53 The Nereids Of Njord II : First Fight & Boss

At first everything was silent with only the sound of the Acheron coasting through the dark murky waters of the giant labyrinth around. When we first came in, the cove looked like a normal cavern formed on a cliff on the edge of an island, but the moment we got into it, passed the point where there were a lot of guides and a simple shanty market, we found myself in dungeon fully.

Huge walls with wide platforms underneath them were to the left and right of us, creating a tunnel that led straight ahead for almost a hundred meters. There were murals and hieroglyphs depicting giant blue skinned women and men, not to mention one very buff dude with a trident and a beard so full I could probably hide a lunch box within it.

Though the platforms on both sides were devoid of anyone, I could see that tunnels have been made into the walls themselves, probably the route the guides used in traversing the labyrinth. But eventually we came to the end of the main tunnel, the entrance to the dungeon dozens of meters behind us, and along with the open sea. Our path split to the left and right, which means we had to make a decision. But I was confident about our course so I just turned to Darke and said.

"Whatever direction the compass is pointing at follow it." They all looked at me like I might have grown a second head, but I'm the captain, they had no choice but to do what I wanted.

Darke steered the ship left, going into another passage way, but this time the whole place seemed a little dark, like we had left any sort of safe zone and were now in dangerous waters. Raven Song went to the prowl of the ship, his massive tower shield in one hand as he focused on the path in front of us. Qitar stood on the deck right beside Darke who was still sailing the ship, while Mark, Zack and Jack took up different positions on the remaining cardinal points of the ship covering all our bases. As for me, I was on top of the crows nest, wings outstretched and bow at the ready as I kept my eyes peeled for any sort of danger.

The ship kept on going forwards for another eighty meters before we made a right, and then a left, and then another right and a left and another left. Safe to say at this point I had no idea how many turns we've made, and all of our nerves were already on edge as we've not been attacked by any monster yet. We were all keeping our focus, but it was the Acheron who warned us of the danger ahead.

*RUMBLE!!!*

The entire ship shook softly, like a soft vibration from a cellphone on silent, and almost immediately a blue skinned woman flew out of the water with her jaws stretched to inhuman proportions, and within them were actually rows, upon rows of teeth like some sort of weird monster worm. Raven Song slammed his shield on the floor, and a golden shield made of thousands of helix like tiles appeared in front of him and intercepted the flying fish lady.

She hit the shield with a splat, roaring in anger at the interception. But that was all the time I needed to send an arrow through her skull. She fell right back into the waters below as the Acheron sailed right over the blood stained water where her dead body had dropped.

I had ready nocked another arrow when another Nereid jumped out of the water arms outstretched and heading straight for Jack. There was a loud bang as one of the turrets at the back of the ship came to life and blasted the Nereid to bits at the behest of Qitar.They were coming from ahead of us, but if Darke kept on moving the ship forwards, we could be surrounded, so he had to stop.

"Darke! Drop anchors! Now! Zack and Mack meet up and defend the starboard bow, and Jack take up position on port side. Qitar serves as Raven Song's sword while he keep defending. He's limiting the amount of Nereids we have to fight, but make sure he's not overwhelmed. Let's just hope this dungeon behaves like every other dungeon created, I'll keep and eye out for you and take out any strays."

When you think about it, everyone here apart from Dinah has had some sort of military training. Raven song was part of a guild, so that counts, while every other person apart from Sky(who's a sky beast) has been a soldier. And because of that previous discipline, they were able to respond to my orders in a very efficient and perfect manner.

[Dungeon Nereid/Level: 30/ Grade: NA/ Hidden Grade: NA]

[The dungeon created copy of a noble race of sea spirits and beings.]

I had no idea if I would agree with the noble race part, but meh, the system can call them whatever it wants to, but for now these things are just expected to be earned.

Since this was not a one on one fight, I didn't see a reason to use my skills in this fight, not to mention just one normal shot with Sky was enough to get rid of the Nereids. I so loved the fact that conventional game rules did not apply in lost descendants online. Having a HP of 1 million means squat in the face of decapitation of a bullet to the head. Of course a lot of other things would have to be considered, like defense, speed and even the strength of the attacks used. But you would only have to worry about those kind of things when fighting the Advanced AIs of the game, and example would be Qitar. But when facing common monsters without a shred of armor, just relying on their natural form and magical abilities then, even a slap from you might be enough to kill them if their level is close enough to yours.

The Nereids were not organized at all, and just kept on jumping out of the water in scattered batches rather than a united front. It kept the pressure off us, and made it easier for us to kill them. But lost descendants was not a loot based game, rather it thrived on achievements. If you kill a monster you don't get loots, you get a corpse, and depending on the way you kill it, you get rewards aka money or a special skill and equipment if you're badass enough.

But in this case, it left behind a real mess for us to take care of. Blood was allover my deck, and even the waters of the carnal below us had lost its dark murky form and was painted red with blood. That would definitely be a hassle to wash off, but I had no time to worry as I heard a loud groan and something rammed into the ship, almost throwing out of the crows nest.

I quickly regained my balance and looked up just in time for a thirty foot half crocodile half shark to jump out of the water, go almost seventy feet in into the air and go over the ship, but not before smacking me with it's massive claw and throwing right of the ship and into the dark bloody waters below. I could hear my crew shouting at me, but there was nothing I could do to assuage their doubts and worries. Due to how realistic this game was, party members don'tthe whisper or chat function, you talk to everyone normally, or learn a telepathy skill.

But I was not bothered by the sudden change of events, I mean at this point in time it's already established that I'm sort of half fish. The side of my neck split into segments as gills appeared, I stretched my wings in the murky waters and dived down, moving with a speed that would have definitely made Aquaman proud. I met my assailant a few dozen feet below me, swimming on the ground of the carnal, amidst weird looking bio pods that looked like eggs. It's bight blue body made it a walking target.

[Dungeon Nereid: Boss Crosharkile/Level: 45/Grade: NA/ Hidden Grade: NA]

[HP: 40,000/41,482]

[A creature born from the stripping of the ancient aquatic genes within the DNA strands of a Thousand Nereids. It is a top predator of the sea, too bad it is forever confined to the gloomy halls of the dungeon that birth it.]

Well I was thankful that it was confined, but it looks like croco-shark here was made after real Nereids were experimented on. Not sure that was my problem since I have no idea what kind of people the real Nereids were, but in a situation like this you just have to be the good guy and right a few wrongs.

With wind mark in effect the speed of my arrows increased with every subsequent shot for a stack of ten. And if the speed increases, so too does the piercing power of an arrow, and the damage it would cause on impact. I was already on my tenth stack, but I was not going to be sending my arrow out alone.

*Shoot! Homing Shot!*

Have you ever seen a missile shot underwater, the way it's bullet like form slices through the currents and travels with great speed, parting the sea before it. The arrow flew through, right for the right side of the croco-shark's torso(it's real name is a bloody mouthful). Homing shot does not have any sort of explosive properties, but the speed with which the arrow hit the monster, made it seem like I had shot at it with a shot gun, a very powerful one as more than half it's chest was blown off.

But it was still alive, a huge chunk of it's HP had disappeared, but that doesn't seem to be enough to kill it. I was surprised, but it seems that it's a lot tougher than I thought, and right now, I've pissed it off. The part of it'sI had blow off was slowly regenerating, but it didn't let it slow it down as it chased me under the ship, past it's side and up as flapped my wings and flew out of the water, spraying water around and getting shot at by a startled Qitar.

"What the Hell!" I shouted at her as I flew higher.

"Sorry!" She screamed back, but to be honest I don't she was.

The croco-shark jumped out of the water, but with it's terribly injured body it couldn't go as high as it did before, so it unceremoniously flopped mid air and fell down straight for the prow of the ship. Raven Song opened his eyes wide in surprise seeing as he and Qitar were directly under the falling monster's huge body. He slammed his shield down so hard I could feel it rumble even from the sir and heard him scream.

"Mountain Bastion!"

A projection of a mountain appeared over his and Qitar's head to protect them from the falling monster, but he was not the only one who had taken action when the monster had started falling. Qitar had aimed over a dozen turrets at the croco-shark, and sprayed an unhealthy doze of laser fire at it, practically ripping it to shreds before its destroyed guts and blood landed with a wet plop on the shield Raven song had projected. At the very least it protected them from being covered in fish guts or reptile guts?

I landed on the ship a and joined Jack and the rest to clean up what was left of the Nereids. I guess you could say we've passed the first stage and would not be heading to the next. We've also dealt with the boss, though quite easily I might add. But all is well that ends well.All of a sudden we heard Dinah's voice from the ships intercom as she asked.

"Are you guys dead yet." I shook my head and turned to Darke.

"Retrieve the anchor and continue following the compass, the rest of us…..grab a mop and start cleaning."