Jin intently stared at his status page.
He could feel an unusual power surging from within him; power seemingly resting inside, waiting to be unleashed. Although he could not move from where he was, he wasn't worried. He could clearly see that the opposite party, the heroes, or more accurately; the players, were more afraid of him than he was to them.
The presence of the demonic sword Seyna was enough to deter any pursuit.
'Please assign your base stat points…' Jin slowly read what the status page instructed.
From his near-death experience, an alternate consciousness lurking inside him seemingly awakened. He could understand what 'stat points' meant, even though it was something he never learned nor heard of. Moreover, his fear of confronting human heroes back then completely disappeared. Now, he could clearly see that they were mere players in a game of some sort, and he himself was nothing more but an automated pawn.
However… Things were about to change.
'Assign 25 stat points to STR'...'Assign 5 stat points LUK'
---
STR: 25 --- INT: 0
AGI: 0 --- DEX: 0
VIT: 0 --- LUK: 5
Stat Points: 30 (Base) + 0 (Levels) + 0 (Bonus). 0/30 Total.
[Base stat points assigned!]
[Removing restriction…]
[Welcome to Dark Descent, Demon King Jin!]
---
One would think that Jin had lost his mind when he hastily spent his stat points on both STR and LUK. No ordinary player would even think of putting any of their base points on those stats in the very beginning. The most logical pathway would be spending those base stat points on DEX for physical classes, and INT for casters.
However, Jin was different. He immediately came up with a plan—
---
HP: 3,000
MP: 50
Fatigue: 0
---
Assigning 25 of his base stat points to STR gave him 2,500 more HP, totaling 3,000.
Assigning 5 on LUK, however, only boosted his proc chance by 0.5%. But for Jin, that little boost on luck was enough. Overall, Jin now has a tanky body with no reliable way of dealing any damage to opponents other than waiting for Seyna to attack.
This would have been way worse if Jin didn't have his second skill; his passive.
𐣿 Feeding The Darkness—
Passive. For every 100 damage taken, adds 200 to Seyna's total damage.
…
Cherise promptly cast heal onto Josef. As the person with the least life left, it would've been despairing for him to lose his life first. Cherise knows this and quickly adapted to the situation. The man was simply in no condition to fight.
"Vince, can you look around and find other exits? I'll try and stall him." She firmly instructed.
Even though, technically, Vince was the party leader— He himself could not refute Cherise when she's this determined. Her way of thinking is also way clearer in such situations given that she lives a rather stressful life as a Support. Without hesitation, Vince ran and scoured through the entire throne room to find another way out.
…
The room wasn't that big, and it took mere moments for them to realize that there was no way out. Besides the now tightly sealed door, the only opening left was the window behind the very throne itself. On that throne was a demon different from what they, or more accurately, Vince, slew earlier.
Jin calmly sat on his throne. Floating in front of him was the demonic sword Seyna.
He intentionally toggled the Seyna off in order to bait the enemy. With him actively turning the skill off, the enemy would then have the idea that he himself is in control of the sword. If the sword continually attacked while he wasn't moving, the enemy might have the wrong idea of attacking and destroying the sword itself, something that Jin could not afford to happen. The purpose of him increasing his raw HP was for this very plan to work—
He wants them to attack him instead.
As if taunting them to try and escape through the windows, Jin purposely distanced himself away from it. Although he was wearing a helm crown, a portion of his face was still visible to them; a wide smirk was painted on the demon king's face.
"Getting cocky now, are you? I defeated you once, I can definitely do it again!" Vince pulled out his silver sword once more, brandishing a glinting sharp blade. Without hesitation, he charged and swung towards Jin. Instead of stopping Vince, Cherise supported the latter by casting a boosting spell, strengthening Jin by twofold.
.
HP: 2,876 (-124)
.
Although Vince was somehow a decent player, his damage output was pathetic for his level. Even with his unstable weapon equipped, the most he could deal at a time would be around 170 damage, far from killing Jin without exhausting himself.
.
HP: 2,080 (-420)... "Argh!"
.
"Wh— What?" Vince could not help but hear an anguishing voice behind him. A bloodied Josef could be seen lying flat on the ground, impaled by the demonic blood-red sword. Wait, was he not the one attacking? Why is this boss attacking someone who isn't even aggroing him instead? What was going on? Vince was all too confused to even focus on the battle in front of him.
It wasn't just Vince who was caught off guard; Jin himself was shocked to see that Seyna indeed attacked someone else at random. Even with him directly getting attacked, the demonic sword paid no heed and still abode to its 'randomness'.
'What an unreliable heirloom.' Jin inwardly muttered. Although it really was unreliable, Jin didn't care. As long as it does its job well, he's fine with it. A smile appeared on his demonic face. "I think your friend needs a little help over there. Go on, heal him, I'll wait here." He mocked as he coldly stared at both Vince and Cherise.
"Tsk, you cocky bastard. Die!" Vince went on ahead and slashed towards Jin once more. The demon king didn't even try and defend himself as a wide gash appeared on his chest plate, a severe wound soon followed.
.
HP: 2,482 (-394) (Critical Hit!)
.
Cherise's support boost actually helped Vince improve his overall damage output. With a critical blow landing directly, the party saw a hopeful light in such a dire situation. Such damage in a single attack gave them morale. The demon king boss was just too reckless, and that very thing might be the cause of his downfall, or so what they have thought.
"Hahaha yes! Hit me harder! Give me your all… I dare you!" Jin taunted the two. Of course, if these players were any stronger, he wouldn't dare provoke them this blatantly. It was, after all, just an act. He's just a mere LV 0 who is relying on raw HP.
.
HP: 860 (-1220)... "...No… Stop! Please!"
.
A cry of help suddenly echoed. At this point, it was obvious where it was coming from or who it was. 'Three in a row, that guy has terrible luck.' Jin thought. Although he felt sorry for the man having such terrible luck, he didn't feel any empathy towards them in any other way. If Seyna chooses to attack anyone of them repeatedly, then they just have to accept such terrible fate.
"...You're intentionally doing this. Stop toying with us!"
A barrage of attacks rained down towards Jin; attacks filled with the intent to kill came rushing towards him. At this point, he successfully angered the party of players in front of him. On the side note, however, this is what he was aiming for at the very beginning.
With Vince and Cherise tag-teaming the cocky demon king, they successfully culled his HP down to a very minuscule amount— Enough for a single strike to finally end him.
All this time, the Seyna never attacked any of them. The passive kept kicking in that it had to recalculate its total damage over and over again. It looked grim for a moment. But as soon as the in-game exhaustion system kicked in, the players doomed themselves.
Vince still has his entire HP intact, but his Fatigue was at the brim, disabling his character. He couldn't even swing his sword at the slightest. Cherise had it worse; with Fatigue coping up to her and her MP practically empty, she was basically dead and dried meat.
.
HP: 80
.
"One more move and you three would've ended me… Too bad." Jin, with only 80 HP left, stood up from his throne. The demonic sword Seyna floated near him. It was practically game over as soon as the two reached a 100 on Fatigue. Jin, on the other hand, didn't suffer from exhaustion. He practically sat the entire time while he was getting pummelled.
Josef, who was laying low the whole time, finally raised his head to the scene where his two party members were left terribly exhausted. But what really caught his attention was the amount of HP remaining on the demon king boss. He was scared witless this whole time that he didn't notice the entire battle unfolding.
'...80 HP, I— I can finish him off!' Josef steadily drew out his bronze spear as he carefully stood up. He could not let this easy prey go away when could still do something.
...
*Schlik!*
HP: 0 (-5,881)
"Four in a row… You have terrible luck indeed." Jin pitifully stared at Josef who had a dumbfounded expression on his face. The demonic sword Seyna finally ended the man's torment in a brutal fashion— An overkill.
One by one, the three player party perished. The damage that the sword Seyna accumulated was just too much for any of them to handle. The fact that they were immobilized and couldn't even move or defend themselves made things worse— It felt like torture having their HP depleted without them having a say.
Ultimately, the raiding party failed.
Although it wasn't just the three of them that were raiding the Priyan Kingdom, the timer exceeded the 25-minute mark, and the raid automatically halted, teleporting all the players back to the kingdom assigned by the UFHN.
Everyone who was still alive was confused. They were sure that a sub-unit; a hand-picked trio of solid players, were sent to go after the area boss. "Did they fail to kill the boss even after 20 minutes? That's a bit… unreasonable."
None of them knew what unfolded within the throne room of the Priyan Kingdom.
The witnesses were still recuperating— A 12-hour respawn time.
---
[Game Announcement: Clearing D-rank area, Priyan Kingdom, failed]
[Priyan Kingdom is now a temporary restricted area. Cooldown: 6 days, 23 hrs., 59 min.]
[Raid Failure— Recalculating Priyan Kingdom Area difficulty…]
[Priyan Kingdom Area new raid difficulty: S-rank area]