Chapter 168 Numbers vs True Power.

Dave realized the archer was right. The second phase had started and with it a lot of pain will come.

He looked up at the hovering tengu, another countdown bar had appeared over his head, but this one was much longer than the earlier ones. The tengu started emitting a blood-red aura as he resheathed the katana. His eyes were took on a bright crimson glow and bolts of red lightning started flickering from them.

The tengu shouted and clicked his sword four times.

Four cuts of red light flashed out, leaving glowing red lines extending across the floor of the room tracing all the way to the walls.

"MOVE!! Get away from the lines! " Dave ordered.

"Zan!" the tengu grunted loudly.

The room shuddered and parted into sections along the lines of red light. The undead and dunlords caught in the path of the red lines died instantly. Four dunlords and dozens of undead died at once. Pincher was one of the unlucky dunlords killed in the attack. Luckily, Lone was able to jump clear in time to escape.

Dave was at a loss, he didn't know how they would survive this fight. He was tempted to use one of Drahma's remaining summons to deal with the ridiculously overpowered mini-boss.

Surprisingly, when the tengu's skill ended the yokai fell to the ground and remained, on his knees gasping for breath.

"NOW! Attack!!" Dave gave a command and the eleven dunlords left alive surrounded and attacked the tengu with all they had. He ordered the melee undead to retreat and the casters to concentrate their 'healing' hexes on him. The Unholy priestess and the paladins continued to heal the remaining dunlords, but the effect of the feather storm reduced the regiment's healing by half.

The tengu roared and brought his wings together in a mighty clap of thunder, blowing the dunlords away the dunlords.The tengu's HP was just above 30%, he was becoming more and more enraged.

Then the tengu started another series of hand seals. A fiery aura ignited around the tengu's body and four fireballs appeared, orbiting him like burning moons around a sun.

Dave's heart sank as the sky changed color again and a storm covered the entire room. from it, thousands of deadly feathers fell down.

"Yeah. Fuck second phase!"

Dave leapt with [Vertical Slash], escaping the explosions of the fireballs that tore through the undead ranks and the fall of deadly feathers.

Lone's [Blink] was still on cooldown but she had other tricks. She drew back and aimed her bow straight up, the arrow exploded as soon as it was released, creating a dome of thick ice around the archer.

As for the undead, not many of them survived the all-out attack, even the Unholy priestess took heavy damage from one of the exploding fireballs.

Two more dunlords were dead and Dave started losing any hope of winning against the devil-tengu. He'd lost half of his undead to the tengu's attacks. the remaining half survived because the attacks didn't directly hit them.

"Keep attacking!"

The dunlords resumed their attack, firing their ballistae at the tengu flying above them. But the tengu dodged the bolts with ease swept down at the dunlords, attacking with the katana. The undead couldn't handle the tengu's wrath and fell with every sword stroke.

"Clear the way!" Dave ordered and the undead nearby moved out of the lane of fire. He struck out in [Sword Lunge] and a razor beam of sword-light staggered the tengu in mid-flight.

Changing targets, the yokai rocketed towards Dave at low altitude, sword unsheathed and aimed at Dave's chest.

Dave activated [Double Edge]. But because he'd just used [Vertical Slash] and it was on cooldown, he had no way to escape the incoming damage. He was just going to have to take the hit. The giant worm rose up, engulfing both Dave and the flying tengu in its maw, then threw them to the ground and dove back to where it came from.

He could have used [Bastion] but that would only be a waste of a powerful defensive skill with a long cooldown. Dave's HP was still high so he could bear with a bit of HP loss.

[-20,000]

Dave gritted his teeth through the pain from the worm chomp and smash.

"Grab it! Everyone don't let fly anymore!" Dave ordered and the nearest dunlords grabbed at the tengu with their pincers. Stinger attacked the tengu from behind, using his steel-clad claws to trap one of the tengu's wing.

The tengu stood up with difficulty as four dunlords were pinning him. He went into an iaido stance. Another timer started.

"Not again!"

Four red lines crisscrossed the room signaling the area where the tengu's dimension slash would strike.

Dave dodged away from the line that would have bisected him, ordering the dunlords to release the tengu and avoid the attack.

But stinger didn't let go despite the order. His pincer crushed down harder until the tengu's bones cracked and shattered. The tengu grunted from the pain but still finished his attack sequence. four clicking sounds and the room split again.

This time, only stinger died. His body faded into particles, but in his last effort, he gave everyone a great chance. The tengu can no longer fly.

Dave was enraged at the loss of his mount and rushed toward the tengu. As he sprinted forward he activated a Skill he'd never used before, [Zealot]. The Skill from the Legendary tier earring he got from Drahma.

Dave's Death Knight's set turned bright red like an infernal brazier. The armor and his body size grew bulkier and his avatar gained height and muscles doubling in size.

Dave disabled the Azure Water Rune and received a notification.

Chaotic imbalance

You will lose 1% of your max HP for every second your body remains in the chaotic Imbalance state.

+300% Damage

Dave ignored the notification and continued toward the tengu who was slowly retreating.

He punched the tengu in the face staggering it. He didn't stop and punched again. Though the level difference didn't help Dave damage the tengu even if he had increased damage. The empowered punches still caused Knock-Back effect.

The tengu tried to retaliate with its sword, but Dave didn't give him the chance as he performed a roundhouse kick; sending the tengu sprawling on the floor. The dunlord attacked the fallen tengu. The closest used their pincers and those further away used their ballistae.

The tengu's HP reached critical levels, only 13% HP remained.

Lone struck the tengu with her [Ice-Shard Arrow Barrage] freezing it and pinning it to the ground.

Dave jumped on top of the tengu and threw two more punches to its head. He then opened his mouth to an inhuman length activating [Ray of Flames] at point blank range directly to the tengu's face. An explosion of fire shook the room decreasing the tengu's current HP by half.

The attack would deal flat damage, and thanks to Dave empowering himself with the runes he dealt a staggering [60,000] points of flat damage. The ground around the tengu melted, adding more damage.

Dave jumped back and used another of his op skills [Demon's Call].

"DIE! Bitch!"

A demon's face emerged in space and took a bite at the tengu.

Demon's call Failed!

"FUCK!" Dave became pissed, but it was only natural, the skill had only 10% chance to work on Boss-Class monsters.

"Don't let it move away from the magmatic area!" Dave gave the order and retreated back.

Dave's HP rapidly drained from the effect of the chaos Imbalance, so he had to activate the [Azure Water Rune].

The tengu rose back and to move away, but Lone appeared behind it and shot [Breaking Shot] pushing the tengu back to the magmatic area.

The tengu used ninjutsu-hand seals wanting to go for one final attack, but the dunlord's volley felled him before the animation ended.

Level UP

Level UP

Dave received the notification of him leveling up a couple of times and sat down on the ground.

"Shit, that was messy!"

"Hey Davy, wow I gained a lot of levels there." Zoe became surprised her level just reached 150 after this fight.

"Yea, this bastard wrecked us, I can't believe how strong this guy is, and it's just a mini-boss. This dungeon was probably a bad idea."

"You just noticed?" Lone giggled and said, "so what's up with your transformation?"

Dave looked at his body and said,"oh this? it's the [Zealot] Skill effect, it doubles my HP and damage received."

Dave did a head count and his expression turned sour. "We lost a lot of troops…"

"Let's check the loot!" Lone tried to cheer Dave's mood.

"Yea, this motherfucker better have something good for us. Damn, I hope the boyz don't meet something as powerful as this, shit they will be in for a lot of pain."

"You shouldn't worry much about them, they have four battalions each, that's about 40 dunlords and a lot of casters, I think they will do better than us."

"You are right," Dave said and checked the panel to see his undead.

Surprisingly, they had already finished a battle, Bud and Dog's units were regenerating their HP.

But when he looked at their numbers Dave's heart sank even more

"Shit, they both lost more than half their numbers… I think there is even another room after this one, I don't believe we can make it to the final boss."

"Yea, we can come back when we are stronger. If the next boss is too hard we can just teleport out of the dungeon." Lone said

"You're right, " Dave touched the tengu's corpse.

A notification appeared

1 x Skill Book [Dragon Ball] Mythic

1 x [Rift Maker] Quest Item.

1 x [Warrior of the East] Blue-Print.

1 x [War tengu's Mask] Legacy Item.

1 x [Stone Tablet]

1 x 1,000Gold

"Wow! Will you look at that," Dave showed Lone the drops

"Ohh sweet lootz!"