The Nightmare Demon (4)
A wall of shields blazing with golden light advanced as one, and razor-edged spears sprouted between the gaps.
The soldiers' bodies and weapons, reinforced by the golden haze pouring from the Emperor's scepter, burned with fighting spirit. Their eyes held nothing but unshakable resolve.
"Chaaat!"
— Slash!
Kenis darted about with lethal grace, carving into the demon from every angle. Holy power coiled along her sacred blade like living mist, severing tentacles and slicing deep into the massive body.
Ease off the power just a little more...!
Even as she poured everything she had against a colossal foe, Kenis was gradually adapting to her own flesh. By drawing out her full strength and crashing it against the enemy, she was tuning her sense of her limits and her control.
"Eat this!"
— BOOM!
Friga charged like a wild beast and swung her axe in a horizontal arc. The blow, fierce enough to split a mountain, gouged a deep trench through the demon's body, spraying black blood in every direction.
— Kkieeeeeeek!!!
The demon thrashed its tentacles and howled in agony. The soldiers closed in step by step, while the small humans kept carving away at its flesh. Wounds multiplied across its body; the blood it spilled only grew.
— CRACK-BOOM!!
Whenever it tried to strike the little humans, lightning kept crashing down from the sky, and the shield-bearing man scraped at its nerves. Severed and butchered tentacles piled up around it; the blood it shed formed pools. The wounds on the demon's body only kept increasing.
"Raise your spears!"
The soldiers held their solid wall and methodically sliced into the demon. The shield-wall wreathed in golden haze shrugged off even the demon's tentacles and sheared through the thickest of them.
— Kkieeeeeeek!!
Rage seemed to drive the demon past all reason. It went berserk—flailing tentacles indiscriminately, stretching its arms to smash everything nearby. It rolled its enormous bulk and leapt, turning its crushing weight into a weapon.
It looked for all the world like a child throwing a tantrum because things weren't going its way.
"Halt—! Hold position!!"
The soldiers faltered for a moment under the demon's indiscriminate destruction. Kenis and Friga, who had been carving into its body, quickly fell back as well.
After thrashing across the ground for a long while, the demon suddenly went still. Then it began to swell, writhing and bloating.
Like a waterskin filled to bursting, the demon grew larger and larger.
Sensing something wrong, Demonic and Kenis sprinted forward—but the demon was faster.
— SPLAT!
The grotesquely swollen demon burst apart with a wet, viscous sound. Dark-crimson flesh rained from the sky, and black blood fell like a downpour.
Kenis stood stunned. Black blood soaked her hair and ran down her face.
"Ah...?"
At the center of where the demon had been, a lump of meat remained. Larger than a grown man, the mass swelled and shrank in a steady rhythm—like something breathing, or a heart beating.
— "Guh, eeeh..."
With a nauseating squelch, the dark-crimson mass of flesh slowly began to rise. It staggered, wobbled, and found its balance with difficulty—like a newborn taking its first steps into the world.
— "Guh—geek."
Having managed to stand, the lump of meat writhed and extruded four tentacles. Like a clay doll clumsily shaped by a child's hands, it became a humanoid mass of flesh so grotesque it defied description.
"Shit... what the hell is that."
Friga's face went pale with revulsion. Ruel gently covered her eyes as if the sight were too horrible to bear, peeking through the gaps between her fingers.
— "Gee—heehee—!"
"Enough of this nonsense!"
Unlike the rest of the party, frozen in shock at the nightmarish spectacle, Demonic—who had seen every manner of horror—drew his sword and charged. Unlike Kenis, the holy power on his blade was packed tight and unwavering, blazing with solid light.
His sword flashed like a thunderbolt.
— "Kihik!"
The demon's torso was cleaved clean through—then slid back together with a wet hiss. It stood whole again, as if it had never been cut.
— "Gee—hik."
"...You damned demon!!"
He swung again.
— CLANG!
The human-mimicking demon extruded claw-nails shaped like blades and met the strike. Having blocked the sword, it giggled and laughed, waggling its claws at Demonic in open mockery.
"Hup!!"
Enraged, Demonic's blade blurred even faster—so swift that his form vanished into the air it cut. The demon was shredded to pieces by the storm of blows, then regenerated with another wet hiss.
"That demon... something's off."
Friga's voice was heavy. Kenis nodded.
"...It's starting to block the sword. Little by little."
Cut apart, carved to pieces—and still it regenerated. Amid the storm of sword strikes, the number of times it managed to parry Demonic's blade was steadily rising.
As if...
"As if the thing is growing as we fight..."
Demonic leapt back and withdrew. Frustration filled his face. Even holy power couldn't stop the regeneration—and worse, it was absorbing fragments of his swordsmanship.
Realizing this too late, Demonic pulled his blade back and retreated at once.
"A disaster..."
The demon giggled, its voice tearing at the edges.
— "Di...sas...ter?"
The nightmare was far from over.
In life, fortune and misfortune ride the same horse.
Good things come with bad; bad things give way to good. Sure, it'd be nice if life were nothing but good news—but life doesn't work that way. Everyone fails, falls, and gets hurt on the way to growing up.
Just like me, underestimating Phase Two.
"Is this thing insane?"
A low curse slipped out of my mouth. Phase One of the clay monster had been a pure punching bag. Iscal tanking, Friga and Kenis free-dealing, plus Caesar's buffs on top. A textbook raid with zero flaws. Had I gotten too comfortable? Too complacent?
Once its HP was fully shaved down, the boss bloated like a water balloon and went splat. For a second I thought, Is that it?—but the health bar at the top of the screen refilled with unnatural smoothness.
Straight into Phase Two.
Where the boss had burst, a bright-red lump of meat was writhing. It swelled and shrank like something breathing, then staggered upright.
"Ugh, damn."
Through my earphones came the wet, squelching sounds in vivid detail—the nauseating scrape of blood-soaked flesh rubbing against itself.
— "Gee—heehee!!"
It extruded sharp claws from both hands and waggled them. One of the faceless villagers charged the boss with a sword.
— "...You damned demon!"
A pretty cool male villager voice. What voice actor did they even cast for this guy?
While I was briefly distracted, the villager diced the boss into absolute shreds.
"Huh? What—is it over?"
The health bar emptied in an instant. That easy? I thought—and then the boss's HP refilled in a long, smooth surge. At the same time, the monster regenerated with a wet wriggle and stood whole again.
— "Kkee—hehehek!!"
— "Chaat!"
The male villager swung his sword with everything he had, but the health bar kept vanishing and refilling, vanishing and refilling. After who knows how many cycles of that, the boss's displayed attack power was climbing too.
Something... something was seriously wrong.
"...A bug?"
I almost hoped it was a bug. It wasn't. Looking closer, the boss's HP was regenerating from a thread of remaining life. Just a boss with absurdly overpowered health regeneration—simple and brutal.
First priority: lock the boss down so it couldn't keep escalating.
I used a skill on the boss that was laughing that nasty, mocking laugh.
Snare of Truth!
The target is temporarily immobilized. The target cannot attack — but cannot be targeted for attacks either.
Circles bloomed all around the giggling monster, and silver chains shot out to bind it tight. Wrapped head to toe in the thin chains, the creature couldn't move an inch—only scream.
— "Kee—hiek!! Kiee—ek!!"
That at least stopped the boss's attack power from climbing any further. Now it was time to find a solution.
Health regen is one thing—but what's the condition for the attack power rising?
Plenty of possibilities, but two jumped out immediately: either when it regenerates HP, or when it takes damage.
If it was on regeneration, Mom was out of the picture. If it was on taking hits, Dad was gone. Either way, the difficulty was pure hell. Sighs and curses came naturally.
"Haa— current skills aren't going to cut it."
The one skill I had left was an AoE DoT heal. I'd packed it as a safety net, and now it was useless.
...Which left only one option.
The card always knows the answer.
With grim resolve, I opened the shop. One way or another, I still had to attack the boss. How do you kill a boss without attacking it? So at the very least, I needed to shut down that health regeneration. I scrolled through the skill list, hunting for anything usable.
"Instant Death Strike?... One-time use only."
Ninety-nine thousand won for guaranteed instant death—but single-use? That felt a little too scummy. I skipped it and kept scrolling.
I scrolled for a long time without finding anything I liked. Just as the situation was starting to feel hopeless, a skill that looked decent caught my eye.
The effect was...
"Not bad."
I bought it on the spot.
Woom—
With the absolute conviction that this thing was finished, I threw myself back into the raid.