648 All I Need Is A Rock

"Hahahaha! You call this a fight?" Maeve said as she watched the bunch of sorry mess right in front of her, trying their best to defeat her loyal Valgs. They were making no progress against Maeve as she continued calling out countless otherworldly monsters. (Why fight when she could let her minions do all the work for her?)

The cultivators initially thought of clearing the room before they fight on a 'many to one' basis. But it seemed like there was no end to her minions! What's more, every cultivator in the room thought that the Victorian dressed lady had a limited in her summons, but it seemed like the Raid Instance was not designed to be as such.

The only turnaround that happened was that Jing Yu and fresh cultivators was steadfast in their rear defence against the Valgs which spawned outside the throne hall or else it would be within the nightmare for the cultivators within the room.

With time, Jin's shop was getting filled with more people coming in response for the Emergency Raid Instance. Thus, it lessened the burden Jing Yu and the rest of the rear support drastically.

The Black Masked Cultivators were, however biding time until their Elder gave them permission to engage the main boss. While waiting, they diverted their boredom by bringing newly spawned Valgs to their knees so that the cultivators had an easier time to kill them.

Yet, the Daughter of Winter Court was not idling at the shitshow happening under her feet. She was monitoring who was potentially the most dangerous and might be the real game changer.

Obviously, she singled out the ones with Black Masks.

There were not many of them (In fact, only two among them), but from her observation, they utilised pure brute strength as compared to the rest of the group who wielded strange abilities that could bolster their strength or summon elemental magic to complement their techniques. Regardless of their flashy attacks, Maeve was not afraid of them as opposed to the two Black Masks.

"Hmmm, but if they relied only on brute force, I shouldn't have anything to worry about." Maeve scoffed at the situation as she slouched on her throne and yawned. Maybe, it was time to wrap this up as she started to feel something was happening outside the castle. She sensed a ripple of high level magic passing through the castle a few moments ago, and she was curious about it.

Out of the blue, a projectile headed towards her from the side. Without the need to look, she stopped it with her powers and brought it to her face to inspect. Her barrier was able to block all manner of projectiles and even the smashes from Xiong Da's club. But this projectile….this particular piece of rock which had no magical energy attached to it managed to penetrate her almighty barrier with ease.

The only way to stop it was to concentrate her magical powers to prevent it from contacting her.

"Hah!? A rock? You people must really underestimate me to throw a mere stone at me!" Maeve lied as she glanced at the side. It was none other than a member of that Black Masked Cultivators. The third one and possibly the final one who left the throne hall earlier.

This rock throw further solidified her theory that they only had brute strength and nothing else. Yet, it did place her into high alert when she found out it could penetrate her barrier.

"You animals should know your place," Maeve said as her eyes royal purple shone as she placed kinetic pressure in the area, forcing him to kneel to his knees. However, for some reason, there was no reaction from him except his surroundings. The tiles were broken, and the walls cracked from the intense pressure. Some of the cultivators who were caught within the pressurised area died instantaneously.

"Heh, you are not worthy of our weapons. Rocks are more than enough." The Black Masked Cultivator said while the rest of the Drows chuckled behind their masks.

Maeve became speechless. It had been a long time since someone dared to insult her upfront. No one had ever treated her with this much of disrespect.

Hence, the Evil Kinkstress summoned a high grade Valg right in front of the Black Masked Cultivator as a part of her retaliation to the remarks. However, the moment it arrived into this particular plane of existence, the Black Masked Cultivator jumped right to its face and used a rock to smash its face before it could react at all.

Brutal savagery with just a rock nearly caused a pause in the battlefield as both Valgs and Cultivators could not believe how a giant sized Valg, equivalent to the one which the Elder Cultivators fought, was brought to its knees by it.

Even when the Valg tried to counterattack, his opponent simply smashed it out of its existence. What's more surprising was the rock's durability. Being able to withstand the impact of each and every hit. It was as if the user was more than just a mere specialist in rock smashing.

He was a master at it.

"See? What did I say? All I need is a rock." The Black Masked Cultivator shrugged his shoulder in defiance as the Giant Valg lied on the ground motionless. At that instant, every Valg in the throne hall turned their heads to target the Black Masked Cultivators in the vinicity.

"Do not stop your attacks!" Xiong Da shouted as he smashed the vulnerable Valg down and so did the rest. However, those who were still able to run, the monsters simply followed their mistress's orders and headed for the Black Masked Cultivators.

Immediately, the three Black Masked Cultivators with the aid of the cultivators crushed each and every Valgs without mercy. "Thanks, Narris. Tinda." The Black Masked Cultivator whispered via the System Channel as the two nodded their heads in unison.

Maeve was ticked off. Pissed Off.

She decided this group of playthings was not worth her time anymore, so she stopped summoning the Valgs, giving brief spite of relief to the cultivators. Still sitting on her high throne, Maeve instead conjured a sphere of darkness through her fingertips.

"A Black Hole?" Xiong Da asked as he could feel his body being dragged towards the sphere and Bu Dong shuddered as he tried to balance himself.

All he knew was that the cultivators were no match to Maeve except for those Black Masked Cultivators. He believed they were a bunch of high grade cultivators who could have possibly kept their identities hidden via the black masks to clear the raids.

"Not good," Tinda said as she picked a broken tile on the ground and threw it towards Maeve. The Evil Kinktress sniggered at the pitiful attempt and sent the black hole towards the cultivators instead of them.

"I will make you suffer by removing your comrades away," Maeve shouted as the sphere of darkness flung towards the centre of the throne room, and it started to suck in each and every cultivator within the room. The pulling force was so great that even floor and ceiling of the throne room were eaten up by the black hole. (Not to mention the Pandawans,)

"Awww damn." Xiong Da eventually found himself in a bed staring at the ceiling within the Luxury Recovery instance alongside Bu Dong and Jing Yu.

Thankfully, they were teleported before they were sucked into the black hole by the System. (As stingy as ever, the System scrimp every possible resource whenever possible) Also, because of the magical disparity coming from the Black Hole, Maeve did not notice a third party magical source moving the cultivators away from the scene. She assumed all were devoured within the Black Hole. (Besides, her focus and annoyance with the Black Masked Cultivators made her missed it.)

"Looks like this raid is just way too hard. Maybe we are not supposed to win against the main boss?" Bu Dong said as he laid on the bed and checked how much points he received.

"Ah! I enjoyed the raid, while it lasted. Speaking of which, did that frog disappear as well? I mean since he is the few main objectives of the raid, right?" Jing Yu asked, and the other two shook their head.

"The place was way too chaotic to take care of that crazy frog." Xiong Da said as he began turning on Pandaflix, monitoring the stream for Emergency Raid Instance. However, he could not find any video stream near the main boss, except for the fresh wave of rear support who happened to be running away from the black hole attack.

Xiong Da tried to connect to see what the Black Masked Cultivators were doing, but there was no such option in the Pandaflix stream at all. "Weird. Is this stream broken or something? I can't seem to tune to the Black Masked Cultivators."

"Ah! Unless they are NPCs! Part of the story. Maybe that is why the frog suddenly disappeared." Bu Dong suggested, and one of the Panda Nurses laughed.

"They are ...friends of Jin and wished to stay anonymous for this raid. That is why their streams are not up." The Panda Nurse replied and somehow the Pandawans sighed.

"Maybe that's why we are eliminated. In that raid, the algorithm of the dimensional instance probably compensated for their presence, so the raid boss was wayyyy harder. Maybe we can try the next one, it should be less painful that way." Bu Dong theorised and the other two seemed to accept that.

To them, they were convinced that there were really people out there so strong, it skewed the raid boss rating out of the Pandwan's league.

Or so they thought.