The First Legendary Beast Master

With that final warning, Rae leapt forward to engage the first group of the dungeon, and Karl let an arrow loose into the Spiderling nests.

The amount of mana that he used was the same as usual, but the damage done by the explosion was significantly higher than usual. It was hard to quantify what the difference between a special constitution and an Epic Grade physique was, but when he saw it in action, there was no denying that there was a hidden modifier in there somewhere.

Not only that, but the mana that he used recovered nearly instantly.

Karl wasn't sure that he had judged it correctly, but when he fired the next arrow with the same result, a lot of dead Spiderlings, he was certain that his status had been elevated.

[I get it now. The Karl has become a boss monster.] Rae realized as her next group of potential targets vanished to a single arrow.

She hurried off to grab another group, and Karl carefully picked off the Spider Rider from the pack.

Beside him, Dana laughed. "Are we going to do anything at all? Or do we just watch the Karl and Rae show?"

Karl chuckled. "The first few pulls are easier, the number of mobs increases once we get to the intersection. That's when everyone will get a real chance to fight."

Karl wasn't joking. Once the additional dark elves started to join the groups, there was more than enough for everyone to do. Especially as they couldn't use any of the larger scale attacks, which would pull more groups to them before they were ready.

Unfortunately for Thor, the way that the dungeon was set up, there was no good way to use Bulwark. His new signature spell was rendered redundant by the enthusiasm of the enemy, and the narrow streets where Thomas chose to fight.

But not all was lost. He did get to stand behind the Dwarves and smash the attackers with [Gravity Slam], while Tessa threw spears at them.

That was fun.

"Rae has a particular affinity for the spider Priestesses, so we will let her deal with them. The rest of the damage dealers can take on the Spider Riders, and I will deal with the Spiderlings." Karl explained as the group dynamic changed during their approach to the first boss.

It was an easy shift for the group to make, as the majority of them had hardly been doing anything to start with. But it did leave Rae in a bit of a conundrum.

There was only one Spider Priest with each group.

ONE.

That was not nearly enough.

So, once she was finished with her target, she started in on the spider riders, helping the rest of the team finish them off so that they could keep moving once Hawk brought them another group.

He was getting extremely accurate with his Spiderling tosses as well. Direct throws, bouncing them off a wall, sliding them on their backs to trip someone in the next group, he could do it all.

Dana laughed as a quick flip of Hawk's body sent a wounded Spiderling directly into the face of a Dark Elven Warrior, who signalled his group to charge into combat.

Hawk laughed happily as the elves charged, then squawked in annoyance as they started throwing attack skills at him.

Seeing how frustrated Hawk was, Rae waited a few extra seconds before launching her attack. Let the silly bird suffer for a bit if he wasn't going to retreat far enough to make the enemy engage the Dwarves.

"The beasts aren't even taking the dungeon seriously, are they? Everything dies so fast that they are just playing around." Charlie asked.

Thomas shrugged. "Whatever shared skill they have is incredibly overpowered. The faster they clear, the more damage they are doing. That's why the bird pulls monsters before the last fight finishes.

But we are almost at the first boss now, and it's only been a little over an hour. We will take a quick break before the boss fight, and then continue."

"The boss needs to be kept on the ground so that we can fight it properly. Lady Rae will help with that, as she did last time, but I will ask that everyone avoids using skills that encourage the boss not to step on the ground.

There are many area skills that do great damage, but if the boss takes flight, none of the melee classes will be able to do their job effectively, and it will start going after the weaker members first." Thomas explained.

With a whole group of Monarchs among them, it was pretty obvious who the first ones challenged would be.

"How intelligent is the boss?" Dana asked.

"It's a Dark Elven Warrior, smarter than average among sentient species, and it's got a vicious sort of cunning. If you leave yourself open, it is prone to switch targets to go after wounded or vulnerable members instead of the highest damage dealers.

It's particularly fond of going after the healers as well." The Paladin explained.

Lotus frowned. She wasn't the fastest runner at the best of times, and these Elves had all been extremely agile. If things started going bad, she was definitely hiding behind Ophelia.

That seemed like the best choice. If the boss couldn't see her, it couldn't attack her, and Ophelia was the biggest one who couldn't fly.

But then Thomas nodded to Rae, who sent out a net of webbing, and Lotus realized that the boss had more things to worry about than a Green Dragon Cleric.

Like a Karl. And a Black Dragon Cleric, who had realized that her breath weapon did not melt Rae's webs.

It was putting up a valiant fight, though. Hacking at webs, throwing out skills that sometimes even broke the [Eternal Lightning] barrier that Thor had over the group. A few times it even broke free and went after Karl, who had been repeatedly shooting it full of arrows.

That led to an epic fist fight, and Lotus was beginning to regret the fact that she didn't have a way to record that and watch it again.

No, she did have a way. Somewhere in its space, the Butterfly was watching, and it could put on a reenactment when they got home.