After resting for a couple of hours, and even though night was an hour or two away, the party felt that they were recovered enough to be able to take on another Beast Lord without too much issue. However, once they dealt with the eel lord, they would retire for the day. With that in mind, they headed back into the lake, straight for the location where they knew the eel lord would be.
On the way there, they questioned whether they should kill the lord or not, much like they had done with Otterson. On the one hand, they needed the Beast Lords to beat the event, but on the other hand, the last time they spoke with the eel, it left a bad taste in their mouths. They were also unsure whether the eel would surrender, much like Chuck had. So far, it seemed like the personality the Lord had towards the people trying to recruit them mattered. Since Otterson had chosen death over subservience, while Perry had been much more amicable, and Chuck had been somewhat reasonable. In fact, as they thought about it and considered how their last interaction with the eel lord had gone, they knew that the likelihood of a surrender was very low. In the end, they knew that the odds of needing to kill the lord would be very high, so they would go into battle with the intent to kill, but still be open to the idea of a surrender.
After the fight with Chuck, Dan had decided that he would stop empowering any more minions. With the event moving into its final phase, at least it would soon be moving into its final phase, he wanted to let things continue as intended. Dan felt like he had challenged the trio enough with the Chuck fight, and though he would still bump up the difficulty for them for the rest of the event, he wouldn't throw more mini-bosses at them.
After all, the trio planned to explore all of his dungeon, which would allow him to give them plenty of challenges. Speaking of challenges, he still wanted to give them some level of difficulty, so he reached out to Jelty the eel Beast Lord and gave her a heads-up about the incoming trio. Then, with that done, he sat his non-existent butt down to watch the fight between the eels and the trio.
Arriving at the nest they knew the boss would be at, the party found many more eels than they had seen last time. Looking at the many eels swimming around the trio actually began to worry about the fight to come. If they had to deal with the lord as well as all these eels, plus four of the powerful mini-bosses, the fight would certainly be one where they needed to get serious. That said, even as all the eels stopped swimming around and their attention fell on the party, the trio couldn't detect any other powerful monsters. Adriana specifically had extended her Presence rather far and had yet to detect any of their powerful mini-bosses.
Of course, it's not like they would turn down a serious fight, but they would rather not be surprised by four powerful monsters appearing out of nowhere. This was why they didn't rush into a fight right away, preferring to approach the situation with some caution. A tactic that all the eels seem to be taking part in as they all slowly began to crowd around their leader. Much like last time, the eel was the size of two men and had this sleek, black skin filled with currents of electricity. Its glowing eyes stared at them, but the lord did not act and simply wriggled in place along with its kin.
Seeing the eels act with so much caution shocked the party, as last time they had been more than happy to attack the moment they stepped within the boundary of their nest, which they were definitely within. Of course, what the party didn't know was that after Dan had given Jelty the heads up, the boss had grown weary, but that weariness was quickly wearing away as she realized who had come. Anger began to bubble within the eel as she remembered the trio who had killed many of her kind and had then tried to recruit her to work for the damn frogs.
The party was not oblivious to the changing mood in the water. Where at first, the lord had been a bit on the defensive side, now the lightning coating her body was starting to crackle and sparkle. In response, the eels around her began moving forward slowly as they also wriggled faster. It was obvious that whatever caution the lord had at first was wearing off, and in response, the party quickly enhanced themselves as they prepared for a fight.
Dan watched with anticipation as the stare-down between the party and the eels continued on. As the seconds passed, Jelty’s body amped up, and the lightning continued to spark outwards until a small jolt finally struck one of the eels, and set the entire fight off.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The eel, feeling its boss's anger through the lightning, immediately shot off a lightning bolt towards the trio. The attack did nothing against the overpowered friends, and it was quickly countered with a beam of water. However, the moment the attacks went off was the signaling whistle for the fight, and multiple eels shot forward while the rest began to charge up their lightning bolts. Obviously, the party, having already been ready for the fight and having countered the first attack, did not wait for the eels to finish. Alex and Arctur quickly took out an eel each, while Adriana took out five as she crushed them with ease. Thankfully, by that point, the trio realized that it was better if they had their Shields up and had shifted from their enhancements to something that would protect them better against the multitude of incoming attacks.
Seeing the multitude of lightning bolts coming their way, along with the Razor Blade Eels, the party got ready to dodge, block, and parry the attacks. The easiest attacks to dodge were the lightning bolts, as the party could easily move out of the way. Of course, some of them had to be countered, and barriers of green energy or mana-infused water sprouted, not fully blocking but simply delaying the lighting attacks. The delay allowed the trio to move out of the way, but of course, that still left the incoming sharp eels, many of which struck the shields of the trio.
Arctur unleashed beams of green, destructive energy against the incoming bladed eels, managing to delay some, while a few made it to him and struck his shield. This, however, was not the biggest issue, as even though it cost mana to block their attacks, it allowed Arctur to counterattack. He stopped worrying about the incoming razor eels and focused on the ones that had managed to strike him. Focusing, he caused roots and vines to grow from specific spots on his shield. It wasn't something that most people could do, and in this case, it gave Arctur a good advantage, as one or two of the eels that struck him were pulled back in, allowing him to finish them off.
Compared to Arctur, Alexion was much more adept at fighting underwater, and through a good expenditure of mana, only one or two eels managed to strike directly at his shield. Granted, he did not manage to kill as many as his green friend, but he had been going for delaying tactics more than anything, as he would now be able to retaliate properly. After shredding the two eels that had struck him with blades of wind, Alexion was looking to blast another incoming eel to bits when he saw a large curved blade of lightning moving towards his girlfriend. Alexion had forgotten there was still a boss to fight.
Adriana had no problem dodging all the lightning bolts and was getting ready to kill all the incoming blade eels when the boss decided to act. It launched a particularly large lightning bolt straight at her, one that was clearly homing in on her location. Letting the boss’s attack get closer, she waited until it was a few feet away before she used a good amount of mana to create a quick barrier that would nudge the attack slightly as it shattered it, thus letting her dodge the semi-homing missile. However, the issue was that she had focused too much on the incoming attack and had let the bladed eels get close enough to strike at her.
Multiple eels hit her shield, draining a good amount of her mana away. However, as she was about to counterattack and crush all of them, a blade of lightning came at her. The boss had once again targeted her, and she was forced to focus on the incoming attack, allowing the eels to get away. This time, Adriana spent a good deal of mana as she sent her own pressurized blade of water at the incoming lightning blade. The two attacks met and essentially canceled each other out. Granted, the boss's attack had been much stronger, but all Adriana had to do was cause enough damage to the magic to cause it to begin to disperse, which it did as lightning crackled every which way.
Of course, causing her to focus on its attack allowed the eels to come back around and get close enough to strike once again, along with another rain of lightning bolts. Thankfully, while she had been dealing with the boss's attacks, her friends had been slowly whittling down the eel numbers, and though they still had about a dozen eels, she knew that after they dealt with this incoming barrage, they would have dealt with enough eels that they could focus on the boss. Sadly, it seems the boss knew this as well, and as Adriana received the attack from the eels, it sent another bolt her way, before it also began speeding towards her.
The moment that Jelty saw the mermaid kill so many of her eels, she knew the girl would be a problem. As such, she had begun to focus the girl down in an attempt to take her out in tandem with her eels, but the mermaid proved to be a much stronger opponent than she had thought. What was even more problematic was that as she focused on the mermaid, her two friends were easily whittling down her eels, a feat that would eventually spell doom for her. So, Jelty finally realized that the battle wouldn’t be so easy, and there was a reason their master had given her a heads up, so she knew it was time for her to get serious.
