Chapter 95: The Effigy (Patreon)

For a passing moment, the entire island was completely still. There were no palm fronds left on the remaining trees to rustle in the gentle breeze and even the calm waves seemed hesitant to disturb the peace. The resolute defenders were collectively holding their breath as they watched Coop slowly back toward the fort. Seeing the Champion engage the boss had rid them of any of their own lingering hesitation in fighting the boss. They were just waiting for a window of opportunity to get some attacks in after the monster finally moved into the edge of their range.

Instead of getting closer, the boss momentarily stopped, shifting slightly to face Coop directly, begrudgingly halting its previously uninterrupted approach toward the main gate after the ethereal sword disconnected a weapon from one of the oversized effigy limbs. The dismembered Construct limbs, attached to its war banner effigy had writhed the entire time that it trudged across the island, but when the Siege Boss ceased its movement, to essentially glare at Coop, they stopped as well. It was like the boss was finally paying respect to the individual challenger that harried it as soon as it arrived on Ghost Reef.

Coop returned the stare until he felt a tickle in the back of his head that almost itched beneath his scalp. A deep voice that seemed to come from every direction, but also from nowhere at all, broke the stillness that had temporarily blanketed the island. “Die.” It whispered, thick with gravel, directly into his mind like an uncalled-for memory.

A smokey pulse of miasma spread from the monster, passing through Coop and onward to the fort without even a whisper of pressure. When the dark energy crossed the moat, it buoyed up the walls before quickly evaporating after reaching the broken ramparts and the defenders on top.

[You resisted Pronouncement: Death]

Coop grunted as he acknowledged the sinister attack, recognizing that these Siege level bosses would have more abilities than regular monsters, or even elites. From his peripheral vision, flashes of light drew his attention and he spared a quick glance to the fort’s walls.

Madison was fully alight with her angel wings extended and halo blazing, floating in the air above the main gate. The chiming of her summoned celestial bell rang across Rock Key, as it emerged from the clouds in all of its heavenly glory. Coop wasn’t affected by the boss’s affliction, but Madison was already forced to cleanse the defenders with her ultimate ability.

Coop shook his head and furrowed his brows, realizing he needed to end the fight soon, regardless of the rest of the monster’s abilities. He swapped weapons once again, dismissing his sword, still dripping in black ichor, and threw his spear at the boss, resuming the battle with a quick toss and half a windup.

The shield arm slammed into the ground, taking his spear throw seriously despite the decreased velocity, but Coop mistjumped to the spear instead of continuing his probing attacks. He obviously needed to redouble his efforts to occupy the monster or it would be free to cast afflictions. The residents were far more susceptible than he was, and he wasn’t sure how consistently Madison could cleanse them.

When he exited the misty, monochromatic realm, catching the spear in his outstretched hand before it collided with the monster’s protective shield. He twisted around the shield arm, swapping his weapon while using the wide rectangular forearm to obstruct the monster’s vision, not that it even had recognizable eyes. When he emerged around the edge of the shield, suddenly in melee range, hopefully catching the Icon by surprise, he sliced at its body with his sword, reaching high and seeking the monster’s heart. The blade cut a long slice through the monster’s chest that oozed ichor, covering its torso in blackness, but Coop was immediately forced to back away despite his successful attack.

An effigy arm terminating with an enormous greataxe slammed into the ground from above, blasting a crater into the sand where he had planted his feet to attack. He was forced to jump away a second time as a butcher’s cleaver, large enough to decapitate a dragon, crashed down next, just a split second after the greataxe. A sword arm, massive hammer, and barbed mace, followed in quick succession and Coop barely dodged each with frantic hops in the sand.

He raised his shield and blocked a falling club, but immediately regretted the action as the crushing power made his shield ring and his arm ache. The effigy’s close combat attacks were stronger than the longer ranged attack had been and he felt the concussion through his bones. Three more arms came down and he was pushed further away from the monster’s main body until even the elongated limbs couldn’t reach him. Through all of the combat, the central body had simply stood there, bleeding on itself while the effigy did all the work.

Without Presence of Mind, he wouldn’t have been able to dodge the series of attacks from the effigy. His target was in front of him, but when he was near, all of the attacks came from almost directly above his head. If he hadn’t preemptively spread Fog of War, he would have needed to divide his attention to keep an eye on the effigy at least as much as the monster that hauled it.

Once Coop was driven away, he took another good look to assess his next attack and couldn’t help but grimace at his strange opponent. It was odd, even considering it was an alien. The Primal Constructs had been consistent in their appearance, even between their monster manifestations and themselves, yet this mana mutant had clearly adopted and corrupted them into something new and warped.

He noted that even though the effigy’s attacks had been quick and powerful, the arms took time to retract their weapons back up to the effigy and prepare another attack. Coop didn’t waste time and swapped to his spear to mistjump back in, hoping to exploit this apparent weakness as none of the arms that attacked him were ready to continue.

His spear only managed a glancing blow on the monster’s leg before more of the effigy’s arms started slamming down on his position, pushing him back out of range as he dipped and dodged each individual limb. With enough arms to seem like thick strands of tangled hair all along the effigy, the boss didn’t need to reload each quickly, and with their length. it had a significant range advantage on him. But the monster was bleeding. It wasn’t impervious to his attacks, he just needed to land them.

Coop dodged back in, bouncing between the limbs, and tried something new. The long range spiked arm had never recovered after he severed its tip, so rather than strictly avoiding the arms of the effigy, he would retaliate against them. Even though he had been able to deal clear damage to the main body, he didn’t push directly toward the center. Breaking through the radius of the effigy was more difficult than fighting the arms at the edge of their range, where he could back out before he was overwhelmed. He concentrated on whittling away the effigy as his alternative to directly assaulting the main body, but that left the creature free to resume its march forward.

Coop quickly swapped between his weapons, needing to defend with his shield nearly as much as he dodged, since the boss shifted forward while engaging Coop with its effigy. Knowing that a direct hit would still stagger him, he was careful only to catch glancing blows with his shield and avoid the rest. When he had the chance, he switched to his glaive to slice retracting limbs, before going back to his sword and shield.

The monster’s forward movement pushed its attack range beyond the previous radius, protecting the slower retracting limbs. Coop was forced within the dangerous reach of the rest of the limbs if he wanted to make sure he had a chance to deal damage when they exposed themselves to his weapons, but he wasn’t going to let it attack freely without retaliating.

His ethereal swordsmanship really paid off when he made further efforts to stymie the Siege Boss’s momentum with full engagement. Fighting within the attack radius caused the monster to stay still and let the limbs do the work, lest the main body get too close to Coop’s frenzied attacks. The effigy’s attacks sliced through the air only to meet the mists as he drifted between mistjumps and assaulted the retracting limbs from different angles. He needed to move so quickly, he wasn’t always able to completely disable his targets, but he was applying constant damage through quick jabs and slices, finding them to be relatively soft targets compared to the defensive arms that blocked his spear throws at the start.

Only when an opportunity presented itself did he swap to one of his more devastating weapons. The glaive punished the limbs the most, severing the dangerous portions and leaving the rest of the arm’s length as a useless, ichor leaking pipe that crawled back toward the stake, but his morning star also crushed more than a few into craters in the coral bedrock beneath the sand, turning them into unrecognizable, crippled arms, after they planted themselves into the ground.

He tore through an arm that terminated with a sword blade with his glaive and the boss faltered for a moment as another part of the effigy retracted while bleeding. The monster had raised its main arms again while the rest of the effigy paused. Coop anticipated another blast of afflictions as he recognized the attack pattern, but the split second pause was too abrupt to give him an opportunity to counter.

The deep voice tickled his mind again while Coop tried to launch his spear in the sudden lull. “You will crave nonexistence.” It promised ominously, and a blast of miasma landed directly onto Coop’s position as if conjured from a giant bucket above his head.

[You resisted Pronouncement: Void]

His spear was blocked by the shield limb even as the affliction attempted to corrupt him and Coop snuck a look back at the fort, worried about the pronouncement, but the defenders hadn’t reacted. The Siege Boss appeared to have singled him out with its last affliction and Coop thanked his class for setting him up with so much magic defense. He had to imagine that such definitive sounding afflictions already had a low chance of successfully applying, and combined with his extreme magic defense, made them have almost no luck in sticking to him. No one else was as equipped to withstand such hazardous gambles.

He resummoned his deflected spear and mistjumped back into the boss with a fast pitch to the side, swapping to his sword, and managed to sever another effigy arm as it came down in a perfectly timed counter attack. A second limb landed a glancing blow that caused him to stagger as he was too invested in countering the affliction cast. He blocked a follow up attack with his shield, letting the limb slide off the surface and strike the sand, but a third attack from the hammer arm caught him in the ribs and knocked the breath out of him, and a fourth attack that he couldn’t avoid threw him further backwards.

Coop rolled onto his feet after a reverse somersault as the few remaining cannons in the fort launched a barrage timed perfectly with the casters sending a wave of spells at the Siege Boss. It was right at the edge of their range. Coop stood underneath the attacks, with his spear cocked back, ready to follow up if the opportunity presented itself. Flame lances, ice bolts, black orbs, stone spikes, and golden arrows shot forward in a blitz to reach the boss first.

The Boss didn’t even flinch when the spells rained down, though it was forced to use its limbs to physically attack magical projectiles that would have directly struck the effigy. The cannonballs exploded like bombs, releasing concentrated mana, when cut through. They had the most impact, but there were only a few cannons remaining operational on the southern wall of the fort.

Coop used his spear to mistjump back in, seeking to cripple the boss further, though whatever progress he had made cutting through the effigy limbs was hard to tell. Most of the limbs simply wrapped themselves back around the stake after his bladed weapons severed the weapons from their tips. It was only the three crushed limbs that dragged like dead snakes from when his morning star had disabled them that made any damage obvious. Coop wondered how many more he would need to cut down as he went for another round. The less limbs the better, no matter how the fight went. The Icon of Mana used the elongated arms both offensively and defensively.

He slid between a pair of pointed, spiked limbs and mistjumped into the air with a flip of his sword, reappearing 10 feet off the ground, after leaving his shield floating for a moment with a light toss. He used his sword to cleave a limb almost at the base of the effigy before mistjumping back to his shield, returning to the ground before gravity brought himself or his shield back down. The double mistjump was a high-risk move, but it let him establish an escape for quick assaults in dangerous areas. As long as his opponent didn’t concentrate on the location of his shield, he could reliably return to safety in just a split second.

The freshly dismembered limb gushed black ichor with far more velocity than any of the other wounds, and Coop thought maybe he found a strategy to pursue as he mistjumped back out of range. He didn’t understand how much of the substance the monster’s body could contain, but it didn’t really seem like there was any correlation between the ichor and its size or it would already be a shriveled husk.

Coop worked his way back into close proximity to the effigy, dodging attacks with slight shifts and miniature mistjumps, barely avoiding being grazed, until he was near enough to flip his sword into the air again, cut another limb at its base, and return to his shield. A second gout of black ichor poured from the effigy, and he was forced to dodge two more attacks before slicing through a third.

Instead of retreating back out of range, he kept up the pressure. Feigning retreats, only to return to the main body’s side in order to hack at the effigy, then really retreating until he could force an opening. After keeping the engagement going, the Icon of Mana was running out of limbs to rapid fire against the annoying fly that Coop had become. Coop felt like he was taking control of the fight when the main body attempted to backhand him, moving more than it had any time previously.

Coop shifted further away, feigning another retreat while reducing the number of limbs that could reach him before he jumped back in. The more devastating injuries caused clear agitation in the Siege Boss, and when it lunged forward, pulling Coop fully into its attack radius once again, Coop wasn’t expecting it. The boss decided to commit fully to eliminating Coop, engaging all of its remaining limbs and adding the retracting ones as they reloaded.

Coop dodged the first few attacks, but couldn’t find an opportunity to retaliate. Sliding and twisting between a dozen more limbs placed Coop equidistant from the effigy and the edge of its attack radius. After six different limbs blasted into the sand around him, trapping him like a caged bird, he was forced to raise his shield and absorb a direct hit from above. His knees nearly buckled as a heavy hammer rang against his shield like a gong, but he rolled out of the way, slicing one of the limbs that had hemmed him in, and mistjumped completely out of range to regroup.

The island was shaken by the thunderous roar of a true barrage of cannons, far beyond what the fort was capable of in its depleted state. The boss had been flanked when it finally turned its attention to Coop in agitation. The Eye of the Storm was parallel with the beach with its top row of cannons smoking while Captain Kayla shouted for the next barrage. It was a scene that reminded him of being near her target previously, but he had a lot more trust in the accuracy of the phantom pirates at this point, so he stood his ground.

The Siege Boss didn’t have a chance to counter the massive cannon barrage like it had with the fort’s attack and it toppled over. Coop waited before jumping back in, letting Kayla do her thing. He noted that the boss was mostly undamaged by the cannons, but it had been thrown off balance by the heavy attacks and a few more limbs appeared to be disabled. Coop was sure that the power of the cannons had been improving with the levels of the operators. The surviving phantoms were all level 75, matching the monsters’ progress despite how rapidly the waves escalated, so there was no level mismatch between them and the Siege Boss.

The main body of the boss just laid in the sand like a discarded doll while the effigy’s arms flailed underneath the second round of cannons. After a third barrage, the limbs of the effigy went rigid, pointing straight into the sky from the effigy. They slammed into the ground in unison as if merged under one mind, all the way around, and lifted the boss off the ground, suspending the main body in the air.

The boss had transformed from a large bannerman that carried an effigy of Construct limbs to a massive harvestman spider with far too many legs.

It scuttled across the dunes with shocking speed, aggressively running down the offending ship, leaving Coop like an abandoned toy. The defenders on the wall launched their spells and attacks in an explosion of colors and light, but the boss was singularly focused on assaulting the Eye of the Storm. The quickness that the boss had suddenly applied meant that many of the attacks missed as it strafed the fort’s wall, but enough connected to leave a few more effigy arms, now legs, dragging behind it.

The Siege Boss still closed the distance to the ship and leapt across the final gap, across the surface of the water, with all of its legs splayed out, displaying their weapons as they prepared to slam into the ship.

The Eye of the Storm fired one more barrage of cannons, making no effort to get out of the way. The thunderous broadside rocked the island, but the boss was undeterred by the cannons, willingly trading some health in order to eliminate the ship. Its momentum carried it through the air. The monster was intent on destroying Kayla's ship.