Chapter 829 – Progress Raiding 3 – vs a Sickleman

Chapter 829 – Progress Raiding 3 – vs a Sickleman

Like a pond that had been disturbed by a thrown rock, the stone floor cracked open and sent pebbles flying everywhere. The impact of the chitin spear caused an echo to ripple through the Valley of Stone and Thunder. The group looked up from the impact site towards the shadow of the creature that had thrown it. A massive, humanoid shape with four arms and a neckless head.

It stood on the edge of the southernmost of the three plateaus and soon vanished behind one of the many boulders that covered the craggy exterior. Looking around, John just barely caught the movement of a second monster on the plateau to the northeast. From his last visit here, he knew that there was a third on the plateau to the northwest. The second they moved out of the spawn point towards any of the valleys that would, presumably, lead to the bosses, they would be in range of one of the spear-throwers.



Beatrice landed back in the safe zone. “So, Sylph, Siena and Beatrice are quick enough to dodge the spears at maximum range, at least,” the Gamer summarized their findings. “Metra, if you can dodge, do so. If you can’t, I want to see whether your armour can block the impact.”

“Roger that, my king,” Metra answered and, for once, put her armour on without any complaining. Having seen the impact of the previous three spears, she was respecting enough of their power to give it her all from the get-go. The moment the lead-grey plates had completely covered her muscular body, she charged forwards. About two seconds later, she jumped to the side. Too slow to dodge, but quick enough to transform it from a hit to her chest to one to her shoulder.

There was a crunching sound, like a fly getting squished under a boot, and Metra’s shoulder was pushed backwards. Shards of the spear flew everywhere. The First of Wrath remained standing. Quickly she retreated to the spawn point. A second spear flew in her direction, but just barely missed her.

“Would have been better if I hadn’t tried to dodge,” she reported, her voice echoing metallically underneath the malicious looking helmet. “If it hit my centre, it wouldn’t have thrown me off balance as much.”

John nodded and looked at where Metra had been hit. If there had been any damage to her armour, her status as an Artificial Spirit had already fixed it. When it came to her HP, there was a chunk of it missing. Although she didn’t get skewered, the force of the impact still dealt damage. Not enough to cause any worry, however.

Even without her wrath-fuelled buff, Metra still had her nearly unrivalled defences to justify her presence in the group. That and her dimension tearing magic. “Think you can just teleport up to it?” John asked, looking at the Sickleman in the distance, once more hiding when nobody was watching anymore.

“Would be easier if I still had Qiada,” the First of Wrath answered, resting the crimson replacement axe onto her shoulder in a nonchalant fashion. “Not having a weapon that can store spells limits my range quite a bit.”

“Hmmm, well, if we’re lucky, something might drop for you,” the Gamer hummed. “Not that that solves the immediate problem. What distance do you think you can cross in an instance with a portal?”

“Fifteen to twenty metres,” Metra responded. That wasn’t a lot, especially when it came to their current superhuman standards. Using her magic to make her charge wasn’t an option, it seemed.

“What about the cliff, can your magic help climb up there?”

“That should be pretty easy, yeah.”

John rubbed his chin and ignored the chattering in the background. While he was busy scheming, the girls talked about this and that. There was no need to be dead serious before the battle began and only a few of the girls were as interested in analysing the conditions of the battle as he was. Once he had come to a conclusion, there was immediate silence.

“Alright, here is the battle plan.” John turned towards the gathered harem. “Metra will charge in on her own. We’ll follow once she is up the cliff,” he emphasized his words by pointing up to where the Sickleman had last been seen. “She won’t take too much damage from the spears and should be able to hold her own until we arrive. Once I give you the signal, Metra, you immediately fall back to where I am. You will lose your extra power when we start attacking and I don’t want that to happen while you’re locked in a grapple or something.” He looked at Undine. “You will leave item form at that point and concentrate on healing people who get out of the direct engagement. Everyone, remember that Undine can reach you at range as long as your shadow is intense enough. This is true for all of you, except Lydia, Nia and Jane. You will also need to be in range of her sight for this to work, because you lack the mental connection.”

“Sounds fun,” Metra grinned, while Undine just nodded.

“Once we’re in battle, we go through three battle phases,” he continued. “In stage one we fight cautiously. Only Aclysia, Beatrice, Metra and Gnome should go into melee range. Everyone else focuses on ranged support. Study the attack patterns, find weaknesses, get used to the terrain, all that. Once we get confident, we go into phase two where we exploit what we find. Cripple the most important limbs, take advantage of unnecessary movements or just crush it with numbers. If we can win right there, we do, if we can’t, we go into phase three. Those of us who have extremely strong and reliable burst attacks will get ourselves in the best position to deliver a decisive blow. That should at least cripple the monster enough that we can finish it off using phase two tactics. Anyone disagree with that plan?”

He looked around and only saw shaking heads or other forms of denial.

“Alright, Nia, I want you to focus on opportunistic attacks during phase two,” the Gamer gave his final instructions. “Lydia, you should offer support in all three phases. Use your Innate Ability to obstruct the enemy’s movements, shield us and all that. Jane, I want you to prepare Copernicus’ Unleash from the start. Best to have something available for phase three immediately.” He didn’t need to give the rest specific orders since their mental connection would allow him to relay things even in the heat of battle.

“Ya mean ya want me to go Super Saya-Jane,” his girlfriend stated.

“Please do not remind me of that terrible pun,” John groaned.

“Ya don’t have the right to complain about terrible puns, Mister ‘I-named-my-yacht-Boating-Seaequence’.”

“My puns are tasteful, yours are terrible,” the Gamer asserted and looked to Metra. “I suppose we’re ready when you are.”

The other sickle refused to extend, something that left the monster confused for just a moment. Just barely, John could make out the wires that had been wrapped around the arm. They connected to bits of metal floating around Lydia. It took the queen visible effort to keep the strings pulled. Controlling such thin strands of metal must have been quite difficult. John had seen her do it before during the tournament, but back then she had lots of trees around to anchor the wires to and ultimately just controlled them as one constricting unit at close range.

“Thanks for the save!” Salamander shouted and raised her free hand up to the Sickleman’s face. An explosion of grey and gold fire consumed the view for a moment. Then the monster bowed down unhindered, its spider fangs descending on Salamander’s head. The endflame elemental stretched out of the way. Instead of her head, they burrowed into the soft meat of her shoulders. Most of her health vanished immediately. “Fucking... ass...” Salamander growled, conjuring fire ball after fire ball that blinded the monster while it kept its teeth burrowed with sadistic glee.

Aclysia and Metra swiped in an attempt to save her. The Sickleman blocked their strikes with arms and legs. Gnome tried to disrupt the monster’s balance by tackling it. The Sickleman twisted out of the way with its extreme nimbleness. Lydia tried to hinder it, but the steady pull of the wires was only strong enough to keep the opening mechanism of the sickle from working. Like the jaw of a crocodile, it seemed that particular muscle was weak. The arm and creature it was attached to, wasn’t at all.

“Shit...” Salamander hissed, her body starting to disintegrate into sparks and then suddenly vanishing. Using her fellow haremette’s dying embers as cover, Siena jumped at the enemy. She managed to gouge a single eye out, then was hit by a hammer-like fist from above. Almost immediately, her health bar depleted as well.

Three attacks hit the Sickleman in quick succession. Perfect, Beatrice’s spear, flew across the battlefield. The Sickleman kicked it aside with the very foot he would have used to stomp Siena. Then a lightning bolt caused it to stare up to Sylph with its remaining seven eyes. A distraction that lasted long enough for a sudden tidal wave of dark blue water to rush all over it.

Undine screamed her anger into the battlefield through a song in another language. Her golden eyes were consumed by red, as she channelled her Unleash into this single offensive action. Although it barely did anything to hurt the Sickleman, being completely submerged in moving water was clearly outside of its natural habitat and served to incapacitate it. Perhaps it just thought it was fun and let itself be swept along. Regardless of what was true, the water flowed towards the edge of the plateau.

John saw this as the perfect opportunity. “Jane?!” his urgent cry echoed over to his girlfriend, who stared back for a moment, then nodded. Mana started drifting in the air, quickly accelerating towards Copernicus’ open mouth. The Lightbearer’s pink hair turned golden from the root downwards, cat ears included. At the same time, Copernicus grew from a cat into a tiger. “I’m counting on you!”

Copernicus jumped off the stone his smaller form had been comfortably sitting on. “In this form, you can,” the sun tiger declared and then started running.

“I’ll give it something that hurts,” Rave responded with a serious face and followed right after her elemental. Her Aura ignited as a golden radiance.

John checked what of his mana remained and made his final plans.

The tidal wave had finally reached the end of the plateau and turned into a waterfall. Managing to free itself from the water’s grip by jumping off the cliff, the Sickleman was high up in the air. Sylph stormed up to it, a series of thunderbolts, stronger than anything else the air spirit had used up to that point, torrenting through the monster. Even Unleashed, Sylph’s attacks had barely any impact. The exoskeleton of the creature absorbed most of the shock, it seemed.

Two spikes shot out of the creature’s shoulders, both were gripped by its main hands and pulled out as fully formed spears. One after the other, it launched the spears. Both hit their targets cleanly. Sylph was torn apart like a dry leaf hit by a bullet, dying instantly. The second spear hit Undine amongst her tidal wave. A large hole was ripped through her slime body, but she survived with half her health still remaining.

Two more spikes grew out of the shoulders. It seemed the monster was happy to use the entirety of its fall to launch spears at them. At this range, its accuracy was ridiculous and up in the air, with all fliers but Jack now eliminated, they had barely any recourse.

Copernicus didn’t care. Copernicus leapt up the edge of the cliff. Copernicus used every bit the grace of a cat he had to jump the Sickleman. The two turned into a tumbling mess of limbs. Although the Sickleman would win out, the sun tiger could put up a fight for several seconds. That was all they would need.

A second streak of gold right behind the first, Rave flew over the edge of the cliff. Fist raised, she started chanting. “A solemn reign, to those few that rise up high...”

The golden glow that encapsulated her hair and body grew in intensity until it was strong enough to rival the sun. Now, for the first time, the Sickleman seemed desperate. Separating from Copernicus with one swipe of its right main arm, it moved the other three to immediately meet Rave at its maximum length. Even though it didn’t know what exactly the Lightbearer was doing, it must have understood that it had to leverage its superior range.

“...and we all fight...” Rave continued to chant through her Babel-Phrase. The words were understood beyond language, less sounds than raw power accompanying the bundling magical energies at an almost impossible rate. The Sickleman punched and clawed at her.

The arms connected, but not with Rave. They clashed with something a lot harder. Hard enough to withstand the attack. “You were a fun fight,” Metra shouted so loud John could hear it. He was standing on an extension of the cliff, just created by Gnome with all of his mana. It had allowed the First of Wrath to run close enough to teleport up there and serve as Rave’s shield. “Now, allow her to guide you to the afterlife.”

The Sickleman screeched and drew its arms back as quickly as it could.

“...let our worlds collide.”

Not quickly enough for what followed. Rave’s attack was instantaneous. Nobody could perceive its speed. No matter whose eyes he checked through, all John could see was Rave’s fist being raised at one moment and having penetrated the Sickleman’s face the next. A massive blast of energy exploded in the aftermath of the punch. Multi-coloured light burst out on the other side of the monster’s body, creating a cone that went all the way down to the floor. John felt heat on his face as if he was standing next to a festival fire for a moment.

Then it was all over. The body of the Sickleman disintegrated as Instant Dungeon enemies always did. The gold drained from Rave’s hair as she fell. Metra landed gracefully, as did Copernicus. The tiger then caught his summoner on his soft back, moments before he shrunk back to a cat.





They only had to do that two more times to beat the basic enemies of the Raid.