44 Challenging a Nightmare

"That means we can try Nightmare difficulty right," Emile said boldly.

"What!?! Are you insane! You want to try Nightmare difficulty!" Time Walker freaked out over his proposition.

"There won't be any players there. They're all trying out easy or normal mode. We should try out Nightmare mode. If we fail twice, we can do normal mode." Emile tried to persuade them with his words.

"If we never try, then how are we going to beat all the guilds," Emile continued.

"This will also give us fame. Didn't you guys want to be famous?" He continued.

His words were persuasive. It couldn't be denied.

Before these words, they were looking for excuses to not try it out. They didn't want to try something they thought was impossible.

Emile's word had persuaded them to have an open mind and try out new things. Having this mindset was superb since these sorts of people gain the most and lose the least. They would pick themselves up from a loss and continue moving.

"Fine, let's go," Time Walker changed his opinion.

The others agreed to try Nightmare difficulty. They were a bit reluctant at first. They changed their mindsets after people started agreeing one by one.

They entered the entrance stating the Nightmare difficulty.

[Riverbed Dungeon]

[A dungeon on the riverbed. It crawls with monsters and bosses. Move with caution.]

[Nightmare Difficulty]

[All monsters are 100% stronger]

Every monster was twice as strong.

They walked with slow steps. The river seemed calm, but they knew it was crawling with Fishman. Since the monsters were stronger than before they wanted to use safer strategies that involved getting hit less.

A Fishman leaped out of the water towards the group. Its speed was on the levels of insane. It was much faster than the boss which they battled on the Easy mode.

Emile identified the stats before sharing it with the group.

Fishman {Buffed}

Normal Monster

Level 10

Hp: 840/840

Atk: 106-130

MAtk: 64-86

Agility: 64

High Agility and average in everything else

Weakness: Electricity/Lightning

They almost lost all hope after seeing the state of the mob. They couldn't think too much about it since the mob was coming towards them. Emile shot out a fireball at the mob.

The mob dodged the attack. It was moving too quickly to aim at it.

Emile had to predict the movements of the mob if he wanted to hit it. Predicting wasn't something out of Emile's league.

He predicted a few shots, and it hit the Fishman.

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It didn't deal as much damage as Emile would have hoped.

The Fishman nearly attacked Handsomest Crab when a mud wall appeared in front. This blocked the monster's path.

Emile shot a Yin-Yang Blast at the mob. Turning around required any creature to stop their speed and speed up in a different direction.

This created a brief frame where the mob stood still.

Emile controlled his Yin-Yang Blast during this turning period which caused the mob to get hit by it.

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The monster took a decent amount of damage but it wasn't enough.

Emile ran forward and attacked using his swords.

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His sword did more damage than Yin-Yang Blast. The skill only did high damage when it was based on his attack stat. Magic Infusion V2 allowed Yin-Yang Blast to deal loads of damage.

The skill was being held back by his proficiency, his Intelligence, and his Spirit stat. These stats caused the skill to deal less damage than normal.

Fireball and Water Sphere each dealt damage in the 90's due to his proficiency being high. Yin-Yang Blast didn't have a special buff to it. It did as the skill stated. 150% of fireball and water sphere.

The mob wasn't dead yet. It attacked Emile. Emile evaded the attacks without a problem.

Emile attacked a few more times which each dealt with around 150 damage. The Fishman died.

"We were useless during that fight. The enemy had higher agility than me. We need to stall the enemy somehow." The Handsomest Crab said.

"I have a piece of equipment which slows down the enemy. It's only for 15 minutes though." Flowing Dream said.

"That should give us time during the boss," Emile said.

"I can create Mud Walls which can block the boss," Flower Queen spoke.

"I think we can do this," Emile said.

"Let's practice against the Fishman that pop up. Our teamwork will improve if we continue to kill the mobs." Emile continued.

They continued to walk down the riverbed. More Fishman jumped out.

Emile took the job to slow down the mobs. He would attack the mobs while evading. His teammates would attack from the left or to the right. If the mob tried to attack someone else Flower Queen would summon a mud wall blocking the enemy.

This made their time a lot easier since they didn't have to worry too much about defending or dodging.

They killed the Fishman one by one. They didn't dare aggro over one mob.

Killing all the Fishman allowed them to all be at least level 8. Emile was the only player at level 9.

Other players had also reached level 8 from the story quests or completing the dungeon multiple times.

They saw the boss in the distance like the previous time. Fishman's surrounded the boss. There were much more than the first time. This would take much longer than the previous time.

Emile lured the mobs since he had a higher skill level than Time Walker.

While moving through the dungeon Emile tested out the distance the Fishman could hear or see. It was 15 meters around them. Emile looked for the best spot to launch a fireball.

After circling around the group of mobs, they didn't notice a single blind-spot. They would always lure at least 3 Fishman with his fireballs.

Emile told his party this information. They agreed to try out three Fishman. Emile fired his fireball in the correct direction and angle.

He had lured three Fishman. They followed him. Emile's agility was higher than theirs which caused him to have an easy time when running away.

Flower Queen summoned Mud Walls to block the path of two of the Fishman. She had them completed trapped.

She summoned three more walls around them which cause it to trap them.

Emile hadn't thought of this usage of Mud Wall. They killed each Fishman alone.

They continued to kill out the Fishman. At some point, Flower Queen ran out of mana which caused her mud walls to disappear. This released three Fishman at the group.

This was a slight problem which got fixed after a few moments. Emile used a few fireballs to knock back the two Fishman.

They dealt with one of the Fishman during this time. Emile shot out a few more Fireballs to distract one of the Fishman.

His group had to kill the Fishman swiftly. If they didn't, then two Fishman would attack them at once which would cause a party wipeout.

Emile also attacked the Fishman while shotting out Fireballs to slow down the Fishman.

They killed the first Fishman before the second Fishman caught up. They were back to having an easy time.

After killing the Fishman, they didn't blame Flower Queen for her mistake.

"I didn't check my stats to see how much mana I had left. I was concentrating on maintaining the spell," She said while having her head down.

"It's all right. Everyone makes mistakes." Emile blurted out after listening to her.

"Yeah, we don't blame you. We made dumber mistakes than you," Handsomest Crab said.

"Don't group me up with you. You made the dumb mistakes. I just followed you," Flowing Dream spoke. His words caused the party to laugh together.

After this short intermission, they sat down near a tree and rested. They healed up their health and mana up to full.

There were only a few Fishman left. They killed off the Fishman before taking another break. This was the last break before they had to fight the boss.

They wanted to be at their peak. All of their cooldowns were reset at this point.

During this rest, Emile looked around the map to see if there were any other players. There weren't. No one wanted to try out a Nightmare Difficulty dungeon without a guaranteed success.

After making sure that there were no players, Emile continued resting with his party.