Afterlife Dream

Oh no.

"Don't panic!" ZhaoYun roared. "It is fine, we can handle it!!!"

He said not to panic because he was a seasoned raider. The words only served to make the newbie raiders more anxious. The minions crowded the area and prevented everyone from seeing clearly. They didn't even know where the three beasts were. On top of that, the poisonous rain was about to come.

"AAAAHHHHHH!!!"

"THE SNAKE! THE RAIN!"

"WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE AHHHHHHH!!!"

"QUIETTTTT!!!" HellWitch snapped angrily.

The snake's HP dropped to 50% that very moment.

From above our heads, the poisonous rain came down heavily and drenched us all in smelly, dark green liquid.

"Purification!!!" I shouted.

The golden dome of Purification spread around me. My party members let out a shriek and quickly went into my dome for protection. The poison effect along with the poison were purified almost immediately without leaving a single trace.

It was no longer feasible to spam Apocalypse for fear of ruining the plan to kill all three beasts at the same time. On the other hand, we still had the minions to kill.

I stepped away from the three beasts and thankfully the minions followed me faithfully.

At that time, the HP % of all three beasts were as following : lion 40%, faun 43%, snake 49%.

Livina had to reorganize the squad to adapt to the recent changes. I was put together with five newbie raiders. Our job was to eliminate the minions that surrounded me.

HellWitch was put in the second party momentarily so that she could enjoy the protection of the second party's bishop.

ZhaoYun and Livina were still busy with the faun. Unfortunately, the bishop in Livina's party died during the chaos just now. She was not resurrected in time, so she ended up going back to town. Along with her, three other newbie raiders died.

After seeing four players die, Garron was even more determined to stay alive. He stuck to me like a second shadow. It took me almost ten minutes to kill all the minions. Then I went back to HellWitch and Livina had to reorganize the squad again.

"Not bad," I said to HellWitch once I saw that the lion's HP was at 25%. The others were not doing too shabbily either. The faun was at 34% and the snake at 30%.

"Yeah, we only had one little slip just now. It is fine. Prepare for the 20% AoE."

"Sure," I said. Then it occurred to me that I had not inquired about the AoEs at 20% HP. "What is going to happen, again?"

"Oh. At 20%, all the beasts will disappear from sight. In their place, a meteor shower would rain upon us for 5 minutes."

Wow. Really. A meteor shower.

"Erm. So what exactly do we do?"

"Run and dodge. Try to destroy the meteors. Oh, make sure only one beast causes a meteor shower at a time."

Heck, this was important.

Did anyone ever survive a meteor shower? And if yes, would he also survive three meteor showers at once?

In Black Chimera raids, meticulous planning and proper execution were the keys. If the raid organizers did not know how to proceed from one step or another, it would be a disaster.

The lion was the first one to hit 20%. The beast let out a roar before it dispersed into a bundle of tiny, glowing lights. These tiny glowing lights shot toward the sky and disappeared. Only to come back in form of giant meteors.


"WATCH OUTTT!!!!"
Bang!

Bang!

Bang! Bang!

I had to say, the giant meteors were both a curse and blessing at the same time. Why would I say that? Because exactly because the meteor was big that we were able to avoid it. On the other side, if we were not agile enough, our death would be quite tragic.

Needless to say, I used my Angel Wings again to escape the meteors. It was almost as if my Angel Wings moved of their own volition. Maybe they were not in the mood of getting squashed by huge rocks.

This last trial was a slaughter fest. Preventing oneself from being smashed by meteors to death was challenging enough. Now imagine having to still keep the three beasts engaged and as far away from each other as possible.

The ones who suffered the most were none other than the poor tanks. They could not run away unless they wanted to forfeit the raid. At one point I grabbed HellWitch by her arm and told her to get some rest somewhere.

"I will tank for you," I offered.

HellWitch merely refused my help politely. "I am good, don't worry. Antares, watch out!!!"

I stepped aside to avoid another meteor in time.

"Why don't we just group these beasts together and then attack from all directions? Why do we need to keep them apart?"

"Oh, it's because when they recombine then they will return to full HP."

"..."

Wow. This raid was intense.

Just as I thought that, the fifth party's tank died from the double-headed snake's bite. We all screamed when we saw the double-headed snake rush toward the lion with lightning speed.

"THE SNAKE!!!"

"THE SNAKE GOT AWAY!!!"

I clicked my tongue and rushed toward the snake.

"Exorcism!" I shouted and slashed at the snake before it even managed to reach the lion.

If I did not have to fend two vicious snake heads, I would have jumped with joy. The snake stopped advancing and started to attack me viciously.

"ANTARES, GOOD JOB!!! PLEASE GET IT FAR FAR AWAY FROM US!!!"

Just then, the faun hit 20%.

I not only had to coax the snake far away from the other two beasts, keep it interested in me, but also lure it to a corner.

"Antares."

Lazarus came by. There was a gash across his face. He was apparently attacked by the faun.

"Are you okay? I can help," he offered.

I shook my head.

"I can heal. Why don't you help me attack this beast? Then we will be done as soon as possible."

I said that, but we obviously had to wait until the second meteor shower was done before we began with the third.

More players died during the second and the third meteor shower, but there was no time to resurrect anyone. By the time the third meteor shower started, we only had 20 minutes left. That was 20 minutes to beat all three beasts at exactly the same time.

And we still had to keep track of their HP %. Every minute we had to report the HP % of all three beasts.

Once the third meteor shower was done, only around 20 players were left. Although we were attacking as fast as we could, eventually players were shuffled around for better damage distribution. Except for the tanks, of course.

"Lion, 15%!"

"Faun, 14%!"

"Snake, 19%!"

"Can someone from the faun team move to the snake please!!!" Livina shouted while she was throwing knives expertly at the lion.

A minute later...

"Lion, 13%!"

"Faun, 13%!"

"Snake, 17%!"

"Someone from the lion team, move to the snake as well!" This time it was ZhaoYun's turn to shout.

It took a few rounds of reshuffling until the beasts' health gradually decreased at the same pace. And then we had to hurry. The last hits were especially crucial.

"Do they really have to die at the exact same time?" I asked HellWitch. Meanwhile, I had been moved back to the lion team so that the remaining members of my party could get some heal.

"Well, yes. I think there might be a few milliseconds of tolerance, but they really have to fall to the ground at approximately the same time."

"That is one tough goal to achieve," I commented.

HellWitch grinned. "That is why it is so important to mix and match the players together to ensure that the HP decrease rate is the same for all beasts before we go on and spam our attacks."

"Ah."

That made sense.

"Lion, 7%!"

"Faun, 7%!"

"Snake, 7%!"

"Lion, 5%!"

"Faun, 5%!"

"Snake, 5%!"

The anticipation for an upcoming raid success raised the tiny hairs at the back of my neck. I was about to complete my very first level 120 raid! In light of the situation, it was nothing to be happy about but hey, it was still an achievement nonetheless.

"Lion, 3%!"

"Faun, 3%!"

"Snake, 3%!"

I prayed with every cell of my body. We have fought hard enough to kill the Black Chimera. Please, please, it must be a success.

When we hit 1% on all beasts, the time was showing exactly 1 minute left. We attacked frantically. It was now or never. At 5 seconds left, the beasts were still standing although we knew that their HP was most likely 0.01% or something.

5...

4...

3...

2...

1...

The longest five seconds of my life.

And then, the beasts let out one last roar, one last sigh, and one last hiss before they fell dramatically to the ground.

The raid was finally over.