Chapter 548: Storming Elder Eagle’s Guard
"Too strong." After reading Elder Eagle’s stats, Marcus couldn’t help but whistle in admiration.
Even though both the Blue-Eyed Sea Lion King and Elder Eagle were Level 70 Gold-tier bosses, the difference between them was enormous. Elder Eagle boasted 350,000 HP along with a frighteningly versatile set of skills, and Marcus had a feeling he would need the protection of his Divine-tier Adamant Shield just to survive the battle; without it, those attacks would tear straight through him.
What worried him the most was Eagle’s Peck: three lightning-fast strikes, each dealing double damage, meant six times the force of a normal attack if the entire combo landed, and if he took that head-on more than once, even his health pool wouldn’t last long. He had already underestimated the Blue-Eyed Sea Lion King once and nearly paid for it with his life, and he had no intention of making the same mistake again. After coming this far, dying now would be beyond frustrating.
His eyes moved to Elder Eagle’s ranged skill, Eagle Feathers: its attack range was thirty yards, but Marcus estimated the boss would notice him from roughly forty yards away and immediately charge. Charging in recklessly was asking for trouble; it would be far smarter to circle around first and clear out the lesser undead surrounding the boss.
Marcus equipped the Twin-Winged Ice Owl Bow and refreshed every buff available to him. With a mental command, his two Sea Demon Souls shot into the horde, weaving through the undead sailors before drawing roughly thirty of them back toward his position.
These monsters were no pushovers: the undead mages and archers immediately opened fire on the Sea Demon Souls, each attack dealing around a thousand damage, and with five or six ranged enemies attacking at once, nearly five thousand HP disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Even so, Marcus wasn’t concerned. The Sea Demon Souls were deliberately holding back their speed so the monsters wouldn’t lose aggro, and if they fought at full speed, these undead wouldn’t even have a chance to touch them. Besides, only the monsters in the front ranks had enough range to attack while the rest were forced to chase after them; overall, the damage remained well within acceptable limits.
Soon enough, the pursuing horde entered Marcus’s attack range.
"Blazing Dance!" Marcus and Pebble fired simultaneously.
The Twin-Winged Ice Owl Bow released its Blazing Explosive Arrows, unleashing the Mythic skill in full: twenty flaming arrows spread outward in a thirty-degree arc, surging forward like a roaring wave of fire before crashing straight into the charging undead.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Explosions erupted one after another as the arrows ripped through the tightly packed crowd; Blazing Dance ignored fifty percent of the targets’ defense, and with so many enemies clustered together, nearly every monster was caught in the blast radius. Critical hits exploded across the battlefield, and golden damage numbers flooded the air.
-14,600. -15,000. -15,100. -14,980...
The damage was devastating: Blazing Dance already doubled the damage dealt, and every critical hit doubled it again, resulting in roughly four times Marcus’s normal output. Each explosion carved away around fifteen thousand HP from every monster it struck, and with Pebble mirroring every attack, that number effectively doubled to an astonishing thirty thousand damage per target.
The undead sailors, whose health bars had been completely full only moments ago, instantly lost more than half their HP.
Behind Marcus, the girls could only stare in stunned silence; this was the first time he had combined the Blazing Explosive Arrows with the Twin-Winged Ice Owl Bow against a large group of ordinary monsters, and the results far exceeded even his own expectations.
A Mythic weapon paired with Mythic ammunition truly lived up to its reputation, and the secondary effects were just as terrifying. Nearly half of the undead sailors stumbled around in complete chaos, suffering from blindness, confusion, stuns, or knockdowns, and the sixty-plus undead that had charged forward with overwhelming momentum had been reduced to a disorganized mob in an instant.
Normally, Marcus’s basic attacks with this combination dealt only around four thousand damage, but once the skill multipliers, critical hits, and Pebble’s duplicated attacks came into play, the destruction reached an entirely different level.
Without wasting another second, Marcus stepped forward alongside Pebble, drew another arrow, and fired again. "Blazing Dance!" Another blazing volley swept across the battlefield.
Another storm of critical hits followed, and the undead sailors collapsed one after another. A handful escaped the explosions without taking a critical hit, but even they were left with only a thin sliver of health, and before they could recover, the five Royal Sorcerers standing behind Marcus unleashed a barrage of spells, finishing off every survivor with ease.
Brilliant flashes of magic illuminated the battlefield as the last few undead crashed to the ground beside their fallen companions.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
Equipment and materials scattered across the ground, and Marcus calmly walked through the battlefield, retrieved his two Blazing Explosive Arrows, collected the dropped loot, and activated Advanced Gathering on the corpses. From the thirty or so undead sailors, he harvested ten Whirlpool Stones.
—
Whirlpool Stone: High-grade crafting material. Can be forged into equipment or socketed into gear. Weapons gain the passive effect Whirlpool Snare, giving attacks a chance to slow enemies. Armor gains Whirlpool Ward, granting a chance to reduce an enemy’s attack power.
’Not bad at all.’
"Pull another group."
After the Sea Demon Souls had regenerated their lost HP, Marcus sent them out once more; this time, they split up, each drawing roughly thirty undead sailors before leading both groups back together into a single tightly packed formation. "Blazing Dance!" Flaming arrows rained down once again.
Now that the girls had seen just how one-sided the battle was, they eagerly joined in as well, launching ranged attacks from behind Marcus to help clean up the remaining enemies.
The battle had become completely one-sided. After four more waves, nearly every undead sailor surrounding the Azure Vortex had been eliminated, and only Elder Eagle remained, accompanied by roughly fifty elite guards.
Marcus fixed his gaze on the towering boss and slowly smiled. Now the real battle could begin.