Chapter 167 This isn't even my final form!
Dave slammed his great-shield into the earth at an angle then crouched beneath it and activated [Block]. The sky darkened and the storm of black feathers came whistling down, each of them hit with a bang.
All around him the razor sharp, metallic projectiles struck with the force of machine-gun rounds and sliced through undead flesh and bone with ease.
Not even the dunlords were spared. They used their outsized claws as shields but still took severe damage despite the heavy chitinous armor.
Fortunately, the Unholy priestess and paladins, the regiment's healers, were far back from the battle zone.
Finally, the deadly black rain ended. Dave popped out from under his shield to survey the damage and assess the butcher's bill.
"Lone!" he shouted. He searched the unmoving figures lying on the ground, trying to find the archer. She had the lowest level in the group and certainly didn't have the HP to survive that kind of feather-storm.
Dave worried that she might've 'bought the farm.'
"I'm alright Davey, I used [Blink] to get away. That was some heavy shit!"
"Yeah. A real shit-storm. Heh heh.
"Heads-up! It's coming back," Dave warned, spotting the incoming tengu.
The yokai unsheathed his katana as he swooped down and attacked a zombie whose HP was in the red.
The tengu used the liver-splitting stroke to cut the zombie in half, then moved on to the next undead swinging another body cutting technique.
Dave rushed toward the fight as the yokai continued killing more undead, coming up from behind he struck at the yokai, but wasn't able to do any damage..
"What are you doing Dave? Level difference remember!" Lone reminded him as she used [Binding Arrow], slowing the tengu's movement for a moment.
"Sword passive!" Dave shouted back, "I can break his armor, it will make it easier for the dunlords to kill it this way!"
Dave attacked with his sword again.
Irritated at the pesky draugr attacking him the tengu stepped back sweeping his sword across and back repeatedly in broad arcs to create some distance. Dave used [Stampede]'s crowd control nullification ability to overcome the knock-back effects of the sword sweeps, charging at the tengu and closing the gap. He Hyper-Armored against the wide-swinging attack and just took the hard hit.
[-65,555]
Accepting the damage, he smashed through into the tengu, a Stun effect overcame the yokai. The dunlords shot another staggering volley of arrows into the guardian and Dave swung at the creature twice before the Stun wore off.
The tengu stabilized itself and swept its wings down vaulting back into the sky.
"Like hell I'm going to let you do that again!"
Dave used [Death's Descent] and jumped, he came crashing down on the tengu pile-driving it back to the ground.
"Let me!" Lone said. Activating [Ice-Shard Arrow Barrage] her hands moved at impossible speeds, firing dozens of arrows in seconds. The arrows became shards of ultra-frozen ice when they struck the tengu and frost grew rapidly across the yokai's armor wherever they hit.
"Heal me!" Dave yelled at the casters, they started shooting hexes and spells at him, slowly increasing his HP.
Dave went in to attack the tengu again, this time he used the equipped [Shield Bash] Skill. The tengu was Stunned again, letting Dave get a couple more strikes in.
"I'm running out of stun skills! I need two more hits," Dave shouted.
"Move right! Heavy-hitter coming in!" Lone nocked an arrow and activated [Bombarda], the arrow turned red. As she drew and released flames flared out from the point and travelled back along the arrow shaft with a 'whumf' sound, like fuel igniting.
Dave dove to his right as the fiery arrow flashed past him and exploded against the tengu's armored chest, staggering it.
"Good!" Dave rushed in and swung his sword in a horizontal cut. As the slice landed he used the equipped Skill [Mountain Cleaver], which enabled him to instantly attack again even though he was overextended.
You have imparted the status effect
Embrittle!
Landing another hit on the target's armor will remove up to 50% of the armor's base defensive values.
"EAT THIS!" Dave activated the level 100 sword-Skill [Concussive Blow] and smashed his blade down like a club.
Armor Ruptured
"Dunlords, take him down!" Dave ordered as he beat a hasty retreat.
The dunlord's ballista bolts now dealt over 5,000 HP in damage per hit and had an increased Stagger effect.
"That was wicked Davey!"
"Damn, this yokai-guy is unbelievably OP. All those skills. And that speed! I needed every one of those Stuns just to land ten consecutive hits on him and get the armor embrittlement effect."
Dave moved to the rear area with the supports to recover some of his HP as the dunlords continued firing barrages of ballista bolts at the now flying tengu.
"We need to keep it under crowd control. Use your Slows, Stuns, Freezes, whatever you have as soon as they come off cool down.
The tengu suffered under the barrage of attacks from the dunlords. Add Dave and Lone's occasional stuns and crowd control abilities, the tengu began to struggle against the undead.
The tengu found a chance where he was not under CC and hacked at a nearby ghoul, slashing it in two perfect halves.
Two dunlords were already dead and the tengu still had over 60% of its HP left.
As for the other undead, Dave grit his teeth through the loss of his undead and started taking a more aggressive approach to the fight.
He would tank through hits for some of his underlings, using the shield's block and any ability he could spare, to save even one or two undeads.
A single strike from the tengu was enough to kill anyone except a dunlord. Lone was very careful to avoid or dodge any attack that came her way.
Another cast time countdown appeared over the tengu head as he started making shinobi-style hand seals.
A torrent of fire erupted out from the tengu, engulfing him and a wide area around him. He raised his right hand and the firestorm shrank down, gathering into a ball of fire that shot toward the closest group of dunlords.
Dave yelled a despairing denial, "NO!"
But the fireball was too fast. The projectile crashed into the dunlords, eating away huge amounts of HP and incinerating the unlucky nearby melee undead.
"Crap! This mini-boss is way overpowered!" Dave cursed.
The tengu's HP reached 50% as he managed to take down another dunlord.
Dave swapped his sword and shield for the Sworn Stalwart's gauntlets and activated [Aura], turning the space around his avatar into a blazing tornado.
His [Decimating Smash] came off-cooldown so he jumped up high and used it to smack the tengu as he came down, stunning the yokai and giving the dunlords a chance to fire their ballistae at him.
Some of the dunlords even managed to close in and attack the tengu with their poison tail barb, procing some DoT with their Poison effect.
Dave activated [Infernal Tornado] spinning like a top arundof the tengu. Though it didn't cause any damage, the stagger effect helped increase the damage from his unit's attacks.
Luckily as he was spinning two rune effects from his gauntlets procced, [Shock] and [Venom] adding more to the tengu's suffering.
The tengu who was ganged found a chance to escape and rose to the sky.
"Careful, it's going to use the Feather Storm again," Dave said as he was ready to use [Vertical Slash] and escape the damage.
"NO! he just used Feather Storm!" Lone shouted, "He's going into the second phase!"
"Oh shit!"