The Nereids Of Njord (IV): Boss Ocean Wraith

The wraiths released a synchronized roar that made me and everyone else feel week in the knees. Whatever the heck this bloody things were, they were far above our pay grade, but as powerful as they looked, I had already come up with a couple of different ways to beat them.

"Raven Song, I need them off this ship, can you do that?" I asked him as I unfurled my wings and took to the air.

"I can try!" He yelled at me.

"Don't try, do it! Qitar charge the pulse cannon and get ready to fire at my command! Darke as soon as Raven Song gets them off the ship, you need to make a U-turn, get enough distance so that the discharge from the cannon does not affect the ship. The rest of you hang on and avoid drawing their attention."

As soon as I finished giving out my orders, Raven song ran forwards towards the seven ocean wraiths that had conveniently lined themselves up for him in one straight line. It was almost as if we were seeing the mirror image of one particular monster. Raven song slammed his massive shield on the deck again as he called out loud.

"Mountain Bastion: Earth Pulse!"

The golden silhouette of a mountain showed up above his head, large and imposing with a sense of reality that seemed to belong to the element of earth itself. This skill he used was similar to my [wind school: lightening coat] skill, it could be said to be a subskill of a particular school of magic, however in his case, it would be a school of defensive martial techniques.

The skill stopped the wraiths from advancing before it's secondary function was activated and the wraiths were pushed back five meters every three seconds by the pulse of energy that was being released from the magical projection of the mountain above Raven's head. Based on the surprise on his face, it seems the skill worked a whole lot better than we all imagined.

The ship began to move, turning sideways as Darke turned it around, taking every advantage of the ships engine to move so rapidly that our speed was not any different from that of a speed boat, even though we were more than ten times larger. Qitar's bionic arm began to glow at the joints as Jon pulse cannon stated charging, but it did not seem like we would make it in time as Raven Song's skill deactivated after thirty seconds.

The ocean wraiths were already a distance away from the ship, but based on their speed, they would already be on top of us before we have the chance to completely turn the ship around and face them. Raven song was catching his breath as it looked like the skill he used had taken a lot out of him, which means until he was back in peak shape and that skill was out of it's cool down, there was nothing he could do to help us, which means it was up to me, and I had just the thing.

I pulled back on Sky's strings, taking a deep breath as I felt her drain a colossal amount of management from me to power our next skill. Her form shook a bit as it seems this entire fight had had been excited her beyond normal, but her excitement was not the problem right now, it was the rapidly approaching team of boss monsters we had to beat the shit out of.

[Meteor Shower!]

The sky above the monsters seemed to light up as tiny pinpricks of light appeared hanging still in the air for only a second, and then they fell like falling stars from the sky. The meteor shower skill was a freaking cheat skill that could be used every three minutes for a low MP cost. Every arrow carried 200% of my total damage value, and even with this dungeon placing restrictions on us, that damage was still a lot.

*Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!*

"Screeeeeeeecccccchhhhhh!"

*Splash! Splash! Splash!*

The wraiths were screaming in rage and anger as they took damage loosing almost thirty percent of their health. To be honest even I was surprised by the amount of damage I was dishing out, but I guess that's to be expected. I was decked head to toe in not just gear that improved my damage and defense, but also titles. As it stands my armor alone had a sure hit skill that could kill all of this wraiths in one hit, but as I've already used the trump card of the Sea sword, I rather keep the trump card of my dragon armor a secret.

The barrage from the [Meteor shower] skill had lasted for five seconds, and then it took the ocean wraiths another ten seconds to reorient themselves and press on with their attack. But at this point, that was enough time for Darke to have the ship make a complete 360 turn, with enough distance to spear for Qitar to fire the Iron pulse cannon. And she did not stand on ceremony, she just went ahead and fired.

*Voooop! BOOoooOoooM!"

The shot from the cannon was so intense most of the circular walls that made up this section of the labyrinth was blown to nothing, creating a straight path for us. The ocean wraiths were buried under the light of the intense beam from the pukes cannon for over 15 seconds, but even then I still didn't receive a system alert that the bosses has been slayed.

When the light finally faded, what was standing in front of us was a single ocean wraith, but this one had legs, and he was taller, like 60 feet tall and about 7 to 10 meters wide. He was covered head to toe in really bad injuries and he was pointing a trident at us. And that was when for the first a monster in the dungeon spoke.

"Water Orb: barrage!"

Numerous orbs made of water rose up out of the unsettled canal below us that was still reeling from the shock of the cannon's fire, just like we were. But it doesn't look like this...combined form of the ocean wraiths even cared about what just happened except for the fact that we tried to kill him, and now he was after revenge.

[Dungeon Nereid: Boss: Chief Ocean Wraith/ Grade: Earth/ Hidden Grade: Spirit/ Level: 70]

[HP: 10,000/110,000]

The orbs flew with speeds akin to a bullet as they slammed into the ship, creating massive dents the size of basket balls. But the person even more unlucky than the ship was me, I was still in the air when four of those water orbs slammed into my chest, stomach and head one after the other. Safe to say I couldn't remain flying for long as my vision went dark for a moment and I fell from the air.

Thankfully I was able to get back to myself before I fell into the canal, but our troubles did not seem to be at an end as the boss slammed his trident on the water, instantly a jet of water flew towards us, almost as if something was moving underneath the water. Whatever spell the boss used, slammed into the ship and raised the front part of it up, the ship went so high it almost tipped over. This was a dangerous situation, so I pulled back on Sky's strings and used [Meteor shower] again.

But this was not the ordinary bosses from past RPG games, this bloody thing has a consciousness, a very advanced AI capable of learning and adapting to a fight. Which means it remembered the amount of damage [Meteor shower] caused when it was used. Just like the shaman that summoned it, the boss created some sort of watery force field around himself that slowed and stopped all of the arrows from touching him.

It seems long ranged attacks are out of the question for me, and considering that the boss can also use long ranged attacks, it stands to reason that even though he was a giant his close combat capabilities should not be too great (hopefully). I looked down and saw that Raven song and the rest were barely hanging on, with the ship almost tipping over and slamming back down to the water, the movements would have caused a variety of injuries, heck even Zack had passed out.

Raven song did not look to be in any position to use his mountain Bastion skill, so for the next three to five minutes, it was entirely up to me to buy them time so that they can rejoin this fight. But with the half my MP and HP gone, whatever I had to do next, has deal a decisive blow to the boss.

[Wind Dance!] [Wind School: Lightning Coat] [Lightning Blade] [Stealth]

Wind dance increased my attack and movement speed by 300% for a few seconds, the lightening coat increased my defense, speed and attack power by a small margin, but it mainly offered my protection against magical attacks, and the lightening blade had to be used in tandem with a sword, so I hung sky on my waist, and drew Thalasio Spathi from my back. The problem was that all these skills were too eye catching, which is to say that the boss would see me coming.

Now I don't know if it's supposed to work this way, but after activating all these skills and going into Stealth, they also vanished along with me, giving me just a minute to launch an attack against the boss before stealth runs out. I shot towards the boss at my highest speed, flapping my wings so hard that I left a sonic boom behind me. I could feel my wings creaking and protesting at the strain I was putting them under, they were strong, but not yet strong enough to withstand prolonged flight or overly complex maneuvers.

Due to the speed I had used, I was able to bypass the shield around the boss, and landed a slash on his body. But one was not enough for me, as I flew around him landing one strike after another, and yet for some reason the boss refused to fight back. It was screaming in pain and anger, but it just stood there with it's body, almost as if it was paralyzed.

But I wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth as I kept attacking, chipping away at it's health points until it was in the hundreds. And with the defense of this boss, which I'm sure was not that small, it only took me about a dozen hits to get to this point. But by then stealth had run it's course, but the surprises were not over yet. A layer of frost started to spread from the toes of the boss, expanding slowly as it's translucent blue giant body was slowly turned into a massive ice sculpture. I was so shocked by the turn of events that I almost lost control of my flight skill.

I returned to the deck where everyone was finally beginning to get to their feet and took a long hard look at the sword in my hand. With all the excitement, I had forgotten that the sword in my hand was a legendary weapon, if you block a strike from Thalasio Spathi for too long, the cold would penetrate your body and paralyze you. But If that can happen to those who just blocks a strike, then what happens to someone or something that's been cut by it multiple times...I guess we now have our answer.

"Qitar aim all guns at the ice sculpture and blow it all to hell!" I ordered Qitar as I made my way towards the still unconscious Zack.

The sound of the ships turrets turning and firing at the boss was accompanied by the sounds of a system alert.

[You have slain Dungeon Nereid: Boss: Chief Ocean Wraith. All rewards would be deferred until dungeon is completed, or you leave.]

I couldn't help the sigh if relief that came out of my mouth. This fight was somewhat easy, but that was probably due to the fact that the monsters we've fought up till now were not really active, the only difference was the boss, and even then it gave us too many chances to actually react and come up with a plan to beat it. I doubt other dungeons would be as easy as this, plus to be honest the fucking boss was more than twice my level, on a normal day I wouldn't even be able to put a scratch on it. I'm just really lucky I have all the equipment that I do, my armor, sword and sky herself are total life savers.

But after this fight we now had one very big problem….the ship was trashed.