Sol, being more perceptive of his sister's mental state, noticed that Luna had a dazed look on her face that slowly turned into that of determination. Knowing that she would lead them to succeed regardless of the fact that she had reincarnated, Sol promised again to himself to protect his sister and those he cared with all his might.
Luna then spoke up and directed everyone's attention to the hidden fragment. "Look over there, in the top right corner right above the boss everyone. Can you see that darkish crystal over there?"
As soon as everyone recognized the crystal was there, a notification popped up for everyone.
'You have discovered a Seed of Corruption. As An'Elari, it is your duty to assist in the defense of the children of the Aspects. Destroy the Seed before it completely corrupts the Dryad or risk the terror of corruption.'
Surprised by such an event and wondering if it was a planned part of the fight or a random chance for them to face such a trial. As they were pondering over such a fascinating announcement, the darkish crystal as if prompted by the notification as well began to shiver and release an extremely dark beam in the center of the room.
Backing away in shock, the group saw the dark beam hit the room floor and a dark and foggy wraith-like thing begin to take form. With the wraith fully formed, the fragment of corruption cracked and crumbled into dust and the stats of the corruption wraith gave the team a terrible sense of dread.
Corruption Wraith (Adept Corruption) Lv. 15
Health: 3,000
Skills: Corruption (Aura) - Deals light shadow damage to all players. Slowly corrupting Lydrra, at full corruption good luck surviving.
Wraith Body (Passive) - Ethereal form makes it much harder to land attacks, all physical attacks and abilities have a 30% chance to miss but also prevent the boss from attacking without skills.
Shadow Claw - Strikes an enemy with shadow damage.
Corruption Shriek - Shrieks a blast of corruptive energy, dealing a large amount of shadow damage and stunning enemies hit.
Sol couldn't help himself and shout out in shock. "What the hell is that health?! Isn't this just suicidal at this point? It's double the health of Lydrra. And those skills all look incredibly deadly." Looking over nervously at Luna, Sol hoped that his sister would have some kind of plan.
Seeing her brother so concerned, Luna smiled. "I'm sure that despite how dangerous this corruption looks, the system won't make the fight impossible. However; regardless the fight will undoubtedly be difficult and I can't be certain that we will get a second chance to fight this corruption again. But with great adversity comes great reward, and I believe if all of us to succeed!"
The sisters also walked up and cheered the group on to keep spirits high. As they began to contemplate their attack plan, a soft melodious voice spoke up.
"Thank you for saving me An'Elari, this accursed corruption had almost taken me away from the Aspect's embrace. I am too weakened by fighting off its influence but I can still assist you in cleansing this corruption from Elem forever." Lydrra then cast upon all of them a significant blessing.
'Lydrra's Favor'
Health increased by 1,000
Health and Mana Regen increased by 50%
Attacks deal additional Nature damage
*Due to the influence of corruption, Lydrra's Favor will reduce in effectiveness as the fight goes on*
Initially incredibly confident about their chances with the huge boon, the last line of text gave them all a large amount of pressure as the fight would only get more difficult if they were unable to kill the Corruption Wraith in a timely manner.
Unwilling to waste any more precious time, Sol looked towards Luna for confirmation to start the fight.
Nodding towards her brother and herself unwilling to let the chance slip from her fingers, she warned cautiously before giving the go-ahead to Sol. "With how the favor works, we all need to pump out as much damage to the wraith as we can and let the health pool and regeneration carry the healing initially. Give it everything you got, I believe we can do this!"
Not needing any more encouragement, Sol and Eilyria charged towards the wraith. Followed by everyone else, a barrage of arrows and elemental spells from the group and all their familiars bombarded the wraith.
Roaring out a chilly screech at the annoying pests, the wraith floated forward to meet Sol and to the group's dismay, a portion of their attacks just phased through the wraith's body without dealing any damage.
Thankfully their elemental based attacks and the extra nature damage from the favor took noticeable chunks out of the wraith's health pool. Sol dished out as much damage as he could despite the wraith constantly wanting to attack the other members and was able to barely control the wraith with the help of Eilyria constantly dishing out incredibly strong light element attacks.
While the elemental and nature damage were more effective against the wraith, the defensive ability of Sol's shield was nullified. With Diana's new bow, the extra poison damage was a huge blessing and contributed a large amount of constant damage that the wraith wasn't able to avoid.
Once the wraith dropped down to 70% it let out a chilling shockwave, knocking everyone back and then fading away.
"Group on me!" Taking no chances, Sol lept up quickly and had the girls group up around him as they all waited vigilantly for the wraith to appear again.
As expected, the wraith appeared once again and clawed at Minerva. Despite his best efforts, the speed of the Wraith managed to graze Minerva before Sol could attack. Losing almost 70% of her life, Minerva extremely was thankful for the extra health or she would've certainly died.
While the start of the fight was going pretty steadily, the damage from the wraith's shadow claw ignored a portion of Sol's defense and the steady damage from its aura was taking a toll on Minerva. The entire group taking enough damage to where Lydrra's favor wouldn't be enough to keep their health topped off, forcing Minerva and Eilyria had to focus more on healing than damage.
While the damage lost from the two wasn't too impactful, the damage that the wraith was taking was getting slower over time as Lydrra's Favor was draining from them slowly.
When the wraith hit 40% health, it again shouted out and hit the group with an unavoidable shockwave which knocked them all back. Unlike the first time, however, the Wraith released a dense fog tinged with a reddish color.
The dense red fog seemed to boost the damage of the corruption aura, adding even more constant damage. This put a large amount of stress on Minerva and Eilyria as they struggled to keep from dying.
When the Wraith entered back into the fight, shadow claw dealt less damage as it may have sacrificed some of its stats to produce the fog. Unfortunately with Eilryia and Minerva fully focused on keeping everyone alive and the constantly weakening blessing, the group hovered at 50% health as the Wraith's health slowly ticked down.
Sol grit his teeth as the Wraith clawed at him once again and despite his best efforts to block the attack, the claw phased through his shield and ripped through a chunk of his health once more. Eilriya and Minerva, fatigued by how long the fight had lasted so far and the constant vigilance at keeping everyone alive had started to falter.
Luna thankfully was more used to keeping up her mental strength and was able to constantly keep up her damage. Annoyed that the slow from Aquis was unable to affect the wraith, she cheered on the team as the wraith was reaching 5% health.
"We're almost done! Just a bit more and we will kill it! Don't give up now!"
Pushing through despite the fatigue plaguing everyone, the Corruption Wraith hit 5% health and it let out a bone-chilling screech and it broke the blessing from Lydrra entirely.
Without the buffer of the favor, the group quickly began to squeeze out as much damage as they could possibly put out at the risk of letting everyone get dangerously low.
First to fall to a stray claw was Diana and the loss of one of half the damage of the team was horrible. Putting more focus on healing the rest of the members, Minerva accidentally lost focus for a moment and died to the corruption fog as she was just shy of healing herself.
Losing half of the team, the Corruption Wraith hovered at less than 1% health and Sol sacrificed himself to pull the boss as far away from Luna as he could. With less than 40% health, Luna showed an unnatural calm as she focused on the boss with all her might while constantly moving away from the boss.
Despite her best efforts, however, the Wraith quickly reached Luna and raised its claws in order to rush the last bit of resistance. With death looming overhead, Luna kept attacking and practically as the claw reached her body.
At the very last moment, a small icy furred familiar jumped in front of Luna and blocked the claw slightly which gave Luna just enough time to eke out one more arrow, claiming the last bit of health from the Wraith.
Howling in frustration, the Corruption Wraith faded out of existence as a green glow once again suffused the now heavily destroyed room.
With the corruption gone, Lydrra climbed out weakly from her resting spot and resurrected Sol, Minerva, and Diana.
"Thank you for saving me from a terrible fate An'Elari, may the Aspects bless you. I need to recover from my wounds but I shall reward you all for cleansing the corruption."
A green glow surrounded each of the members and they suddenly found themselves back at the entrance of the dungeon. Hovering in front of each of them was a shiny item tailored for each of them.
Cloak of Shadows (Adept Cloak) Lv. 15
Special Effect: Shadow - Physical attacks have a 10% chance to miss
*Bound to Sol*
Claw of Corruption (Adept Pendant) Lv. 15
Special Effect: Corruption - Successful attacks have a chance to inflict 'Corruption' on the target, lowering their strength by 5% (Cannot Stack)
*Bound to Luna*
Lydrra's Fury (Adept Gloves) Lv. 15
Special Effect: Lydrra's Fury - Attacks against targets below 30% health have a chance to summon a phantom of Lydrra to attack for 5 seconds.
*Bound to Diana*
Lydrra's Grace (Adept Chestpiece) Lv. 15
Special Effect: Lydrra's Favor - Positive spells on allies have a chance to apply Lydrra's Favor, granting them increased Health and Mana Regeneration for 10 seconds.
*Bound to Minerva*
Despite being exhausted by the entire ordeal, everyone quickly looked over their new equipment and happily chatted about the various abilities and effects of their items and their desires to test them on the way back to the town before logging off.
On their way, they pulled every elemental creature they could find and overall the group was able to much more easily dispatch them not only due to the new items (although it helped a lot) but also due to their increased coordination and relfexes after fighting such a difficult boss.
Waving them goodbye, Luna and Sol did the same and agreed to meet them again tomorrow.