Epoch: A Berserker's Rise

As the boss was on its knees, it's head was at Adam's level. He activated his Charge skill and rammed his shoulder into the boss' nose, throwing its head to the back.

Then, he activated [Mighty Strike] and [Lunar Smite] at the same time. Unfortunately, he couldn't activate [Wind Blade] because this skill worked more like an enchant on the weapon, so one needed a weapon to use it.

Nonetheless, Adam's fist shone with a white and bluish light as the boss' head recoiled. Adam smirked and punched its throat.

Critical Hit! -700 HP! Freeze!

-92 HP!

-93 HP!

Critical Hit! -280 HP!

The four damages appeared the boss' head as it's outer layer became bluish, and its movements turned sluggish. The group of close combat DPS wanted to continue attacking, but now was the boss' turn to attack. As they were about to unleash their normal attacks, some of the members felt something was wrong and retreated.

Everyone retreated except the young 2Fast4U who stayed behind and attacked once more. He was the youngest of the whole group of survivors, as well as the rashest. He was a powerful assassin for sure, he fought really well, but this time his rashness and lack of patience costed him dearly.

As his blade came in contact with the boss, dealing barely a few tens of damage, bones emerged from the ground in the surrounding five meters. 2Fast4U tried to dodge but it was already too late. Several bone spears pierced though his body.

Several damage values ranging in the hundreds appeared above the Assassin's body, emptying his health bar instantly, meaning he died. This reminded everyone that what was in front of them wasn't a weak common monster, but instead one of the strongest monsters players could fight at this stage of the game.

69420 looked at Holy Lotus and asked "Have you learned the resurrection spell?" Holy Lotus shook her head, meaning that they would have to do without 2Fast4U for now.

Still, even without him they were confidant they could beat the boss. Their earlier assault had put the boss' health at slightly above 5800 Hp, meaning they were at 58% of its health. Of course, as they were below 75% of its health, the boss had his auto regen which gave him 100 HP every five second.

So that meant they had to keep a DPS of at least 25 on the boss to keep it from recovering. This wouldn't be too hard since one arrow from 69420 could do the trick and his firing rate was below 1.

Actually, the damage wouldn't be the problem. What would become problematic though would be their own defense, as the boss had already almost recovered from its crippled state and was trying to stand up.

Seeing him do so, the Elementalists fired many spells on it, while still keeping at least enough MP to defend themselves.

When the boss was able to rise back to its feet, its health had just reached below 50% because the Freeze was slowing it down a lot, although the effect ended by the time it got up. However, the close DPS players had recovered most of their skills, so they could defend against a powerful skill.

It was a trend for bosses to have multiple phases, phases which would be determined by the health bar. Here, passing the 75% meant activating auto regen. There would also be several other checkpoints, being 50%, 25%. Some bosses also had Berserk skills, which would often activate at 10%, but it wasn't mandatory.

Once its health reached below 50%, the Evil Abomination roared once more, but this time not to scare them. Instead, it sounded like… it was in pain?

While the players wondered what was happening to the titan of flesh and bone, the bones on the body of the boss extended and quickly warped the boss inside them. In barely a couple of seconds the bones had formed an armor around its body.

When the armor finished creating itself, the boss roared once again and charged toward the players. Doing their job, the two tanks rushed to the boss and stood in its path. Steel Lungs once again raised her shield against the charging titan, and even activated additional skills on herself.

As for Arin, he took a special looking stance as his gauntlets glowed in yellow, facing the charging boss. Seeing the two tanks in front of it, the boss accelerated and the front of its armor morphed to create spikes.

Be it the dead players on the battlefield or the few remaining alive, they were shocked by what happened. When the boss and the two tanks clashed, the Evil Abomination was stopped in its tracks.

However, both Steel Lungs and Arin were sent flying backwards, stunned and suffering damage in the hundreds. Moreover, apart from being stunned and thus unable to do anything, both suffered from a bleeding effect which took some of their health every second.

The two tanks fell harshly on the ground, losing some more HP, and the boss looked ready to charge at them once again. Adam however yelled at Holy Lotus "Heal them, don't let them die!"

He rushed in front of the Evil Abomination and activated the two skills he had available, [Charge] and [Mighty Strike]. As he came in contact with the boss, although his [Charge] wasn't able to stun it, it allowed him to stop it in place.

Then, using [Mighty Strike] he kicked the side of the boss' knee, making it bend a little and stopping it further. It was only unable to move for an instant, but this was more than enough when dealing with experts.

The close range DPS once again attacked it with as many skills as they could, further damaging its health bar.

However, this time there was one less member, it wasn't the first strike for Dark Elves and the bone armor had upgraded the boss' defense by a lot so it only lost 1500 HP, setting its HP to 3100.

The Boss recovered from its stun and punched toward Adam, but the latter was able to dodge it. Although the bone armor had upgraded the boss' defense by a lot, as well as its strength, it had also lessened its Agility and made it slower.

Thanks to this, Adam was capable of holding its aggro while the other two got out of their stun and were healed. Adam only used his [Charge] and [Mighty Strike] to keep the aggro, but never used his [Lunar Smite] because he didn't want to make damage here, but to defend. [Lunar Smite] was only useful to damage, while the first two could help him negate the boss' skills.

Of course, Adam couldn't have a perfect defense, and so his HP was going down really quickly. By the time the boss reached 25% of its health, Adam only had slightly more than 100 HP remaining even with Holy Lotus support, and the two tanks were back to full health so they switched, and Holy Lotus began healing him, still looking at the two tanks in case they needed heals too.

As the tanks switched the bone armor, which had received multiple cracks from the fighting, finally got destroyed and fell off its body. However, the players didn't see what they expected to see underneath.

Instead of the five meters tall giant they had fought at first, the abomination had now become much slimmer and shorter. It was still three meters tall and bigger than any players, but compared to earlier it looked more humanoid.

It looked at the two tanks and suddenly rushed at them, way faster than before. This didn't surprise them though as they had guessed what happened when they saw the boss. At first, the boss would be normal, then it would get its Strength and defense strengthened, but its Agility would be lesser.

Now, its Strength and defense were probably low, but its Agility was high. Moreover, as it reached the two tanks a pair of bone spears appeared on its fists.

However, both Steel Lungs and Arin were prepared as they used the same tactic they tried with the bone armor state. Steel Lungs had her shield high up and Arin was in his special stance, his hands glowing yellow.

Adam hadn't recognized it at first, but he felt familiar with it. Only now, seeing it once more did he remember where he knew this from. It came from Old Adam, and this was a stance in Tai Chi.