"The God of Vipers shall rule the world, you heathens will have nowhere to hide!"
It seemed that in Abyss Mode, Serpent Manipulator Durjash's lines were still the same. After saying these scripted lines, Durjash started casting Lightning Arrow at Li Huailin.
Now that Li Huailin reached level 15, once he saw Serpent Manipulator Durjash cast the spell, he suddenly realized that he was able to learn new skills now too. As a warrior, he wondered if he could learn a skill that interrupted spellcasting. It was time for him to go back and visit the warrior instructor who he once took(badly) care(trampled) of(on) and learn some new skills for free.
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Although Li Huailin was thinking of something else in his mind, his slash didn't have any tinge of hesitation behind it. His first attack at the boss was quite lucky as it turned out to be a critical hit.
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Meanwhile, the bolt of lightning also hit Li Huailin. There was a huge improvement in the damage it caused when compared to Normal Mode. The attack was incredibly powerful, however, Li Huailin had a big family who was behind him, supporting his every move. Even though the bolt of lightning reduced his health points by half, the debuffs that were on him instantly restored his lost health points.
After learning from experience with the previous boss, Li Huailin wondered what new skills this boss had. It seemed that bosses in Abyss Mode had at least one new skill, judging from Great Snake Duras' new ability that enabled it to reduce the players' physical defense. Since he didn't know what Serpent Manipulator Durjash's new skill was yet, he hoped that things would go smoothly.
Primary-level battles were simple, mainly because players didn't have many skills they course use. Warriors had even less skills when compared to the other classes. Li Huailin kept hacking on the boss whereas the boss kept summoning bolts of lightning on him. In the following minute, Li Huailin's health points remained over 80%. It seemed that the boss wasn't really a threat to him. Serpent Manipulator Durjash's health points steadily reduced and had finally reached 60%.
"Taste my poisonous fog!" Serpent Manipulator Durjash suddenly exclaimed.
This wasn't a new skill for him. In an instant, a cluster of poisonous fog rose from the ground and fully restored Li Huailin's health points in a second.
"Good job, bro!" Li Huailin couldn't help and compliment him. Earlier, he explicitly expressed his confidence in completing the dungeon at the entrance, the reason for that was due to this skill from the second boss. Even if the first boss somehow made him lose some health points, the second boss' poisonous fog would be able to fully heal him.
After observing for a while, some alterations had been made to this skill in Abyss Mode. In Normal Mode, the boss could only summon up to 3 clusters of poisonous fog and they were already difficult to avoid. But in Abyss Mode, Serpent Manipulator Durjash kept summoning the fog until the area around him had been filled with it.
"Huailin, we're here! Do you need help?"
At this time, Red Moon's voice resounded out. Li Huailin looked back and saw the rest of the party members. Because the entire altar was covered by the poisonous fog, Red Moon and the rest of the ladies chose to stay away from it.
"It's too dangerous up here. You ladies stay there and wait for me to finish." Li Huailin called down to them. "I'm doing good!"
The battle on the altar was extremely spectacular, because all the monsters that Li Huailin had gathered together were all attacking Li Huailin. Plus the special effect brought by the boss's poisonous fog, the scene looked like that of a blockbuster.
The boss' health points, when compared to his version in Normal Mode, also had a significant increase. Li Huailin continued working hard with slashing and hacking the boss for more than 2 minutes. Finally, it reached its limit. It turned out that this boss didn't really have a new skill, something which Li Huailin had been looking forward to. Just like in Normal Mode, this boss only knew how to release poisonous fog and cast Lightning Arrow. Of course, the two skills had been upgraded compared to before, even with this… After two and a half minutes, Serpent Manipulator Durjash was about to die.
When Li Huailin finished the boss with his last attack, as the boss only had 2% of its health points remaining, the poisonous fog suddenly disappeared as Serpent Manipulator Durjash stepped back and covered his wounds with his hands in pain.
"My almighty God of Serpents… are you abandoning your people?"
After saying this, Serpent Manipulator Durjash slowly walked to the center of the altar. Of course, this was just part of the story's plot since Serpent Manipulator Durjash now had 0 health points, no attack would be effective on him during this cutscene.
"I offer my blood and life. Deckimas, the almighty God of Serpents, show me the oracle!"
Serpent Manipulator Durjash cried aloud while raising both of his hands into the air.
"Huailin, what's going on?" After making sure that the heavy poisonous fog was gone, Red Moon and the rest of the party members neared him and asked.
"I don't know. This started happening as soon as his health points reached 0," Li Huailin answered in confusion.
The change was still currently happening.
As they were talking, the clouds started gathering and the winds started blowing hard over the area. The entire altar began to emit green light. Li Huailin also noticed that all of the viper sculptures on the altar were trembling, as if they were coming back to life. Meanwhile, the monsters which were attacking Li Huailin earlier had stopped moving and were now quivering.
"Ding!"
All of a sudden, a beam of purple light shone down from the top of the cave and fell on the center of the altar. The green light on the ground, as if it was echoing the purple light, immediately came up and joined with it.
"Hiss!"
A deafening roar that obviously came from a horrible monster abruptly arrived. Before the party could even react, the huge group of monsters, which chased and attacked Li Huailin earlier, were suddenly stricken with great fear and fled from the altar in a hurry.
"Oh, my almighty God of Serpents!"
Serpent Manipulator Durjash let out a cry before its body quickly withered and turned into a dried corpse. When its dried corpse fell to the ground, this horrifying scene made both Red Face Drinks Water and Red Pennant turn their heads and look away.
Currently, the entire altar was covered with purple light, almost as if the green light had been completely devoured. Then, in the middle of the purple light, a huge shadow slowly emerged. It looked like a gigantic, black serpent. However, the serpent's upper part was in the shape of a human being.
All of the party members were startled for a second. They quickly checked the shadow by using the system, only to find its name — The Shadow of Serpent God Deckimas — and a line of question marks following it's details, this was due to the huge gap between their levels.
"It seems that we have to fight it. Is this a hidden boss?"
While facing the shadow that was slowly appearing, called the Shadow of Serpent God Deckimas, Li Huailin looked around and asked the others.
"Maybe it's a bonus stage in Abyss Mode? Or perhaps Serpent Manipulator Durjash isn't the last boss in Abyss Mode, this thing is," Red Moon answered based on her experience.
"Drink Water, use your healing spells and keep me healthy when the battle begins, don't use the Restoration Spell," Li Huailin hurriedly informed. He had indeed tried it before and confirmed that direct healing spells worked for him, but a restoration spell was basically helping the monsters beat him up. Since all of the monsters which were supporting Li Huailin were gone, Li Huailin started to feel quite insecure and diffident.
"Yeah! I can finally be of some help to Brother-in-law!" Red Face Drinks Water responded happily.
"Mortals, you have infuriated me."
The Shadow of Serpent God Deckimas suddenly growled. Meanwhile, with a flash of purple light, the monster fully revealed itself. Standing about 5 meters tall, it had the head of a human and the body of a snake. Its face looked terrifying because the features resembled a snake head. In its hand was a huge gold staff, while on the top of it, there were two snakes intertwining with each other. It seemed to be a boss that knew how to use spells.
"Let's fight!"
Although they knew nothing about this boss, what they had to do was inevitable. When the boss' health bar appeared, Li Huailin knew that he had to go first. Without any further words, Li Huailin dashed towards the boss in order to get and hold the aggro.