Ch 213 – Attacked From All Sides
Turning on his heel, Deacon released the arrow he'd been holding nocked between his fingers and sent it flying directly into the head of one of the approaching Bubonic Retainers. The arrow pierced cleanly through the mutant butler's left eye socket and punched deep into its brain, killing it instantly, according to the System Notification that popped off to the side.
“They can die from headshots,” Deacon announced aloud while reaching back to his quiver for another arrow to notch onto his bowstring. A large difference compared to the prowlers they had been killing earlier, where they needed to either pierce their hearts or crush them to kill them.
"Valorie, focus on sniping and destroying the arrow traps scattered around the hall!" he called out while drawing his bowstring back. "Bonehead, stay positioned in the middle of our formation and cover both Leon and me.”
Releasing the arrow he'd just nocked, the projectile punched straight through the outstretched hand of a charging Bubonic Retainer that had tried coving its face from getting hit before continuing to bury itself deep into the mutant's face. “– until Valorie joins in, then just help me cover the left while Valorie covers Leon,” he continued.
“Got it!” Bonehead shouted as he tossed a bomb towards a large, growing clump of bubonic retainers.
"Leon, take the right!" Deacon shouted as he reached for another arrow.
Leon grunted in acknowledgment as he unclasped his hammer from its hook and gripped his tower shield before rushing toward the edge of the rightmost sprinkler zone, where the clear liquid was still being sprinkled and deflecting the trap arrows.
He reached it just as two Bubonic Retainer maids passed through the spray, and Leon swung his hammer in a wide arc with such force that both of their boil-covered heads were ripped clean off their shoulders and sent flying before arcing down and splattering against the marble floor.
At the same time, Deacon loosed another arrow that punched through the skull of the last crossbow-wielding Bubonic Retainer he could see on his side, and the moment it dropped, he had Echoform Reliquary shift from its bow form into its crowbar and sprinted forward to bash in the skull of the nearest retainer that had just made it past the sprinklers.
Valorie fired arrow after arrow into the traps scattered throughout the hall, only briefly glancing at the Bubonic Retainers that came within fifteen meters of her position.
However, before any of them could get closer or before the crossbow-wielding ones could line up a shot, Deacon would swap Echoform Reliquary back to its recurve bow form and snipe them, or Leon would kill them from afar with an Earth Spear.
Wherever clumps of Bubonic Retainers began forming as they emerged from the openings along the walls, Bonehead would toss one of his noxious gas bombs to kill the entire group in a single caustic explosion, and between these throws, he would hurl several sealant flasks directly at the doorways the retainers were pouring from.
The moment the glass flasks shattered within the openings, the liquid, upon being exposed to air, would begin rapidly expanding into thick brown foam that sealed the openings completely, entrapping any Bubonic Retainers who had been standing near the entrance when the sealant activated, as well as those still inside the passage trying to push through – suffocating them to death.
Within ten minutes, almost all of the openings the Bubonic Retainers had been emerging from were sealed shut with Bonehead's expanding foam, with the alchemist leaving only two doorways on each side of the hall open so that the remaining retainers trapped behind the walls would be forced to funnel through these chokepoints where they could be dealt with more easily.
Along with sealing most of the openings, all of the arrow traps that had been continuously firing at them, scattered across both floors of the hall, were now either completely destroyed by Valorie or had simply run out of arrows to shoot at them after exhausting their reserves.
"I need oil bombs at the funnels!" Deacon shouted as he swung his crowbar and caved in the skull of another Bubonic butler, barely reacting when the impact caused the creature’s boils to burst and spray their contents across his face and chest as the fluid was unable to seep past his Skin of Jötunheim, and could only corrode at his armor and blade, which repaired itself as he channeled mana through it.
"I need Disease Resistance Pots!" Leon shouted as he bashed in the head of a Bubonic maid with his hammer before rushing forward with his tower shield raised and ramming into three clustered retainers hard enough to send them flying backward, then pivoting to bash another charging enemy with his hammer.
Leon was now covered head to toe in the murky acidic fluids that had sprayed from the burst boils of the retainers he'd been fighting, and the caustic liquid was eating through his armor and had already begun seeping through to his skin, causing boils to erupt across his exposed flesh while the disease in the fluids drained both his Vitality and Stamina at an alarming rate.
Bonehead let out a loud and sharp whistle as he pulled out and tossed a sparkling black and yellow colored potion in a high arc toward Leon.
Quickly clasping his hammer back onto his hip to free up both hands and raising one arm up toward the direction where he'd heard Bonehead's warning whistle come from, Leon caught the flying potion bottle out of the air and leaped backwards before immediately uncorking it and downing its orange soda tasting contents in a single gulp, then dropping the empty glass container before then taking out both a Health Crystal and a Stamina Crystal from the emergency pouch secured on his right hip.
As Leon finished drinking his Disease Resistance Potion and was in the middle of topping off both his health and stamina reserves, which had gotten to just below half, the Bubonic Retainers began rushing forward to take advantage of what appeared to be a perfect opportunity to overwhelm him as he held no hammer in hand.
However, they were quickly met with arrows punching through their skulls in rapid succession as Valorie provided covering fire for her twin brother.
On Deacon's side of the hall, two oil-filled glass orbs arced through the air toward the two remaining unsealed doorways:
One shattering directly against the face of a Bubonic Retainer emerging from the opening and coating it along with the retainers behind it, while the other was struck mid-air by a retainer swinging an iron poker from just inside the entrance, causing the orb to shatter and drench both the poker-wielding retainer and those behind it as well as splashing oil all across the doorway's frame and floor.
The moment both orbs shattered and coated the entrances of the two unsealed openings with oil, Deacon released his hold on the twin Ignis spells he'd been holding separately in his right and left hands, causing the twin fireballs to shoot forward from his palms to ignite the oil and set every Bubonic Retainer at and within both doorways ablaze, the fire spreading across their oil-soaked bodies and into the passages beyond where more retainers were still trying to push through the only two openings on the left wall.
Agonized screams filled the entrance hall as the burning retainers began rushing wildly out of the two open doorways while completely engulfed in flames, some collapsing halfway through the threshold as the fire consumed them, while others made it several steps into the hall before dropping to the marble floor, where they continued burning and thrashing.
The combination of fire and oil was eating them alive while the immense heat cooked them from within as though they were trapped inside an oven, and the spreading flames began filling the air with an increasingly acrid and nauseating scent of burning diseased flesh mixed with the stench of melting boils.
“See,” Bonehead said as he stood behind Deacon, watching their handywork. “The higher up we climb, the more shit you do like plagues and covering people in oil and setting them on fire to kill faster.”
“I mean, I guess,” Deacon said after a slight pause.
In the midst of Deacon's flames continuing to spread and consume more of the left side of the entrance hall, Valorie couldn't help but call out as she glanced backwards to what was the cause of all the screaming and heat behind her with concern in her voice.
"Shouldn't we be trying to actively quell and contain these flames before they start spreading uncontrollably to our position and trap us?" she asked while continuing to fire arrows at the bubonic retainers that were coming out from the right wall.
"Nah, don't worry about it at all," Bonehead answered dismissively while dousing himself in some flame retardant. "I've got enough fire retardant on me to last at least two centuries, so we're good."
"Why?" Valorie couldn't help but ask with genuine confusion. "I mean, it's absolutely great that you have that much on you… but isn’t that a bit overkill?”
"When you have two people who have fire affinities in your Party and another with a wind affinity who are more than willing to combo spells, the number of accidental fire tornadoes and instances of friendly fire—pun intended—will very quickly make you reconsider what constitutes overkill when it comes to fire safety supplies," Bonehead explained wisely, recalling all of the extremely close calls they’d experienced from nearly burning down massive chunks of forests and enemy bases they’d raided while adventuring on Floor Three, particularly when Deacon, Sam, and Esmerelda had been actively practicing and experimenting with their various elemental spell combos.
"I mean, I guess that’s a fair point when you say it like that," Valorie conceded with a shrug while notching another arrow.
Suddenly, from the upper foyer where the twin staircases met, the ornate double doors at the back of the landing burst open hard enough to slam against the walls, and a loud screech that sounded like a mixture of a human scream and a squeal drowned out the dying Bubonic Retainers' agonized screaming.
Deacon, Leon, Bonehead, and Valorie all whipped their heads upward toward the landing where they could hear the thundering sounds of heavy footsteps approaching them.
Not even a second later, as the group stared upward with their weapons ready, a large humanoid figure roughly as tall as Leon leaped from the upper foyer and dropped down to their level, the impact cracking the marble tiles beneath its booted feet and sending fragments of shattered stone scattering outward in a small radius.
The figure was sporting what had once been an expensive three-piece suit but was now stained with fluids of varying colors and torn in multiple places, along with a cracked monocle still perched over one eye and a tall top hat with a patch on its inner rim sitting askew on its head.
The creature looked entirely humanoid in body structure and proportions aside from one difference: instead of a human head, it had the oversized head of a diseased rat, complete with matted, greasy fur, visible boils clustered around its neck and jaw, and long, yellowed incisors that protruded from its mouth even when closed.
[Manor Lord – Dungeon Boss Lv 27]
"Huh… Doesn't he look like that one rat from that one shitty MOBA?" Bonehead asked aloud with an awkward chuckle as the four of them stood in a tense standoff with the Dungeon Boss, though his attempt at humor faltered when he realized the Manor Lord had turned its gaze from the rest of the group to single him out, staring at him with intense fury in its beady red eyes.
Or more specifically, the Manor Lord was staring with barely contained rage at the choker that was currently wrapped around and on full display on Bonehead's neck.