146 True Life Drain
"Damn!" Samar cursed, knowing he had failed to correctly estimate the threat level of Thant despite overestimating him by much. What surprised him most was the desperate warning that appeared before his eyes.
[...Danger!...Stop…it… quick…]
This was the most amount of words Samar had seen appear in this unusual system message and he acted on it.
He quickly took out his Water Rune Arrow and used the Rune Skill, Frostbiter. As the arrow zoomed towards Thant, Samar unknowingly crossed his fingers.
The bluish frosty aura exploded around Thant but it failed to rescue the Elementalist in his grasp. As every second passed, Thant grew stronger while the Elementalist lost HP and stats.
Samar gritted his teeth and made a tough call that pissed off most of the Severed Flower Guild Members. The priority at this moment was stopping Thant from sucking out the Elementalist's life.
"RedQueen, HardBro, Mochi! Attack! Don't worry about the Elementalist in his grasp!"
The three players immediately began to act on his orders. The other Elementalists wanted to protest but Winter Hazel reigned them in, marking down this order as another strike against Samar.
Several angry gazes from the Severed Flower guild's members were directed at him but Samar did not have time to care. He activated a Fire Rune Arrow to use with the skill, Powershot aimed at Thant's arms and let the arrow fly.
Hardbro lashed at the Animator with an orange red fiery whip while Mochi unleashed an inferno of fire at the Tier 2 NPC. The two blazing red attacks landed on Animator Thant at the same time, exploding into a heatwave that made all the players retreat a few feets.
-245
-375
The damage numbers popped up above Thant's head but he still did not let go of the Elementalist. The Animator was still absorbing her HP and Vitae steadily, making her stats drop while strengthening himself.
In the next moment, Samar's Powershot arrived. The arrow aimed at Thant's outstretched arm, struck his elbow with a loud thwack and exploded, breaking the joint.
-518 (Crit)
Just as the damage number popped up above his head, his loud, piercing scream echoed in the Chamber.
Syna the Elementalist was also finally freed from his hands but she had already fainted. The System forcefully logged her out of the game to provide her the medical attention she needed.
What happened to the poor Syna traumatized every member of the raiding team, especially the girls of the Severed Flower Guild. Except for a few, most of them stood in shock, unable to recover in time.
As soon as the damage number popped up, RedQueen had sneaked behind the Animator. While others were stunned, she used a Beheading Slash at Thant's neck.
Her obsidian sword made a vertical arc through the air, swiftly approaching the bent over elf, ready to severe his head from his body.
The raiding team watched with bated breath, following the trajectory of the blade, wishing it would succeed, ending this nightmare. Unfortunately, this was just the start.
Thant quickly avoided the blade and raised his left hand to shoot a Mana Bolt at RedQueen from a point blank range. As the pure white beam of light collided with her chest, Stivi was sent back flying until she crashed into a Longevity Tree Root and lost half of her HP.
Animator Thant then conjured a ceremonial dagger with bright red engravings and held it in his uninjured left hand. With the dagger in hand, the old Elf charged towards the vulnerable group of Elementalists with bloodthirsty rage in his eyes.
"Spread out!" Samar shouted at the Elementalists, as he summoned the newly evolved Eclipse Spider. He kicked the merrily chittering spider onto the ground and commanded, "Little Blighter, use Dark Net!"
The pet spider made angry noises at Samar but it obeyed his command. Shadows in the dimly lit cavern thickened into tendrils, forming a net around a small circular area of 3 meter radius around itself. This was the signature skill of one of the Three Ferocities of Virident Forest, the Sun Blight Spider, Arachnos!
Animator Thant and a few other players were caught in this quagmire of darkness, lowering the movement speed by nearly 60%. Samar knew this was the only chance they had.
"Winter Hazel, freeze the Boss!" Samar shouted as he himself prepared another Frostbiter.
As soon as the words left his mouth, a freezing beam of blue light shot towards Thant from Winter Hazel's wand. The Animator had barely raised his arm when the light struck his chest, spreading frost to his groin, making his movements slower than a snail.
Soon after, Samar's Frostbiter arrived, striking the uninjured left shoulder of Animator Thant and engulfing it in ice. Now, the only offensive Thant was capable of was Mana Bolt shot using his broken right arm, but it could only be shot once every 20 seconds.
Knowing this, Samar gave an order to launch all out offensive, barring the Fire element skills and spells. As arrows, spells and blades inflicted wounds upon wounds on the Animator Thant's body, he endured it all with an eerie smile.
Samar sensed danger but he had no intentions of letting the Animator unveil whatever foul play he had concocted.
As soon as the ice around the Tier 2 NPC Boss's body began to melt, Samar immediately gave his pet another order. "Little Blighter, use Shadow Bind."
He had known that their skills would not be able to freeze the boss for any longer than 5 seconds. Therefore, he had made preparations in advance. Even the Little Blighter's Shadow Bind was merely to buy time for real actors.
"Poh, Gold Peony, truss up the Boss with Root Vines!" Samar instructed the two Druids who were standing by for this exact moment.
Poh waved her blood red staff while Gold Peony injected mana in her golden yellow orb, breathing life into the thick roots of Longevity Tree. This was not an actual skill but a manifestation of the Druid class' ability to manipulate trees and plants.
The serpentine roots then slithered over to shadow bound Animator Thant and coiled around his body, engulfing it in a thorny deathgrip. For some weird reason, the smile on the Animator's face only grew wider, even though he was losing almost 100 HP every second.
[...Life Drain…Roots…]
Seeing the prompt, Samar realized he had committed a huge mistake. The Animator could suck life not just from Players but also the Longevity Tree Roots!
Thant began to extract tendrils of life energy from the roots binding him and they began to wither at a rate visible to eyes. The Tier 2 NPC's health, which had fallen below 2000 points, began to slowly climb back up.
As Samar watched the Animator recover 1% health every 5 seconds, he realized that this was the True Life Drain skill!
Despite this Samar did not ask Poh and Gold Peony to relinquish the Animator because he knew that the only way they could defeat Thant was by dealing him a Lethal Strike!
