37 Awoken from Wonderland

Feeling the intense pressure behind him, Axel immediately moved away to distance himself from the Duke. If he had been even slightly late with his movements, he would have been knocked unconscious by the combined effects of 'Bloody Duke', and 'Duke's Mist'.

Fighting the Duke head on with melee was disadvantageous for Axel. He decided that it would be a good time to change his battle plan a bit, and equipped his Celtic Guardian Staff to engage the boss using magic.

Since he was switching to a long ranged combat style, he immediately summoned a stallion mount and gained some more distance. However, the Duke at this instance, summoned some monsters with his 'Summon Monster' skill. In the room, a good dozen monsters had appeared. Most of them were Black Bats, which often entangled the player persistently, some Guard Gargoyles, and two Nightmare Humanoids. Guard Gargoyles had extremely high physical attacks, and even with Axel's high defense stats, he could only take about 10 hits from it before falling unconscious. As long as no hits landed, it wasn't a large threat.

The most troublesome summoned monster was the Nightmare Humanoid. With the appearance of It has the ability to spur on multi-aggro to attack the player with other monsters. It also has a special skill called 'Night Shift', which allows the monster to change the color of the glow on their skin to activate different types of passive defenses. Red means immune to melee attacks. Blue means immune to magic attacks. Green means immune to ranged attacks. If it turns white, it is immune to everything. The worst color is black, which means that it is immune to all types of attacks. It can be said that black is the most invincible state that even the most powerful players in the game like Axel cannot penetrate through.

Axel saw that it was still in a red state, and jogged up to charge 'Lightning Rod' and released it to kill the two Nightmare Humanoids in one shot. Enemies like this were best dealt with quickly as they could be more annoying than fighting the Duke.

"Jjjjjssssssshhiiiiiii...ZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!"

'Lightning Rod' was advanced tier magic skill that gathered massive amounts of electricity into a ball like shape and releases it like a powerful cannon in one direction. The longer one charges the skill, the more powerful the damage will become.

Getting back on his mount, he retreated to get some distance away from the remaining summoned monsters to avoid unnecessary aggro.

"Alright it's time for a big attack!" Axel thought to himself.

From a distance, he got off his mount and eyed the Duke a good distance away. He activated 'Meteror Strike', a fire-based advanced tier magic that could summon a large fiery rock from the sky to smash the enemies below in a large area. The area becomes filled with lava for a few seconds that can deal extra fire damage overtime. After setting the attack in the area near the Duke, he released the skill.

"Tttttttsssssssiiiiiii.....BBBBBBEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!"

The impact so so loud that it was echoing endless through the boss room. Although it was not a 'Critical Hit', the Duke now had about less than 10% of its health points left and it was continuing to decrease from the residual fire damage from the lava torn ground.

At this time, Axel went a farther distance away from the Duke on his mount and then got off. He started charging 'Fireball' and then actived 'Spellwalk' as well. 'Spellwalk was used to let the magic user to walk at a decreased movement speed while carrying charges of a intermediate tier spell as one normally cannot move after finishing the charges of an intermediate tier spell.

Slowly making his way back to where the Duke was, he then released the 'Fireball' at the Duke when the Duke appeared in his line of vision.

"Sssssssshhiiii....VVVVVOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!!!!"

It was a clear hit, and now the Duke was left with less than 5% of its health points. At this moment, the Duke suddenly disappeared and teleported behind Axel. Since Axel had not deactivated 'Spellwalk' in time, he could not dodge the incoming attacks of the Duke. Suddenly, a red wall of eyes were summoned around the Duke. Axel's face became red, and he got down on his knees like a clown, and started putting his hands on his face back and forth, as if he was in a person in despair. This was one of the Duke's tactical skills, 'Duke's Temptation', which causes players next to the red wall of eyes to be constricted in the movement, and forced to perform a Gesture, which is an Action ability. It could range from waving, to make different types of faces, or doing a full body movement. Although the effect of this stun like skill lasted only 1 second, it was enough time for the Duke to get his revenge.

"Kchi! Kchi! Kchi! Kchi!"

4 clean attacks landed on Axel in a circular motion. This was one of the attack skills of the Duke, called 'Duke's Roses'. In an instant, nearly half of Axel's 2000 mana points dwindled.

"B*st*rd!" Axel exclaimed. Luckily the Duke was already low on health, and Axel equipped his Soluna Blade and commenced his all out attack on the Duke before he could lose any more mana points, as when his mana points were gone, he would be taking direct damage to his health points.

'Final Attack' was unleased like a hurricane, and it depleted the remaining 5% of the Duke's health points.

With a monotone cry, the Duke finally fell, and right as Axel thought he would bask in his victory against this boss, a dark green, musky mist formed around the Duke. It swallowed Axel in an instant, and everything went black.

...

"AAAAWWWWAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Axel sprung up from his bed, and his infant like cries vibrated the entire building of Simon's shop. He was finally back to reality, and it felt like a few years had passed inside the dream.

"Damn, why does the dreams always end like that? Is the almighty God that sent me to this world like playing pranks on me?" Axel thought to himself.

In a few seconds, the room of Axel's door was opened very roughly, and Baxtor appeared by his bedside.

"Are you okay buddy?" Baxtor asked.

"Yeah, just had a terrible dream!" Axel replied.

"Well, you've been sleeping for almost 2 weeks! I thought you would never wake up until now!" Baxtor gnarled at him.

"2 weeks? What the f*ck? Mana deprivation is that serious of a ailment in this world?"