Return of the Tower Conqueror

Chapter 155: Army of the Dead (I)

Army of the Dead (I)

The group moved at a slow but confident pace, examining the open-ended corridor that ran alongside the castle walls, past the ramparts and the outer ring of towers and gates. It was sparsely decorated, save for the occasional, flattened beam lying on the ground or a crooked pillar just about ready to give in completely.

The windows looking into the castle were either too dirty or barred up with wooden boards to take a peak inside, and the landscape surrounding the castle itself was largely covered in mist, leaving little to see besides the aging stone all around them. The path to the right wing was slightly curved, though not terribly long; barely six-seven minutes in, they already saw the rise from beyond the crooked pillars. Unlike the left wing of the castle, though, the right wing looked... dead.

Holes hung around its old, rotting walls, with topside having been completely removed, signs of cracks visible even from this far away. The surroundings of the wing were even strange, as instead of stone, it was surrounded by soil -- ashen-gray and dead.

The group slowed down slightly and tightened up, even though they knew that a raid battle would just begin out of nowhere. It was the sensation of dread that slowly started surging from within them, sensing the Mana coming from within the crumbling walls. It wasn't even as much quality and quantity of it all as it was the indescribable dread that accompanied it.

Emma and Kramer took the front as the group entered the demolished-looking wing, landing onto a fairly sizable patch of dead dirt. In the distance, they saw a single tombstone carved out of the ground, and a man sitting on top of it, a flute in his hands and pressed against his lips; though, no sound came from it. They quickly realized that the man was quite young -- looking younger than even Senna, roughly Taima's age.

The boy had sickly-pale complexion with a hint of frigid blue to it and silver, sleek hair. Over his eyes rested clothed blindfold, appearing older than the boy himself, hiding his eyes. He wore a rather loose robe that, at some point in time, certainly used to be lavish; yet, now, it was a dreg full of holes and patches showing age. The boy paused and lifted the flute off his thin, ghastly lips, 'looking up' at the group. He remained expressionless, as though he never learned to either smile or cry.

"... big sister... failed?" his voice was melodic, yet eerily strange and distance, as though echoing from somewhere deep. However, even through it, his youth seeped. "Unfortunate."

"..." nobody in the group spoke out; for some reason, they found the kid far creepier than the manifestation of bondage that was the previous boss.

"Please, sit. You may challenge me in an hour." the boy didn't say anything after, pulling the flute back up to his lips as the notification windows swarmed everyone's sights.

//Lek, the Usher of the Dead Race: Bael

Level: 90

Vitality: 44,850 (448500 Health)

Damage: None

Defense: None

Immunity: Permanent

...

Context: After defeating Myeala, the Unshackled, you found yourself presented with another challenge -- Lek, the Boy Who Does Not Age. Made 483 years ago, Lek had naturally stopped aging when he was 13 years old, mentally and physically. In order to gain access to the castle and the Hall of Disgrace, you need to defeat Lek and take the key from him.

...

Phase 1:

--Impunity-- Lek cannot be directly attacked; in order to lower his health, you need to defeat his soldiers and bring their Cores to one of the six lanterns that will spawn around the room. At 40 Cores, Lek's immunity will temporarily disappear for 30 seconds during which he can be attacked.

--The Dead Arise-- Lek will summon 3 Undead to fight for him every 13 seconds; two cannot be held by one person. Each Undead will have a variety of patterns to their attacks, increasingly gaining strength as Lek grows weaker.

--Mausoleum For Dead-- whenever you kill 6 of Lek's soldiers, he will erect a Mausoleum for them; the Mausoleum will stand at the center of the room and emit aura that will slow everyone's movement speed by 45% and deal consistent, party-wide damage of 150 Health per second. The Mausoleum lasts 10 seconds and cannot be destroyed.

--Tombstone-- Every 10% of his Vitality, Lek will create a summoning circle in front of him. One of the party members has to step into it within 6 seconds, or Lek will summon Vaer Lich, a Level 250 monster. The member that enters the circle is permanently Entombed until the end of the fight.

Phase 2 (Begins at 50% Health)

--Cry For Help-- upon hitting 50% Health, Lek will cry for help, immediately summoning 6 Undead Golems to defend him. The Golems share health, totaling in 150,000 and need to be killed before the party can damage Lek again.

--Wailing of the Dead-- every 45 seconds, Lek will play his flute, debuffing every member of the party with the 'Horror' debuff, slowing down their movement speed by 20%. In order to cleanse the stacks, party members need to consume Cores of the Undead. At 4 stacks of 'Horror', the person is feared for 8 seconds, taking 2000 damage over the duration.

--Bone Spears-- periodically, Lek will summon Bone Spears and target support members of the party; the spears can be dodged, but if hit, efficiency of the person's healing Skills is dropped by 80% for 30 seconds and the cast times are increased by 60%.

--Tears of a Child-- during 2nd Phase, after each time Lek's vulnerability wears off, he will shed a single tear. A party member can collect the tear to increase their damage by 400% for 30 seconds; afterwards, however, they will become Entombed. The party can, also, choose to ignore the tears -- however, if 3 tears coalesce together, Lek will re-summon 6 Golems that need to be defeated.

Phase 3 (Begins at 10% Health)

--Protection of the Divine-- Lek becomes permanently immune to ALL damage and control skills.

--Choice of Madness-- Lek(?) will create a party-wide illusion, summoning copies of everyone onto the battlefield, complete with skillset, memories and personalities of their original. In order to defeat Lek, you must kill all copies without killing an original.

--Last Breath-- after defeating all copies, Lek's immunity will vanish and he will admit defeat.

...

Countdown until the Battle begins now!

Time Remaining: 59:59... 59:58... 59:57...

The more the party read about the battle, the more their headaches grew; it wasn't that the battle was necessarily difficult... but that it was completely different than Myeala. While the last battle had a sort of soft-enrage through the group's resources being depleted, Lek had a definite time limit -- rather, he had several of them.

The group couldn't allow themselves to be overwhelmed by the Undead, or the Golems, and they certainly couldn't allow themselves to reach the point where too many people are Entombed. Furthermore, the last phase of the battle would likely go on for the longest and would be the soft-enrage on their resources. There was also the mechanic of the tears; while a 400% damage increase for half a minute was nice, it can't compensate for a consistent presence of DPS during the last phase. Yet, they couldn't just let Golems spawn over and over again as, again, they would eventually just run out of the resources.

The entire battle had less to do with actually fighting the boss, but was more akin playing in a specific way only a child could think up.

"Aaah!" it suddenly clicked within them... that that's exactly what this was -- a game.

Emma almost chuckled aloud as it reminded her of Lana in a sense; the young girl would sometimes just do annoying things on purpose, and the goal of it all was for Emma to simply endure until Lana tired out and fell asleep. Lek's fight was similar to that -- with the obvious addition of corpses, potential of death, and all that jazz.

"All things said, this will be an annoying fight," Kramer groaned. "I garner mechanics will overlap often and, at some point, there will be like 20 zombies walking around. And, unlike Myeala, this fight will be long; not only does the kid somehow have more HP than her, but there isn't a mechanic that instantly shaves 10% of his Health off."

"There's also a lot of things to keep the track of," Emma echoed the sentiment. "First it's the cores, then we can't allow that 'tombstone' circle or whatever to overlap with the big monument he erects for his toys... we also need to decide who's getting Entombed and the order..."

"Then there's the debuff in the 2nd phase," Daniel continued. "The spears, tears... oh boy..."

"... we'll take the Entombed," Kramer said suddenly. "It only makes sense. We need all of you to stay on the top for the whole fight if we stand a chance. Plus, during those tears, one of our guys can burst out for a moment to help along and ensure Golems don't spawn -- at least too much. Plus, I think that people can also take on those spears since they can be dodged."

"... we'll figure it out," Emma said. "Everyone just take ten minutes and mull over the fight. Afterwards, we'll start sharing the idea on how to fight a literal 400 year old kid. There's a sentence I never thought I'd say..."