The group continued to burn through their restorative foods and potions, except Jack, whose HP was two to three times from theirs. But he still ate his two bread during the interval.
"I only have two more basic healing potions and one bread!" one of the Fighters said with worry.
"Me too…" Another said.
"We have taken out half of the Boss' HP," John encouraged them. "Slow down the pace. Try to avoid damage as much as possible. Your job now is to hold the Boss' attention for as long as possible. The longer you can hold it, the more the other team could disengage from combat and recuperate with the Natural Body Recovery, so saving potion usage. Thank goodness most of you are Fighters! Leave the damage to us Magicians, we will be the ones that eat away the Boss' HP."
"My staff's energy is running low!" Bowler remarked.
"Motherf**ker! Why you didn't replenish it to full first before coming here?!" John was speechless.
"Well, if you remembered. It was not originally our intention to fight against a Boss way higher level than us now, was it?" Bowler retorted.
"Still, you are heading out from safe zone, man! Don't you know the importance of preparedness?"
While they were arguing, the Boss' club started to glow yellow again.
"Watch out!" Jack warned team 4 who was in the middle of battling with the Boss. But it was still too late, they were too close. The Ogre slammed its empowered club into the ground and another round of earth spike lunged out again around the Boss. Three of the Fighters in team 4 were impaled by it, causing around 200 damages. The last Fighter was spared because he was struck previously and fell out of the ground spikes zone.
The Spikes disintegrated but the three Fighters were paralyzed on the spot.
"Get away!" The Man screamed to his men.
"They can't!" Jack realized after watching the men being motionless. He immediately dashed towards the Ogre even as John called out, "team 2, support!"
However, he was still too late. In the time he was running to the Boss, the Ogre made another swing, hitting two of the Fighters simultaneously, scoring its first two kills at the same time.
"Damn it!" The Man cursed when he saw his men lost their lives.
When the Ogre was about to make his third kill. Jack crashed onto it with a Power Strike. Staggering it and made it miss. He then made several stabs to its legs as he circled around the Ogre. It caused the monster to stumble. The Fighter from team 4 who was paralyzed had recovered at this time and immediately retreated. Flame and Trip came at this moment and supported Jack in dealing with the Boss.
Since team 4 was down to two people, they were ineffective anymore. John allocated them each to team 1 and 3 who were composed also of members from Men of Solidarity, as they seemed like the type that despised cooperating with other classes.
"I will hold it as long as possible, use this time to recover without potions!" Jack told the others.
"Your bravery is commendable," John gave him a thumbs up.
Jack told Flame and Trap to use hit and run tactic. As they were rangers, they didn't have Natural Body Recovery skill, once they used up their recovery items, they would not be able to recover. Jack told them to only attack when they were sure it was safe, and retreated to a safe distance once they had made their attack. If the Boss used another one of his skills, Jack could still afford to tank the damage, but Flame and Trap would most likely be closed to critical if not dying outright.
Flame added in Throw Weapon skill when she retreated to a safe distance. Seeing that, Trap followed her move, he completely forgot that he had that skill as well.
Jack continued to weave in between the Boss' attacks. He was completely focused. He spent more of his attention in dodging the Ogre's assault and only made a counterattack when he was sure it was safe. Hence the fight dragged on. The Boss' HP decreased slower, but Jack managed to buy the other Fighters enough time to recuperate without potions.
Seeing Jack's effort, one of the Men of Solidarity uttered, "Damn! I lost almost half my life when I got clubbed by that beast. He had been taking blows from it several times but his health is still more than half. Who the heck is this guy?"
The Man nodded, he must admit that Jack was a different league compared to them. Could a difference of two levels made that much distinction? It didn't make sense!
The Boss eyes started to glow. "Get back!" Jack immediately shouted to the others.
Fortunately, Flame and Trap were already at a sufficient distance, so they made it out of the area of influence when a gust of wind similar as previous pushed Jack upwards. Jack who was airborne, was more prepared this time as he held his sword in front of his body when the club came swinging. It registered as Parry as Jack was sent flying by the blow.
"Our turn!" The Man exclaimed as he let his men forward to intercept the Ogre who was about to head towards Jack.
The battle was proceeding slowly. When the Ogre used its skill while being engaged with Men of Solidarity, they lost people. Only when it was Jack that the team could survive the skill's onslaught. In the ensuing battle, Men of Solidarity had lost another two members. The Man's face was dark seeing his members dropping like flies.
"I've counted the skills' cooldown time," John told the teams. "The ground spike thing had a three minutes cooldown, while the air blow thing got a four minutes cooldown. I will give a sign when the cooldown time is about to expire, you guys better pay attention!"
Jack was impressed, that Magician could still make the calculation this fast in the heat of a battle. In fact, he was also trying to count the cooldown time, but John beat him to it. But then again, the guy was just standing there sending range attacks, so it made sense that he got an easier time to analyze things.
With John's timely warning, they managed to reduce the risk and prevent further casualties. The battle proceeded at a slower pace. They also found out that when the Ogre performed a skill, if it didn't hit anyone, the Boss would go into a state of short stupor, allowing them to attack without worry. However, if the skill hit, the Boss would forgo the pause and follow up with normal attacks which would most likely finish the wounded player.
John also started to give detailed commands to the teams. At first, he used the aforementioned alphabet positioning system. Jack's team had no problem following the command, but Men of Solidarity ended up with more confusion than not. In the end, John was forced to use a more simple command, "team 1 go right, team 3 go left," as such.
"I'm running out of mana potions," Bowler advised.
"I'm down to my last…" Pointy Tip added.
Their firepower would reduce even more if they needed to rely on their natural mana regeneration. "A little bit more, it had less than 20% HP left. Hang in there, everyone!" John tried to encourage.
At this moment, the Boss released a thunderous roar. Team 3 who were in the middle of fighting the Ogre were stunned by it.
"Shit! I got this thing called Disoriented," Uttered one of them.
"Me too!" Said another.
"That status effect reduces their movement speed. They will have trouble escaping," Jack said as he prepared to re-engage the Boss.
At that moment, the Ogre followed up its roar with a frenzied stomping on the ground. Each stomp caused a small earthquake that prevented the Fighters from moving, and also prevented Jack from approaching. Stalactites on the cave's ceiling started falling on team 3 members who were stunned. Each stalactite caused around 50 damage.
The earthquakes caused the Fighters to keep on losing their footings, while they were also afflicted by Disoriented conditions. They became sitting ducks while stalactites continued to fall on their heads. Before long, their health had reached critical states.
As the earthquake finished, all four of team 3 fighters were in life-threatening condition.
"Move out!" Jack and The Man yelled at the same time as they dashed to the Boss at the same time. Three of team 3 Fighters managed to move away. One of them, however, was not so lucky as he was targeted by the Ogre and got stomped to death.
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