitions horizontally as if I just sidestepped the spikes themselves so that they collided with each other.
Except not really as the two rows of spikes merge together and continue to chase after me. I use my weapon to shatter and slice the spikes, even using fire to burn them but those pieces simply break away from the group. At the very least, it increases the distance between me and them but not so much that they completely stop chasing me.
A gardener's wet dream of sorts, their plants never dying no matter what happens to them. Sure it makes maintaining them a bit challenging but it would surely be beautiful if it was a flower or fruit bush. Endless food. Presto world hunger is solved.
For now though, I keep shattering the spikes with my left hand while approaching the central flower so that I could attack it with my right before retreating as it unleashes multiple pulses. Thankfully chaos shift absorbed my quicksilver skill so that it only uses stamina for my quick movement unless I choose to fly or protect myself. Flying takes mana while defense takes both stamina and mana.
During the few moments I attack, I use Power Boost and Greater rage too boost my damage along with Weapon Echo since it has the prefixes of sharp and compatible. Which means even my moonlight greatsword gains the serrated feature, at least the echoes of it do. Not too useful on the initial hit but the subsequent ones are pretty good.
I suddenly get an idea as I dodge a new set of spikes that come at me while I'm dodging the major bundle of spikes.
I swing my saw cleaver while I'm dodging but this time I'm only swinging mid air. There were still a few feet between me and the spikes charging at me. I had enhanced the cleaver with wind blades and weapon echo.
As a result, when the spikes passed into and through the area where the echo spawned. Larger chunks were chopped off which dramatically increased the distance between me and them to the point for a whole 30 seconds I began to wail on the central moon flower without care.
The health finally drops below 50% about 5 seconds into my attack spree as even after sprouting new spikes or shooting more arcane spells at me which I easily dodged, it still failed to stop me. As a result of the health status right now. The entire tree is glowing a white arcane energy. The amount of damage im doing even with my skills gradually does less and less until it stops.
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Word Count = 2101