Astaria follows her lightning up by using residual burst that causes Square Jaw to stumble onto the edge of the fire, the movement becoming more unstable from its injured knee. Just as the boss is about to recover an exploding fireball strikes it in the back, the force of both consecutive attacks causes the goblin to fall onto the fire, howling in pain as his skin begins to burn.
"Damn, you're brutal!"
Hearing Tyrell's comment from behind, Astaria shakes her head as she moves closer to cast earth spike at the exposed knee of the boss.
Square Jaw in his pain starts to flail about, pushing the fire over while swinging his arm about. Pieces of flaming wood that are burnt into his arm are released with the force of his movements, causing one sharp splinter to fly directly at Astaria's head.
Seeing this, Astaria feels a looming sense of regret for being so careless while swiftly moving to dodge. However, she is too slow and the shard of flaming wood stabs into her upper left arm, causing her to try to suppress a pained scream as her staff falls to the floor.
Not taking any further risks, Astaria immediately backs off while making the most of the brief moment that the boss is still distracted trying to get up. She stabs her sword into the ground and pulls the flaming wooden shard out of her arm before it causes any more damage, gritting her teeth from the immense pain.
The wound causes a total of 112 damage and -2HP bleeding per second, meaning Astaria has two and a half minutes to drink a health potion or bandage her arm before she dies from blood loss.
Quickly assessing the situation, Astaria can see that her move pays off as Square Jaw loses around 13% of its HP, leaving its remaining health at 11%. If she manages to incapacitate the boss's leg before she bleeds out, then she will have enough breathing room to drink a health potion and freely attack with little risk.
Deciding to push through the pain, Astaria grabs her sword while her left arm remains limp. Readying herself, she lets her anger rise as she pushes the pain in her arm to the back of her mind. Her emotions fuelled by hate for the goblin boss and in annoyance at her careless mistake, are further increased by her desire to use these feelings to dull the pain.
Seeing what just happened, Tyrell puts his hand out to stop Roxanne who is rushing towards Astaria.
"Aurora, are you ok?!"
Hearing Roxanne call out, Astaria shouts back in an angry tone, her eyes never leaving Square Jaw.
"Stay back. This Bastard hurt my arm; I am taking his leg."
With the shout, Astaria charges at Square Jaw who is standing up with the whole of his front charred black and some splinters of wood still burning as they remain lodged into his skin.
Seeing the blackened boss raise his arm to smash down at her, Astaria immediately stops her charge just out of range, preventing the fist that is swinging down at her from making a direct hit.
With familiar moves, Astaria bursts forward and leaps, using Square Jaw's lowered arm as a foothold while thrusting her sword at the boss's eyes. While her thrust is not directly on target, it has the intended effect as the enraged boss raises its arms to block the strike.
With the moment of opportunity she has created, Astaria spins around behind Square Jaw using the momentum from her landing to launch a slash directly into the gaping wound in the boss's knee.
Realising that her attack is not enough, Astaria decides to stab directly into the wound using the full weight of her body. Sliding her right foot back, she thrusts her sword into the wound, the sword penetrating much deeper than she expects, making the boss roar from the pain.
Square Jaw's arm that is swinging towards Astaria like a club is thrown off as his knee buckles, flying right over Astaria's head. As the boss's right leg can no longer support him, his momentum causes him to land face first onto the floor of the cave.
Happy with the result, Astaria immediately backs off leaving her sword embedded in the knee as she issues commands to the party.
"Tyrell, hammer the sword in deeper, better safe than sorry. Watch out for flailing. Roxanne, Ben, start attacking again."
Hearing responses in acceptance of her orders, Astaria immediately opens up her inventory again and pulls out a red potion which she starts to drink. Feeling the pain subsiding as she drinks, a sense of relief floods over her as she was seriously worried that she would make a mistake and the whole party would be wiped.
Looking back down, she can see Tyrell swing his hammer down onto the pummel of her sword like a nail, piercing Square Jaws Knee even further while the boss tries using his hands and remaining left knee to rise up.
The burst of pain Square Jaw receives from his knee causes him to scream again as his body shudders and collapses back onto the floor.
Seeing Tyrell back off, Ben and Roxanne start launching all of their attacks at the boss, starting to whittle down its HP as Astaria walks over and picks her staff back up. With Square Jaw only able to crawl as he tries to get closer, the rest of the fight becomes easy as everyone is able to stay out of range.
With a final cast of Lightning, the Boss drops to the floor face first, his corpse now a mess of green black, and red.
[Hobgoblin Raid Boss: Square Jaw Lv 35 defeated. 629% XP gained. 2627% skill point XP gained]
[Lv 18 -> 24]
[All Attributes +6]
[+30 Attribute Points]
[+27 Skill Points]
[[System Announcement: The Raid Party led by Immortal Warrior Astaria is the first group to kill a Raid Boss. All party members have been awarded the unique title: Raid Pioneer]]
[[System Announcement: The Raid Party led by Immortal Warrior Astaria is the first group to kill the Mutated Hobgoblin Raid Boss: Square Jaw. All party members have been awarded the unique title: Slayer of Square Jaw]]
[[System Announcement: The Raid Party led by Immortal Warrior Astaria is the first group to kill a Raid Boss with no deaths. All party members have been awarded the unique title: Stalwart Warrior]]
Seeing the 3 consecutive System Messages appear, Astaria lets out a massive sigh of relief as she sits down on the floor with her legs folded to one side.
The other members of the group were now exchanging high 5's, back pats, and fist bumps as they walk over to Astaria, their elation clear from their light steps as they all revel in their victory.
Astaria checks out the new mail she received when the announcements appeared, while a beautiful smile adorns her face as she reads their contents.
[{New: Congratulations for the 'First Raid Party to Kill a Raid Boss' Achievement}
{Sender: System}
{Congratulations for being the leader of the first raid party to kill a raid boss in Caelus online. You have received the unique title 'Raid Pioneer' and have been rewarded with 3 free attribute points, an epic equipment box, and x20 health and mana potions. Received items will be placed in your inventory.}]
[{New: Congratulations for 'First Kill of the Mutated Goblin Raid Boss: Square Jaw' Achievement}
{Sender: System}
{Congratulations for being the leader of the first raid party to kill the raid boss Square Jaw in Caelus online. You have received the unique title 'Slayer of Square Jaw' and have been rewarded with 3 free attribute points, a blue equipment box, and x20 health and mana potions. Received items will be placed in your inventory.}]
[{New: Congratulations for the 'First Group to Kill a Raid Boss With no Deaths' Achievement}
{Sender: System}
{Congratulations for being the leader of the first raid party to achieve the incredible feat of killing a raid boss with no deaths in Caelus online. You have received the unique title 'Stalwart Warrior' and have been rewarded with 4 free attribute points, a legendary equipment box, x10 fortification potions, and x1 costume box. Received items will be placed in your inventory.}]
Looking at the system mail, Astaria's surprise grows the further she reads. Astaria realises that the first epic equipment previously obtained comes from the first raid boss kill achievement and that the boss likely didn't drop anything. However, when she lays her eyes on the legendary chest, she can't hold her gasp of surprise.
As Astaria is aware, Caelus online is inherently fair, so to have a legendary chest appear before the official release is beyond mind boggling to her. However, while she thinks about the issue, she realises that it makes sense. The rewards for completing an achievement that is already generated before the release of the game are already decided and the time of completion does not affect anything, meanwhile achievements that are randomly generated from the outcome of players and NPC's interactions are balanced to the server's progression.
Given the current level of the player's abilities, killing a raid boss with no deaths is next to impossible meaning that by the time it is achieved normally, legendary equipment will be more common.
With a happy smile knowing that her skills are even more important while breaking the game balance, Astaria looks up at her friends who are starting to shower her with praise.