Chapter 29: The Summoner Screws It Up
Bloom then looked at all of them as he started assigning missions.
"First of all, the most important one here is this dungeon is San. He must be protected well. If he died, we would all lose the dungeon, is that clear?"
Bloom could feel the nervousness of this summoner, with his rounded face oozing with sweat right now. the glances everyone gave him didn't help at all, as he was the type to mess up in stressful critical moments.
"Don't be this nervous, I will give you the orders, and all you need to do is to execute them," Bloom said after a helpless sigh, he never thought this youngster would be this fragile at all.
"As for others, your job is to support the front players, our main target isn't to kill these monsters, just make them occupied fighting us," he stressed on this point, as this was the second cornerstone of his plan.
"What if one of them went to the rocks?" Peri asked what was in each one's mind.
"Don't worry about that," he confidently said, "if it's one or two then we can handle it, but more than that and we wouldn't be able to survive," he added.
"That means we need to make sure to hit all the monsters and inflict damage on all of them," Gored started to think about how to do it, "Aggro is essential here, despite it being hard to control," he said
"Or we make one of them lose half of its Hp in these thirty seconds," the wizard said, "but I doubt we can make it," he muttered, with some dejection in his voice, when he recalled the sudden improvement these monsters had.
"Or we choose our timing," Bloom suddenly said, "as these monsters would touch the stones once every thirty seconds. It will take around two to three seconds for them to reach us from the central place of the hall. If we timed our attacks to fall on them just after the twentieth seconds, hitting them with AOE skill, we might be able to distract them at this crucial time, with no time for them to go back and forth for the stones," he added, explaining the strategy in his mind.
The others nodded after exchanging silent glances with each other. Now they had multiple approaches to achieve their target, and this brainstorming really managed to dispel all their fears and doubts.
They started to feel they could do it, clearing this dungeon started with this upcoming battle.
"Alright," Bloom then said, "let's do it."
He then moved to the front, leading each one to the place of the hall. When they reached there, they started organizing themselves where the two swordsmen, the martial artist, and the two shield bearers were in the forefront.
Bloom was in the lead, observing the monsters.
'Get ready,' he sent in team chat, asking them to be prepared as the monsters just touched the stones, 'Twenty seconds and counting,' he added.
He then started to count down, like all of them, until the count reached twenty.
"Go!"
He shouted, attracting the attention of the monsters to the tunnel. The moment he spoke, a skill was used by the wizard, the only AOE he had, the only AOE the team had.
At the same time, all the front players shouted as they exited the tunnel, attracting the monsters' attention, making them all roar.
"Retreat!"
Bloom shouted, while he nervously continued the countdown, while keeping his gazed over the monsters, looking for any left behind one.
All of the monsters moved, all but one. He glanced at that monster in the rear, feeling somehow frustrated by this.
'So you intend to make it hard for me to crush them?' he muttered to himself, 'San, release your monsters, let them target that one at the rear,' he sent to San, asking him to summon his two monsters.
San got somehow nervous, and while he was in this state, his reaction was slowed, missing his window to summon his monsters in the perfect time. the monsters just appeared at the entrance to the tunnel, to be faced with the nineteen monsters coming towards the tunnel opening.
"Damn it San!" Bloom cursed out loud, as he was sure these monsters wouldn't stand a chance against these monsters, plus even if they did, the purpose of summoning them was destroyed by the lousy performance of their master!
"Screw this," Bloom angrily muttered, while stopping retreating, and instead he ran to the opening of the tunnel. The moment he reached there was when the two monsters were beaten up, popped like bubbles, killed in mere seconds.
They didn't even last for three seconds there! six seconds were lost, and Bloom could see the last monster started ignoring this fight, starting to move towards the rocks.
"I won't let you do it," Bloom screamed as he ran, obliquely, changing his running course suddenly, evading the group of monsters. His evasion was timely done, but that was for the front five monsters only, as for the rest, they started changing their direction, trying to intercept him.
"Let's see how you can catch me! Stab! Slice!!"
He used his two skills one after another with one sword. Two damages appeared above one monster's head.
"120"
"280"
They weren't low, but compared to the long HP strip remaining above that monster's head, Bloom figured out he needed at least dozens of such damage to kill a single monster.
That was unfair!
The second skill carried his body further to the front, creating a space finally between him and the monsters behind. He had already targeted the last monster in the five who attacked him in the start, and now all monsters were one step behind him.
And he wasn't done yet!
"Dash!"