In hindsight, expecting the raid to just scale off nicely was naive. That they were allowed to take down 9 of the statues with no interference was already a huge boon.
Drifter couldn't say he was too surprised when, after Liz smashed open the head of the pike-wielding statue with her warhammer, not only the remaining 9 statues started stirring, but also the boss, King Atlametis, sat straighter on his throne.
"Here it comes. Lind, Klein, Orlando, Heathcliff, Ambros, take the statues. Split them as you see fit. Once one guild is done with theirs, join up with another. Snowball it."
"What about Reaver's Requiem? We don't have any intel on the boss himself."
"That's why we'll take it on. We will focus on delaying and info gathering. The quicker you deal with the minions, the faster you can assist us and fight it for real."
Klein stared at the spearmaster for what seemed like an eternity before nodding. This wasn't the moment to grasp for glory.
Drifter turned back to King Atlametis, and flinched despite himself. The boss' skin was glowing with runes, nothing new there. And the hungry look in his eyes as he gazed down at the Reavers wasn't a novelty either. Every boss and mob stared at players like that.
The black goop oozing from under the hem of his robed was also disgustingly familiar. And as it spread from underneath the boss and climbed up his body until King Atlametis was entirely covered in it, Drifter felt an unwelcome shiver down his spine.
Danger.
Every hair on his body was standing on end as his instincts screamed at him to get the fuck away from the boss room and the monstrosity taking shape in front of his very eyes.
"Brace!"
That was all he had time to yell before hundreds of black arrows burst out from the cocoon that had formed around the boss. Drifter managed to deflect two and dodge another, but three of them hit him in the right thigh, pelvis, and neck.
"Ugh!"
His HP plummeted, each arrow claiming a tenth of his health before dissolving back into black goo and slithering back to the boss.
A quick look around showed that no frontliner had been left unscathed. The luckier ones, those who had been farther away from King Atlametis, only had 1 or 2 arrows stuck to them. The unlucky ones - mostly the Reavers, since they were so close - had as many as 7 projectiles hit them.
That wasn't in the intel.
"Switch! Switch! Vallerk, Griselda, Wolv, Nautilus, get the fuck back! You are in the red! Ran, Yuuki, Asuna with me! We are going in! Yuna, Rest! Now!"
If there was an edge of desperation in Drifter's voice, no one could blame him. He had 4 Reavers below 20% HP. Wolv's health gauge was so close to empty that the spearmaster had trouble spotting that last little bit of red.
'Insane.'
This wasn't even a sure-death floor. And it wasn't like the frontliners had let their guard down. They had all come with the determination to die. But even then, the sudden attack had caught them by surprise.
"Comet Break!"
He didn't wait for the sludge cocoon to reform around the boss. Aiming for the gap that had appeared when King Atlametis launched the arrows, Drifter used one of his strongest skills.
For a moment it looked like he got through. The tip of his lance, changed with Infinite Spear, struck the boss' neck just as the cocoon closed around him.
Then a giant claw smashed Drifter aside like a tennis ball. His lance was ripped out of his hand and his chestplate dented, a fourth of his HP gone.
"Gah!"
He hadn't seen it coming. He hadn't seen it coming at all. One moment he was attacking the boss, the next he was rolling through the air, several meters away.
The claw had belonged to a paw of pure, disgusting goo, and as Drifter crashed to the ground, curling into a ball and rolling to absorb the impact, the sludge around King Atlametis grew a life of its own.
First it was one singular paw with three claws, each as long as Drifter's spear and a lot sharper. Then three more paws appeared, followed by a feline body, and a tail with a deadly scorpion stinger at the end.
By now, what little was left of the human part of the boss was buried to the chest in the sludge. And as Drifter got up, even that was swallowed by a giant black maw.
In a matter of seconds, the players were left staring at a 7 meters tall, several tons heavy, swirling mass of grossness that kept the vague shape of a large cat - a lion or a tiger or something like that.
King Atlametis the Failed Chimera.
A large name for a large monster. It was the first time Drifter had seen a boss change names mid-fight, but he didn't have time to contemplate it. The chimera was already turning towards him.
The tail lashed out, stretching impossibly far, stinger poised to pierce through Drifter. He didn't want to test of it was poisonous or not.
Throwing himself to the side gracelessly, Drifter dodged the attack by the skin of his teeth. He only avoided the follow up because Ran and Yuuki distracted the boss by slashing at its hind legs.
The good news was, the attacks were doing damage. The first of 6 health bars had diminished ever so slightly.
The bad news: the chimera had more than one tail. A second stinger-tipped appendage sprouted from the boss' behind, punching a hole in Yuuki's gut. And then a third tried to do the same to Ran, who just barely managed to deflect it.
At least there was no fourth tail when Asuna poked the boss' underbelly full of holes. Still, 3 was already plenty. With the paws and the very menacing jaws, the Fallen Chimera had 8 venues of attack.
And oh boy did the boss use and abuse them. The attacks came in like an unending storm, and even after more Reavers joined them, there was little they could do but keep the boss aggroed on them and stop it from interrupting the other frontliners' fights with the statues.
Drifter was having to constantly cycle his guildmates, and himself. Each player could only take two or three blows before he ordered them to switch. He wasn't going to risk another of that AoE, hail of arrows attack.
Alas, even then it wasn't meant to be their day. Drifter had just blocked a particularly vicious paw swipe when he saw something that made his blood run cold.
Ran had been in the middle of attacking the boss with a Sonic Leap when she just... Froze.
It was almost as if she lagged. Her body, which had been mid charge, just stopped, one foot lifted off the ground. For 2 entire seconds, Ran just stayed completely still. Even her expression didn't change.
It wasn't the same thing as Nautilus' FNC. The ash-haired player had been immobilized by his syndrome, but he knew it. He struggled against it.
With Ran, it was like she didn't even notice.
Then, just as suddenly, she was moving again, as if someone had hit the 'play' button on a remote.
Only, 2 seconds was a lifetime. Far more than enough for the Failed Chimera to turn two of its stingers towards Ran, and just in time for her to charge straight into them when she started moving again.
Or she would have, if not for Feredir. Silica, blessed be her brain, had noticed something was wrong almost immediately, and ordered the wolf to rush towards Ran.
She couldn't have imagined the consequences, and Drifter just knew Silica would be blaming herself for weeks. Even the spearmaster, cold-hearted as he tried to be, couldn't exactly claim elation when he watched Feredir charge into Ran at full speed, knocking her down just in the knick of time.
Ran was still falling, her skill canceled when she got pushed off course, when the stingers pierced through Feredir's neck and stomach and came out his back.
She hit the ground just as the wolf burst into shards and died.
It happened so fast all Drifter could feel was relief that Ran was safe. Or safer. It would be a matter of seconds before the boss turned its claws towards her, and the swordswoman was still on the ground, dumbstruck.
"Feredir!"
So Drifter threw himself forward even as Silica screamed. His weapon changed back into his spear, he slid under a stinger and stabbed a leg. Then he grabbed Ran and pulled her up.
"Back! Get to the back! You are with Yuna and Sinon till this is over."
"Drift-"
"Fuck sake, get back, Ran! That's an order! Can't afford to have whatever the fuck that was happen again! You don't engage unless it's to save Yuna and Sinon's asses, got it?!"
He would feel sorry for speaking to her like that if it wasn't for the urgency of the situation. But whatever was going on with Ran was unnatural. And if it happened again... They didn't have another Feredir.
Now it was a dull ache that spread through his heart, mixed with relief, regret, and guilt. They didn't have another Feredir.
Ran must have been able to see it in his face, or she was thinking something along the same lines, because her expression fell and she backed away without another word.
The time to grieve would come later. Right now... Drifter spun around. There were 2 more points of concern. Silica and Kizmel.
The later was fighting. Kizmel was a soldier through and through, more than any Reaver. She would cry later. But Silica...
"Oof!"
Drifter grunted when a stinger tried to hit him in the back, and swung his spear to meet it. The collision sent him reeling a few steps back, and he used the momentum to spin his spear around his back, inverting the position of his hands, and stabbing from his left with a Snake Bite.
"Vallerk!"
"On it! Switch!"
The spearmaster stepped back as the tank took his place. His gaze zeroed in on Silica. She was still staring shock still at where Feredir had died. Thankfully she had been resting when it happened, and out of the boss' immediate range.
"We need you, Silica. Can you fight?"
It was cruel, to ask this of her. But Drifter did it anyway, because it was the truth. Until the other frontliners dealt with the statues and joined them, even just benching Ran put a strain on them. If Silica also had to take a backseat-
She couldn't. She had to fight, one way or the other. Silica knew it too, so she wiped unshed tears and put on a blank face no child should have. Pina's sad cries and the tamer's white-knuckled grip on her dagger were a perfect reflection of Drifter's current mood.
The spearmaster didn't say anything more. Kirito was calling for a switch, and both Liz and Shigio were starting to get overwhelmed.
The Failed Chimera was strong. Too strong. Prometheus, the boss of the 30th floor, couldn't compare.
And it wasn't just a matter of levels, for the players had gotten stronger too. It was the scaling that was wrong. If Prometheus was 100, then the Failed Chimera wasn't 200, but 500, if that even made sense. The increase in power and consequently danger was exponential, not linear.
And Feredir was dead.
Logically, Drifter knew the wolf was just a bunch of data. In fact, out of all the members of Reaver's Requiem, he was the optimal choice if one were to die. Because even when they got out, Feredir wouldn't be coming with them. He would just disappear.
That was what was logical.
Drifter wasn't feeling very logical at the moment. He was just cold. And he wanted the boss to pay.
His thoughts were all jumbled, a cold, analytical part of his mind coming up with strategies to fight the boss, and another, more emotional portion, already starting to grieve.
What both, logical and emotional, agreed on, was that King Atlametis the Failed Chimera had to die.