Chapter 119 23.6 Prog?

"Positions, everyone!"

At Guidance's word, we all assumed our respective positions. It wasn't like the first time where we all just stood wherever it felt comfortable. This time, we actually had proper spacing between one another as we all surrounded the boss from all four sides.

"Okay, engage!"

"Of course, Lady Guidance!"

At her signal, Maruki started the fight. Taking his place on the north side of the room, our tank made sure that the enemy was facing him and him only. Meanwhile, Shizu was by my left with Guidance to my right. In a sense, we were all standing in the boss's four cardinal directions of north, south, east, and west.

Frankly, it didn't make sense for me to be this close to the boss, but that was what Guidance wanted, so I might as well.

[SELF DESTRUCT!: 24%]

"[SELF DESTRUCT!] is up!" I called out.

"On it!" Maruki readily reacted. "[BASH!]"

[SELF DESTRUCT!: INTERRUPTED!]

Guidance quickly chimed in, "Pump that damage!"

With a great bash of his shield, the boss's death move got interrupted, giving us a few seconds of free damage as we all used whatever [Moves] we had to dish out as much pain to this boss as possible. The next attack was going to be us running away, so we had to take every chance we get and get that damage in.

"It's moving again!" Shizu called out.

"Keep attacking till the next mechanic comes out!" Guidance instructed amidst the flames and blows being slung about. "After that, we'll stack!"

The source of this content is no/vel//bin[./]net'

And as she instructed, the four of us kept on with our attacks. My pistols were raining hell on this thing, and I wasn't even losing too much [HP] with Guidance giving me as much regen as I needed. Still, if I wanted to be self-sufficient, I should probably invest some points in upgrading my own passive regen.

[HELLFIRE: 66%]

"[HELLFIRE] coming up!"

At my callout, all four of us quickly disengaged as we stuck to the four corners of the boss arena. Seeing as Guidance and I were the only ones capable of dealing damage at range, we kept attacking even as the boss began to buffet the area around it with searing heat.

"Count for thirty seconds then we all loop around!" Guidance called out, her [Keystroke] glowing with attack after attack. "Moriya! Tell us if it's starting to cast something new again!"

"Got it!"

"Of course!"

"Sure!" I yelled out, my aim still true as I kept my eyes peeled for the next tell that this boss was going to give us. This thing was going to die this run... I just know it.

"And we're looping... now!"

With Guidance giving out the shot, The four of us began looping around the boss arena. And it was just in time as the boss finally started moving towards Maruki. Of course, with us sprinting across the arena's outskirts, the idiot had no choice except to spin in place as it kept its attention solely on our tank.

"Hah! Keep your eyes on me, beast!" Maruki cheered out, casting a [SHOUT!] every so often as to prevent aggro from going to me. "Ignore the attacks pelting your backside!"

I shook my head at his wording. Did he really have to say it like that? Granted, I was the only one shooting, so it was-

[FIRE SWING: 12%]

"[FIRE SWING]!" I quickly warned, my legs already sprinting towards Guidance's location.

"You heard him!" Guidance promptly reiterated. "Get over here and soak!"

We all dashed towards our resident healer, Guidance herself making sure to move as close to us as possible to avoid our untimely deaths.

[*FWOOSH!*]

As the flames of the boss washed over us, Guidance was quick to respond with a [Mass Cure] of her own, topping us off for the next mechanic that quickly followed the stack attack.

[HELLSWEEP: 77%]

"[HELLSWEEP!]"

At my call-out, the four of us all marched towards the boss's vicinity, our position almost right under the thing as it then delivered a sweeping attack all around the arena. Its flame aura was gone now, so we at least didn't take too much damage from it.

"Back to cardinals!"

Cardinals then...

Positioning ourselves back to the center of the arena, Maruki made sure that the boss was in the middle of the four of us before we all started wailing on the thing again. The boss then delivered a few standard attacks on our tank, Guidance deftly healing him through it while throwing out a few attacks of her own.

"This is fun!" Shizu chuckled aloud, her fists dipping in and out of our flaming enemy with each attack. "I don't see how we kept dying here if it's this easy!"

"Trust me, it wasn't!" I laughed out loud in between my own attacks. "If you can just remember how many times we went through this, you'll see how hard it was!"

Well, I was kind of lying at that. The boss was piss easy now that we knew everything it can do. And with Guidance quickly coming up with a strategy to deal with each and every mechanic, I could already see us breezing through a lot of stuff as soon as the dev fixed the issue of them not being able to remember each attempt at a boss after a wipe.

[FLAMEBREAK: 4%]

That's my cue. "[FLAMEBREAK] coming out!"

"Got it!" Guidance quickly responded, her [Manifest] glowing as she began casting her pre-emptive shields. "[Adloqium!] [Medica]!"

At her two spells, two distinct glows covered our tank as he braced himself for the attack. And sure enough, he was then buffeted with a flurry of kicks and strikes from the boss, all of which did little to nothing thanks to Guidance's buffs.

"My thanks, Lady Guidance!" Maruki gratefully shouted as he lowered his shield to continue attacking.

"No sweat!" our healer preened. "Now focus for the spread-"

[IGNITE: 4%]

"Spread's here!" I called out, unfortunately cutting our healer off mid-sentence.

"You heard him! Move!"

We repeated the same tactic as we did for the [HELLFIRE] move. Even as the specters of red arrows hovered over us like a guillotine, we all kept our cool as the attack finally went through.

"Ngh..."

I gritted my teeth through the heat. It wasn't as bad as when I first went through it, but it still stung. By the end of it, we were back to where we started.

"And that's the whole fight!" I laughed. "We just have to keep doing this till it dies!"

"Splendid!" Maruki returned my laugh. "Our enemy will fall post-haste then!"

I couldn't help but smile. Thank god this was about to be over.

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