Is this really a Game?!

Loud explosions could be heard as a part of the grassland trembled. The animals were woken up from their sleep and most of them trembled on the ground while others started running away. Small craters and deep cuts could be seen on the ground as a battle between the Dullahan and the party had continued.

Both parties looked injured and tired, the Dullahan's armor was a mess as there were numerous cracks on it, and there were even some chunks of it missing in some places. The soul flame was weakened greatly and now only some wisps of the flame could be seen coming out from the Dullahan as the boss held his now broken sword as he faced Reign and the others.

Reign, Wolf, and the others were not in a good state either, the battle with the boss had continued for some 30 minutes after Reign used his full power to pierce through the armor. The incredible defense that the Dullahan had truly overshadowed other enemies they had fought till now. His soul flame was a problem as well, after evolving it the boss was able to use it much more efficiently, not to mention that the quantity of the flames went up as well.

Creating weapons from the solidified flame before sending them towards Reign and the others, conjuring the flame before sending waves upon waves of it towards them. Hurling fireballs, creating explosions…

The boss did an incredible amount of things during the battle, Reign and the others of course got hit a couple of times and they were injured, some of them had some broken bones while others had internal bleeding and the like, of course, thanks to Laura they were able to get healed fast before continuing the battle.

Looking at the boss everyone knew that this was it, the end of the battle was close, neither they nor the boss could go on for much longer, of course, none of them had used any of the weapons skills they had, otherwise the battle would have been finished a long time ago.

Still, there was no need to use something like that against an opponent they were certain they could win against, even though the boss had managed to, unfortunately, evolve his flames during the battle they still persisted and managed to fight against him.

Beast was standing on a hill close to the battle, his fingers were actually bleeding a bit as he had overused his bow, Laura had previously healed them, but since she was low on mana he didn't want to bother her. Both he and Laura were pale in the face as they had gone all out together with the others for this battle. They had used their two rank A items and bombarded the boss, Beast had even used the power of the bow for the first time.

The moment he used the skill he felt as if his surroundings had disappeared, he was only able to see the boss and his teammates, everything else had faded away. Behind him a silver-haired woman looked at him with interest as a transparent soul angrily growled at him, Beast understood that they were the hero and the monster whose powers were kept in the bow. He notched an arrow before pulling it back with full force.

Upon releasing the arrow a huge gust of wind swept the area around him, the powerful arrow hit the boss and left a small crack on the armor. That sounded weak if you looked at what Reign and the others managed to do, but the difference was that the skill Beast had access to wasn't limited in its use, as long as he had mana he could use the bow to attack the opponent with incredibly powerful arrows whose penetrative powers were far above any of the other skills that Beast had.

Compared to the weapons that Reign, Tank, and Wolf had this one was different, it was much more similar to Shadow's weapon that always had something activated, they wouldn't be able to use a powerful skill, but they never had any cooldown so their powers were almost always at their most optimal state.

The penetrative power of his arrows was able to even leave a crack on the Dullahan's armor, even Shadow with his daggers wasn't able to do the same easily, that was of course thanks to the fact that Shadow used daggers and he needed to hit and hold the dagger at the same spot for it to actually melt the armor a bit, Beast's arrows only needed to hit and that was it.

Beast was certain that if there were orcs in front of him, he would be able to pierce through at the very least 10 of them with this skill, perhaps 10 was even him underestimating the power of the bow.

After such a long time fighting they had grown accustomed to the Dullahan's fighting style and his powers, the same could be said for the boss as well, even though he hadn't grown used to them as much as they did, he was still able to respond better to their attacks, not to mention that he was able to respond to Reign and Shadow when they would attack him now.

Somehow the boss was able to respond to Shadow's teleportation the moment it happened, but to Reign, he was actually able to track his movements and respond to his attacks, something that was impossible for the boss early in the fight. They understood that the enemy they were facing was not only much more powerful compared to any of their enemies in the past, but he was also more intelligent as well, well, other than Aethion and a small number of other monsters.

With every attack that Reign made it seemed that the boss was able to respond better and better until it could finally track him almost perfectly. Reign wasn't going full speed, of course, that would need too much mana after all. He did increase it a bit which led to the boss getting hurt a couple of times since he didn't count for the speed to increase at all.

Tank and his four soldiers gave their all to fight as well, his shield was deformed a bit from the numerous attacks the boss had landed on it, for the first time ever he had used the Knights Roar at any possible moment. This was a rare battle where Tank was truly fighting like a Tank, dealing damage was only secondary today as he focused on blocking as many attacks as possible while making sure that the boss was focused on him for most of the battle.

Now, all of them were weak and tired, even the boss wasn't able to escape that, undead generally don't become tired, but since his body had accumulated so much damage his actions were a bit slower.

Reign and the others run towards the boss as they channel the mana they had left. They weren't worried about a monster arriving here to try and take them on later, the scope of their battle was wide and they had passed a large area of the grassland while fighting, they even came across a behemoth that simply ran away after seeing them fighting so ferociously.

Even if there was a monster that was lurking in hopes of attacking them after the battle, that monster will be quite unhappy if it attacked since if there was a worst-case scenario they would simply use a weapon skill to annihilate anything that tried to kill them in their weakened state.

The boss uses what was left of his soul flame as well, Aethion had previously told them that there was a danger to undead if they overused their soul flame, but since the boss knew that he would die if he held anything back, he used every last bit of power he had, even the primal soul flame was out of its body, the primal soul flame was a small, darker version of the soul flame, but everyone could feel the intense power it possessed.

Reign was away from the others as his black and white lightning explodes from him, as the others attack the boss with everything they had, he jumps high in the air. Shadow used his shadow burst and shadow bind skills, Wolf wielded a giant sword of flames that he brought down on the boss with fury. Tank was bashing the boss with his shield before using his scythe to slash at him while arrows whistled past their ears as Beast attacked from a distance, Laura sent a couple of attacks but all the healing really exhausted her and she was pretty much done right now.

The boss defends and attacks the party back, he still doesn't use his primal soul flame and more wounds appear on its body. After using everything they had everybody suddenly jumps back and creates distance from the boss who was already using his flame to respond to Reign's attack from above.

An X-shaped blade light falls down on the boss as he uses his flames to attack as well, a huge explosion suddenly takes place as a cloud of dust shrouds the boss and the whole area.