Chapter 84: Unveiled
The Field Boss had evolved, entering a clear and distinct second phase. The boss had withstood the defenders' onslaught for most of the previous day and the entire night, but it had finally had enough. Gaol was abandoning its static, defensive posture in order to retaliate with an obviously more mobile form. Coop reinspected the boss, worried about what was coming next.
[Field Boss: Primal Serpent (Level 45)]
[Gaol the Unveiled Blade (Agility)]
[Manifestation of the Primal Constructs]
Coop was relieved that the level hadn’t increased, it wasn’t that the difficulty of the encounter was increasing, but rather the dynamic was shifting. They would have to adapt along with it and he believed they had already proven their flexibility.
The class, or the boss equivalent of a class, had changed from Veiled Blade to Unveiled Blade and the monster’s primary stat had switched from Body to Agility. The physical alterations corresponded to both of the changes, with a sleeker look and longer exposed blades that reflected threateningly in the red tinged light of the rising sun. It seemed as though the boss agreed that it was time to finish the match, one way or another.
Gaol dove into the sand with a speed that matched its transformation, arcing its body and revealing that more than half of it had been underground the entire time. Coop wasn’t sure exactly how long its torso had been, just that it was clearly the largest boss he had seen, and by a large enough margin to raise concerns.
The Crazed Serpents chased after the boss in the water like a school of fish, but the boss remained beneath the sand with only a series of its massive blades breaching the surface. It pushed through the ground, leaving a wake of churned water, turbid from the disturbed sand. The tunnel it created left the sandy bottom bulging as if a subway tunnel was hastily constructed underneath the shallows before collapsing from a lack of support.
The Field Boss went straight for Sea Burial, intent on removing its most consistently dangerous foe. The ship had no chance of outmaneuvering the tunneling monster and was cleanly split in half with loud snaps as the ghostly deck planks were broken by the first blade, then into quarters before being smashed to bits by the following blades. The boss continued tunneling, unimpeded by the ship’s destruction. The shining blades that extended from Gaol’s body cut through the bulk of the hull as easily as the shallow water.
It was an odd scene, to see a ship sink in no more than three or four feet of water, but it didn’t last long. The ship flotsam dissipated back into mist, like an ethereal weapon, and the surviving crew were left standing in the shallows like everyone else, except they were facing down thousands of Crazed Serpents that remained in the boss’s wake.
Most of the crew teleported around the surge of monsters, but Charon stood his ground with a hundred of his orbs rushing forward and engaging targets. After accumulating them for so long, he had built up an entire swarm of the orbiting spheres, and he clearly intended to use them. He cleaved the school of Serpents down the center, in revenge for Sea Burial, but he was forced to use his own movement skills when Gaol took another pass. Frustratingly, the giant metal worm had yet to expose itself from underground.
Gaol destroyed the formations of the defenders and caused most of the survivors to flee back around the fort, away from the fight. They completely lost control of the perimeter, but Gaol wasn’t interested in forming more living armor after it had molted into its new form. Coop remained on the battlefield, but could only chip away at the constant surge of Crazed Serpents that continued to join in on the chaos. He needed a way to engage with the boss.