RETURN OF THE SHADOW - Chapter 158

“Yes, come back. All melee focus on the shamans, if possible. Let Merlin’s troll and shamans handle the other orcs,” he said. It was a fair plan as the shamans were weak towards close combat while Merlin and his shamans could deal more damage to the other orcs under the cover.

Grenadier, LIttle White had Tetsujing and Mob providing cover, while Bitter Beast for Merlin. Sultan, Tang and Quiet Fire also joined Merlin and the others to quickly kill the other two shamans. It was best if they dealt as much damage as possible. Shadow stopped one of the two remaining shamans while the remaining five along with Merlin’s new shaman servant attacked the other. They wanted to kill the other shaman before the troll comes close. Though Sultan and Tang managed to inflict a cripple effect they doubted it would hardly give them 5 seconds.

The two shamans were at least twenty metres away from Dhrome as he they had already lured all orcs including shamans towards the end opposite to the throne. Quiet Fire, Sultan and Tang would be just able to reach the shaman’s by that time, but they still had a decent chance of killing it if they five worked together as the troll would at least take about 20 seconds to cover that distance even if it wasn’t injured if they measure it by the same standards as Merlin’s servant.

Still, Sultan didn’t want to take any chances. He sheathed his sword as he ran back and tackled the orc like a football player catching it by its torso. They both fell together but he managed to push it further away from Dhrome. It was quite an effective strategy and he used his entire body to push the shaman which allowed him to take the shaman for a couple of metres but now he was just a metre behind the orcs that were fighting Chrome and others. The orcs also notice Sultan and the other shaman that slid towards them.

“Dude, you were too excited,” said Merlin shocked at the manner in which Sultan had put himself in danger as he tried to help them. The other were also worried about Sultan. There were still 15 of the orcs left and about seven of them were facing him right now.

“Chill out. I got it all planned,” said Sultan as he pulled out his sword and suddenly a bright light shone off the blade of the sword. All the orcs immediately wailed and covered their eyes. It was the Glaring Blaze skill of his unique weapon. The others had almost completely forgot about the skill of his sword as he didn’t show it before, but it was best to use it in a situation like this when he was very close to multiple monsters trying to attack him.

Not only did it blind the orcs, but they jumped back from him when he activated the skill. He had actively jumped into the orcs that tried to attack him and the orcs cried in pain as his sword struck them causing them burn damage. Blinded, they pushed the ones behind them into the attacks of the troll and its companions.

Sultan managed to cause more chaos than the others had expected. As the orcs were actively avoiding him, he turned his attention back to the shaman that he had tackled and struck it violently. The shaman also blinded by the light couldn’t respond to his attacks and others also joined him and within the ten seconds of the skill, they managed to kill him.

“That was a great display. Now, let us try our best to clear the other ones, before that big one comes,” said Merlin as he pushed forward. Dhrome had already crossed half the distance between them. “Shadow what are you doing with the other one that thing is halfway towards you,” he shouted.

“Ya. I have a plan. You clear the orcs and I will escape the troll don’t worry. You know I have an invulnerability skill,” said Shadow. “Quiet Fire and Grenadier take a shaman each and try to flank it from opposite sides after you kill the orcs. Use only one element spell, don’t mix them.”

He continued to harass the last remaining shaman while the others focused on the orcs. With the troll and three shamans assisting them, the orcs were falling down one every second.

In ten seconds, the troll came close enough to attack Shadow. By that time, there were only seven orcs left and were in red health. If the troll would be the only one left, it would be very easy and quick for them to kill it by long distance attacks. The three shamans were always the most irritating part of this stage. If he retreated away from the boss, the shaman would also retreat from him towards the boss. He wanted to kill it first and he believed that the troll wouldn’t swing its club as it would also hit its only remaining mate. So, he remained there. He could always use the void strikes and void state skills that he had to escape from the troll.

His assumption was right. The troll actually stopped without swinging its club and tried to catch him, but he always evaded and used kicks and with his weapons in piolet form, even managed to pull the shaman between him and Dhrome. The others took this chance to advantage and finally killed the other orcs.

It was then, that an unexpected change came over Dhrome. It went into a berserk state. It roared in anger swung its club striking the shaman who in turn crashed into Shadow and the both of them were flung across the room by the club. The shaman who was already in low health died immediately. Shadow who had quickly used the void state skill still got injured and was flung away losing 1500 HP on contact with the club.

This was completely unexpected. The troll killed the shaman to get a shot at him and he had lost 1500 HP even with the use of void state, making the actual damage that would be inflicted by that strike to be above 2000 HP. It was a ridiculous amount. He had been knocked aside and he was in state of shock and unable to move. The system informed him that he would be in that state for 10 seconds, which was enough for the troll to make a second hit which he desperately wanted to avoid right now.

Luckily, a pair of fangs caught his arm within 5 seconds and started to pull him away from the troll that was heading his way towards Merlin and the other troll. It was Mob who had used his spirit wolf summon to bring Shadow to safety. His spirit wolf had the highest movement speed among all of them, second only to Shadow. It was the best option to pull him to safety, even though its bite and drag kept causing Shadow a damage of 50 HP per second.

“Thanks,” said Shadow as the stun effect ended. He immediately got up as he found being pulled by the spirit wolf extremely uncomfortable and a bit embarrassing. “Didn’t expect him to pack such a heavy punch or even kill its own,” he explained himself to Merlin and Mob who were right beside him.

Merlin had taken charge of the others when Shadow was knocked out. He was the one who suggested Mob to use the spirit wolfs capability to maul and draw a monster to save Shadow from the troll. He also sent Grenadier, Quiet Fire and two shamans in four perpendicular directions to flank and use fire spells to deplete the troll boss’s health. The other shaman and players were also distributed in these directions and attacked while he kept chrome, the dwarves and melee only players away from the boss.

After they have seen the swing it landed on Shadow, everyone was reluctant fight it in close quarters, especially since they have known that Shadow had an invulnerability skill which was the reason he was daring enough to do it in the first place. That was the reason, Merlin didn’t even let his servant troll fight in close combat.

Their strategy was quite effective. In case, the troll moved in any direction, the members in that directions would stop their skills while the other three attacked causing it to change directions. This was quite simple and could be used to keep the troll in a loop. It was always a common strategy to keep monsters which didn’t have magical attacks at bay while shearing off their health. It was much more effective on a troll which moved at a very slow pace enabling the others to easily escape.

This continued to carry on with this strategy for a couple of minutes when Dhrome finally hit 10% mark of its health putting it in a berserk state. After that, it continued to pursue the closest group. It also pulled out another pair of weapons, a large axe and shield which it began to use in tandem with each other. It seemed quite capable in using the shield to block any fire attacks by the players and shaman.

The group it was following currently had a shaman servant, Bitter Beast and the two dwarves. The two dwarfs had only listened to Merlin’s commands after Dhrome started fighting and Merlin threatened to use Chrome to kill them if they didn’t follow his orders. But still it was the weakest team, the two dwarves weren’t that fast and Dhrome was catching up on them.

The others were firing at Dhrome, but the dwarves which were running towards Merlin’s direction were in no way less trouble due to their slower movement speed. They were always a bit slower than the others due to their smaller sizes and Dhrome in its berserk state was a bit faster than them.

Merlin was wondering whether he should help them or not, if it was worth it. “Merlin, we know that there are three floors and we didn’t yet find the way to the next floor. We need the two munchkins,” messaged Shadow as he saw that Merlin was not mobilizing his troll servant.

Merlin nodded towards him as he had the troll and the other two shamans to intercept Dhrome. “Attack it with all you have. I will have the troll support you,” shouted Merlin. The troll pulled out his club and threw it at Dhrome which struck its torso halting it for a second. It was enough for the dwarves to put some distance between them.

The throw was too fast that it Dhrome didn’t manage to deflect it and was actually stunned for half a second. The other players attacks suddenly weren’t blocked and hit him again almost doubling the rate of loss of his HP.

As it got out of the stunned state, it immediately continued in its pursuit of the dwarves again, but it gave enough time for the chrome to block it from attacking the dwarves. The troll wasn’t great at it either, a single strike from the boss’s axe pushed chrome back from him. It also dealt a damage of 1500 HP.

“Dude, that thing is crazy strong. The only good thing is that it was slow,” said Tetsujin as chrome was pushed back.

“No shit, the troll was supposed to have a high defence,” said Merlin as he commanded chrome to retreat slowly. Though chrome had higher health limit than all others in his team and very high defence, it had been fighting the orcs for quite some time and its health had gone down from tanking a number of attacks. He was sure that a couple more attacks from the boss would put his servant in red health state.

“Use only magical attacks or dynamites for the boss and somebody heal my troll. I will only use it to block if someone is in danger,” said Merlin. “Also make those dwarves stay as far away from the troll as possible.”

They continued to run away from the boss and fired spells at it. Shadow and ones who could only do physical attacks used dynamites instead. He felt that it was more like the situations that players usually had in his previous life in this room. Everyone was running away and evading while only using magical attacks or tools to deal damage as they didn’t want to get close to him. It was extremely time consuming as the boss was also quite adept at using the shield in its hand.

The boss came close to the others a couple of times, but Merlin had the troll block its attacks. Soon, the boss succ.u.mbed to their attacks. Without the other orcs and shamans that usually helped it, it didn’t take much time for them to kill the boss.

“System: Congratulations on obtaining the first kill of Dhrome. You will receive the first kill rewards in your mail on exiting the dungeon.”

Merlin went ahead and started to scavenge the body of the boss. He found much less from it than that he found from the previous boss. It was probably due to the large number of attacks that landed on it from the players. It was common knowledge that monsters killed by a large number of random attacks at multiple places tend to leave less loot on their death. The others also checked the other corpses in the hall before they returned. They were about to discuss the loot when Merlin interrupted.

“There is a key in his pocket,” said Merlin pulling out a half-foot long black key carved out of stone.

“That is the key to the dungeon,” said one of the dwarves. “That is where they went, follow me,” he continued as he ran out of the room and pointed near the locked door just outside the room.

“The warehouse is the entrance to next floor where we have ore access. There were a bunch of gems that we found in the ore. That is the reason they attacked us. To steal our metals. He wants to get a hold of something in the ore which lord Bungar has,” said the dwarf.

Merlin immediately put key in the door and opened it. All they found was a large empty room with nothing but a few dead dwarves and an open square shaped trapdoor at the far end of the room. This stairs wasn’t like the previous ones and was quite smaller like it was made only for dwarves.