Vol. 4: Chapter 5
Before Lila's team stood a vast hall the size of a football field. In its center was a massive iron cage, thirty yards in diameter. The area outside the cage was swarming with snakes; the area inside was teeming with rats. The cavern was dark, lit only by the faint glow of fluorescent moss, making it difficult to see clearly.
Kael had already warned them what to expect: the hall was filled with elite snakes, though no bosses. For every four or five normal snakes, there was one elite.
[Elite Obsidian Charger] (Level 36)
HP: 2,000,000
Physical Attack: 10,000
Physical Defense: 20,000
...
[Elite Shard-Spitter Cobra] (Level 36)
HP: 1,850,000
Physical Attack: 18,500
...
[Elite Venom-Weaver] (Level 37)
HP: 1,850,000
Magical Attack: 22,000
Faced with this, Lila could no longer afford to charge in recklessly. It wasn't that she feared the elites, but the wide-open space made her previous strategy far too risky. The narrow tunnels had been simple; this was a complex battlefield. A single mistake could lead to a party wipe.
She faced two major problems. First, if she dove too deep, she'd be completely surrounded. Focused fire from that many elites striking her from behind could kill her instantly, before she even had a chance to use a health potion.
Second, if any mobs lost aggro and slipped past her, they would annihilate the squishy Warlocks in the backline.
Therefore, she had to abandon her flashy mobility combo. At most, she could risk a single dash in and out, keeping two movement skills in reserve to peel for her team if needed.
Seeing their leader's kill efficiency plummet, some of the girls in the backline began to lose heart.
"I feel like I'm holding the GL back."
"Yeah, she was so unstoppable before, and now she has to fight so cautiously."
"Dawnbreaker said Lila could get us through here quickly. Maybe he misjudged this part."
"Dawnbreaker isn't a god. It's understandable if he made a mistake."
Lila, busy holding the line against a swarm of snakes, had no time to address their concerns. Once again, Starbloom stepped up.
"What are you talking about? Dragging her down?" she snapped over the party channel. "Do you think the Guild Leader's damage would be this high without our curses? Do you think the snakes would be this slow and weak without our debuffs? And how was Dawnbreaker wrong? Is killing thirty or forty snakes a minute somehow slow? Is this not a hundred times better than fighting other players for mob tags out in the open world?"
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The girls who had been complaining fell silent. Starbloom, still fuming, decided words weren't enough. She piloted Mecha-Hakkar forward, coming to a stop beside Lila.
"Leader, I've got your back. I'll cover your left flank."
As the party advanced, the terrain had opened up, forcing Lila to defend against attacks from a wider arc. She was beginning to feel the strain. Seeing Starbloom's mech arrive to help, she hesitated only for a moment before agreeing.
At the same time, she issued orders to the backline. "Everyone, watch your spacing when you cast. If a snake gets through, call it out immediately. Muffin, Pudding, Cookie, you have defensive cooldowns; use them to protect the others."
"Yes!"
Lila gave no specific orders to Starbloom; she knew exactly how powerful Mecha-Hakkar was. Its strength wasn't in its attack, but in its defense.
[Mecha-Hakkar (Mechanical)]
HP: 100,000
Physical Attack: 10,000
Magical Attack: 1,200
Physical Defense: 15,200
Magical Defense: 15,500
[Enter Cockpit]: Places the operator inside the mech, enhancing their skills by 50%. The operator cannot use their own attack abilities while inside.
[Rocket Barrage]: Fires a rocket up to 40 yards, which explodes, dealing 150% magic damage to enemies within 10 yards. Cooldown: 20 seconds.
[Flamethrower]: Sprays a 30-yard cone of fire, dealing 120% magic damage per second to enemies in the area. Duration: 30 seconds. Cooldown: 30 seconds.
[Mech Flight]: Activates flight mode. Duration: 30 seconds. Cooldown: 2 minutes.
Its Mechanical constitution also granted it special properties, including immunity to certain spells and reduced damage and control effects from others. It couldn't be healed by traditional magic, but it could be repaired. The mech alone was a formidable unit, but the synergy with Starbloom's own skills made it nearly unbeatable.
Starbloom had two abilities that pushed the mech to another level: Soul Link and Mechanical Repair.
[Soul Link] allowed her to share her own stats with her summon. Combined with the 50% enhancement from Enter Cockpit, she was effectively granting 150% of her stats to Mecha-Hakkar.
Her own 10,000 HP didn't add much to the mech's 100k health pool, but sharing her high personal defense stats pushed the mech's defenses from the 15k range to over 20k. Furthermore, her high Intelligence and Spirit stats boosted the mech's magical attack power to over 25,000.
[Mechanical Repair] was a Profession, a crafting skill that didn't take up a combat skill slot, though a player could only learn one at a time. Starbloom's original Profession had been Alchemy, but after acquiring Mecha-Hakkar, she had deliberately "forgotten" it to learn Mechanical Repair.
With Starbloom's mech joining the battle, a rocket immediately screamed toward Lila's left flank.
BOOM!
-30,382
-29,553
Every snake in the 10-yard blast radius was damaged. The elites and regulars that had been targeting Lila instantly switched their aggro to Mecha-Hakkar.
-1
-0 (Poison Immune)
-2,265
-1,573
Between the mech's powerful defenses and the team's stacked curses, the normal snakes' attacks barely scratched it, and the Venom-Weavers' poison was completely ignored. Only skills or critical hits from the elites could inflict any meaningful damage.
Ignoring the mech's negligible physical attack, Starbloom transformed her machine. With a series of clicks and whirs, Mecha-Hakkar's arms straightened out horizontally. Its mechanical fingers retracted, replaced by the hollow barrels of two cannons. A moment later, they roared to life.
Twin jets of intense flame erupted from the mech's arms.
-25,368
-24,663
The flames left a trail of scorched earth and incinerated snakes. Not only that, Starbloom began to rotate the mech's torso 180 degrees, sweeping the jets of fire across the entire frontline and drawing the aggro of every mob in the vicinity.
-1
-0
-2,584
-1,953
Then, as the flamethrowers continued to channel, Starbloom stopped piloting. She opened a toolbox from her inventory and began working on the mech's internal machinery from inside the cockpit.
+5,000
+5,000