Chapter 609 Cardinal of Sin
Looking at the boss with a slight frown, Shiro turned to the party.
"Welp as you can see, the f*cker did not die. Lyrica, care to give out a few orders?"
"Sure. Madi, you know the drill. Secure aggro while we just attack it for now. Hold off on the buffs and debuffs until you know its core skill set. Thankfully, it's still on 15% health, even though it's a hidden boss so it shouldn't be too bad. As for you Shiro, you can attack it too." Lyrica nodded her head.
"Oh? What if I properly one shot it this time?" Shiro raised her eyebrows.
"Just hold back a lot then." Lyrica chuckled as the part dashed towards the boss.
Jumping into the air, Madison activated her avatar and slammed the shield against the boss' body.
Surprisingly, the boss did not budge a single step.
"Oh my." Muttering in surprise, Madison made eye contact with the boss before smiling.
"Enhance!"
Suddenly, a golden aura erupted out of her as she overpowered the boss in an instant.
Pushing him back by a few steps, she slammed him against the wall.
"Ug!" Groaning softly, the Judge raised his hammer into the air.
However, before he could slam it down, ice chains appeared from around the room, pinning his limbs against the wall.
"Personally, I'm not a fan of BDSM but just for you boss, I'll make an exception." Shiro said with a wink as she raised her hand into the air.
Mana surged around her as an illusionary sword appeared above her.
Without saying another word, pointed towards the boss and sent the sword towards his chest.
*PUSHII!!!!
Stabbing deep into his body, blood poured out of his wounds but it wasn't enough to pin the boss to the wall.
"Madi! Give it an extra push!" Shiro called out as Madison nodded her head.
Grabbing the handle of the sword, she pushed it as hard as she could.
*BANG!!!
Hearing the crack of the walls, the party smiled in satisfaction and prepared their next set of spells.
However, just as they were about to fire it, they watched as the blood started to flow back into his body. It was as if someone had just pressed the reverse button on time.
Hearing a faint growl from the boss, they felt a sudden increase to killing intent. Flexing his body, he shattered the ice chains and pushed Madison back by a few steps.
"The hell!?" Madison called out in surprise as she quickly stabilised herself.
"I'm guessing it's a berserk skill or something. His HP regenerated to 30% as well." Shiro replied with a frown.
Snapping her fingers, nanobots surged around her as mounted cannons appeared around the room.
Designating the boss as the target, she narrowed her eyes.
"Fire!"
Firing on her command, several beams of light could be seen, searing into the boss' body.
"URAHHH!!!!" Crying out in rage, the boss raised his hammer to block the cannons.
After a short barrage, the boss was barely standing on his feet as the walls surrounding him had long been decimated.
"I thought you were going to hold back a lot?" Lyrica asked with a twitching smile.
"I did though." Shiro replied with an embarrassed expression since she didn't expect a short barrage to deal this much damage. She didn't even enhance it with any skills either.
But before they could celebrate, the boss' killing intent surged once more as his wounds healed up.
"The f*ck." Shiro muttered as she watched all the damage she inflicted onto the boss heal up in an instant.
{Now you kind of understand what your enemies feel like. With you having so many healing skills, I'll be surprised if they actually managed to wound you properly.} Nimue chuckled.
'True. I would be annoyed fighting myself too. Especially with me aiming for my own ass.' Shiro agreed. She could still remember when she had to fight a copy of herself and man was that not fun.
Repeating the same process a few times, the party eventually understood that the more damage they did to the boss in one go, the more he was going to regenerate. Therefore, the best option was actually damage over time where they chip his health down little by little.
In a strange sense, this was actually a difficult boss for Shiro since she needed to control her strength so that it didn't damage the boss too much. If it did, it would regenerate more health than expected.
Eventually, they managed to defeat the boss through whittling his health down little by little.
Sitting on the floor of the boss room, Shiro looked up at the ceiling and sighed.
"God damn it, this boss was such a pain." She complained.
"Tell me about it. Normally people would be annoyed that their firepower wasn't enough but in our case, we were annoyed that we had too much firepower." Lyrica nodded her head.
The loot wasn't too impressive either as the boss only dropped a hammer and some materials. It didn't even drop decent armour. If anything, the EXP they granted the party was pretty good so Shiro didn't mind. After all, everyone apart from her and Lisandra managed to gain 3 levels from that single fight.
"Since we're all tired, why don't we set up camp for the night and rest up so that we can deal with the final boss tomorrow." Silvia suggested as the party agreed.
After all, they were quite tired after going through a mental trial and a boss that forced them to control their strength. Some rest would be greatly appreciated.
"I'll set up some defensive measures then. I wouldn't want a boss to kill us in our sleep now." Shiro forced herself up on her feet.
After setting up the defensive formations, the party had some rations before preparing for bed.
While the party was resting for the night, the final boss of the raid said on his throne with a frown.
'They should be here by now… Where are they? The judge is dead so it should be me who's next.' He wondered to himself.
###
Waking up in the morning, the party started to make their way out of the judge's room.
"The next boss is the final one and he's called the Cardinal of Sin. To put him in a nutshell, he hits hard, tanks a lot of damage and debuffs you depending on how much damage you do to him. The more damage you do to him, the more debuffs you acquire. After a certain amount, they will merge and the boss will receive a huge bonus." Lyrica explained.
"Sounds annoying." Shiro raised her eyebrow.
"It is annoying. That's just his passive too. His actives are more annoying than his passive as there will be certain moments where he can drag you to a different dimension and duel you 1v1. If anyone dies in the duel, he gains a 10% increase to his overall stats. Normally, he will target the weakest member in the party but there are times when he will target the strongest one instead. When he does that, he'll activate his second active which allows him to ignore a large chunk of damage you do to him. This duel normally lasts for around 30 seconds to a minute."
"Hou…" Listening to the explanation, Shiro couldn't help but wonder if he decides who to duel depending on how many stacks of the debuff they have.
After all, the more damage you do, the more debuffs you receive. Meaning, the one with the highest stack is probably the strongest while those without any stacks such as the healer, are the weakest members.
Leaving the room where they fought the Judge, the party saw a staircase towards an open stage of sorts. On top of the stage, they could see several large towers pointing towards the sky.
Walking up the stairs, they eventually saw the throne with an armoured man currently resting with his eyes closed.
Seeing the rhythmic movement of his chest, Shiro couldn't help but force a smile.
"Is… is he asleep?" She asked hesitantly as this was a rather weird scenario.
"I think so?" Lyrica furrowed her brows with confusion.
"Should we hit him while he's sleeping?" Madison asked as her shield was ready.
". . .Yes. Let's see how much damage we can cause on him while he's sleeping." Shiro grinned.
Erecting several pillars to camouflage their mana signals, Shiro had the party prepare their best spells.
Once the preparation was done, she waited for the perfect moment before dropping the barrier.
"Wake up!" She called out with a grin as a barrage of tier 4 and 5 spells launched towards the boss.
"HAHA! Fool! I had a barrier set up all alo- !!!" Before the boss could rejoice, his eyes widened when the barrier that he had prepared was suddenly shattered to pieces as his body was bombarded with their spells.