Chương 80: Apotheosis

The moment I released my first arrow, the chamber changed. A sound filled the air. This guy has its own boss music! Voices, dozens of them, rising in harmonic unison. A choir, singing in a language I didn't recognize, their tones reverberating off the domed ceiling and the bone-filled alcoves. It was equal part impressive and horrifying. My arrow struck Az'Badär in the chest, directly between two of the blinking eyes. -127! The number was pathetically small. The High Priest didn't even acknowledge the hit."

Ah,"it said, that spiral-toothed mouth curving upward." The first offering. How generous." It raised one multi-fingered hand, and light gathered in its palm. Not the cold purple of the torches, but warm, golden radiance. Holy light. The same energy that Lothras channeled through his paladin abilities, or what Clerics used. Except this was an abstract, twisted parody of it. The light writhed and pulsed like something alive and suffering.

"Corrupted Blessing." The beam lanced toward me. I Quick Stepped right, the attack scorching the stone where I'd been standing. The impact left a crater of gold residue that continued to burn.

"Spread out!" Lothras commanded, already charging toward the boss.

"Don't let it target us in groups!" We scattered across the chamber, taking positions that would let us attack from multiple angles. The choir's singing intensified, the harmonies shifting into an aggressive, impatient track. Lothras reached Az'Badär first, his sword blazing with holy light as he swung at the creature's midsection.

"Smite!" -119! The blade barely penetrated. The High Priest's flesh seemed to absorb the impact, dark energy swirling to meet the strike.

"Both insane physical and holy resistance!" I called." A paladin," Az'Badär observed, looking down at Lothras with its countless chest-eyes." How quaint. You wield the same power I once commanded, little knight. Before I learned there was so much more." It backhanded Lothras with one elongated arm, the casual strike sending him sliding across the floor. -312!

"Lothras!" Kara's Song of Valor shifted into Healing Notes, energy washing over the paladin.

"I'm fine!" He was already back on his feet, shield raised.

"Focus on damage!" Athos flanked from the left, Blade Rush carrying him in close. His sword carved a line across the creature's thigh. -94!

"The damage mitigation is insane," he repeated what I said, disengaging before the High Priest could retaliate.

"We're barely scratching it!"

"Mark of the Eagle!" The marker appeared above Az'Badär's faceless head. The 10% increased damage from my basic attacks wasn't much, but every bit helped.

"Arrow of Ash & Flames!" I held the charge to maximum, pouring everything into the shot. The arrow screamed across the chamber, trailing fire and cinder. -534! Better, but still not enough.

"Burning Arrow!" -298! -48! -48! … The skill was amplified by the fire resistance debuff on Arrow of Ash & Flames, and it worked pretty well.

"No fire resistance!" Az'Badär turned toward me, those chest-eyes blinking in what might have been interest." Embrace it, my child. This is not the end for you, just another beginning." It raised both hands, and the choir's singing reached a crescendo.

"Hymn of Martyrdom." Light erupted from the bone-filled alcoves—not from the remains themselves, but from the spaces around them. Ghostly figures materialized, translucent shapes that might once have been human. The cult's victims, I thought. Spirits bound to this place for eternity. The spectral forms rushed toward us, their wails cutting through the choir's harmonies. They weren't attacking, but their passage through our bodies carried damage. -67! -71! -69! -73!

The spirits kept coming, wave after wave, an endless tide of the tortured dead. I stopped attacking and started dodging them.

"We can't hit them!" Athos shouted, his sword cutting uselessly through ghostly flesh.

"Just avoid them!" I called back.

"Focus on the boss! They're just a distraction!" But the damage was adding up. Kara was struggling to keep everyone healed while maintaining her offensive buffs. The spirits weren't deadly individually, but their constant harassment was draining our resources. Az'Badär watched our struggle with evident satisfaction." The faithful demand tribute,"it said." They gave their lives for my ascension. The least you can do is give them yours." The High Priest began to move.

Each step shook the ground, those comically long limbs carrying it across the chamber with deceptive speed. It reached Athos first. The Swordsman tried to dodge, but Az'Badär was faster than it looked. One clawed hand closed around his arm, lifting him off the ground like a child's toy."

Such vitality,"the creature murmured, its chest-eyes examining Athos with clinical interest." Such potential. You would make an excellent addition to my congregation." Dark energy began flowing from its fingers into Athos's body.

"Soul Siphon." The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. -66! -66! -66!

"Get off him!" Lothras charged, shield-first, slamming into the High Priest's midsection with all his weight. Az'Badär released Athos, more from surprise than damage. The Swordsman dropped to the ground, gasping, his health bar in the yellow.

"Scherzo of Renewal!" Kara's burst heal triggered, the rapid melody restoring a significant chunk of Athos's health and providing regeneration over time. He scrambled to his feet, putting distance between himself and the boss.

"That attack drains health," he reported, his voice shaky.

"And it's hard CC as well. Better dodge it!" I checked Az'Badär's health bar. The tiny amount of damage we'd done to it was negligible.

"We need to burst it down," I said.

"Overwhelming damage before it can recover. Kara, now might be a good time to use the song that changes our attacks!!" The Bard's melody shifted, notes weaving through the choir's holy harmonies.

"Rhapsody of Wonder!" The arrows I was constantly shooting turned blue and electric, Lothras's blade flamed up, while Athos was amplified with ice damage.

"Now! Everything we've got!" I fired skill after skill, each arrow dealing significantly more damage this time. -278! -282! -401! Athos activated Dread Cry, the attack speed debuff rippling across the boss. Then he launched into a furious assault, with his Rising Tide working overtime. -234! -241! -256! -267! Lothras's Radiant Edge carved a line of holy fire across the creature's torso. -903! For a moment, it seemed like we were making progress. The health bar was actually moving now, dropping slowly but steadily.

Then Az'Badär laughed. The sound was absurd. It was layered, as if multiple voices were laughing in slightly offset unison. The choir's singing shifted again, becoming something darker, more discordant." You wound me,"it said, and the words carried genuine amusement." Actually wound me. How delightful. It's been so long since I've felt pain." That looks like a pattern in these catacombs.

It spread its arms wide, and light began gathering around its form; not the twisted gold like previously, but pure, blinding white.

"Benediction of the Forsaken." The light exploded. I dove behind a stone pillar, the radiance washing over me with searing heat. The others weren't as lucky—I heard their cries of pain as the attack connected. When my vision cleared, I saw the damage. Lothras: -587! Athos: -412! Kara: -368! All three of them were in critical health, staggered by the massive AoE attack. The more defense one had, the more damage it inflicted. Az'Badär was already moving toward Kara, those clawed hands reaching for her.

"Oath of Vitality!" Lothras's voice rang out across the chamber. Golden light—true golden light, untainted by corruption—surrounded him and spread outward to encompass the party. Health bars began climbing rapidly, the paladin's healing ability pulling everyone back from the brink. Az'Badär paused, those chest-eyes narrowing." Interesting. You are an interesting one, little knight."

"Abstract World Symphony!" Kara's new weapon skill activated. The Lute of Abstraction produced a sound unlike anything I'd heard before; notes that felt like they shouldn't have been real, harmonies that didn't harmonize with each other, chords that made me question their existence. The effect on Az'Badär was immediate. The creature stumbled, its movements becoming erratic and uncoordinated. The Disoriented debuff had landed. Even on a dungeon boss, the skill worked.

"Four seconds!" Kara shouted.

"Make them count!" I was already drawing the Emberwood Longbow to full charge.

"Arrow of Ash and Flames!" -912! Athos launched Comet, and then Three-Blade Execution. The two were part of the same combo, after all. -534! Lothras followed with Radiant Edge. -999! We kept attacking, our APMs growing by the second. The boss's health dropped below seventy-five percent. Az'Badär recovered from the disorientation, those chest-eyes blinking rapidly in what might have been anger. The choir's singing became cacophonous, discordant notes clashing against each other in painful dissonance." Enough."

The word carried weight: physical force that pressed against us like a wave. The spectral victims that had been harassing us throughout the fight suddenly coalesced, their forms merging together into something larger, something more solid.

"Congregation of the Damned." The amalgamated spirits formed a massive humanoid shape, towering nearly as tall as the High Priest itself. It had no features, no definition, just a mass of tortured souls compressed into a vaguely human silhouette.

"An add," Lothras said grimly.

"A big one."" My congregation serves me in death as they served me in life," Az'Badär bellowed." Their suffering is my strength. Their despair, my ascendance." The Congregation lurched toward us with jerky, clumsy movements. Unlike the individual spirits, this thing was solid: our attacks would connect.

"Split focus!" I ordered.

"Athos, Lothras, keep the add busy! Kara, keep healing! I'll maintain damage on the boss!" It was an unorthodox strategy. However, from what I'd deduced from this fight was that the High Priest was in no hurry. It was standing there, letting its newly found minion do the fighting. We adapted to the new threat. Athos engaged the Congregation with Blade Spin, his new skill sending him whirling through the spirit-construct's mass, carving chunks of ectoplasm with each rotation. -114! -121! -128!

Lothras provided support, his shield absorbing the Congregation's retaliatory strikes while his sword added damage between blocks. He used Chain Aggression to taunt it. I kept my focus on Az'Badär, firing arrow after arrow, watching for opportunities to use my major cooldowns. The High Priest seemed content to let its minion fight for it, its multiple eyes tracking my movements with unsettling attention." You're the dangerous one,"it observed." The others have strength, skill, courage. But you...

You have something else on top of that. Something familiar." It raised a hand, and dark energy began gathering." Let me see what you truly are."

"Profane Revelation." The attack wasn't aimed at my body. It was aimed at my mind. It was a similar feeling to when I was going after the Elder Stag. Like the game had faded, the UI slowly disappearing. Images flooded my consciousness, memories that weren't mine. A young priest, devoted and faithful, slowly corrupted by ambition. Sacrifices made in dark chambers, each one bringing him closer to his goal. The moment of achieving his goal, so close, interrupted by the Veil's emergence.

Centuries of imprisonment, of waiting, of hunger. I staggered, my vision blurring. The bow nearly slipped from my fingers. The Veil stopped its final ritual. Its ascension to something… something way worse.

"Orion!" Kara's voice, distant and muffled. I shook my head, forcing the foreign memories away.

"I'm fine! Keep fighting!" But Az'Badär had learned something from that brief contact. Its faceless head tilted, the mouth-slit curving upward." Ah. I see. You've lost something precious, haven't you? Something stolen. Something that defined you." How— For a moment, I stopped breathing. How could he know that? I didn't respond. I just raised my bow and fired. -267!" We're not so different, you and I. Both of us reaching for something just beyond our grasp.

Both of us willing to sacrifice everything to reclaim what was taken."

"Shut up." I fired another arrow." The only difference is that I almost succeeded. You didn't try hard enough." The choir went silent. For a moment, the chamber was absolutely still. Even the Congregation froze mid-motion, its form going rigid. Then Az'Badär began to change. The creature's already grotesque body started to shift, bones cracking and reshaping beneath the translucent skin.

The eyes in its chest multiplied, spreading across its torso, its arms, its legs, dozens becoming hundreds, all of them blinking in unsynchronized patterns. Its too-long limbs grew longer still, additional joints forming, giving it the appearance of some nightmarish spider. The mouth-slit on its face split further, dividing into three separate maws that opened to reveal its spiraling teeth. And wings erupted from its back. Not feathered wings, not bat wings; something else entirely.

Appendages made of light and darkness, geometric patterns that made me uneasy just by looking at them directly. The choir returned, but different now. The voices were no longer human. They were abstract, grotesque, unquestionably wrong." PHASE TWO," Az'Badär announced, its voice now a chorus of thousands." HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A GOD, CHILDREN?" The system gave its words weight. High Priest Az'Badär has entered Phase 2. All party members' cooldowns have been reset.

The transformed abomination spread its wings, and the true battle began.