Lilim Heritage Online 223 Party Quest - Part 3

As everyone was astonished by the horde of cobalts, Misha's eyes gleamed.

'EXP!'

She did not care if the monster's overall strength might be stronger than her. All she cared about was the potential EXP she could get from this party quest.

"Fireball!"

A level 22 fireball with 6,186 INT was fired.

*BOOM*

An explosion occurred, devouring 10 cobalts at once.

Resisted! 33,406!

Resisted! 33,406!

Resisted! 33,406!

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Each dog-head mutant only had 10,000 HP. Even if the fire cobalts were resilient to fire attacks, the explosion critical still instant-killed them.

The explosion snapped everyone back from their shock. Sasha and Natalie also activated her skills.

"Chain Lightning!"

Branches of electricity connected all cobalts like webs, which also inflicted damage and status effects.

Paralyzed! 1,420!

Shocked! 1,729!

Stunned! 1,891!

The DPS from both demi-fairies was weaker than Misha's. However, their AOE attacks applied crowd control effects, such as paralysis, shocked, and stunned, which stopped their movement for a few seconds.

Meanwhile, Shurka revealed her combat skills to others for the first time. With a shout, Mii's tentacles, which ignited in flame, exited her body like Misha and Tama's tendril attack.

10 fire tentacles extended from her body and penetrated 10 cobalts, latching with their bodies.

*Mii* (Get over here!)

Like a certain character from Mortal Kombat, she dragged all stunned cobalts toward her with Mii's fire tentacles.

The moment the 10 monsters were pulled closer to Shurka, she used a skill that Misha had not learned yet.

"Firestorm!"

A fire tornado manifested as Shurka became the eye of the storm. A hurricane of fire pulled all 10 cobalts to the air as it continued to burn them.

3,333!

3,333!

Each second, two numbers of inflicted damage appeared above their heads. Within two seconds, all of the chained monsters were killed.

Non and Moo disappeared from where they stood when the explosion occurred. The two humanoid cats, each wielded a long spear, leapt into the packs of cobalts.

Armor Break! 14,440!

Armor Break! 12,314!

Without using a skill, these felionians' strikes ignored the defense buffs of all these monsters. Furthermore, their attacks applied [Armor Break] debuff to the attacked cobalts, even though they were unnecessary as their damage output was enough to kill a target with one hit.

Des did not move from her spot. Instead, she observed her party members' performance to evaluate their skills and behavior. As a pro-gamer captain, it was a habit she had since she wanted to understand the capabilities of her new teammates.

"Wow."

Des was impressed, but she had a few critics on their teamwork.

'Natalie and Sasha are already perfect their roles, and they knew what they are doing. Give them time and a bit of guidance, then they can shine like other pros.'

'Misha has high barrier HP and a long-ranged DPS skill, but she doesn't have experience as a tanker. She also doesn't seem to have an aggro skill that can pull monsters toward her.'

'Shurka has lower barrier HP, but she can cover the entire team. Those fire tentacles should be her pulling skill, so she knows a bit of tanking role. That firestorm is neat, too.

'Non and Moo, well, they're pure DPS, but they didn't know anything about party positioning. They need some polishing.'

While Des was in deep thought, more cobalt waves rushed at the party.

At first, there were only a hundred of them from the cave. Now, an army of 1,000 cobalts appeared on top of the mountain, charging toward them.

"So, this is why the game told me to bring along a party, nya," Moo had goosebumps as his fur stood straight, including his fluffy tail.

Des shouted, "Into the cave! We'll be surrounded by all sides if we continue to stay here!"

"But, there are still monsters coming out of the cave, nya!"

"Breakthrough them! We'll rush into the cave!"

Shurka took the vanguard position. Two long fire tentacles extended from Shurka's palms, acting as her whips.

Resisted! 2,992!

Resisted! 3,588!

However, the fire whips were as sharp as blades as they cut through all coming cobalts, killing them in three or four slashes.

Noticeably, Shurka's DPS slowly increased as her level continued to rise.

Misha's power, when her critical failed, was considered weak when she compared herself to other players.

"Fireball!"

Resisted! 1,518!

Resisted! 1,518!

*MEW!* (ARGH! Annoying fire resistance!)

Misha was also feeling bitter. Her main element was fire, so she dealt less damage to these cobalts. Vice versa, all monster attacks were harmless to Misha's flame field barrier.

Resisted! 0!

Resisted! 0!

Non, Des, and Moo dashed and leapt over Misha's head. They cleared the path for Misha, Sasha, and Natalie, who was having trouble with their opponents since their attack power was weaker than the others.

The stragglers abandoned their pride and followed their vanguards.

*AWOOOO*

As soon as everyone got deeper into the dark cave, the reinforcement cobalts reached the cave entrance. They chased after Misha and the gang.

Misha wanted to stay behind and kill everything, but she followed Sasha and the others as she did not want to separate from the precious party EXP bonuses. Moreover, Non and Moo fed the party members plenty of EXP from their kills.

Fortunately, the cave was large enough for the team to run in 3-wide, and the two cats could jump around, using their mobility to dodge the cobalt's attacks.

Still, they were without a direction. Des, who was temporarily leading the party, did not know where she should stop and fight as she did not have a map.

"Moo, do you know about the layout of this cave?" Des yelled as she fended off a sword strike from a cobalt.

"Nya? The last time I came here, I just ran away from these doggies and followed the quest direction hints."

"Do you remember the path?"

"No. I didn't pay attention."

"…"

Des wanted to scream that she picked the wrong guild and party to join as these players were still too noob, not understanding the gravity of this situation.

But she was wrong.

Misha, Sasha, and Natalie overheard the conversation. As experimented children, they activated their 3D sense, their sixth sense.

A 3D map appeared in their mind, which revealed the layout of this cave.

The three girls pointed and spoke at the same time, "Over there!"

The path that Misha, Sasha, and Natalie pointed was a passage with a dead end. Yet, they wanted to guide everybody there.

First, they would not run into more monsters as they dive further into the cave.

Secondly, it secured a foothold, so they could direct all monsters to come at them from only one direction, which was ideal for taking on a large group of monsters.

In summary, that location was a strategic chokepoint to deal with these cobalts.

The rest of the party had faith in their decision. Everyone followed Natalie to the dead-end passage, while Misha and Sasha acted as their rearguards.

Sasha's chain lightning continued to stun the mobs every 10 seconds. Meanwhile, Misha's fireballs picked off one target at a time. Sometimes, explosion critical occurred and wiped several groups of cobalts.   

As everyone ran away from the cobalts while they were fighting, Des stopped running and turned around to display her leporian racial skills for the first time in this party fight.

With an extended hand, she yelled, "Suction!"

Blood from dead cobalts gathered into several red spheres, floating in mid-air.

The rabbit girl's hands formed several hand seals as if she was casting a ninja spell.

"Blood Transformation, Sawblade!"

Seven blood spheres transformed into seven wheels of sawblades. They spun at high speed, creating a whistling sound as they flew toward the oncoming packs of cobalts.

Armor Break! 1,000!

Armor Break! 1,000!

Armor Break! 1,000!

Similar to Non and Moo's attacks, this rabbit girl's skill also lowered her opponents' defense. However, the damage was not as good as the [Ignore Defense] specialists as her race could use a psychic skill with the AOE effect despite being a physical combatant.

Thanks to Des, Sasha, and Misha's contribution, everyone managed to create a gap between the chasing cobalts, giving enough time for Moo, Non, Shurka, and Natalie to wipe out the mobs in front of them.

Without an enemy on the frontline, the latter four turned around to assist Misha, Sasha, and Des.

Misha wanted to stay in front of her pack to be the tanker, but Des pulled her back.

"You're more like a semi-tank damage-dealer since you can't pull any monster toward you. Leave the tanking job to Shurka and be our secondary tank."

"Ugh."

The more Misha fought in this party, the more she felt inferior to other players.

Misha had thought that she was doing well with all the bonus status attributes and levels, but they seemed to perform better than Misha.

*Mew Mew* (Don't cry, Mish. Once we can buy skill books from that stupid statue, we'll grind all of our active skills to the max. Then, you can be as OP as everyone.)

…

5 Hours later,

With only one battlefront and narrow cave passage, the thousand cobalts rushed to their death.

After the last cobalt went down, the cave became a quiet place again. Only the sound the rough breathing from the players could be heard.

All party members were mentally exhausted. They either sat or lay down on the ground.

"So tired, nya!"

"Dog's blood is stinky, nya!"

Des used her [Suction] skill again. This time, she collected all blood into several containers that she had prepared.

"What are you doing, Des?" Natalie was curious.

"Leporians can consume blood to restore HP, ST, and PF. I'm gathering all blood, so I can have the alchemists from my team to make me some potions."

Des explained that she also wanted to use Misha's guild to summon all of her pro-gamers from her team, so they could form a better organization system within the guild.

Sasha was interested in this. She and Des began chatting and left the other teammates out of the loop.

Misha and Shurka had 5 fireballs, rotating around their bodies. The glowing fire from them was the only light source in the cave.

Tama shoved a green gel to Misha's mouth to replenish her stamina while she embezzled a red gel to be her snacks.

Upon recovering her stamina, Misha took a knife from her inventory and walked toward a dead cobalt.

*SOEK*

The dragonewt began dissecting the corpse next to her feet.

Curious, Non and Moo walked over to look.

"Dissecting? Can you dissect these monsters?"

"I'm a cook. I can cook food and dissect these things."

"Wow! Cool!"

Non frowned, "Hold it. Are you planning to cook these dogs!?"

"Why not? Many people in my world used to eat dogs since they didn't have other sources of meat. Since they are plenty of dead bodies here, can you let me experiment with my cooking skill?"

"…"

"I also have a few leftover roper's tentacles in my inventory. I think they can be made into good sausages. Do you want some? I can cook them right now."

"…"

.

.

Deep inside the cave, five kilometers away from where Misha and others were resting,  

An altar with a rock statue, which Moo used to come here and hunt the hidden field boss, Slime Solder. A knight, whose silhouette was clouded by black mist, knelt before the statue.

If anyone from the golden generation were here, they would recognize this statue had the same appearance as Misha. After all, it was something that Moo sculpted to summon the Slime Soldier by the order of his mentor.

The order did not specify that it had to resemble Misha. However, Moo crafted it by using someone with his ideal girl's appearance.

As Moo was a perverted felionian, he sculpted a naked statue of Misha with detailed physiques. However, it was not a dragonewt Misha. It was Misha with felionian's features.

Still, the Slime Knight, Lucien, was paying respect to the statue.

"For my empress," Lucien stood as five void gates appeared. From each gate, cobalts with 20,000 strength stepped outside.

This time, they equipped with knight gears, wearing shiny plate armor and polearms.

After a while, cobalts with robes and wooden staffs followed after the cobalt knights. They were mages with 20,000 strength as well.

Their eyes were pitch black. Inside each body, a black slime resided there, controlling their movements.

"Assemble, my slimes. We shall devour every mortal in this realm."

Lucien roared, "FOR OUR EMPRESS!"

All slimes also screeched and roared.

Chapter end