The Gamer Chapter 1624 – Raid and Adventures 19 – Hellboar (Patreon)

“Beware of his fists, for every strike shall land stronger than the last, should the burden not be exchanged. Beware of his hooves, for every stomp announces a new wave of flames and shadow. Beware of his tests, for every one of us has a purpose, and our mettle shall be tried. Then, beware of his duty, for we will not press him to the end – yet.”

John pondered Lorelei’s words as he looked down at the Hellboar. The boss somewhat looked back, in the same way as all NPCs that were facing the correct direction felt like they were looking at him. Years of playing Elder Scrolls games had conditioned John to be wary of even vague gazes.

“So, tank swap mechanic for melee attacks, area attacks for his stomps, and some kind of single target trial mechanic,” John summarized. “Easy enough in that summary, now it depends on the kinds of area attacks we are dealing with here. Also sounds like we’ll fight him again later.”

The Gamer and the seer returned to the mansion, with the fresh intel in mind, to put the group together. It was still shortly after breakfast on day six of the grinding session, so all were still together.

“We’ll need at least two tanks, we should prioritize mobility and self-sufficiency,” John outlined his thought process. “…Ehtra, Metra, you two will fulfil the tank role.”

“Me?” The First of Hatred had obviously not expected being called on. It had been over four days since she had participated in the activities. For her, hanging around must have been more of a formality at this point, even if she did participate in the constant grinding against Lu Zhi. “You better not be calling on me out of pity,” she added, once her surprise had settled.

“I’m not. You have good defences, high regeneration, and mobility. You and Metra are more self-sufficient than Gnome or Aclysia, even if you can’t take as much burst damage. You offer no other utilities, but that shouldn’t be a factor in this fight. If I’m proven wrong, you’re out.”

Ehtra gave him a militaristic nod to signal her agreement. “Your reasoning is sound. I’ll follow your lead.”

“Undine, you’ll remain in, as per usual.” The slime barely even reacted. “I’ll come along with the Creator Puppet, but I’ll switch to my true body should that prove more advantageous. Four more slots…” He considered, then made the somewhat obvious choices. “Beatrice, Rave, Lydia, and Nia.”

The four chosen damage dealers just nodded. Reason why he had picked those four specifically was their combination of resilience and speed. Beatrice had outstanding regeneration, Rave had alright regeneration thanks to Illuminare, Lydia had high defences, and Nia could recover herself. If self-sufficiency was the name of the game, they were the best at it.

It made the melee area quite crowded, but he hoped that wouldn’t matter too much.

Moving back into the Raid, they descended from the stone and met with the boss. Rather than go into an immediately hostile stance, the Hellboar locked onto John. “I am the Hellboar!” he announced, his voice the gruff, grunting below that John had expected from the creature. “I am the guardian of fire and darkness! You have spilled the blood of the invader and broken the first seal. Do you wish to take on the trials? To break the other seals and prove yourself worthy of killing the root of this world’s terror?”

A window popped up in front of John, asking for confirmation or denial. Even if this boss did not offer Loot himself, it was against the Gamer’s better instinct to let the chance at additional bosses go by. He pressed confirm.

“Then let the first test begin!” the Hellboar roared and stomped once.

All were blown backwards, slamming with their backs against a ring of stone that had risen from the blackened sands. Immediately, the hoof of the Hellboar rose again. It came down, causing the dark grains in the outer ring of the arena to glow.

‘Move into the dark area!’ John instructed Ehtra specifically. The First of Hatred was the only one not yet knowledgeable enough in gaming terminology to not see the signs the same way they did.

‘What do you take me for?!’ she hissed back, her grey wings already beating. Perhaps telling her not to stand in the obviously dangerous area had been disrespectful.

All of them barely made it to the inner two-thirds of the arena, before a ring of fire shot up to the heavens. Beatrice and Metra had stopped just short of getting out and now deliberately extended a hand into the stream of fire and shadow. Even taking into account Metra’s damage resistance, Beatrice took less damage – but she still took damage.

‘Truly a mixture of fire and shadow then,’ John thought.

The Hellboar stomped again, this time causing a ring to appear in the middle third between himself and the rim of the arena. They dodged by getting even closer to the boss, taking the opportunity to deliver a series of first blows, before the expected third stomp spawned an area right underneath the boss.

They all backed away. The boss came out of the black-red pillar, fist swinging. Ehtra braced herself against the impact, using one of her wings as a shield. She was driven back, but the overlapping plates of Astrotium feathers held. A black mist stuck to her armoured form. It was faint, but noticeable. A second strike caused it to intensify. Despite her blocking in the same way, the damage was clearly increased and it wasn’t like the first had been mild.

Ehtra’s hair was already tinged light red right from the growing might of her blood halo. Her HP was down to just above half. Metra jumped in, to give her sister the space to recover. The Hellboar caught her mid-leap with a hammer fist, slamming the Breaker of Armies into the ground. Before the armoured berserker could even roll on her back, another strike hit her.

The attacks by everyone else barely even sunk into the Hellboar’s skin. John swung Inkaryl with all he had to offer. The deep purple blades, heavy with gravitational might, barely sunk a finger’s width into the thick hide of the muscular boar-taur.

The spike in difficulty was evident in the monster’s speed, strength, and durability. Metra had to rip open a portal not to be hit a third time and get put in lethal range. Ehtra wasn’t even healed yet. Lydia instead jumped in as a deliberately attractive target, taking a swing while Undine topped the First of Hatred off. The darkness that clung to her ebbed away gradually.

The Hellboar went smoothly from swinging its boulder-like fist into three rapid stomps. Each caused a different quarter of the arena to glow with shadow-fire, thin slices of safe spaces between them.

Nia, Metra, Ehtra, Undine, Rave and Beatrice made it in time – John and Lydia did not. The Gamer’s field of view was consumed by red and black, the outer layers of the Swirls model turning flexible and drippy like candle wax. The attack went by before he could be defeated by it entirely. Lydia had survived by using the Hydrasteel as a blast shield. Both of them were worse for wear, but still standing.

There was no breathing period after the Hellboar’s area attack, only immediate violence. Charging in, the boss delivered a punch that turned Lydia from a survivor to nothing at all. His fist made contact, then sent the queen back to the mansion.

The hunched creature turned the upward swing into a backflip. Landing with a grace more appropriate for a nimble martial artist than a demon of his size, the Hellboar landed back in the middle of the arena. The double impact of his hooves created a shockwave that halted the charges of the surviving six damage dealers.

Once, twice, thrice, the Hellboar stomped. The first set of attacks of the fight had given John the idea that there were gracious delays, but evidently that had only existed for dramatic effects. The margin of error between the inwards-out series of circular explosions was tiny. Most of them were caught up this time, but the Creator Puppet had sustained too much damage to survive it. The party was teleported out and re-planning immediately began.

The golem body was shelved in favour of the Gamer. Magus Step would be more useful and the boss was too fast to have another melee combatant in the mix. That was the only change they made at this stage. Immediately, they went back in.

The fight was brutal and brutal was exactly what John wanted at the moment.

Not that he minded easy rewards at all, but the first two bosses had gone down too fast for his liking. He did not go into Raids just because they were efficient, he went into Raids because they provided him something he could rarely get out of real enemies these days: a proper challenge. All of the advantages of danger without any of the drawbacks of having two apocalyptically powerful entities clash with each other - no political consequences, no levelled landscapes, no imminent doom, just the passion of battle.

The fight was hard, incredibly hard. Their first 20 pulls averaged 45 seconds until the wipe. The boss made up for his lack of multiple mechanics and clear tells by having no set cooldowns. It was the closest to a genuine fight they had yet. The limited arena and the clear borders around his abilities still made it clear that this was a game-inspired encounter, but it certainly was less so than others.

Between each try, they had to take several minutes of healing, gathering themselves, and discussing what they could do better. By the 21st try, it was already two hours into their day.

It was also the first time they managed to make it a minute in.

“Face the burden that IT would place on you!” the Hellboar roared. The infernal gateway on its back opened, creating a glimpse at something of wings and eyes. John, because he stood furthest away, happened to look at it first and was pulled in.

All of the battlefield around him vanished, leaving him alone in the arena. Up from the ground swirled the shape of a humanoid. It was deadly gaunt in many places, ribs showing under stretched skin, the midriff almost hugging the spine, and the legs little more than stilts. In other places, it was strangely thick. The fingers were universally thick and ended in flat stubs. A pair of stubby horns extended from its hairless head. The forehead had cracked open, a third eye bulging out like the head of a mushroom.

Izha, in the first form that John had ever encountered the human part of the Lorylim hivemind, stepped towards the Gamer. “Just join us. It would all be so much easier if you did,” he spoke in a wet, squelching voice, like a thousand maggots rubbing up against each other.

John suddenly wondered how he had got here. Hadn’t he been doing something? He shook his head and concentrated on the enemy before him. Hand raised, he launched an Arc Lance; it ripped straight through the insane being. The gap was swiftly filled up by sand. ‘I don’t remember that being something he could do…’ the Gamer thought. ‘God, it’s like a gap in my teeth… I know something is missing.’

“Think about it, think about it deeeeeeeplyyyyyyy.” Open-armed, Izha walked forwards. “The only way to defeat Tiamat is from within. You have the will, right? Right? Right?! You have the will. The strongest will. You could take over, you could wield the Lorylim and turn them on themselves – even use them for gooooood! Join me, join me, take over and dominate the world! An unquestioning army and your vengeance are as one.”

John hesitated. His pride urged him to accept. After all, who if not him? The world worked on might and he was mighty – why not become more so? Why not rip Tiamat open from the inside out?

Sensing his wavering will, Izha accelerated his steps. John closed his eyes and reminded himself of what the Lorylim were. “Evil can never create, only destroy or corrupt what was created by the good,” he muttered to himself, opened his eyes, and cut Izha apart with an Arcana Ray. The moment he did, the memories of what happened flooded back in. A split second later, so did the sounds of combat.

John was slung over the shoulder of Lydia. “Back?” she asked him, just barely leaping out of another pillar fire.

“Yes!” he answered and was thrown down like a sack of potatoes. He caught himself. They had no time for the niceness of battle. A quick scan of the situation revealed it made very little difference. Ehtra and Beatrice had been knocked out in his absence and Metra was clearly about to follow. They wiped, discussed, then went back at it.

The next 26 attempts were spent on working out the conditions of the trial activating, who was pulled in, and learning how to cope with the effects. By now, each trial cost them about nine minutes, so the 46th total attempt was the last before the dinner break.

The conditions for the spell were relatively easy to identify, same for the determination of who was pulled in. Every minute, on the dot, the gate on the Hellboar’s back opened and whoever first looked at it was pulled in. They tried the ‘not looking’ strategy for a bit, but it was a pretty terrible one. Someone’s stray gaze would always connect. Better to control who did it than gamble on a delay.

The effect was personalized to everyone, even if the broad strokes were the same. Those that looked into the vision were given an offer that was tempting, but refusable. Memories and questions of how they had gotten there did not occur. They got out by refusing the offer with conviction. In real space, the body of the person was in a motionless daze – which made them a bit too prone to stand in fire. The details of the vision became blurry afterwards, like a dream, doubtlessly to keep them from preparing for it.

John initially thought that he would have been the one to have the easiest time to get out of there, courtesy of his high Wisdom. After a few trials, it became readily apparent that he was actually terrible at it. The reason for this was easy to pick out: he wanted too much. He was wise enough to refuse, but he was also the double-thinker who would try to exploit what he was offered.

On closer inspection, it was probably unsurprising that Beatrice actually had the easiest time to snap out of it. She still needed a few seconds, but between her Fire Immunity and ‘a few seconds’ being fairly short, that was in the doable range. When asked, Beatrice reported that she apparently was offered the position of head maid or something to the same effect. Things remained blurry.

The hardest time was between Ehtra and Lydia. Neither would divulge what little they remembered of the visions. John did not press them on the matter, he could imagine what it was for both of them and neither needed to be reminded of dark places.

From there, it was just a constant stream of optimization. Attempts got longer and longer, the day shorter and shorter, and the progress mounted.

The Hellboar was covered in hundreds of cuts, dozens of them deep enough to cause serious blood loss. Five cauterized slashes showed where Rave had hit him with her Babel Phrase. Tree-trunk like arms whirled around, swinging back and forth between Ehtra and Metra. The two Metracana were both mantled by shadows. As much as they had tried, the effect had gradually built up over the course of the fight, the time between their swaps too short for it to ever fully disappear.

A single swing would send either of them out of the Illusion Barrier, where Beatrice and Lydia were already waiting. The remaining six of them were dancing in and out of the range of his fists and the areas of explosion. Even Undine was up in the direct fray.

Rave made the mistake of advancing just a step too far. Tired from using her Babel Phrase amidst this continued fight, she was uppercut out of the battle. As before, the Hellboar turned the motion into a backward flip, landed with a shockwave, then slammed his hoof down thrice.

The party scattered towards the safe spots. The three explosions occurred with minimal delay. All of them collapsed back on the enemy.

John angled his fingers carefully. Five Blast Rays joined together, hitting the Hellboar in the side of his head. The combined force was enough to make even a Raid Boss stumble. Undine worsened it, crashing as a midnight blue wave against the back of the boss’ hooves. Nia descended, teleported above the enemy’s head, but was slammed out of the Instant Dungeon by a sideway punch.

Metra was right after the blonde, plunging down in a similar fashion after Tearing her way through a portal. The tip of Rex Magnar sunk into a pre-existing gash. The Hellboar let out a pained squeal.

On wings of hatred, Ehtra rose. Her hair fluttered crimson in the wind, her halo a band of blood, her sword ignited with crimson flame. Screaming out her contempt, Lady Vengeance descended. The burning blade screamed, teeth whirling around the polished grey core. The top of her blade rammed into the Hellboar’s forehead, cracking the skull. Shadow and flame exploded from the wound, from all wounds, forcing them all back.




“I YIELD!” the Hellboard declared.