WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Irevi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Alone Against the Tower ◈
Chapter 100: New Elf
──────
The feel of the blade, boosted twice over, was beyond anything I had imagined.
It sank in without any resistance, like stabbing tofu or jelly.
I gripped the embedded sword and twisted my wrist. Still holding the hilt, I used the power of Mana Enhancement to run straight across its body.
Ka-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-gak!
Scales were sliced away beneath my feet, spraying blood everywhere. It was huge and had a massive HP pool, but its Defense did not seem particularly high.
Even in a raid of fifty or more people, there would be no way to clear it if damage could not get through at all.
That was probably why it had been designed so even Challengers at the ninth-floor level could deal damage. Which made things very convenient for me.
I wasn't as strong as a hundred ninth-floor Challengers.
But since I could defeat each floor's boss alone, I was easily as strong as twenty ninth-floor Challengers.
Kwagag!
The others who had landed on the Serpent Dragon's body with me also swung their weapons without mercy, carving wounds into it.
Mercedes, who was as strong as I was, Reinhardt, the Kingdom Army's Legion Commander, and even Eleanor.
Each of them stripped away the serpent's scales and tore into its flesh in their own way.
If things continued like this, we could bring it down before long. But it wouldn't be that easy.
Wriggle.
The chained serpent violently shook its body. To those of us riding on it, it was no different from an earthquake.
And that wasn't all. Even while unable to move, it could still use magic. Pitch-black magic circles rose into the air.
Countless black branches, the same kind that had drained the High Elves' life force, shot out from them and attacked us.
Kakang!
The branches themselves were not much different from the attacks of the lesser monsters rampaging near this thing.
Each branch was weak. We could knock them away easily enough.
But the problem was their sheer number, along with their additional effect. If even one of those countless branches hit us without being deflected, we were finished.
Kagang! Kaang! Kaang!
Once the branches began attacking, most of our force was too busy defending themselves.
Only a few could keep up the offensive in this situation.
People like Mercedes and me, who could withstand the branches with Mana Enhancement's protection.
Fortunately, a few of the Kingdom Army's elite knights could also use Mana Enhancement, though at a lower level.
Kururung!
As the knights, wrapped in the light of mana, threw themselves forward, the branches snapped apart without being able to resist. I continued my own assault as well.
We had to deal as much damage as possible while it was still restrained. We would probably never get another DPS window this good.
After we spent several minutes carving up the Serpent Dragon's body, the chains finally gave out and broke apart.
The creature rose.
[The World-Devouring Serpent is enraged!]
A notification window appeared before me at the same time. This was just as the Community had described. A Berserk pattern that occurred after a warning.
“It's Berserk! Recall!”
I shouted with everything I had. The nearby knights reacted to my booming voice, repeating the order and passing it along.
I operated the magic tool on my wrist. A moment later, we were recalled by transfer magic.
The melee DPS window was over. Which meant it was time for the siege weapons, now reloaded, to take their turn again.
Kwa-gwaang! Kwang!
Countless mana shells flew into the Berserk Serpent Dragon and struck it.
* * *
It was enough to remind me of the artillerymen boasting that they could shatter a mountain with this much firepower.
The Serpent Dragon could not respond nearly as well as expected and was being hit one-sidedly by the Magic Cannons.
They had said that a World Boss was only overwhelming in its stats and scale, not especially complicated in its patterns.
It was true.
Aaaaaaahhh!
It was being bombarded by artillery powerful enough to shatter mountains, but despite its loud screams, the effect was underwhelming.
“Looks like it has baseline damage reduction.”
Neither the Magic Cannon bombardment nor the physical attacks from ballistas were dealing proper damage.
From this far away, the wounds I and the strike team had carved into it looked no more than pen lines scribbled across its body.
As expected, it would be difficult to kill it unless we targeted the weakness mentioned on the Community.
[Author: Kim Changjin#1421]
[Title: Guys, I think I found the World Boss's weak point]
Jinhyeok uploaded this picture with his third post, and when I zoomed in,
(Photo)
Can you see this part? Look closely. Only that one scale is reversed. I think it's a reverse scale.
The boss's name was some kind of Serpent Dragon too, so if it has a weak point, I think this is it.
- Holy shit, it really is. How did you find that?
- This guy actually thought to zoom in on it lol
- ㄴ For real, I was only zooming in on the Dark Elves' boobs...
- ㄴ Reply with your server, class, and favorite soccer player. Hurry.
- ㄴ 1772, Warrior, I like Ronaldo-hyung lol
- ㄴ Damn warrior stereotypes lol
- Do dragons normally have a reverse scale? Anyone who's fought one, say something.
- ㄴ They don't, but maybe World Bosses have one?
- ㄴ Apparently World Bosses each have a weak point so people can clear them.
It was a post uploaded when the raid plan had already been made and most people were only waiting for news of the raid.
One of the screenshots I had uploaded contained a single reversed scale, and the poster guessed that it was the weak point.
Those with actual World Raid experience had also said that, unless they were seeing things wrong, that spot was probably the weakness.
A location that would guarantee a critical hit whenever it was struck. Finding it was the strike team's primary objective.
If the Community had discovered the reverse scale a little earlier, we could have pinpointed its location before the battle began.
But for now, the only option was to climb directly onto its body and compare the screenshots to the actual location.
Graaahhh!
As the bombardment was nearly over, the Serpent Dragon screamed and its Berserk state ended. It was time for the strike team again.
Berserk ended after it took a certain amount of damage. We had been able to end it quickly this time because of the intense burst damage at the start of the raid.
We would not be able to handle the next Berserk state so easily. If that happened, the strike team would not get another chance to move freely.
“This is our last chance. If we don't find it now, things will get difficult.”
We nodded to one another and used our Recall magic tools to transfer back onto the Serpent Dragon's body.
But what greeted us was not the defenseless field of scales from before.
“What the hell is that?”
It was a group of grotesque giants with four arms.
* * *
They were bizarre monsters rising from the serpent's scales, shaped as though molded from clay.
Even from a distance, they looked enormous. The mana I could feel from them was no joke either.
“Good lord... Just how far has it fallen?”
Mercedes muttered as she fell near me. No, she was not the only one.
Most of the Dark Elves and High Elves among the elite force, excluding the Kingdom Army, frowned at the sight.
I quickly descended and swung my sword, brutally cutting down one of the giants. It was not that strong.
“Hey, what are these things?”
When I asked after kicking the severed giant aside, a High Elf beside me answered with a frown. Humans would not understand.
“I don't know. I don't, but... somehow, I can tell. Those giants are the same kind of beings as us.”
More giants rushed toward me. Looking closer, there was one distinctive feature on the distorted heads of the pitch-black giants.
“Is this possible because it swallowed the World Tree?”
Their ears were sharply pointed, just like those of Elves. Was that what they meant by beings like them?
They looked like enormous monsters, but they were undoubtedly living beings created through the World Tree.
Those giants were a new species of Elf, created after the Forest Elves and Night Elves.
“Don't dwell on it. This isn't the time.”
After saying that to the unnamed High Elf, I charged toward the twisted Elf giants.
They were big, but not especially strong. As I rushed in, my eyes searched every inch of the Serpent Dragon's scales.
But even if they were weak, taking my attention off my opponent in the middle of a fight seemed to have been a mistake.
Whooom, thunk!
Something like a massive harpoon grazed my side. Blood sprayed out.
What was that? Not a branch. Did that giant launch a ranged attack?
I looked over in surprise and saw the weapons gripped in the giant's four pitch-black hands.
“Ah. They're Elves too, huh?”
The giant held a massive bow radiating the energy of the World Tree.
* * *
Each giant carried weapons, whether swords or bows.
As I checked the wound in my side and looked again, the shapes of the weapons all seemed familiar.
They were pitch-black and crudely formed as if molded from clay, but they strongly resembled the weapons used by the other Elves.
And I had seen those distinctive stances before, when I had taken an interest in archery and asked to be taught.
They were using proper Elven archery. The mysterious, unerring archery that traced magical trajectories.
Elven archery was broken to begin with, but it did not lack weaknesses.
In the end, only the technique was special. The bow and arrows themselves were not. Even if I could not dodge them, they were easy to deflect or block.
But the bows wielded by those four-armed giants were no joke, and each arrow was the size of a whale-hunting harpoon.
On top of that, the World Tree's energy emanating from the arrows made it seem as though they had some sort of special effect.
There were dozens of bow-wielding giants at a glance. Maybe even more than a hundred.
“Goddamn it.”
Those insane bows, fired with unerring archery. Wasn't that ridiculously unfair?
Could we really find the one reverse scale while fighting those things?
“We have to. Fuck.”
When had I ever done something because it was manageable?
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
