The Bone Dragon Raid
They're certain the walls of a city wrapped in a safe zone will never fall. That was why they could afford to stay so relaxed.
At least the Daehan Guild drew the rear guard. Small mercies. Before the regression, Kim Young-cheol and the Daehan Guild had joined the Bone Dragon raid and still withdrawn with only minimal losses—most likely because they had been assigned to the rear.
The problem comes after the city walls fall. The players who had gathered so boldly to slay the Bone Dragon would lose their nerve the instant those walls came down and run, and raid or no raid, it would end right there.
I have to give them hope that the Bone Dragon can be killed. However overwhelming its physical might, it could not bring down the walls of a safe-zone city in a single blow. All I need is to land meaningful damage before the walls collapse. Then, instead of bolting in terror, the players would stay full of hope that they could bring it down, and they would try to see the raid through.
I have to step in myself. Before the regression, the players of Floor 100 had lost to the Bone Dragon. If that history isn't going to repeat, there has to be a variable. The only person who could be that variable was Jin-soo himself.
I'll go all out. This was not merely about claiming achievements and items. I can't waste the perfect chance to turn the Bone Dragon into a summon.
The problem was what made Jin-soo unique. Crossing between holy and dark affinities and using the skills of several classes is bound to cause trouble. The other players would surely try to dig out his secrets. Some will work to win my favor. Others, just as surely, would reach for quieter methods—poison, curses, and the like.
The one saving grace is how few people even know I exist. Keep only those mouths shut, and nothing about Jin-soo would leak.
The catch is that False Mask is registered on the dark-affinity status window. Naturally, he could not use False Mask while the holy-affinity window was active. So long as I don't show my face, that's enough. Under the dark window he would wear the Black Dragon's Cursed Armor Set, so he would have no need of False Mask at all. Under the holy window, I'll put on a mask. One imbued with a perception-dampening skill would hide his face completely.
"You're keeping in mind the chance that the city walls might fall?"
"Yes. In case it comes to that, we've already gathered the elite tanks from each guild separately."
They had made their own preparations for the worst, it seemed.
"I see. There are a few things I'd like to ask of you, though."
Jin-soo asked Kim Young-cheol to lock down his personal information.
"That's nothing difficult. We'll handle it however you like."
Kim Young-cheol agreed without hesitation. From the Daehan Guild's perspective, it was better that word of Jin-soo never got out at all. He was not a member of the guild so much as a mercenary hired for the moment, and as far as Kim Young-cheol was concerned, it served him well if the masters of the other guilds mistook Jin-soo for one of Daehan's own.
Whether he joins the Daehan Guild or simply keeps things as good as they are now, it's better that we alone hold the information on Mr. Jin-soo. If word got out that a talent of his caliber belonged to no one, rivals would only multiply.
"We ought to be heading out soon. I'll be counting on you from here."
Kim Young-cheol said it as he rose.
"Likewise. I'll be counting on you as well."
Jin-soo stood too. It was time to move for the Bone Dragon raid.
With a rush of wind, a single enormous Bone Dragon beat its paired wings and cut across the sky. Ahead of it lay a city ringed by a vast wall.
"It's coming."
The players waiting atop the wall braced for battle, faces drawn tight.
"Archers, prepare to attack!"
The order fell, and the archers—those with the longest reach—drew their bowstrings as one, the wood creaking under the strain.
"All archers, loose!"
The instant the command left his mouth, arrows of every color, each one loaded with a different skill, streaked toward the Bone Dragon. Detonations large and small erupted as shafts carrying every manner of attribute slammed into its wings.
"Kyaaaaaak!"
The Bone Dragon loosed a furious roar and lurched in the empty air. Its wings had been riddled with holes to begin with, torn in places along their span, and those already flimsy wings only worsened under the rain of arrows.
"The attacks are landing! Keep pouring it on!"
"Waaaaah!"
The players erupted in cheers, and the archers kept the arrows coming, concentrating their fire on the Bone Dragon's wings. Another blast. Another splintering crack.
It'll fall before long.
Jin-soo watched the Bone Dragon stagger through the sky. It was a monster capable of flight, but the durability of its wings was poor, and so its speed in the air was nothing impressive. Bone Dragons have always been weak in the wings. The only part of its body not made of bone was the membrane stretched across them.
This is no time to celebrate. The players were elated that their attacks were working, but a closer look showed that only the membranes had been damaged. The comparatively thin wing bones had taken no real hit at all.
"Fire mages, prepare to attack!"
As the Bone Dragon drew nearer, the mages readied attack spells of devastating power.
"All fire mages, cast!"
Skills wreathed in searing flame streaked toward both wings. The blast that followed dwarfed anything the archers had managed.
"Kyaaaaaak!"
In the same instant, what remained of the membranes on the staggering Bone Dragon's wings burned away completely. With a tremendous crash, its massive body plummeted to the ground.
"Krrrrrr!"
Pitch-black flame blazed in the enraged Bone Dragon's eyes. The earth shook under its charge as it hurled itself at the wall with ferocious momentum.
"All ranged damage dealers, attack!"
Archers and mages poured concentrated fire onto it at once.
It's working.
Jin-soo surveyed the battlefield with a cool eye. Wounds, large and small, were opening across the Bone Dragon's body. Hard. Filthy hard. More than a thousand archer and mage players had focused their bombardment on it, and all they had to show were a scattering of cuts? Any other monster would have been ground to powder by now. Even so, the damage was not great, and the simple fact that the players' attacks were getting through at all was encouraging.
Pile up the dust, and you get a mountain. The Bone Dragon's movement was unhindered, and the wounds were shallow. Set beside any other monster, it was as if muscle and bone were untouched and only the hide had been scratched.
The Bone Dragon threw its whole body into the city wall. The impact rolled out like thunder.
"Whoa—!"
"Th-the wall's shaking!"
"Is it going to collapse?!"
"The wall is fine!"
"Trust the safe zone!"
"Melee damage dealers, begin the attack!"
Figures who looked to be guild leadership calmed the startled players and issued the order.
"Waaaaah!"
Melee dealers leapt from the wall toward the Bone Dragon below, unleashing attack skills as they fell. Auras of every color bloomed, and skills of every kind hammered its enormous body amid cracks and blasts.
"It's insanely hard!"
"Focus! Aim for one spot!"
"It's working!"
"Where's its core?!"
The melee players swarmed the Bone Dragon like ants and tore into it. Rather than turn on the players clinging to its body, the Bone Dragon kept its focus on smashing the city wall.
I should join in. Ranged dealers were free to fire at will, but the melee dealers attacked in a set order—a measure to cut down on wasted damage when there were simply too many players. But if you sort by role, I count as a ranged dealer too.
Jin-soo called on Shadow Summons and Army Summons.
Shadow Summons
Army Summons
Shadow and darkness tore open with a hiss, and the Shadow Summons and Army Summons took shape and fell upon the Bone Dragon.
"Huh? What are those?"
"Monsters?"
"No! They look different. They're a summoner's summons!"
"Summons like that exist? Wild."
A few players were startled, but the summons' forms were so distinctive that no one mistook them for monsters.
A massive quilled boar slammed its body forward with a crash.
"Krrrrng!"
A variant lycanthrope bit into the Bone Dragon's body and raked it with its claws, pressing a savage assault—crunch, crack. The Shadow Summons swung their own weapons and struck as well, steel sinking in with heavy, splintering blows.
"Krrrrrk!"
Not long after Jin-soo's summons began their attack, the Bone Dragon—still intent on breaking the city wall—reacted. Its tail lashed out like a whip, and the air split with the force of the blow.
"Hiek!"
"It's counterattacking!"
"Dodge!"
Jin-soo's summons and most of the players threw themselves clear.
"Aaaagh!"
"Guhk!"
Dozens who failed to evade the tail died in an instant.
"Keep attacking!"
"If it's reacting, that means we're hurting it!"
Guild leadership dressed the Bone Dragon's counterattack up as a positive sign.
"Uwaaaaah!"
"Die! Die!"
The players poured on the assault even more fiercely, blow after blow crashing home. The attacks of Jin-soo's summons and the highest-ranked players landed meaningful damage. The bones that made up the Bone Dragon's body cracked and split, and fragments large and small burst free.
"Krrrrrung!"
Even as it rammed the city wall, the Bone Dragon occasionally swung its tail or struck with its stripped wings and forelegs. The players' losses, however, were not especially great.
"Good! Very good!"
"Hahaha! We might take this thing down easy!"
"Let's start by cutting off a foreleg!"
The faces of the guild leaders brightened. The players were taking losses, but against a force of thousands, those losses were not so large. To leaders who had braced for the worst—the Bone Dragon raid failing outright—the battle so far looked remarkably smooth.
Then something went wrong.
"Huff... huff... huff!"
"My body's so heavy!"
"My head feels like it's going to split."
"Huuuurgh—!"
The attack speed of the players who had been pressing the assault began to slow. Archers and mages staggered where they stood.
"Healers, what are you doing?! Use your dispel and purification skills!"
Guild leadership hounded the healers, and the healers shot back.
"We've been using dispel and purification this whole time!"
"The curses are stacking faster than we can dispel or purify them!"
"What?"
"This is bad."
The problem was the curse the Bone Dragon's body scattered as a passive.
There are simply too many players. Even if the Bone Dragon spread its curse passively, fewer targets would have lightened the healers' burden. Instead, each healer was left to dispel or purify the curses on at least four people—and as many as eight or nine—alone, and the problem had ballooned.
Cooldowns are an issue, but the decisive problem is mana. With so many targets for dispel and purification, the healers' mana was draining at a rapid pace even though they were not casting heals at all.
At least the city wall is still holding. That's something. The moment it fell, it would be over. This isn't an attack the tanks can weather with their bodies. Collide with the Bone Dragon, and they would be swept away in an instant—sandcastles meeting a wave.