Ch 214 – Manor Lord I
Bounding forward, the Manor Lord's boots cracked the marble beneath them even further as it shot toward Bonehead with a sharp squeal that echoed throughout the Central Hall of the Manor.
However, before the Dungeon Boss could get within thirteen meters of the skeleton alchemist, a large titanium tower shield appeared directly in its path, completely blocking Bonehead from view as Leon leaped to the side, having realized that the Manor Lord’s bloodlust and rage had fixated on Bonehead the moment it spotted the choker around his neck.
Just barely managing to dig his boots into the marble and brace his full body weight behind his shield, a booming noise not unlike a cannon being fired echoed throughout the hall as the Dungeon Boss collided with Leon’s tower shield at full speed, and despite his best efforts, Leon was pushed back three inches by the sheer force of the impact, grimacing as he realized he had unfortunately not been quick enough to properly reinforce his shield with stamina before the collision occurred.
Though in that brief moment of annoyance at himself for not being able to reinforce his shield with both mana and stamina fast enough, Leon was able to sense that Deacon had gone from being over a dozen meters away from his position to having all but teleported from where he saw him last to now being above him.
Even without being able to sense Deacon's mana signature, Leon could feel two incredibly hot tongues of flame directly above him, the twin geysers of fire radiating heat against his back from what he recognized as the same maneuvering skill or spell Deacon had used to quickly kill the Bloatcrawlers and Bloatflies while fighting in the air earlier.
Gripping Echoform Reliquary in its Ulfberht form with both hands and angling the blade downward as it glowed with the light green aura of Power Strike, Deacon thrust down with both his own strength and gravity's pull combined, aiming to strike the Manor Lord's upper body that he could see just past Leon's tower shield.
The empowered strike should have punched straight through the Dungeon Boss's spine and out through its chest, but all his blade struck was the marble floor as Echoform Reliquary buried itself an entire meter deep into the stone, the Manor Lord having somehow sensed and dodged the attack despite the speed and power behind it.
Snapping his gaze sharply to his right side as his boots landed on the ground a second after his blade did, Deacon caught sight of the Manor Lord landing over half a dozen meters away from where he'd just struck.
He was now hunched over defensively while its beady red eyes stared at both him and Leon with clear wariness as the Builder pulled his shield back and adjusted his stance.
So even fully enraged, the boss’s senses are wound up like a spring, Deacon surmised, realizing that the Manor Lord's perception and reaction speed were quite good if they'd managed to detect and evade his surprise attack despite Bonehead having successfully drawn full aggro with the choker and himself hidden from sight.
This will be just like fighting a member of the beastkiin races, Deacon mused.
If it's just like how it is normally to fight against a beastkiin, then all I need to do is overwhelm its senses, he reasoned to himself.
Just as Deacon yanked his blade free from the marble and prepared to lunge forward, the Manor Lord leaped sideways to avoid an arrow that would have struck it directly in the heart before immediately backpedaling away further and further from the group, dodging more arrows fired in quick succession by Valorie as she deliberately tried to create distance between them and the Dungeon Boss to give the melee fighters room to maneuver.
"Bonehead! Take off the choker right now – you're gonna keep drawing all of its aggro!" Deacon shouted as he wrenched Echoform Reliquary free from the marble floor, having put two and two together on why Bonehead had managed to grab the Dungeon Boss's complete attention the instant it laid its beady eyes on him instead of the rest of them.
The choker, according to the item description he'd read earlier, had belonged to the Manor Lord's deceased wife and was supposed to have been buried with her body, but before the burial ceremony could take place, it had gone missing, stolen by a jealous concubine.
"There's no point in me taking it off now!" Bonehead shouted back as he rummaged frantically into his Spatial Satchel and pulled out two more oil bombs before hurling them at the two remaining unsealed openings on the right wall, where more Bubonic Retainers were still attempting to emerge. "I already Soulbound it to myself!"
Fuck, Deacon thought in frustration.
If Bonehead had already Soulbound the choker to himself, then even if he were to physically remove it from around his neck, depending on just how emotionally attached or attuned the Dungeon Boss was to the item, it might still be able to detect the choker's presence.
Or maybe its ability to be able to detect the choker was even part of the Dungeon's secret gimmick, as the mental attributes it gave would disincentivize warriors and incentivize mages or Classes with high mental attributes to take it. Causing the Dungeon Boss to have its aggro on the backline, and not on the frontline.
Deacon wasn't entirely sure which was the case, but what he was absolutely certain of was that he needed to force the Dungeon Boss to shift its focus onto him as the primary threat and leave Bonehead as nothing more than an afterthought.
"Then just try to keep it out of the Boss's direct line of sight at the very least!" Deacon shouted as he took off sprinting after the Manor Lord while holding Echoform Reliquary parallel to his chest.
As he closed the distance, he noticed the fingertips of the Manor Lord's gloves tearing open as its fingernails grew in both size and length to rival daggers, and the creature casually smacked away an arrow Valorie had fired at its face with these newly extended claws.
Crossing the remaining distance between them in seconds, Deacon swiped his blade forward in a powerful horizontal arc that clashed directly against the Manor Lord's dagger-length claws, his Damascus steel blade and the claws on the Manor Lord’s right hand grinding against each other and creating bright sparks where they made contact.
He's significantly stronger than I initially thought he'd be, Deacon realized as he gritted his teeth and strained to push forward with his attack, only to find himself at a complete standstill as the Dungeon Boss matched his strength perfectly.
His eyes widened as the Manor Lord's left hand came whipping toward him, claws extended for his side — and when Deacon tried to leap back, he found he couldn't disengage; the right hand that had been grinding against Echoform Reliquary's blade had closed around it, gripping the weapon tight, pinning him in place.
However, from somewhere behind Deacon came the distinct sound of a musket being shot, and an arrow went streaking past Deacon's left side and struck the Manor Lord's incoming left-hand swipe.
The arrow hit the hand with just enough power to make the strike veer off course from where it would have punched straight into Deacon's unprotected side to instead just rake across his armored chest.
Despite the force that had caused the claws to veer off their intended target, the attack did not lose any of its power, and the sharpened nails carved four deep gashes, each roughly two inches wide, that tore completely through his chestplate and cut approximately a quarter of an inch deep into the flesh of his chest beneath.
Barely paying any heed to the pain, Deacon seized on the Manor Lord’s momentary imbalance as its left arm became awkwardly trapped beneath its right armpit after the veering swipe, and violently yanked Echoform Reliquary backward to tear it free from the Boss’s grip.
Immediately after, Deacon leapt backward, putting significant distance between himself and the Manor Lord, not even glancing at the four bleeding gashes across his chest.
Leon, having seen Deacon take the hit and create distance, charged forward with a roar and used his larger frame to position himself squarely between Deacon and the Dungeon Boss, cutting off the Manor Lord's line of sight to the wounded warrior entirely as he planted his boots into the marble and braced.
The Manor Lord lunged immediately, both clawed hands extended toward where Deacon had been standing, but the attack slammed hard into Leon's tower shield, and unlike before, Leon had properly reinforced it with both mana and stamina the moment he'd broken into his charge, holding his ground completely without being pushed back even an inch, the impact ringing out through the hall like a massive iron gong being struck.
Hearing that sound, Deacon sprinted forward, the four gashes carved across his chest already beginning to scab over with something similar in appearance to molten stone sealing the wounds shut, and as Leon pivoted and shoved the Manor Lord backward with a powerful thrust of his shield, Deacon cut hard to the right and rushed in toward the Boss's exposed flank, driving Echoform Reliquary in its Ulfberht form in a slashing arc aimed directly at the creature's chest.
The blade bit into the Manor Lord's chest and carved a deep gash across its ribs before the Boss twisted sharply away to limit the damage, its beady red eyes snapping to Deacon with renewed fury as it redirected its full attention onto him, and Deacon immediately dropped back into a defensive stance as the Manor Lord swiped at him with its right hand, claws extended, forcing him to bring Echoform Reliquary up horizontally to intercept and deflect rather than press the advantage he'd just created.
The claws raked across the flat of the blade and ground against it with a screech of metal on keratin, and in that same instant Leon surged forward from the Boss's left side and swung his hammer in a tight, powerful arc that caught the Manor Lord across the jaw with a thunderous crack, snapping the creature's rat head violently to the side and staggering it backward two full steps.
Seizing the opening created by Leon’s hammer strike, the moment he felt the pressure on Echoform Reliquary shift as the Manor Lord’s balance broke, Deacon stopped pushing against the claw and instead drove forward into the imbalance, twisting his blade past the claws and spearing Echoform Reliquary directly into the Manor Lord’s thigh with both hands behind the thrust.
He buried the blade several inches deep into the flesh before wrenching it back out in a clean pull, dark blood immediately welling from the puncture wound as the Boss let out a sharp, furious squeal and lurched sideways.
Huffing, as the Manor Lord leaped backwards, Deacon and Leon caught each other's eyes — and with a wordless nod they sprinted after the Dungeon Boss, closing the distance fast, and just as they entered its range Leon broke hard to the left while Deacon slowed half a step and cut right, the two of them splitting around the Manor Lord's flanks.
Upon doing so and noticing the dungeon boss’s eyes were beginning to shift towards Deacon, Leon activated the special skill within the necklace he'd received upon clearing Floor, causing the air around him to visibly ripple for a half second.
A trickling sense of foreboding passed through the dungeon boss’s head moments before Leon let out a guttural roar that shook the hall.
The immense sense of panic and danger suddenly appearing at its side caused the Manor Lord's head to snap toward Leon, its beady red eyes locking onto Leon and Leon alone, no longer tracking Deacon at all as he came around the opposite flank completely uncontested.
Reacting on pure instinct, the Manor Lord threw a wide panicked swipe toward Leon, who caught it cleanly across his tower shield and held firm, and in that same motion, Deacon slipped inside the dungeon boss's guard from the right and punched Echoform Reliquary into its side – snapping the dungeon boss out of the momentary hysteria Leon caused it.
The Manor Lord had barely begun to jerk back and swipe its other arm at Deacon when Leon's hammer came driving upward from below in a rising arc and connected with the boss’s shoulder with a crack loud enough to echo off the walls.
Seeing its legs tremble, Deacon yanked out and drove Echoform Reliquary straight toward the Manor Lord's throat, but the Dungeon Boss wrenched its head sideways just barely in time, taking the blade across its cheek instead of through its neck, carving a deep groove through matted fur and diseased flesh to where Deacon could see its cheekbone.
The Manor Lord let out a furious squeal and threw a wild double swipe that forced both Deacon and Leon back, buying itself just enough room to reset.
Both Deacon and Leon caught the double swipe simultaneously, Deacon deflecting against the flat of his blade while Leon caught it full across his tower shield, and in that split second, with the Manor Lord fully committed and both arms pushed outward and away from its body, a sharp crack of a bow string rang out from behind them.
Valorie's fully charged Power Shot streaked across the hall and punched directly into the Manor Lord's left eye socket, burying itself to the fletch, causing the Manor Lord to rear its head back with a shriek that shook dust loose from the ceiling as it pulled back its hands to clutch at its face with both clawed hands.
About to lunge forward to take advantage of the opening Valorie gave them–
"Back up!" Bonehead shouted, his voice cutting through the hall and causing both Deacon and Leon to immediately leap backward just in time to see one of Bonehead's larger explosive bombs arc over their heads and shatter against the marble between the Dungeon Boss's feet.
Shattering against the marble tile, the bomb erupted in a massive explosion of fire that engulfed the Manor Lord completely as flames roared upward and consumed its hunched form.
As Deacon and Leon continued leaping further back from the explosion until they were just a few meters away from Bonehead and Valorie, Deacon's brows furrowed as he realized the Dungeon Boss wasn't screeching in pain as he'd expected.
Focusing his gaze through the roaring flames that continued to expand outward, he caught sight of the Manor Lord's body beginning to bulge and swell within the fire, its frame expanding rapidly as bones cracked and snapped audibly while reforming into something far larger, muscles visibly tearing apart and regrowing across its shoulders and back in grotesque waves, its spine elongating with wet sickening pops as a massive rat tail suddenly burst from its lower back and thrashed wildly through the flames.
Deacon's eyes widened as he watched the creature's three-piece suit tearing apart at the seams as the body beneath continued rapidly expanding and mutating, the fabric ripping and burning away as the Manor Lord grew larger and larger within the flames.
Just as Deacon opened his mouth to shout a warning to the group, the Manor Lord suddenly threw its head back and released a baleful roar that exploded outward from its open maw, the shockwave snuffing out every flame in the hall in an instant, from the fire consuming its own body to the flames still burning in the sealed tunnels on both sides, and even extinguishing the candle torches mounted along the walls that had been lighting the entire hall, plunging everything into near darkness.
The only light sources untouched by the Manor Lord's roar were the group's Mana Lanterns, their soft glow casting long shadows across the hall as they illuminated the dungeon boss standing in the smoking crater where Bonehead's bomb had struck.
It had fully mutated into a massive mutant rat at least three times Leon's height with patches of matted fur missing across its flesh to expose raw skin covered in weeping boils that split and oozed thick pus, along with its massive furless tail.