Bloodlines Online

It took many hours for that day and each member of the team had to focus entirely on leveling up to eventually reach lv200.

By the time all of them were at the proper level to battle the boss on even footing the time for the server's second pause was approaching.

"We could try to make a run? Maybe we can fight through her since we still have three hours."

Layla kept the group moving through the dungeon and while they took care of the undead without his aid he distributed the stats he had accrued.

~~~~~~~~~~

Belial

Void Mage lv177 -> 200. (Supreme)

Lesser Tri-Elemental Archdevil

Affinity: 100% Shadowfire 100% Life

Mana Core: 100% Shadowfire

Strength: 20 (+60)

Vitality: 1415 -> 3400 (+510) Read new adventures at m_v-l'e|m,p| y- r

Agility: 1615 -> 2000 (+80 +20%)

Wisdom: 3030 -> 3800 (+80 +20%)

Intelligence: 5770 -> 7000 (+70 +20%)

Free stats: 4

~~~~~~~~~~

With his skills in hand to hand combat getting better plus his Mana Armament spell being active he would be able to battle her as easily as the others.

He liked being able to dodge strikes but he wanted to be able to tank any strike she could give him, with his defenses not yet able to block her strikes completely a few levels before he figured getting his health to a higher amount would solve that problem.

He had gotten even better at using his mana to guard the group and he began to suspect that the shields may be tied to the vitality statistic as well as the intelligence statistic.

The system did not give exact information on how it worked but with each level he felt that his mana shields were able to defend a little bit more, the sudden influx of points into his intelligence stat would explain part of the new strength of the shields but not completely explain the absurd durability of the shields.

The sudden doubling of his vitality was the only connection he saw to his shields gaining such strength.

Once they entered the boss room they absorded the mana as always to not waste any of it and began the battle.

As before Ezekiel entered the fight with a frenzy of slashes and bombs as well as needles, each strike upon her aura dealt significantly more damage than it had in the past and even the piercing damage she took was worse.

He was able to block her strikes more often than before as his own protective aura was taking less damage.

With his ability to use refined spells full of as much mana as he was capable of giving he had reached what he felt a mage is supposed to be, his magic was effective and nothing felt wasted.

The only waste of energy was his clumsier physical power.

His spells were constantly targeting her head while he used every opportunity to drop frenzy bombs around them.

He knew that when he was taking damage he was being healed and from behind the boss he saw Shade taking advantage of her focus on himself to pierce her weak points.

He kept his own focus on the boss but they had trained for hours the previous day to actually work well together, he knew that Thanatos and Layla would be working together on the skeleton summons while Hope would be healing all of them.

He was waiting to see what the boss would do when she reached the previous health threshold that had summoned the giant skeleton, he had plans for how to deal with it.

When he saw a shift the mana inside of the room he immediately used his wings to guard himself and Shade but it was not an attack.

She had summoned armor made of life mana ...but something was odd.

The armor was losing its glow, the actual mana was being drained and it was Hope doing it!

"Attack her! I can't keep this up for long!"

As soon as the base of her skull was exposed Shade went for a killing blow with death mark while Ezekiel watched for the right moment to unleash a full power strike from his frenzy wing projectiles.

She took the stab as she seemed to be struggling to handle the fight for the mana while also using her blade to attack anyone she saw.

In a moment of recklessness he stabbed out with each wing to try to cripple her and he was successful but Shade had to back away without getting a second stab in.

The two of them were using their own individual versions of the death mark and the damage it caused was significant.

Once her hp hit the 75% threshold the mana in the room began to converge which actually ripped the life mana from the skeletons, it began to flood into the spell circle she used for her giant skeleton and since he saw his opportunity Ezekiel began to channel his own spell.

With mana burn active he could create thousands of needles which were all suspended inside of a single point, he kept this thing in hand like a grenade, and then he made another.

He kept making more and more which he threw to the giant skeleton as it was formed.

By the time he was done he had exhausted all of his mana to make only ten of those little bombs and the moment the skeleton moved he detonated them.

He was sitting there trying to recover while the pair of Thanatos and Layla worked together to battle the boss, when he yelled for them to back away Hope put up a barrier of life mana to protect them from the explosive power of the spells but her shield was ripped to shreds by the needles of void mana.

When the black fire settled down a bit they could see the boss had taken another 10% of her health just from the radius of the shrapnel and the skeleton itself was in pieces like the skeletons he had practiced this on with the frenzy bomb.

Since he had expended all of his mana to use that attack his mana burn skill was gone so he would have to rely on other effects until the cooldown was up.

Once he was able to recover at least 50% of his mana he got back up and began to attack once again, with the skeleton gone she was vulnerable.

With her aura gone she had no defense.

With her summon having been used and destroyed she couldn't summon others like before.

With their teamwork shining they saw the path to victory and they knew that they only had to push a bit further to achieve it.

Once they reached 25% they began to have genuine problems though.

The boss began to use multiple mana blades per target which made dodging harder, she also began to teleport earlier than ever, with his own knowledge of how to catch where she would move Ezekiel was able to call put who she would attack but that was all he could do.

He was not fast enough to reach her to guard them himself but someone was...

He watched as each time she vanished and he called out her target, Layla would also blink from her position into a point in front of them to block her strike.

Shade would even use a dashing skill to reach the boss when he saw Layla take her strike so he could attack the boss as well.

Ezekiel saw that in the time it took them to reach this point his mana burn skill had finally ended its cooldown so he activated it.

He noticed that Thanatos had activated a remarkably similar skill as well.

The two of them began to unleash powerful strikes on the boss, he pinned her down by attacking with slashes of mana he had seen used before by their new ally and he took the time to unleash every single overcharged void bomb he could on the boss.

He made sure to keep enough mana to sustain the skill this time and when he warned everyone to back away, he unleashed the bombs.

The boss began to take damage from consecutive damage effects from those bombs and with each one he saw her take slightly more damage than before.

The final bomb exploded when she only had 1% hp left and as the bomb burned her body to ashes he cheered.

But the dungeon did not end.

No notification sounded for their victory.

A figure rose from the remains of that blackened skeleton and they all saw the spectral figure of an elven woman who began to scream.

"First the church, and now this! Why can i not be allowed to avenge myself!"

She howled like a banshee and they all began taking damage from this screaming spirit.

Ezekiel saw his mana returning slowly but it was still returning and he looked at his allies who were forced to their knees by this boss.

He forced himself to stand and withthe last bit of mana he had he created one more bomb infused with void mana even denser then anything he had made before.

He forced his hand through the spirit where her heart would have been and set the bomb off while containing them inside of a shield of mana.

If he were not close enough the bomb would have fallen out of the spirit and if he did not create a barrier the others would be harmed by his own magic or the boss after he died.

So he released that bomb inside of her and let it detonate.