Chapter 48: Lost, but Found 2
"Hehe~ I'm getting the hang of this~"
*DING* [Skill acquired: Mobile Casting Lv.1]
"Oh?"
[Mobile Casting Lv.1 (0/10,000)
Rank: A
A high level technique that enables magic casting while moving, 90% movement speed and attack speed while casting magic
Upgradeable: No]
Maria did notice that while she was attacking and casting magic at the same time, she would indeed slow down a bit. With the new skill, Maria could feel that she was able to move faster and more freely while casting magic.
"Oh~ this makes things a whole lot easier!"
With [Mobile Casting], Maria was now basically toying with the high-leveled boss monster. It was slow for a boss and it couldn't catch her anymore now that her speed was improved during the lull in her attacks when she was casting magic.
[Fire] and [Smite] kept on bombarding the monster's body and whenever [Ruin] was off cooldown Maria would strike it with the spell and deplete a large amount of its HP away.
80%...75%...70%...
A bit a ways away, the group of players who had run into Maria while she was fighting the boss monster hid themselves and continued to observe her fight.
"Is this really happening?"
"...she's soloing that boss..."
"..."
The players hiding were people who Maria had never once met before. What were uniform about them were the dark moon guild emblems on their shoulders. It was the emblem of the Eclipse Guild.
"She's that chick from the PV, right?"
"...Yeah."
"She disappeared a while back, but here she is, grinding monsters non-stop, by her lonesome. Look, she's doesn't even have a guild emblem...the rumors that she's a part of the Fallen Angels is false it seems."
"Hm...She's pretty strong, I thought she was a Priestess, but look, she's swinging around that large axe AND she's using magic..."
The party continued to observe her and the HP bar of the boss quickly depleted below 30%. No matter what kind of skill or attack it dished out, the monster couldn't land an effective hit on the girl.
It also had to be clear that while Maria was attacking the monster with her weapon, she would slowly gain back the HP she had lost when she took a hit. Also, she was restoring her HP with [Cure] from time to time.
The small fairy that was moving around the battlefield was also constantly sending out small bolts of black energy at the Mountain Liger and damaging it as well.
When the monster's HP fell below 15%, a member of the party that was observing Maria quickly spoke up.
"Are we going to steal the boss?"
"Yes."
"Just wait until its HP falls below 10%, and then we'll take it. She's only a single person. She can't beat all 10 of us."
The current party of 10 people from Eclipse was among the elite members of their guild so they had confidence in their abilities. But what they were about to do was a mistake.
"Aim for the fairy first. Then we'll take out the girl."
"Yes sir"
The party immediately prepared for their assault and the 2 archers and mages quickly readied their attacks and aimed it on Lilah who was flying around.
"Lilah! Just a little more, and we—" Maria's words were caught off when she turned around and saw some players raising their weapons and aiming it at Lilah.
"Lilah! Watch out!"
"Hm?"
It was too late, when the players noticed that Maria had seen them, they immediately released their attacks.
"AHHHHH!!!"
Lilah was pelted and struck by multitudes of spells and arrows, she wasn't instantly killed because of her high HP, but Maria paled when she saw Lilah fall out of the sky.
"YOUUUU!!!"
Maria turned around and glared at the players and saw that there were 3 others that had suddenly appeared from nowhere. From what she could see, the 2 of them were warriors and 1 of them was a knight. She completely forgot about the monster behind her and immediately bolted into the air and began casting [Fire].
It was lucky for Maria because right as she took off, 2 players had materialized at her previous location with their blades out. The 2 were thief class players and were trying to ambush her. She barely dodged a bullet, but was too angry to even notice.
She aimed her [Fire] spell on the long ranged players at the back. She didn't throw her spell, but rather smacked it at the players with her Calamity. She then followed it up with [Angel's Rage].
The feathers passed through the ball of flames and ignited. The attacks were blocked by a [Barrier] and [M.Barrier] cast by the party's Priest, but they were immediately broken apart because of Maria's high damage.
Maria was a little blinded by anger that she didn't do her normal combo of swooping down from the sky with a [Calamity Cleave]. She instead activated [Calamity Cleave] and threw her weapon at the people below, before quickly casting [Ruin].
Whether she intended for it or not, but Maria's [Angel's Rage] and [Fire] had coincidentally gathered together the long ranged units behind the Priest's barriers. When the Calamity arrived on top of the players, they were all caught inside [Calamity Cleave]'s AOE stun.
"Shit! We forgot she could fly!"
"Damn, how'd she stun them like that?"
The players who were dashing back towards their long-ranged party members yelled. They had forgotten about this small detail because they had been observing Maria fighting and she hadn't once taken into the air.
"[Ruin]!!!"
The players all heard Maria's furious shout, and in the next instant a white ray of energy fell from the skies and struck the long ranged players and completely erased them from existence.
Maria quickly flew down from the skies and grabbed her axe before immediately charging straight at the dumbfounded players who were still processing the complete wipeout of their party members by the girl's single spell.
"DAMN! We've underestimated her!"
"RUN!"
"OH, I DON'T THINK SO!" Maria yelled and activated [Gehenna's Eye].
Just before the Thieves were able to disappear back into [Stealth] they were struck with the skill.
"SHIT! My skill's been sealed?! What is this?!"
Maria's [Gehenna's Eye] was able to seal others' skills for one minute. She was lucky enough to have it proc on all the players struck by her skill this time around.
She immediately moved to the closest Warrior and struck him with an [Arc Swing], sending the poor fellow into the air. She sent her feathers chasing after the player before cruelly slamming him back onto the ground with her axe.
[Fire] was thrown at one of the Thieves and it was a quick one-shot. When the other tried to run, Maria threw her axe at him.
"How dare you hurt Lilah!"
The boss was still alive, but was completely ignored by Maria. It was just about to chase after her, but Lilah had flown back up from the crevice in the ground where she was stuck in and once more began attacking the monster.
She looked around, wondering where her master was at and immediately saw the girl torturing the players that had attacked her earlier.
"M-master?!"
Maria was fleeting around the players while constantly sending [Angel's Rage], [Smite] and [Fire] at them. It didn't take long before the final player fell to her attack.
"Master, I need help here!"
"Huh?!"
Maria turned around and saw Lilah still alive and kicking, well for now at least. She was currently being chased around by the Mountain Liger with her HP dangerously low.
Mari quickly cast a [Cure] on her. She then activated [Calamity Cleave] and threw her axe at the monster.
It was a pretty handy to use the skill like this since she could now stun others from afar and throw a spell at them while they were stuck in place.
"You're okay Lilah!"
"O-of course! I wouldn't fall from such weak attacks!"
"You almost did, though..."
"No! That's because while Master was busy tormenting those helpless whelps that the boss was able to land a few attacks on me!"
"O-oh...s-sorry about that...I thought they killed you..."
"...I appreciate the sentiment Master, but please have a little bit more faith in me! I'm not going to fall from such weaklings!" Lilah said while puffing her chest out.
"GROOAARRR!!!"
The Mountain Liger was still there and it began roaring in anger when it saw the two people completely ignoring him.
"...Let's get rid of this annoying cat first...I'm done experimenting and I've learnt a lot of knew things so we can kill it now~"
"We would have been finished long ago if Master didn't insist on using [Cure], [Heal], and [Regen] on it!"
"Hehe~ sorry~, but I wanted to level them up and lookie~ they're all level 3 now! And, and, [Fire] as well as [Smite] are level 4 now!"
Maria said cheerfully as she showed Lilah her [Skill] window.
Lilah sighed seeing her carefree Master. She applied another [Faerie Fire] on the boss and the two quickly took care of it.
[Level Up! Lv.21 → Lv.22! Acquired 20 Free Stat Points]
[Your pet [Lilah] has leveled up! Lv. 31 → Lv. 32]