As Kibaou gave the order, the players of the clearing group suppressed their fear and drew their weapons.
"A, C, and E teams—frontal suppression! B, D, and F teams—hold at the perimeter and be ready to support with defense! G and H teams—flank from the sides!"
Raising his curved blade high, Kibaou shouted commands to the group, then charged toward the boss ahead of everyone else.
The others followed close behind, shouting battle cries to pump themselves up, and headed to their designated positions as instructed by Kibaou.
But the boss remained calm.
It slowly lifted its blue claw and lightly pressed it against the ground.
The moment its claw touched down, dark clouds formed above the players' heads, and a fine drizzle began to fall.
"Dodge it!"
Though arrogant, Kibaou wasn't foolish enough to let everyone take the hit from an unknown boss attack.
The players, being skilled gamers, mostly dodged the attack.
However, five of them failed to avoid the falling rain.
As the rain struck those players, tiny damage effects appeared instantly, and a special status icon—a human figure wrapped in droplets—showed up below their HP bars.
This status continued stacking the longer they remained in the rain.
Still, the damage was negligible—only a few dozen points at most.
Seeing that everyone's health was mostly intact, Kibaou sighed in relief and gave the order to resume the attack.
The five players who got rained on didn't think much of the status effect and didn't report it.
When Kibaou gave the next order, they charged forward as well.
But this hidden danger erupted in the very next moment—the boss exhaled a cloud of white mist from its mouth.
When it came into contact with the players, those five who had been hit by the rain immediately showed varying degrees of freezing.
The players who hadn't been rained on only suffered minor damage and a debuff to agility.
"W-What's going on?! My hand won't move!"
"Ah! My leg's frozen too!"
"I can't move either my hands or legs!"
When Kibaou saw what was happening, he was stunned—why were only those players affected while everyone else wasn't?
But the boss didn't care about answering questions—it responded instead with a fierce Divine Dragon Tail Whip.
The boss twisted its body, sweeping its long tail horizontally toward the players.
The standby teams on the edges (B, D, and F) were out of range, and players from G and H teams like Akimi quickly dodged, though two of them still got hit.
However, the frontline teams A, C, and E were in serious trouble.
Each of these teams had at least one frozen member, and those who were immobilized couldn't retreat or dodge.
The rest, suffering reduced agility, failed to evade the full impact.
The unfrozen players lost about 10% of their HP.
But those five unlucky ones with frozen limbs?
The impacted limbs were shattered into pieces, leaving them in a disabled state.
During the boss raid, receiving a crippled status—an unremovable debuff that only ends when its duration runs out—meant those players had essentially lost all combat ability.
Remaining on the front lines would only drag others down.
So Kibaou didn't hesitate; he immediately ordered replacements from the standby teams to swap in for the five unlucky players.
And that was just the opening move—the raid group had already lost five members, an unprecedented casualty rate.
Kibaou's expression turned ugly, but out of pride, he was unwilling to retreat just yet.
He chose to continue the assault instead.
"Water Breathing, Second Form: Water Wheel!"
"Neutron Impact!"
"Vertical Square Slash!"
The fastest players—Akimi, Asuna, and Kirito—had already reached the boss and launched their attacks.
Strangely, however, the boss didn't react at all.
It simply took the hits head-on.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The sounds of metal striking metal echoed.
It became clear why the boss didn't bother dodging or defending—Akimi's Water Breathing sword techniques, Asuna's five-hit combo, and Kirito's four-hit assault all bounced off its golden scales.
The only result was a dozen faint white scratches, and the boss's first HP bar had dropped by less than 3%.
Everyone was stunned.
There was no doubt about the attack power of those three—they ranked among the top three in the nearly 500-player clearing group.
If even their full-powered attacks amounted to little more than tickling the boss, the rest of the team likely couldn't even break through its defense.
As the crowd stood frozen in shock, the boss moved again.
It raised its purple claw and pressed it into the ground once more.
Clouds identical to the earlier storm formed overhead, but this time, streaks of purple lightning flickered within them.
As the lightning pulsed, a deep rumbling of thunder rolled from above.
"Watch out! Boss attack incoming!"
Even without Kibaou giving the order, everyone instinctively knew they had to dodge.
But lightning was much faster than rain.
More than 60% of the players were struck directly, even Akimi and the others were grazed by the residual shockwaves.
Among those hit directly, seven were enveloped by a pale green glow and became paralyzed.
The others were slightly luckier—they were only stunned for 10 seconds.
But in a battle of this difficulty, even ten seconds was enough to be fatal.
To make matters worse, the lightning dealt massive damage, instantly cutting their HP in half.
Everyone else had also taken varying degrees of damage.
At this point, even a fool could see it was time to retreat.
Any further engagement would surely lead to casualties—a full wipe wasn't out of the question.
Kibaou, no matter how prideful, wasn't foolish enough to make a fatal mistake now.
So when Lind suggested a retreat, he gladly seized the opportunity and ordered a full withdrawal.
However, walking out of the boss room was clearly impossible at this stage.
The only option left was to use Teleport Crystals for a full-party emergency escape.
---------------
Exclusive access : 180+ch on paetron
Join now : patreon*com/DeCakraWnloverz