(Arc 2 Complete!) Path of the Last Champion [Sci-Fantasy LitRPG, Party Dynamics, Earned Power]

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

Here she comes! Rel thought, as the ground shook beneath her with every ponderous, rushing leap from the matriarch. They must have caused enough casualties to finally get its attention, and the shaking under her, the rare beast that led these loentus must be huge!

And with a deafening roar, the matriarch burst from the cave, landing outside with a great spray of mud.

"Oh, damn!" Lim whispered at her side.

Oh, damn! Rel thought, her eyes widening.

The matriarch had to be at least 17-feet tall and 60-feet long from wide, massive jaw, to her thick, spike filled and angrily swishing tail. The spikes across her back and down her tail were enormous, with some of them reaching the size and thickness of one of Rel's legs.

The rare beast ground its jaw sideways, covering the battlefield in a deafening grinding, and

all the surviving loentu replied in kind, their fur bristling and standing on edge. And before Rel's stunned eyes, the loentu seemed to double in size, their eyes shining a fearsome mucky-yellow. She had expected the boss' buff, of course, but it was still astounding to witness it in action.

"Calculating estimated HP from dimensions… 87,000!" Calli announced into the chat.

What? And that thing's just on the lower end of low-rare? Rel thought.

"Rel! Whenever you're ready!" Kur said.

"On it!"

At last, an occasion arrived that finally called for it. She shot the arrow already knotted on her bow, but the next one she pulled from her inventory was different. It was longer, and its head wider and thicker, and within it was one of the lilac shimmering concoctions that she had brewed.

Alright… Let's see how good you girls are, she thought.

Cycling her bloody, penitent aura into her arrow in the form of her [Arrow of Penitence], she aimed at the rare matriarch, who was too busy usually slamming against Tun's golden aura, tower shields with her huge claws.

Be careful Rel, don't want to shoot someone with poison and a nigh incurable [Bleeding], she thought to herself.

She released her arrow, and a few split-moments later, she allowed herself to breathe when her arrow embedded itself into the matriarch's flank. The beast let out an eardrum shattering roar of surprise, and to Rel's utter shock she saw the icons for [Befuddlement] and [Bleeding] appearing in her UI, above the boss head.

Did that just work? On the first try? She gaped in disbelief as the matriarch whined and pawed at the ground, snapping and growling in confusion at her own pack and the delvers in equal measure.

"Holy Crystal! Great job, Rel!" Kur shouted. "Quick, everyone, focus on the beasts remaining! Tun, keep that thing on you! Gad, send the aggro towards Leon! Leon, hold off on skills!"

Rel allowed herself a grin of pride as she watched her handiwork. Martyr be praised.

Tuk was second to none in multi-target ranged, Jaz was crazy good with his prankster path, sowing chaos and confusion across the field in bright pops of color, shapes and loud, jarring sounds, and Lim was just a good all-rounder with his gun, though he was leaning towards longer ranges. But her? She was a boss killer.

It was slow, yes, but her status effects made it inevitable, especially the insanely severe [Bleeding] status effect inflicted by her [Arrow of Penitence]. No beasts below epic level would ever be able to purify themselves, and even those were incredibly rare, and in a dungeon like this there were no monsters with healing classes, thus once she got her arrows onto an enemy, it was basically a death sentence for them. They just had to hold on long enough.

Well, I had to have something in my favor, she muttered to herself. Afterall, on the flipside, having a dungeon filled with beasts invalidated all of her guilt and punishment-based curses from her [Weight of the Past].

"Keep shooting, Rel," Calli said. "Even [Bleeding], with that much HP covering her, she will barely feel it."

"Really?" Rel asked.

"Really," Calli said. "It didn't even move that HP bar. We're going to need a lot more than that… So keep shooting and stack up that effect!"

"On it!"

Damn, she thought to herself. Maybe she had been a little hasty in her celebration, and as if to further mock her, the matriarch shrugged off her [Befuddlement] and pounced upon Tun again with a roar.

Other, buffed loentu also pressed against Tun, ignoring Gad's [Pull of the River] and for a moment, Rel feared that the stalwart Tun had finally reached his limits under that combined, and sudden assault. She glanced past Tun, to Gad, who stood behind the frontline, heavy tank, and Rel noticed with a wince that she was hunched forward, and likely panting from the exertion underneath her helm.

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Hang in there, Gad. We're all improving as we go, Rel thought, as she readied another poisoned arrow and took aim at the rare again.

"Nar, Eum, get ready to go down there," Kur said. "I'm starting to see what it means to face a rare beast."

Rel could only nod in agreement as she tracked the creature's fast movements. For its size, it was incredibly nimble and fast, and Rel almost had the suspicion that the beast was moving like that in order to make it harder for Rel to hit her again.

Meanwhile, while Gad had managed three of the loentu attacking Tun towards Viy and Mul, two of the males were still working in tandem with the matriarch to down that defense line.

We thought big beasts before, and he didn't struggle that much, Rel thought. The attribute density in the ranks is really something.

She released another bloody, poisoned arrow, and while it did meet its mark, this time there was no [Befuddlement].

"Damn it!" she muttered under her breath.

"Just keep going," Calli encouraged her. "Some of them will trigger, and the more poison is in her blood, the more likely it will be for it to trigger and stick!"

"Got it!"

"Nar, Eum, go!" Kur commanded.

"No! Stop!" Jul cried from below.

"What?" Kur asked, confused at Jul's sudden cry. "Why?"

"You have to stay there! If you come down here, something really bad is going to happen," she said. "Everyone up there is going to die!"

There was long silence in the chat, and for a moment all that Rel heard was the intense fighting from below, the growling, the dying, the booming slams of that matriarch's paws and tail upon Tun's shield.

"What do you mean?" Calli asked.

"Wait, are you sure?" Kur asked.

"Yes! They have to stay up there!" Jul said.

Rel eyed the buckling line of melee below. Even Leon was struggling now, unable to use his skills with the auramancers surrounding him, and the beasts looked poised to break through.

"Okay… Okay," Kur said. "Nar and Eum, stay here."

"What?" Calli asked.

Rel glanced towards the aethermancer strategist, and she saw how Row reached out a hand to grab Calli's elbow, and pulled the aethermancer in close to have a hurried conversation in her ear.

"As for the people below, split up into two and make some distance between both frontline tanks!" Kur ordered without hesitation. "Leon, to your right and use your own taunts with Mach! Tun, get that matriarch farther to your left side and hold alone for now! Gad, switch to hands-on tanking, and melee auramancers gather around her! I want the bulk of the loentu focused on you Gad, with all the auramancers around you creating a meat grinder to down these ads ASAP!"

There was a chorus of yeses and the mud and blood-soaked battlefield shifted below, and Rel watched as the pre-assigned teams split from one another, aether and aura separated, and the unified frontline was split into three.

Leon taunted beasts to himself one after the other, with very dim streaks of gold flashing out from him non-stop, latching onto the beasts and dragging them towards his armored figure. Even caked in mud, blood and guts, he still cut an imposing figure on the battlefield, and at his side, Mach's vortex and static sowed chaos amongst the taunted beasts.

In the middle, Kur's aptly called meat grinder was taking shape, with all of the melee auramancer DPS gathered around Gad and fighting in a frenzy to match the beasts. And to the side, Tun looked unbeatable as it kept the large beast at bay.

But Kur wasn't finished yet.

"Medis, help Leon and Mach! Rel, keep hitting the matriarch! Jaz, join her and help distract that thing!" Kur commanded. "Lim and Cen, you hit the middle from behind. And Cor, keep concentrating on that [Gathering Tide]! Your skill is buffing us all now! And Tuk, you keep the casters covered!"

And just like that, Kur had turned if not the tide, at least balanced things out between the two sides.

Rel checked her clock as she notched another poison filled arrow.

Oh, wow! It's already been fifteen minutes! Another fifteen and we'll be able to use Cor's skill if we have to, she realized. But can we use it in this tight mess? Crystal. This might actually be a lot harder than we thought.

**********

Nar eyed the dark jungle from which they had crept their way through, ignoring the frenzied battle unfurling at his back.

He held his sword relaxed at his side, and pointed at the ground as he scanned every glowing frond, every shining ivy, and tried to penetrate through the dense, neck high and glowing red strands that they sneak through. The blade was bright with aura and ready to go at the first sign of danger.

"I can't hear anything," Eum said, standing at his side. "And the fight doesn't sound like it's going that good for them…"

Nar gave him a nod.

"I know how it looks, but we have to stay," he told the tygaris, his tone soft but unwavering. "Every time we ignored Jul's warnings in the past, we always almost died for it. She knows these things. We don't know why or how, but she does."

"I see…" Eum said, and he spoke no more as he scanned the dense, glowing vegetation wall before them.

And Nar's [Instinct] screamed as claws punctured through his armor and chest, lifting up in the air and… He snapped his head to the right with a gasp.

"Shit," Eum muttered. "You felt something didn't you?"

Nar nodded.

"This… Is not good," Nar allowed himself to say.

That [Instinct] warning had been as screeching as they came, and it had been a full-on death cry for him. Whatever was hiding in those bushes, it was seriously bad, bad news.

And I doubt it's just an everyday uncommon, Nar thought. Damn. Did we come too deep and South too soon?

"Kur, there's something behind us, and it's not good," Nar said. "I felt a death warning just there."

Kur swore. "It must have heard us fighting. Probably thought it had a chance at catching us by surprise and taking one or two of us."

Nar clenched his jaw at his party leader's words. He could definitely picture that.

"Any idea what it is?" Calli asked.

"No. But I was thinking of forcing it out… Or hopefully away," Nar said.

"Do it," Kur said. "Lim, to swap to focusing behind us."

"On it," Lim said.

"Crystal… This place is wild," Tuk said, his voice tinged with nervousness.

"Get ready," Nar whispered to Eum.

"I'm always ready," the tygaris said.

Snorting despite the seriousness of their situation, Nar readied a quick [Aura Blade], and

without preamble, he flung it at the tree line, allowing it to expand to its full, razor thing edge...

And something black and enormous shifted in the underbrush.

"Well, that's definitely something," Lim muttered.

Nar craned his neck up as the beast took measured steps to emerge from its hiding, and it soon towered above them, malevolent red eyes glowing down at its upcoming meal.

Nar tried and failed to keep his expression neutral.

"Oh, Great Tygars, Lord of the Hunt and Honorable Combat. Today, we shall honor You and all the Great Spirits of Your Pack greatly," Eum whispered.

Fucking Crystal, Nar thought. I don't like the sound of that.