Chapter 62 : The Boss Has His Cards

With Dream Tiger's [Drill Shot] and Swift Blade's melee attack coming from the left, Chesces' squad charge from the centre, Fudo's [Fireball] and Sato's assault from the right and finally, Kylian's [Entangling vines] holding it temporarily in place, the boss wasn't nervous or anxious. Staring at them all, it stated in a somewhat low voice,

"[Great Call of Old]".

With the conclusion of its statement, the players heard a rumbling sound despite the fact that the entire hall was still calm. Black vortexes took shape in all three directions with a hand appearing from one and a leg from another. They all had two things thing in common and one of them was the colour of their skin; green was the theme. The other factor was that their sizes were far bigger than that of a human being.

Normally, the players wouldn't have known the features or species of the creature behind the vortexes who owned the parts as such, they wondered what it was. However, when they took a look at the third vortex, which was facing Chesces and Griffin, their question was answered.

A head was sticking out from the third vortex; a big one at that and it was staring at Chesces and Griffin with a sick look. Ignoring the size, the most noticeable fact about the head was its ugly and rather nauseating facial features. Apart from that, there was a single short horn on its head, pointing out like the censored part of a male in heat.

It brought out its left hand and hurriedly pulled itself out entirely, exposing its bulky and muscly body.

A one-horned troll! And one of 5 metres at that. The other trolls seen so far were all of a height of between 3-4 metres. This one was at least 50% taller. The Heaven System doesn't make pointless adjustments. Since this troll was far taller than the others, the players speculated that it might as well be more stronger too. To make things worse, the short horn seemed to imply that this troll was of a different species and might as well have different combat skill and ability than its distant cousin.

After seeing this troll, they all focused on their individual portals, wondering whether the ones that would come would be of the same height and power. Even though all these were taking place, none of the three teams never actually stopped their advances nor slowed down. They were all experts at the least after all.

Meanwhile, Dream Tiger's [Drill Shot] had already made its way towards the boss but with the appearance of the black vortex, it looked like it would end up hitting the figure within.

At the edge of the vortex was a hand that pulled the weight behind it. A head slowly came out and just like the other one, it was one-horned troll. As it was merging, the arrow was closing in to it.

'At least my shot wouldn't go to waste.' Dream Tiger inwardly smiled as he loaded his bow with another arrow, getting ready to deliver a fatal hit to the one-horned troll.

Suddenly, another hand left the portal, at a much faster pace than the head. Unlike the other hand, this one wasn't empty. It hacked out with an oversized axe, skillfully smashing the arrow to splinters.

"Damn! How did it react so quickly?!" Dream Tiger yelled.

"Focus!" Old Jiro snapped at him. Staring at the giant they were about to clash with, Old Jiro, the Drunken Hog commanded "Retreat."

"Huh?" Dream Tiger was surprised.

"I said retreat!" Old Jiro shouted while quickly turning around.

"We know nothing about these creatures. Rather than losing our lives, let's see how the others fare against them." Old Jiro eyed Chesces' crew.

On Chesces' side . . . . .

As the troll on their side was the first to exit the vortex, Chesces and Griffin were the first to encounter it in a melee battle. Griffin stood in front with Chesces diagonally behind him while Kylian followed behind, successfully maintaining the maximum distance required for spell-casting away from Griffin.

"[Justice Slash]" [1]

Griffin, without hesitation, hacked out with his sword. His sword had a weird yellow glow that had a strange allure to it, mesmerizing the eyes of any who got captivated by its tantalizing beauty.

The one-horned troll ended up trapped by this beguilement, staring at Griffin's sword in fascination. It wasn't until 2 seconds later did it awake from its predicament however, it was already too late. Griffin had already closed the gap between him and the troll, successfully landing his attack on the troll's right knee with the intent of immobilising it.

"Grawrr!" The troll screamed.

"That skill, I don't remember any of our Guardian class players having it together with the other one." Swift Blade said with a low voice.

"They should both be active skills Emperor's Might must have gotten during their field battles. It seems that their luck in the field has been quite nice." Old Jiro sighed with envy. Even though he wasn't a guardian, their guild had other guardians, one of which was Daichi. The MT was always the most important figure for a raid as he/she would be tasked with handling the monster(s)'s aggro. With a better variety of powerful skills, their guardians could become better MTs as such, they could easily raid dungeons and succeed in boss battles.

Rapidly taking use of the opportunity made by Griffin, Chesces attacked from the left flank, aiming for the left knee too.

This time, the one-horned troll didn't stand idle. It grabbed behind its back and drew the large zanbatō[2] slashing right in front, that way, Chesces and Griffin would be caught in the attack.

'Shit.' Chesces inwardly cursed. Griffin was a guardian, an MT class, so he would be able to survive the attack but Chesces was a swordsman, a class specialized in damage dealing. His chances of survival were far less than that of Griffin.

'Looks like I have no choice.' Chesces thought before retrieving a round object from his bag and tossing it towards the blade.

*Boom*

As the object came in contact with the sword, an explosion occurred, stopping the blade for a little while before the one-horned troll pushed forward with more momentum. However, during this time, Chesces had used a movement skill to escape the range of the zanbatō with Griffin following close.

While the two teams weren't so successful with their first encounter against the one-horned trolls, Sato and Fudo also weren't. The very second their opponent had exited the black vortex, they both performed a tactical retreat and monitored the progress of the Emperor's Might players just like the East Crow party.

Seeing that the strongest party hadn't succeeded either, the entire group began to fall into despair though not so much. As they were all expert players at the least, they quickly regained themselves and retreated even further in other to communicate with each another on how to defeat the one-horned trolls.

During the entire time, from their uniform charge to their tactical retreat, the boss had just stared at them, not making a single move. Maybe it was because it was out of mana or that the spell it used to summon the trolls took a toll on it. Maybe it was just looking down on them, abstaining from battle as it might have believed that the players aren't worthy of challenging it if they can't beat it's 3 horsemen. No matter the reason, the fact that it hadn't yet joined the battle made the players feel a little relaxed since things would've become a whole lot harder if it did. But as for how long it would keep its neutral stance, none of them could answer this.

'We don't have much time. We need to find a way to defeat them.'

AN :

[Justice Slash] : Active skill : Attack with a slash that temporary stuns the target for 1 seconds( Level difference affects the success rate and duration of stun) when the target faces the attacker. If stun is successful, damage becomes 180% of user's attack power. If stun isn't successful, damage becomes 160% of user's attack power.

Cool-down : 7 seconds. (Keep in mind that if the attack performed with a skill is a physical attack, attack power becomes [Physical Attack Power]. If it is a spell, it becomes [Magical Attack Power]

[2] Chinese equivalent should be Zhanmadao. A better name would have been a buster sword but I went with the traditional variant.