Chapter 202 The Rider

"How long do you plan on keeping him a secret old friend?" Vajra suddenly asks him while looking at the screen.

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is, only a handful of people in the universe know your true name, so the chances of the boy not drawing attention to himself even with that name is incredibly low, so, how long do you plan on keeping him and whatever you have planned a secret?"

Reign simply smiles at Vajra's words before looking back to the mirror, Vajra looks at his old friend for a couple of seconds before turning his head around, if he wasn't going to tell him then he would not press further. The boy's name was what shocked him greatly, but it's not like it will be a problem, hell, even if everyone was to find out about it, there would be nothing they could do if he decided to take the boy under his wing.

Boom!

Tank slams one of the fish people on the ground with his shield before punching it strongly a couple of times. The enemies were a difficult bunch to deal with, their scales and slippery bodies made it hard to hit them all the time while their physical strength was above what everyone had expected. Their blows packed quite a punch and they were well proficient in fighting, that was definitely thanks to the experiences of the spirits before they were cursed and made into the abominations they now are.

[ Lvl 37 Nyxe ]

The water spirits named the Nyxes were mostly made from the spirits of murderers and soldiers, after their souls had been judged they had received the punishment of being re-born as water spirits that lived their whole lives in pain.

Reign's lightning was, of course, the most efficient against the Nyxes, their attacks, and their water abilities were powerful but they also allowed Reign to use his ability to its fullest and decimate the ones that were near him.

The Nyxes mostly used water magic, they would create water balls, water spears, water whips, water swords, and more different attacks that they would send toward their enemies, their fish-like faces had a mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth that could bite through flesh and skin with ease. Their nails weren't long but they were sharp, if one of the Nyxes managed to grab someone they would immediately use their sharp nails to puncture the skin before using their grip strength to tear off flesh from their enemies, They were truly a savage opponent that needed to be taken seriously, otherwise even what looked like an easy victory can have a huge price.

Wolf's new sword was remarkable, with each swing Wolf would send out blades of flame that would hit the water magic of the Nyxes, even though he was the one whose ability was weak against theirs he was still able to hold an advantage, the water that the Nyxes were using would evaporate quickly thanks to the high temperature of Wolf's flames and even their bodies were starting to burn. In a matter of minutes what was left of the Nyxes that were fighting against Wolf were charred corpses that lay on the ground whilst smoke filled the surroundings.

Reign and the others quickly moved, they wanted to see what other monsters they might find lurking in the grasslands during the night.

Suddenly the galloping of a horse could be heard near them, Reign and the others look in the direction of the sound as they wait for whatever was making it to appear. As it does so, the party grips their weapons as they look at the foe in front of them. A black horse from whose hooves flames of green were being spat out. Its mane was the green fire of death while its eyes were the darkest of red.

The rider was equally terrifying, his large, bulky body was saddled on top of the horse comfortably as it holds its large sword in one hand. The dark gray armor that the rider wore was battered as it was covered in scratches and dents, the armor however still gave off a feeling of being incredibly tough, almost impenetrable.

The rider and the horse slowly advance towards Reign and the others, the rider had no head and there were no emotions that Reign and the others could try to feel from him. In moments the headless rider was in front of them, with a powerful slash he makes the ground split in front of him as everyone dodges the powerful attack.

[ Lvl 40 Boss, Dullahan ]

" A boss, nice, this guy will be a good opponent to practice against, if we can destroy this guy then we shouldn't have a lot of problems against the orc chieftain." Shadow smiles widely as he says, twirling his daggers around he gets ready to attack the headless rider with the others.

Reign and the others do the same, they were the ones being attacked so, of course, they were going to respond the same way. Lightning flickers as Reign appear in front of the Dullahan, with great force Reign stabs at the rider but widens his eyes as his sword was stopped by the powerful plate armor, Reign could swear that he aimed at the gap of the armor but somehow his sword landed right in the middle of the armor, which in turn completely blocked his attack.

The lightning stab was a skill that had great power, normal plate mail would usually be destroyed immediately if it was used, but the bosses armor was truly something else, after Reign retreated back he looked at the spot where he previously attacked the Dullahan at, there was a small scratch that could be seen on it and the area around the scratch was a bit darker thanks to the lightning.

Skills were used as everyone attacked the boss, Wolf's powerful flames were sent towards the boss while Shadow had appeared right behind the horse. Before Shadow could attack however the horse suddenly kicks backward and he barely manages to dodge, with great speed and maneuverability the horse turns to the side and jumps over the flames with ease before dodging the blades of flame that followed.

Seeing such maneuverability that the rider could perform together with the horse everyone was shocked, they expected that they would be able to easily stop the horse and force the Dullahan to get off before ganging up on him but it seemed that that plan was not going to work at all.

Tank suddenly appears in front of the boss as he uses his mana shield 2 in order to stop him. The boss simply goes around him while attacking Tank from behind, it was a simple tactic, but Tank and the others had been fighting monsters for so long that they actually even forgot some things that could be deadly in the future, like the fact that a person didn't need to attack you if you were blocking, going around and attacking then would be perfect.

With great speed Tank turns around and blocks the Dullahan's powerful attack, his arms shook a bit from the blow as he needed to take a step back to stabilize himself, judging from how the Dullahan attacked him, Tank was certain that this attack was definitely not the strongest it could do.

Fighting against such a powerful opponent made his blood boil in excitement, it has been a long time since the party had been properly pressured by an enemy such as this one, even the demons and the monsters in the gray Ironbark woods did not make them use every single thing they had.

The beast let his animals out as they faced the boss, even though it was quite dangerous, they needed every bit of help they could get. With his new bow, he aims at the boss as he lets his arrows fly towards him, the powerful armor of the boss manages to block some of them while the boss simply used his sword to block the others. Since the boss had no head it was hard to know exactly where his weakness was, did he have any vital organs or any part of the body that would hurt more than the other ones?

It was nearly impossible to know for now.

Greenie quickly follows after Tank as he uses his hammer to smash toward the boss. Together with the hammer, he uses the skill hidden inside of it to summon the phantom of Groll, since they hadn't fought against many strong enemies lately Greenie hadn't even used the skill for quite some time.

Groll's phantom appears and attacks the Dullahan together with Greenie, as expected the phantom couldn't really do much, its attacks were too weak to deal any significant damage to the boss while his defense and speed were also too low, a single attack was enough to kill the phantom, luckily by using mana Greenie was able to heal the phantom and use it to distract the boss while it attacked it from behind

Boom!