Afterlife Dream

The Black Chimera stood tall and proud, appearing like a majestic king of beasts on top of a pile of skeletal remains. Directly above its head was the sky, dyed the crimson color of blood.

The lion raised its head and let out an ear-piercing roar. One could say that it was to signify the start of the raid. After that one roar, the Black Chimera started to transform.

I held my staff in my hand tightly, anticipating the worst.

Once the transformation was complete, I saw that it was not a transformation at all.

The Black Chimera split into a lion, a faun, and a gigantic snake with two heads. A faun was a mythological creature that was half-goat and half-human.

From across the map, ZhaoYun gave his instructions in a loud voice.

"First and second party against the lion, third and fourth party against the faun, and fifth one against the snake!"

The parties quickly moved toward the beasts that were assigned to them.

"And which number are we?" I asked HellWitch while running after her. I happened to not pay attention to our party number at all. It did not use to matter in the previous raids.

"First," she told me before charging toward the lion.

The lion? Seriously?

I was not the only one who thought that we had the worst luck ever. Or that the job arrangement was beyond unfair. Nevertheless, we had no other option but to follow HellWitch.

It was good that the beasts did not engage players at all. They literally waited until someone came to attack them. This way, the job distribution was quite smooth and easy.

Every party had at least one melee player, and this was why. No matter which beast the party was facing, the melee would serve as a tank. That way, the other party members with weaker defense and smaller HP bar could contribute by attacking the beasts from a safe spot. HellWitch from the first party and an Odin from the second party attacked the lion at almost the same time to attract the lion to them. Both of them were quickly repelled by an unseen attack when the lion roared at them.

Although HellWitch raised her shield in time, she still got some cuts on her legs.

"Careful," HellWitch hissed at me when I rushed over to heal her. "The lion attacks with a sound wave. It can cut through flesh and bone."

Yeah, I saw that.

"Don't come close until we successfully draw its attention," HellWitch warned me before she and the Odin quickly stood up and charged at the lion again. This time they managed to get close enough to the lion without being repelled.

When facing two tanks in close range, the lion did not use its sound wave attack. Instead, it utilized its four sets of sharp claws and to try to shred them into pieces.

"Stay at its backside and attack!" HellWitch shouted at us while blocking the claws swiftly using the Black Chimera Shield.

After HellWitch and the Odin successfully locked the lion onto them, the remaining members of both parties were able to attack the lion leisurely from behind.

"EVERYONE, GET BEHIND THE LION AND ATTACK!" I shouted.

Everyone from the first and second party quickly followed my lead and stuck to the lion's butt to stay alive and also to not draw the lion's attention away from the two tanks.

HellWitch was obviously stronger than the Odin. Her HP bar and defense were also superior to the latter one's. With little need to go over to heal her, I was given the freedom to attack the lion as much as I wanted. It was Holy Arrow Barrage the whole time. My only fast attack that focused on one single target. Or one direction.

Garron and the other three newbie raiders in the first party shot me looks full of admiration.

"Dude, you are strong," he remarked. The other three nodded fervently in agreement.

I could not help but grin. "Thanks."

Although I picked the support class of my own volition, I never once stopped admiring the other attack classes. It felt good to finally be seen as someone who could also contribute some damage.

I stole a glance at how the other three parties were doing. The third and the fourth party were employing the same strategy as we did. Two tanks - one of them ZhaoYun - were dealing with the faun that kept trying to kick them using its two front legs. ZhaoYun wielded a spear so he could still maintain a healthy distance between him and the faun. His partner who wielded axe was not so lucky.

Meanwhile, the fifth party had a completely different strategy. It also consisted of five melee players as opposed to the four other parties. The five melee players surrounded the double-headed snake and whacked at it brutally while enduring the snake's poisonous bites and attacks. Some distance away from the melees stood a Bishop whose job was casting Dispel, Heal, and Divine Guard over the melees over and over again.

From time to time, we heard players screaming when they got scratched or bitten by the three beasts. Other than that, no one died so far. Having a few Black Chimera Shields in the raid truly worked wonders.

"Hey, Antares!" Livina yelled at me from across the map. "Can you come over here and help with the damage?"

"WHAT??? NO OF COURSE NOT!" Garron quickly objected. "We will have no Bishop left here!"

ZhaoYun rolled with his eyes impatiently. "If you are so scared then go hide somewhere safe! We need more damage over here!"

HellWitch nodded at me, so I teleported over to ZhaoYun and Livina. "Sup?" I asked.

Livina explained to me.

"The first rule about the Black Chimera raid is that all three beasts must die at the same time, but none of them must reach 50% and 20% at the same time."

Aha.

"Is it because of the AoE attack?"

"Correct," they both said in unison. "If they do the AoEs at the same time, we will all die and fail the raid."

"Good to know. So what are the AoEs?"

"At 50% HP, the lion will summon minions to crowd the map. The minions barely hurt but had huge defense. The idea was to make players lose focus and scatter, thus becoming easy prey for the beasts."

"Okay..."

"The faun will increase both the minions' physical and magical defense, and also make them hurt."

"..."

The lion and the faun definitely must not reach 50% at the same time, then

"The snake will bring forth a poisonous rain that lasted around 5 minutes."

"Um..."

Five minutes was a long time.

"So, we hit the faun first and then we focus on the other two?"

"Basically yes," Livina said. "But ZhaoYun will stay with the faun because if he doesn't, the faun will go and join either the lion or the snake and regain their HP %."

...

Freaking faun.

"Hit the faun first, then we hit the lion, and THEN we hit the snake."

I took a quick glance at the HP% of all three beasts. The lion had 60%, the faun had 55%, and the snake had 76%.

"I think we are good."

Livina giggled.

"Yes, so I need you to help bring the faun's HP down right now."

"Gladly," I murmured.

After a few minutes, the faun reached 50%. The beast tossed out a high-pitched scream and started to glow.

After hearing Livina's explanation, we all prepared to go attack the lion, but Livina stopped us.

"Wait!!!" she shouted. "Don't go yet! Stay with the faun!!"

"But... Didn't you say that the lion should go next?" the others asked, a little confused.

"I forgot to mention that the faun will still be able to aid the lion as long as it continued glowing. We need to wait until the glowing stops before we bring the lion down to 50%."

"Oh."

And so we continued beating up the faun. It took around three minutes until the faun stopped glowing. HellWitch had been stabbing at the lion lightly for the last minute to prevent it from reaching 50% too soon.

As soon as the faun stopped glowing, HellWitch ramped up her attacks and soon we had the minions hovering around us.

We called them minions, but they were not small at all. In fact, they were huge and took all kinds of animal shape. Gorillas, deers, elephants, giraffes, and even cassowaries.

"What the..."

All of us were getting overwhelmed by the so-called minions. Or better said pushed around and bullied.

"Apocalypse...!" I shouted. Huge golden pillars of light broke through the turbid sky and hit all of the minions at once. And even killed some of the weaker ones. Those that were hit and did not die were trapped within the pillar of light for a while. Enough to immobilize them so that the others could focus on the beasts.

ZhaoYun whistled. He then grinned at me and raised two thumbs up.

"Wow. Good going, Antares! Do that again!"

"WAIT!!!" Lazarus who was in the fifth team shouted in terror. "The snake!!! The snake is losing HP!!!"