Ultimate Level 1 - Chapter 165: Rare Spawn Fun

“Nice work!” Max shouted as he spun back to face Cordellia behind him. “You do put out some damage out with that bow!”

Cordellia blushed a little, still struggling with the knowledge that one of the elven princesses was in her party.

“Are you all aware that gems don’t normally drop like this?” Cordellia asked. “I mean usually it’s one or two at most for a normal pack of five.”

“Everett told us,” Tanila replied. “Another thing we like to keep a secret.”

Nodding quickly, Cordellia smiled and pointed in the direction they were headed. “You all really think the rare spawn might be up there?”

Max shrugged. “We need to level up and kill stuff anyways. Why not aim for the special ones? Especially if we are going to try and reset our tower level every chance we get.”

Cordellia had no response other than to bob her head.

“Pack of five up ahead, we ready?”

“I am,” Tanila replied. “Same plan? Root one, freeze other, blast third, you two each tank and kill one while we watch Cordellia pincushion the other two?”

“Sounds good to me,” Fowl replied.

“You all are crazy,” Cordellia muttered. “I mean… I’ve been in a few groups but you four act like this isn’t anything. Most new tower climbers would be struggling.”

“We’re not most people,” Batrire replied sweetly. “Ready here!”

“Pulling!” Fowl shouted.

The pack of five lizardmen came rushing at them, each holding a spear and a shield.

Tanila rooted the furthest one and then Ice Prisoned the next one in line.

Cordellia immediately started firing arrows, already hitting her target twice before the other lizardmen were crowd controlled. As Fowl rushed toward the final two, his aura forced them to target him, Max came up from behind, choosing not to reveal his Stealth skill yet. Two quick strikes killed the first one and within a few more moments the second was also dead.

Tanila and Cordellia had finished off their original targets and the first lizardman that had been ensnared was already on the receiving end of arrow after arrow.

Less than a minute later the last two were dead.

“Seems so easy after having been just the four of us,” Fowl joked as he collected the gems that had dropped from the back two.

“How did most of your fights go?” Max asked Cordellia. “Similar to this?”

She shook her head, frowning for a moment. “We had one mage, a healer, two tanks and me. Yet at no point did anyone do the damage that you and Pri… Tanila are doing. I don’t doubt we can easily reach the fourth floor without a problem.”

“Let’s take our time and keep working together to get all the kinks out,” Max suggested as he pointed at the next pack in their path. “I’d rather know we have things down and know how to respond if something goes wrong instead of finding out the hard way we aren’t prepared.”

Cordellia bobbed her head.

“Let’s go!” Fowl shouted as he moved ahead of the others.

The next two hours was a steady stream of cutting down packs with relative ease and no problems. Even when the very rare resist came against one of Tanila’s spells, Max picked up the one that resisted while everyone else focused the others, letting Fowl continue to easily tank the lizardmen, who continued to hurt themselves every time they hit him.

“Holy elf tits,” Cordellia cursed, sending Fowl into a fit of laughter.

“I take it that’s the rare spawn?” Max asked, ignoring their dwarf warrior and his childlike behavior.

“Yes, and I’ve never seen it before, but I know what it looks like… I mean… this isn’t possible.”

Shrugging, Max studied the group with the rare spawn and considered their options.

“So the boss is twice as tall, meaning what… fifteen or sixteen feet?”

“At least,” Fowl replied, having recovered from his laughing fit. “Does it really have a spear and a shield?”

“That shield is taller than you are Fowl,” Batrire teased. “The spear is taller than it is… how are you going to fight that reach?”

“Two archers in that group,” Max pointed out. “How fast can you two drop them?”

“As long as the big one doesn’t aggro on me, I should be fine killing the first one before it gets more than one shot off. I’ll use my skill on it.”

Max nodded. “The ten minute cooldown one?”

“Yeah, but it will easily kill it. If I hit the boss with it Fowl would have to taunt right after.”

“Don’t worry about using that on the boss. We’ll manage fine,” Max replied. “Tanila, you want to root the other two and then burn down the last archer?”

“Works for me,” she replied.

“Uh… Seth, aren’t we going to talk about that massive spear? I mean the metal head of that weapon is at least as thick as Batrire.”

Unable to help it, Max chuckled and nodded. “It is… so don’t get hit with it.”

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Groaning, Fowl gave Max the finger before pulling a rock out of his storage.

“Ready here,” their dwarf warrior muttered.

“You all aren’t worried about any skills it might have?” Cordellia blurted out as Fowl started to rotate his shoulders.

“We’ll be fine, provided it doesn’t kill Fowl in one shot,” Batrire replied.

“Pulling!”

Fowl’s rock hit the boss, and Max couldn’t help but chuckle at the dwarf’s ability to strike a target that big from seventy yards away.

The boss roared and raced toward them, quickly leaving its allies behind as each step ate up the distance with ease.

Cordellia’s shot flew over the cracked stone floor and put a hole through the archer on the left’s chest, killing it as it drew back its bow.

The two melee lizardmen were locked in place and soon a large ice spear impaled the remaining archer that was shooting at Cordellia who dodged its arrows with ease.

Max saw the boss coming. Its body looked like a mountain of muscle. Its scales were thicker than the other lizardmen’s and Max wondered what difference it would make in getting through its defenses.

The boss’s spear glowed red and came at Fowl the moment it was in range.

Holding his shield out, Fowl braced for what was coming.

A loud clashing of metal on metal rang out across the area and Fowl was sent flying, tumbling across the ground while the boss roared in agony.

Max watched as his friend’s health bar dropped half way, surviving the creature’s strike and dealing back a percentage of the damage it had caused.

His own weapon flashed red as he ran forward, and hacked at the boss’s left leg.

His halberd went halfway through the creature’s leg, hitting the bone, when the boss’s body flashed yellow and the weapon got lodged in place.

It hissed, swinging its spear in an arc and bringing the long shaft toward Max. He felt it coming and twisted sideways as he let go of his weapon’s shaft, and moved to stand next to the boss’s leg.

Another roar sounded when the boss’s shield connected with Max’s weapon shaft as it tried to squash him. The force of the blow sent Max’s weapon flying and blood started squirting from the wound.

“It’s shielded!” Cordellia shouted, her arrows exploding upon impact with the boss’s scales.

“Coming!” Fowl shouted from behind, still over fifteen meters away.

The boss stomped at Max, its injured leg seemingly unhindered even as it bled from the gash. He ducked and weaved, moving toward his weapon that lay a few yards away, almost closing his eyes as the spear came at him. Each strike from the boss was easy to read and dodge. It tried to stab, smack and bash Max with its spear and shield, but missed each attack.

Dirt and stone flew up as the spear impaled the ground next to Max, missing him by less than a foot as he stepped sideways at the last second.

Like a fool, Max grabbed the spear, wanting to test something, and found himself airborne a second later when the boss yanked it back.

“Elllllfffff tiiiiitssss!” Max howled as the boss waved its spear around in the air, trying to dislodge the human clinging to it for dear life.

A quick flash of yellow came as Cordellia fired off a charge shot, hitting the boss in its right eye, causing it to roar in pain as Fowl finally reached it, slamming his shield into the weakened leg.

The boss staggered for a moment and lowered its weapon enough that Max could let go, rolling as he hit the ground.

“Careful!”

The massive rare spawn slammed its shield down towards Fowl, who held his own shield above his head. It was angled just enough that the boss’s attack ricocheted off to the side, and sent Fowl rolling a few feet when most of the power from the strike was displaced.

Max raced to his weapon as Cordellia began unleashing arrow after arrow at the boss.

“Almost done with the warriors!” Tanila shouted.

Fowl’s thorn aura was taking a toll on the boss as every hit that he blocked or suffered reflected damage back, so blood was seeping from cracks in its scales.

“Coming!” Max yelled, halberd in hand and charging toward the massive lizardman struggling to attack.

Cordellia’s constant barrage of arrows aimed at its face required it to hold the shield upward, limiting its ability to stop Fowl’s hammer, which always connected when there was an opening.

Max ran toward the left leg, planted both feet, and swung, connecting in the same spot as before and fracturing the bone. This caused the lizardman to stumble, and when it stepped sideways. Putting all its weight on its left leg, the bone broke completely.

“Timber!” Fowl yelled as he tried to dodge the falling mass of the creature.

Arrows peppered the right leg and hip that were exposed, puncturing the scales in an impressive show of power.

“Incoming rock!”

Max had rolled out of the way as the lizardman fell toward him and saw the massive boulder Tanila had created come crashing on the boss’s back.

Bones crunched under the impact and scales burst apart, as the boss was smashed between the hard stone floor and Tanila’s spell.

Knowing its life was coming to an end, Max leaped up the moment the spell ended, landing on the boss’s back and jabbing the tip of his spear into its smashed head.

Scales shattered, yet Max couldn’t pierce through its skull on his first attempt.

It tried to stand, pushing up with both hands, and Max used every ounce of skill and ability to reamain upright, jabbing the tip of his halberd down again and again.

As a hand reached toward him Max thrust once more, finally shattering the thick skull, and his weapon plunged deep inside the boss’s head, connecting with the brain and ending its life.

The rare spawn fell back to the ground, with Max holding onto his halberd as he was slung forward and the cold rush of power filled him.

[ 6 Strength Consumed ]

[ 6 Constitution Consumed ]

[ Consume has Consumed a Higher Rank Skill ]

[ Power Strike – Uncommon has been upgraded to Power Strike – Epic ]

[ Consume has Consumed a Higher Rank Skill ]

[ Armored Warrior – Rare has been upgraded to Armored Warrior – Epic ]

Max’s grip on his weapon was the only thing that kept him from falling off the boss’s body as the power from the stats and two skills upgrading to epic flooded through him.

Blinking his eyes, Max didn’t waste a second once his body and mind were working again, yanking his weapon free and jumping off the corpse.

“Hey, what are you–” Fowl called out, stopping when he saw Max pull the spear free from the boss’s hand and store it immediately.

“Start harvesting it!” Cordellia shouted as she ran toward the fallen body, bow put away and a knife that was almost as long as a short sword out in her hand.

The group descended upon the fallen rare spawn’s body, hacking off fingers, ears, plucking eyes and teeth while Max got to work cutting off as much of the tail as possible due to the thickness of it.

Less than a minute after they started, it began to fade, disappearing into the floor. Where it had been resting, a standard-size red boss chest appeared.

“Gods!” exclaimed Fowl as he watched the finger he had been trying to cut off vanish. “That went faster than I expected.”

Cordellia nodded. “Bosses here don’t last long. Most of the time a party might not get anything and they’re just happy to have survived, let alone get close enough to try to cut through the protective skin or armor.” She turned and pointed at Max, who was hefting a huge six foot section of the tail he had managed to chop off over his head. “Nice work on the spear and that. I’m assuming you don’t have room for the tail?”

Tossing the tail to the ground, Max nodded. “I’m not certain the spear was a great choice. Perhaps I should have tried for its shield, but I have a few ideas of what I might want to use the weapon for.”

Everyone except Cordellia started to laugh and she glanced at them that, an eyebrow raised in wonder.

“Oh, don’t worry. You’ll find out soon enough,” Batrire replied. “For now, let’s see what’s inside the chest.”