Chapter 148: The Tip of the Blade

Right in the center of the stadium, battle cries shook the heavens as skills of various brilliant colors flashed incessantly.

At a loud command from a figure on the eastern high platform, the remaining Awakeners of the four major legions—aside from the still-panicked free Awakeners—had long since made their preparations. At the person's hand gesture, they launched a coordinated assault simultaneously.

In an instant, dozens upon dozens of skill radiances masked the glowing light of the magic array beneath the giant stag's hooves, amplifying the momentum of the Awakeners.

However, after unleashing this stunningly powerful wave of attacks, the expressions of the Awakeners present turned rather grim.

The giant stag's life aura remained virtually unchanged after withstanding such a barrage of skills.

Every offensive skill, upon landing on the giant stag, was partially mitigated by the swirling flames surrounding it before actually striking its body.

Beyond that, the giant stag possessed exceptionally strong innate defense. Its body was endowed with the Giant race's unique hardened stone skin, which permanently reduced a fixed amount of damage. Its defensive prowess far surpassed that of other magical beasts of the same tier.

The Awakeners' attacks were first weakened by the layer of fire shield, then largely absorbed by the hardened stone skin. Finally, one must not forget the BOSS monster's own formidable defense and magic resistance. Thus, after layers of reduction, the final damage dealt was negligible.

The Awakeners' attacks were utterly ticklish to the BOSS. Even skill damages reaching over a hundred points, when landing a critical hit, could only float a pitiful red "-1" above the BOSS's head.

After the Awakeners' first round of skills, the BOSS's health bar had barely moved at all. Instead, with a casual sweep of the BOSS's limb, a large swathe of Awakeners in the front row had their defenses directly pierced and were killed.

Their previously inflated confidence had long since been ground into nothingness.

The current battlefield situation was far beyond tricky; to many Awakeners, this massive BOSS even gave off an overwhelming, invincible feeling. To be honest, after that very first round of skills, many people already harbored thoughts of retreating in their hearts.

Guo Xuemin wiped the sweat from his forehead. He took in the plight of the Awakeners before him, which caused a trace of anxiety to well up inside him.

As the provider of the BOSS intelligence, he had naturally secured the command of this operation during the prior meetings. However, this was no time to be dazed. Recovering quickly from the shock of the BOSS's opening strike, a series of commands began to stream continuously from his mouth.

"Don't just stand there! Mage unit, cast the first wave of debuff spells!"

"Vanguard unit, prepare to attack. Shield warriors, step forward and brace for the initial wave of attacks."

"Priest unit, ready your healing spells, prioritizing the front-line melee combatants..."

...

Following the rapid-fire issuance of his orders, a variety of weakening skills were simultaneously inflicted upon the BOSS.

"Cripple!"

"Ghost Entrapment!"

"Absolute Corrosion!"

...

It must be said that due to the sheer magnitude of the Awakeners' numbers, all sorts of obscure skills that were usually unheard of began sprouting up like bamboo shoots after a rain. Although most of these skills were relatively low-rated and would largely be immunized by the BOSS's resistant skin, the massive numerical base meant that with so many skills being unleashed at once, a few would inevitably bypass its immunities. Consequently, a long row of debuff statuses instantly appeared on the BOSS.

At its peak, the BOSS's armor, which originally exceeded a hundred points, was even reduced into the negatives.

Only now, with the giant stag's armor dropping into negative values, did the Awakeners' output finally yield some results. After about a minute of sustained suppression, the BOSS's health bar was finally no longer full; a tiny, visible notch had been carved out.

Though the rate of decline was agonizingly slow and still insignificant compared to the BOSS's massive health pool, damage was being dealt nonetheless.

As long as damage could be dealt, it meant this monster could be killed.

This realization slightly stabilized the previously chaotic morale.

"Mage unit, retreat immediately after casting your magic and swap in the next squad. You don't have to use offensive spells, but you must ensure Silence is cast continuously. Try your best to prevent the BOSS from releasing its skills..."

Guo Xuemin shouted into a magic megaphone toward the distant mage units.

Having had a private, in-depth conversation with Kong Zhe, he deeply understood the consequences of letting the BOSS cast skills unhindered.

Needless to say, their current headcount of around a thousand people wouldn't be enough to survive a few skills from this BOSS.

While their formulated battle plan against the BOSS appeared high in success rate and low in casualties on paper, it was all built on the premise of keeping the BOSS under a continuous Silence lock. Yet, once the actual combat commenced, Guo Xuemin discovered it was far less simple than imagined.

Although the mages' Silence spell indeed blanketed the giant stag from start to finish, this was, after all, an elite-tier BOSS. Its magical potency was not something these tier 4 or 5 Awakeners could easily contend with. No matter how strong the Silence effect was, there would inevitably be brief moments of lapse in the coverage.

And it was precisely during those fleeting delays that the fire damage generated by the giant stag still caused massive trouble for the Awakeners.

The giant stag clearly possessed more than one skill. According to the intelligence files, the BOSS could utilize over ten different skills, the majority of which were fire-based. Among them, the greatest threat to the current situation was a skill called 'Magma Scorching.'

Upon entering combat, the giant stag would continuously create patches of magma zones around itself. Ordinary magma ground merely possessed armor-corroding and continuous damage effects, but certain special magma layers burned with a fiery crimson. While dealing massive damage over time, they also possessed the ability to afflict targets within their radius with fire poison, causing the Awakeners to feel dizzy and, in severe cases, directly stripping them of their mobility.

In the later stages, multiple magma zones would merge into one, not only bringing immense pressure to the Awakeners and disrupting the rhythm and coordination of their skill casting, but also severely restricting their maneuvering space!

Of course, with a low number of magma zones, the terrain here was exceptionally vast, and with no ordinary people present, the Awakeners had plenty of room to maneuver.

Moreover, with Guo Xuemin coordinating from the center, unless someone was extremely careless and happened to get cornered into the patches by the giant stag's attacks, those fiery red magma zones were essentially just for show under most circumstances.

However, as time ticked on and the giant stag's health bar steadily dwindled, the number of magma zones grew slowly and steadily.

Starting from just three or five patches, it gradually increased to six or seven...

Unawares, the Awakeners suddenly realized that the number of magma zones had actually surpassed a dozen.

Roughly half an hour into the battle, the fiery red terrain across the entire venue had nearly merged into a single sheet. Under the giant stag's noticeably accelerated attack rhythm, the Awakeners began to distinctly feel their movements restricted.

Furthermore, those glaring crimson hues, coupled with the flames constantly erupting from the giant stag's entire body, continuously interfered with the Awakeners' vision and judgment.

Under such conditions, mistakes were prone to happening.

Originally, under Guo Xuemin's unified command, although the occasional death of one or two Awakeners still occurred, most people remained safe as long as they exercised caution. But the situation had now deteriorated to the extreme. Right after a recent area-of-effect attack by the giant stag, the first massive casualty event among the front-line Awakeners occurred.

This large-scale death toll claimed twenty to thirty lives all at once. Just like before, they were directly reduced to ashes by the scorching flames.

This tragic scene instantly stirred up unrest within the previously stable crowd. In some areas, gaps even formed as Awakeners began to retreat.

Guo Xuemin hurriedly shouted at the top of his lungs, rapidly issuing several coordination commands, which barely managed to stabilize the situation.

Yet, sweat beaded on his forehead. With less than half of the BOSS's health bar depleted, the pressure on the Awakeners had already reached such a degree. If this continued, let alone competing for treasure, whether they could even hold out until the very end was a major question.

However, the more chaotic the situation, the easier it was for hidden talents among the crowd to be noticed.

Soon, not only Guo Xuemin, but most of the Awakeners as well, discovered two figures charging at the absolute forefront, facing the BOSS head-on, completely unlike the cowering behavior of others.

They were a man and a woman. The man wielded a long sword, and his blade blazed with a raging inferno whose light even overshadowed the flames covering the giant stag, making him extremely conspicuous.

As for the woman, her entire body was shrouded in a wide cloak, obscuring her features. However, judging by the staff in her hand and the holy radiance that periodically lit up on the man's body, it wasn't hard to guess that this was a Priest-class Awakener.

At this stage, the priest squads were already running around like dogs trying to heal everyone, yet they still couldn't keep up with the rate at which the front-line Awakeners were losing health—primarily because the fire damage from the magma terrain was simply too high.

With only so many priests and a limited pool of mana, once depleted, they had to wait a long time chanting to recover. Consequently, most people were currently lingering around half-health. The priests had no alternative but to prioritize saving those on the verge of death; otherwise, the casualty count would have grown exponentially, causing the battlefront to collapse instantly.

Yet, despite such a severe shortage of priests, this man actually had a dedicated personal priest assigned exclusively to heal him.

Judging by the woman's demeanor, she was entirely willing to heal him alone, ignoring everyone else even if they were on the brink of death. This inevitably filled the surrounding Awakeners with intense envy.

Envy aside, while a few people initially held some grievances about this, upon noticing the astronomical damage the man was inflicting upon the BOSS, they all gasped in shock and hurriedly swallowed any complaints back down.

"-232!"

"-241!"

"-496!"

...

If the current batch of Awakeners could be likened to a blade hacking away at the giant stag, then the man at the very tip was undoubtedly the sharpest edge of the knife.