Spiteful Healer

Chapter 107: Odin's Challenge Pt. 2

Aegis took position at the front, standing closest to the door, while Pyri and Darkshot moved to stand behind him, and Lina and Rakkan flanked his left and right respectively.

After several more loud stomps, a pair of large familiar white horns protruded out of the darkness of the doorway, and a second later, the Minotaur became visible. Identical to the one they’d seen the party fighting when they had first entered the coliseum, it let out a ferocious roar as it brandished its double-sided battle axe and stomped towards them.

Aegis quickly did the rounds and blessed everyone’s weapons, including himself as they prepared for it to arrive.

“Aura of Beauty!” Aegis shouted. A burst of light erupted around him, though significantly weaker than the one that Sapphire had released back in Arallia. “The range is kinda short, it's just level 1, so try to stay close.” Aegis explained, and Lina and Rakkan both nodded.

He took a fighting stance, positioning his legs to properly brace the strong attack to come as he watched the Minotaur get close enough to pull its axe back over its shoulder with one arm, then swing it down towards Aegis. Aegis held his shield up and braced the hit, easily timing the brace due to the slow movement of the axe. The rounded front of the shield did work to deflect to the sharp blade off the side of the shield and cause it to slash into the floor of the arena next to Aegis, cutting into the tiles and sending up chunks of rock and dirt.

You take 614 Slashing damage.

“Healing wind!” Aegis shouted as he touched his chest with his right hand, then lunged forward beside the handle of the axe towards the Minotaur’s legs and slammed his shield into the shin of the Minotaur’s left foot.

You deal 393 Bludgeoning/Holy damage.

It was less damage than what he'd done against the goblins, meaning the Minotaur had a higher armor rating, but not by too significant of a margin. The impact released a flash of holy light thanks to Aegis’ holy enchant, and there was something satisfying about finally being able to hit back at monsters that were beating on him. As Aegis landed the strike he watched as Lina and Rakkan moved in on the [Boss]. Lina teleported underneath it with shadowstep and started slashing at the back of its left leg, while Rakkan got to work on the right leg with his echo.

Several arrows and a cinderbolt flew overtop of Aegis and impacted the Minotaur on its head, Aegis noting that Darkshot seemed to be much better at aiming now. But the Minotaur had no intention of just standing in place and taking a beating. It jumped up into the air and slammed its hooves down, shaking the ground of the arena around them and sending out a rippling shockwave of earthen spikes that grew outward from the center of where the hooves had landed, cracking and shattering the tiles around it. Aegis, Lina and Rakkan were quick, though. The moment they’d seen the Minotaur take into the air, all three of them dashed backwards to avoid the strike.

The Minotaur followed it up with a wide cleaving swing that covered an angle of 300 degrees around it. Lina shadow stepped back underneath the Minotaur to avoid the swing while Rakkan dashed to its blindspot behind it where it was safe, and Aegis put up his shield to block the strike.

You take 591 Slashing damage.

“Heal!” Aegis shouted, beginning the cast on himself once he’d regained his composure. The strikes were hurting his shield arm while he blocked, but it was nowhere near as bad as bludgeoning damage. Just as he’d finished casting, he noted that his heal restored 1000 health, but cost more mana than it had before, and realized he hadn’t checked how his spells had changed when he got them to intermediate. He wasn’t quite sure if this was more efficient, or less efficient than before, but his mana regeneration had also improved due to his Vestments of Eirene gaining mana regeneration based on his favor, and since he’d built the Monastery of the Stars, he’d gotten a lot more.

Still, his first thought after seeing the heal changes was that he needed to be careful with mana, he didn’t know how long this fight would go on for. With that in mind, he watched as the Minotaur began to take interest in Darkshot and Pyri who were dealing sustained damage. Just as the Minotaur looked to plan on stomping past Aegis, he leapt up with his shield and slammed it into the Minotaur’s chest as hard as he could to deal more damage, and get the attention back on himself.

Lina and Rakkan moved back in and got a bunch more strikes in on back of the Minotaur’s legs, but it suddenly leapt backwards and dropped down on all fours, pointing it’s horns forward, and with little time to react, it started charging like a bull with all of Aegis’ party members lined up in front of its large form.

“Shadowstep!” Lina shouted as she threw her cloak up, managing to teleport into the shadows of the nearest of the four pillars in the arena. But Aegis and Rakkan weren’t so nimble. Rakkan held his weapons up to try and parry and lessen the damage as the Minotaur charged into him, using his echo to stand in front and take the bulk of the damage. It worked somewhat but both of them got hit, and Rakkan's echo shattered like broken glass before disappearing whilst knocking him back off his feet into the ground a ways away. Then, the boss reached Aegis. It curved its head so that the point of one of his horns would collide with Aegis directly.

Aegis held his shield up to block the blow, and the horn curved around the shield so that the side of the horn was the primary force behind the impact. Doing his best to brace it, his shield mastery unfortunately was this time not enough to keep him on his feet, and he was sent flying. The Minotaur’s charge didn’t stop there, it kept going and, despite Pyri and Darkshot trying to dash out of the way, they both got hit as well. The Minotaur made it all the way to the opposite side of the arena before it stopped its charge, giving Aegis and his party time to recover.

“Everyone okay? Come to me, let’s heal quickly!” Aegis shouted as Darkshot, Pyri and Rakkan got back to their feet as quickly as they could. Aegis saw they’d all dropped to half health from taking the hit, Pyri even lower. “Healing wind.” He quickly cast on them all, save for Lina who was still healthy. “This thing is tough, my mana regeneration is high but I'll run out if we take anymore hits like that."

“Betcha wish you had a scepter, eh?” Darkshot winked.

“Nope.” Aegis replied without hesitation, pulling a direwolf steak out from his inventory and biting it for no reason while staring at Darkshot. “The charge attack is telegraphed by the leap backwards, so whenever he does that, everyone moves. And lets spread out more so he can’t hit us all with a single charge.” Aegis said to the others and they all nodded as the Minotaur turned and started stomping back towards them, spinning its large axe around in its hands and letting out another loud roar.

Once in range it pulled back its bulky arm and swung the Axe down on Aegis once more, and this time Aegis thought to sidestep the strike, moving out of the way and letting the Axe’s blade to cut into the ground - he’d regretted doing this immediately after.

The effects of the axe impacting the ground rather than deflecting off of his shield first meant that earthen spikes began to explode outwards from the point of impact in a rippling wave, causing it to almost hit Rakkan as he was moving in to attack the Minotaur, and in turn hitting Aegis.

You take 760 Nature damage. Skill learned: Nature Resistance!

It hurt bad. It felt as though the rocky spikes that had exploded out of the ground had pierced into Aegis’ legs and arms, and he was torn between being glad he tried it to see what’d happen and also regretting it because of how bad it hurt. The Minotaur was happy to pull his axe back and try the same attack again, but Aegis was smart enough to block it this time.

You take 540 Slashing damage.

This time the blade impacted his shield first before sliding off the side, cutting into the earthen spikes that the previous attack created and destroying them as it left a slashing mark from the blade of the axe in the tiled floor. While this was happening his party members had been whaling on the beast, dealing significant amounts of damage - much more than the other party had been doing that they watched fighting this very same boss earlier.

Aegis was glad to see that, because as he casted heal on himself again, his mana dropped to half. His health was nearly topped up thanks to healing wind and his armor enchantments, but he wasn’t going to be able to keep taking these hits forever.

Its next attack was the jumping stomp, it leapt into the air and crashed its hooves onto the ground as it had before, forcing Lina, Rakkan and Aegis away. That was followed by its wide 300 degree frontal swing, and this time Rakkan and Lina had already positioned themselves to avoid it, not missing a beat in their damage uptime, whilst Aegis jumped back to stay out of its reach.

Following that, like clockwork, it leapt backwards and prepared its bull charge. It was repeating the attack pattern. They were able to memorize and predict what the Minotaur was going to do next, a luxury afforded to them thanks to the boss not being Elite. This time, everyone recognized what the Minotaur’s charge was capable of, and that Aegis wouldn’t be able to stop it with his shield.

Aegis didn’t even try, and Pyri and Darkshot were well out of harm's way. Lina shadowstepped out of its path, Rakkan and Aegis ran preemptively, and with some last second rolls to avoid it, no one got hit by the charge attack. And in that time, Pyri and Darkshots' unending attacks on the boss caused its fur to darken and give off a faint red glow, its eyes turning red as it faced them once more - it was entering its enraged state.

“Amazing work from Aegis and his party, they have managed to push the Minotaur to the edge, and awoken its fury!” Eldrok shouted excitedly from his seat, and Aegis glanced up to see not just him, almost all the players watching in the stands were excitedly standing up to see how the fight would end.

The Minotaur began stomping back across the arena, but now, as its feet impacted the ground, every hoofstep caused an explosion of earthen spikes made of the stone tiles it was breaking apart to erupt outward in a wide rippling wave around the stomps. Aegis could see that Lina and Rakkan were both having trouble getting anywhere near the thing, but Lina solved this problem quickly.

“Grappleshot!” She threw a dagger out at the back of the Minotaur and a rope magically appeared and grew out from the hilt as the blade pierced the beasts skin. She grabbed the rope and used it to yank herself forward as the Minotaur stomped towards Aegis. Not wanting to get outdone, Rakkan jumped into the air with great height to pass over the spikes around the Minotaur’s feet.

“Charge strike!” Rakkan shouted, aiming his charge at the shoulders of the Minotaur, he suddenly got a burst of forward momentum mid-air thanks to the charge, and was able to clear over the spikes and land on the Minotaur’s shoulder. He then thrust his spear into the beast to use as a handle for holding on, then used the sword in his right hand to start dealing damage again, just as Lina arrived thanks to her rope and used the dagger and rope to hold on with one hand, and dealt damage with her other.

Pyri and Darkshot were able to sustain their damage from a distance as well, so the boss was still going down in health. The only issue now was how Aegis was going to hold the boss's attention and block its attacks now that it was sending out huge waves of earth, but he wasn’t being given time to ponder. The Minotaur suddenly leapt up high into the air several meters, lifting its axe up above its head with both arms, then slamming it down hard towards Aegis.

Aegis had a bad feeling that if he let that axe hit the floor directly, it would be way worse than if he’d just block it, so he held his ground and timed his brace as perfectly as he could. The axe crashed down into Aegis, forcing him to his knees as the tiled floor he stood on cracked underneath him due to the power of the impact. The blade of the axe redirected to the side and cut deep into the floor of the arena as the Minotaur’s feet slammed back down in front of Aegis, sending out rippling earthy spikes.

You take 980 Slashing damage.

EnchantedIron Shield of Eirene’s durability has dropped by 1.

Not wanting to take earth damage as well, Aegis had to quickly overcome the crushing pain that followed the hit in his knees, and force himself to leap and roll backwards just as the wave of earthen spikes from the hoof impacts overtook where he had been kneeling. Lina and Rakkan had barely managed to stay holding on to the Minotaur during all of this, as Aegis could see their damage numbers still popping up constantly. But the Minotaur wasn’t going to let up, Aegis needed to buy more time, and it was the perfect chance to test out his new skill.

“Avatar of Eirene!” Aegis shouted, and suddenly a bright white light exploded outward from himself, sending out a shockwave as his entire body began to glow, particularly his eyes which turned pure white. He felt lighter and sturdier with the buff activated. “Heal!” Aegis shouted, and this time he’d healed himself for over 1200, completely topping himself off.

It was just intime too, as the Minotaur unleashed a flurry of axe swings onto Aegis once it had recomposed itself from the leap attack.

You take 750 Slashing damage.

You take 690 Slashing damage.

You take 712 Slashing damage.

It was getting harder and harder to brace the attacks. The Avatar’s armor bonus was helping negate the enraged damage bonus of the Minotaur, but not by much, and it seemed like the Minotaur was swinging faster and faster as its health got lower.

“Heal!” Aegis began casting. He couldn’t move while he casted it, so he had to hold his ground steady and block another attack. “Healing Wind!” He tapped his armor and tried to keep himself up. Darkshot went all out with every damage spell he could, Pyri wrapped her Cinderbolt all around the Minotaur’s torso, and Rakkan and Lina continued to stab at its back until finally, just as Aegis casted the last heal that he could, the beast let out a wailing cry of pain and dropped it’s axe.

It stumbled around in place a few stomps before it toppled down sideways, collapsing onto the tiled floor of the area, dead.

Quest completed!

You gain 1500 Favor of Odin.

You gain 500 000 Experience!

You receive 1000 gold.

Congratulations, you have reached level 31!: 5 attribute points available, +221 health, +91 mana!

Level Up!: Shield Mastery reached Level 32!

Level Up!: Aura of Beauty reached Level 2!

Level Up!: Aura of Beauty reached Level 3!

Level Up!: Avatar of Eirene reached Level 2!

Level Up!: Bless reached Level 31!

Attribute Up!: You’ve gained +1 Constitution

Attribute Up!: You’ve gained +1 Strength

“Incredible work! Amazing! On their first try, Aegis and his party have managed to take down the mighty Minotaur, the 2nd of Odin’s challenges. Are you prepared to continue and try your hand at the third challenge?” Eldrok called out to them across the arena. Aegis looked around to his party to see everyone was fairly low on mana, and even stamina, despite Aegis' Aura of Beauty.

“I got the favor I need, what do you guys think?” Aegis asked them.

“We should probably come back later, most people don’t even beat the Minotaur until level 50.” Lina said as she gasped for air.

“Yeah, I’m with Lina, that felt close.” Darkshot agreed, and Pyri shrugged while Rakkan stayed silent. Aegis nodded back to them after canceling the effects of his Avatar of Eirene and Aura of Beauty spells.

“We’ll stop here for today.” Aegis shouted up to Eldrok.

“Very good, I look forward to seeing you take on the other Challenges of Odin in the future.” He shouted down to them.

“Come, let’s get out of here so other players can give it a go. Gonna talk to Eldrok about that skill.” Aegis said as he motioned everyone towards the stairs. Rakkan took a second to grab his knees gasping for air, then followed first, and one by one the others came behind Aegis as well.

“You guys do really good damage though, even compared to those other players that were in there before us. What level were they?” Aegis asked.

“I think they were level 50 players.” Darkshot shrugged and Pyri confirmed with a nod.

“Is it normal that we can beat the Minotaur at level 30?” Aegis asked curiously.

“No, but…” Lina smiled. “We have really good equipment, your bless spell is really powerful, and we have four damage dealers instead of typically three. Most groups have their tanks and healers as two separate players.”

“So… I’m really awesome?” Aegis grinned.

“Hey hey hey, it’s not just that.” Darkshot intervened. “We’re doing crazy good damage. Did you see how fast I was shooting those arrows? They didn’t stop, I was like an arrow machine gun.”

“Yup, and I burned him good, the whole time. Sizzlefest.” Pyri said proudly.

“Did you see that awesome charge strike I did, mid-air?” Rakkan asked excitedly.

“Oh yeah-yeah that was freaking awesome.” Darkshot commented. They continued to chatter and praise each other whilst they made their way up to the platform where Eldrok was.

“Great work down there, very impressive stuff. I was not expecting such bravado from a follower of Eirene. You’d do well in the church of Odin.” Eldrok said to Aegis as they approached.

“Well, I was hoping to learn a bit of Odin’s magic, now that I have obtained some favor with him." Aegis replied.

“Ah, yes, perhaps. Let’s see. Take my hands.” Eldrok said as he stood up and held his large muscled hands out for Aegis. Aegis put his hands in his, and they looked puny by comparison. “What spell of Odin’s would you like to learn?”

“Challenging Roar, please.” Aegis bowed politely.

“Yes… yes… very well, I shall grant you this gift.” Eldrok closed his eyes for a moment, and a second later Aegis got the notification.

Skill Learned: Challenging Roar(Path of the Stars)

Challenging Roar(Path of the Stars) - Level 1 (Intermediate)

Required Deity: Odin

Let out a ferocious roar, challenging all creatures around you and increasing their aggression towards you by a very significant amount. Radius and effectiveness increases with level, mana cost reduces with level.

Damage-to-Threat Equivalency: 1000. [+1000 x (Lvl x 0.1) per level]

Cast Time: Instant

Cost: 250mana [-1mp per level]

Range: 5m [+0.5m per level]

“Got it. Thank you sir.” Aegis bowed politely as the others gave Aegis knowing nods. The group walked out of the coliseum back towards the streets of Kordas feeling triumphant, many of the other players around them throwing excited glances as they passed by.

“So, where to next?” Darkshot asked once they were back outside.

“Nowhere weird, please.” Pyri eyed Aegis cautiously.

“The last te-” Aegis was interrupted as he spotted a familiar face walking towards them, Yuki waved from down the street as she eagerly rushed to meet them, and everyone looked to see what Aegis was looking at and saw her as well.

“Hi Aegis… and Aegis’ party. Nice to meet you all.” She smiled and bowed to everyone.

“Hi there, my name? It’s Darkshot.” Darkshot said as he bowed, trying to sound as cool as possible.

“Hi Yuki, I’m Pyri, Aegis’ mom. I love your clothes by the way.” Pyri said excitedly as she looked at Yuki’s outfit.

“Nice to meet you.” Rakkan bowed. Lina smiled and gave her a knowing nod, but nervously glanced between her and Aegis.

“Is everything okay?” Aegis asked.

“Oh, yup.” Yuki smiled. “Actually, I sort of stream sniped you, I saw you guys fighting the Minotaur.” She pointed to Aegis’ live streaming icon and saw he was at 50 000 viewers. “I was wondering if I could talk to you about something in private?” Yuki asked.