Not much happened for the first few hours giving Ajax time to relax and focus on the upcoming fight and the Collectors time to warm up.
“What Floor Boss do you want?” Quinn asked them as she was getting bored holding the perimeter. Whatever enemies the dungeon floor had for them none of them had yet moved to engage the group as they waited by the entrance arch.
“Me? Oh well…” Jones was surprised, the leader of the Collectors was usually more articulate, not even dealing with mid ranking nobles surprised him after a few years as a retainer of House Hearthbound in the capital, but this was a member of one of the ten squads of Gryndor. “I don’t know.”
“Not the ones we know of so far.” Bobby jumped in his normal demeanor unchanged.
“Hopefully something more physical.” Donnie continued.
Quinn had to bite her tongue hearing that answer. She knew that from their perspective it was a good answer. But as a caster and primarily a healer a boon allowing her to turn her Stamina into Mana with no drawback or one that allowed her to aspect a portion of her Mana pool to specific affinities to empower spells cast were both things she knew objectively she would be willing to kill for.
“Maybe a werewolf.” Bobby said with a grin. “A boost in speed would do good for us.”
“A succubus might not be bad either, Jones might get some skills with a whip.” Donnie teased his leader.
“He wouldn’t be fighting a werewolf.” Patrick doused the excitement of the twins. “Their poison is too deadly for us to risk letting him face one even with a healer on hand.”
“Sorry to break it to you but a succubus most likely wouldn’t give you whip skills.” Ajax said. “Their main strengths are their intuition and illusion combination that allows them to appear in a physical form most appealing to anyone that sees them and their curses that increase libido.”
Mental influence wasn’t something that magic could do, but in the same way alcohol lowered inhibitions a succubus’s curses could force a state of increased arousal on the body.
“What you want is a warmaster.” Patrick pointed out.
Warmasters were large humanoid warriors with a multitude of arms, each wielding a weapon. While their bodies were humanoids however a warmaster was more like a puppet. Nobody knew how it sensed its enemies but it wasn’t via sight, hearing or smell. Other than that the warmaster was similar to the kitsune in that as it appeared in higher and higher floors the strength increase could be seen in the material the boss was made from in the same way a kitsune grew more tails.
The discussion however didn’t get a chance to go much further as Frank returned with news. “You got lucky. I doubt this Floor Boss will pose much of a challenge for you if you took out an ettin.”
“What is it?” Jones asked with excitement, the idea of a warmaster appealed to him.
“A chimera.” Frank said with a grin.
Ajax quickly matched the scout’s grin. A chimera was on the more difficult Floor Bosses a team could face yet it was a particularly good matchup for Ajax, especially now that he was boosting people.
Chimeras started out as a lizard the size of a rhino with the body shape of a dachshund. That quickly changed however as the fight progressed, chimeras were all about adapting to their opponent slowly becoming tougher and more resistant to anything that hit them. This was one of the main reasons why whenever a dungeon outside the capital suffered a break if a chimera was spotted two squads would always be sent after it; they couldn’t afford to let it grow too strong.
Against Ajax however the chimera would be in for a world of hurt. Since it started weaker than almost any other Floor Boss this meant that Ajax could engage it head on, add on his massive opening attacks courtesy of the ettin’s staff and Ajax would be looking to not even give the creature time to adapt to more than two or maybe three of his multiple affinities.
The entire group followed Frank at a light jog. They didn’t want to use up their Stamina right before they were about to fuel Ajax’s opening spells. It only took another half an hour before they joined up with the prince and the rest of Frank’s group.
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“I have to admit, I am curious what sort of boon the chimera would give them”, the prince said, as he looked towards the creature from behind a small rock wall he raised to hide them from its sight.
“You’ll find out soon.” Ajax waved off the prince’s curiosity before he turned towards the Collectors. “Looks like there will be some changes to the plan.”
“We won’t have too long to channel.” Nelly quickly caught on to the issue.
The moment Ajax removed the ettin staff from the spacial ring he used to carry it, the chimera would find them. It was one of the disadvantages that came with the open rocky terrain they were now on.
“Exactly.” Ajax nodded. “I am going to start with a Lightning attack, that should paralyze it, at least for a short time, while giving us a chance to channel a second spell. That way, all of you can participate. I’m not going to sugar coat it, this will hurt.”
With no cover, they would have to shove almost all of their Stamina and Mana out quickly, something none of them had experience with, so it would put an enormous strain on their bodies and Mana channels.
“We’ll give you some space.” The prince said as he nodded to the squad members that were around. “A chimera doesn’t start off with any wide area attacks so you should be fine to just sit here, as Ajax charges the boss.”
“We’re ready.” Jones said with a formal salute towards Ajax. Ajax appreciated the lack of formal address, it showed that the Collectors still saw him as more than just the Duke.
After the prince and the squad backed away, Ajax brought out the ettin staff and half of the collectors didn’t hesitate to latch on to it, with one arm as they pumped it full of Mana and Stamina. The chimera had quickly located them and was dashing so quickly towards them, all the Collectors could see was a blur head towards across the plains.
This Floor Boss fight wasn’t the same as the one against the beholder. Ajax had practiced using the ettin staff a lot since then, more than that, he had learnt how important it was for him to contribute a decent chunk of the Mana used for the spell to increase the efficiency.
The Collectors donated about ten thousand Mana in total, about half the amount the young nobles had provided for their boost, but that was to be expected, seeing as most of them were Stamina focused and the transfer efficiency was one in three and they were split into two groups of eight to power the two spells.
“Argh!” The cry of pain from Nelly’s son marked the launch of the first spell. Ajax put in three hundred of his own Mana and he could feel his own Mana channels stretching as far as they could.
The bolt landed perfectly. The chimera skid across the ground while twitching, as the impact zone was nothing but a large blacked explosion site where the lighting discharge charred the layer of grass.
Ajax was pleased to see his plan had worked, but he was already preparing the second spell. He knew the fight wasn’t over just yet, so he followed up with a fireball that was as hot and explosive as he could make it. He put another three hundred of his own Mana into this spell as well.
As soon as the spell was launched, Ajax chased after it, looking to engage the chimera while the Collectors all dropped down on their asses or knees, but Ajax didn’t pay them any attention, instead he pulled out an axe and a sword.
As he got closer to the smoking crater left by the fireball, Ajax could feel the chimera clearly through his [Sense Mana]. More interesting however, was that he could sense the chimera’s body transitioning. Ajax wasn’t sure how the chimera was doing this, but he could feel Mana was at least part of the process, so he quickly used [Mana Syphon] in hopes of slowing it down.
Ajax was very much surprised to feel that [Mana Syphon] wasn’t even able to get a hold onto the chiera’s adaptation Skill. Despite already starting to adapt, it was clear that the chimera was very injured already, Ajax had no issue getting in close, cutting a deep slice straight into its abdomen with a Wind powered sword slice.
Just because it was injured, however, didn’t mean that the chimera was giving up. Ajax got a full taste of its adaptability as his follow up axe strike got smoothly deflected by a combination of agile movement and a change in the texture of the scales that covered the chimera’s body, worse yet, the Magma Mana was a lot less efficient, as well since the chimera had already been exposed to extreme heat coming from the fireball.
With the axe strike deflected, the chimera moved in looking to take a deep bite out of Ajax’s shoulder. The only reason Ajax was able to dodge out of the way was because he used Earth Mana to reshape the rock under their feet.
Ajax wasn’t sure how the chimera would adapt to his control over the terrain but he certainly hadn’t expected it to start releasing an odd Mana field that seemed to interfere with his ability to manipulate not only the earth around them but the air as well, effectively locking him out of any Wind spells as well.
As the chimera lunged for him again, Ajax used a powerful blast of [Telekinesis] to pin it to the ground while swapping out his sword and axe for his longer spear and infusing the tip with Ice Mana before lunging.
Despite the close proximity the chimera still had enough strength to get its head out of the way and the spear stabbed it in the chest, releasing a wave of Ice Mana deep into the Floor Boss.
With its moments slowed, Ajax simply let go of the spear as he could feel the chimera already working to push the tip out of its chest and pulled out the first of his two hammers. Taking advantage of its inability to dodge as well as the frozen flash still present, Ajax put his whole weight into a side smash filled with Vibration Mana.
As the blow landed, the frozen flesh shattered and scales cracked as much as they were thrown off as the vibrations sent aftershocks through the entire body of the Floor Boss. Despite all the damage, however, Ajax could see the chimera didn’t feel any pain and was already starting to adapt, into muscles rippling beneath the scales and they became more rubbery to better absorb the impact of any further Vibration attacks.
Thankfully, however the chimera was already on its last leg. Ajax could tell it was barely hanging on as it hadn’t even managed to push itself up from the ground where the Vibration blow sent it. Ajax quickly swapped out his hammers as he brought his second hammer to bear. Ajax focused as much as he could not in putting as much Mana into the Void empowerment but rather in pushing his physical body and even using [Telekinesis] on the hammer to increase the power of the blow as the hammer landed squarely on the chimera’s forehead.
The hammer stopped dead in its tracks, Ajax even felt his left wrist sprain from the sudden stop as he wasn’t used to handling as much momentum as he generated with the help of [Telekinesis]. An instant later however, the chimera’s skull exploded from the inside, its eyes popping out of its socket as brain matter exploded out of its nostrils and ears and mouth.
Ajax was prepared to launch another attack, with [Curse Slash] but his [Sense Mana] felt the chimera stop adapting. The exchange had barely lasted more than a minute, but the fight was already over. Despite winning this quickly, Ajax fully understood the fear entire kingdoms felt about chimeras roaming free. It was just that quick to adapt.
With a sigh of relief, Ajax took a deep breath to calm himself down before he turned around and headed towards the Collectors, eager to see what boon they gained.