Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Episode 853

The fight went on.

Our morale had recovered a little, but morale alone could not overcome reality.

Shwooo!

The rain kept pouring down, and the flowers born from it continued spitting out more acid-covered monsters.

“AAAHK!”

Those monsters relentlessly pushed through the gap left behind by the six deserters.

Because of that, the main force had no choice but to focus more on defending its own line.

In simple terms, the amount of damage we were dealing to the Lord of Tears had dropped.

“S-Sir Jefferson…! Commander, Sir Jefferson is dead!”

In the middle of all that, one of the knights from the 4th Company fell.

If we excluded the six deserters, he was the first true casualty of the raid.

Unfortunately, that was only the beginning.

Sizzle!

Whenever the pain made my thoughts blur, another report would reach me.

One death.

Then two.

Then three.

More people kept dying.

But at the same time, the rain grew heavier.

Shwooo!

The rainfall was not intensifying as quickly as before, but that did not matter.

What mattered was that we were still moving forward.

Four.

Five.

And when the fifth person died—

Clack…

Rumble!

The rain stopped all at once.

A moment later, thunder shook the entire floor.

This was not unexpected.

If anything, it told me exactly how far we had pushed the boss.

[Lord of Tears, Tetraseia has cast Unfair Judgment.]

Unfair Judgment.

The skill itself was simple.

It struck every creature soaked by Endless Rain with lightning.

But once you understood the details behind it, the skill became much more interesting.

Rumble! Crash!

Even setting aside the fact that it was impossible to dodge, the skill had another troublesome trait.

[All stats of Character have decreased by 30% until the end of battle.]

Anyone struck by the lightning would suffer a percentage-based stat reduction.

And that percentage depended on Tetraseia’s remaining health.

If the boss had 30% of its health left, then all of your stats dropped by 30%.

In other words, if Tetraseia somehow used that skill at full health, it would instantly ruin any character, no matter how carefully they had been raised.

That was why it was a conditional skill.

Unfair Judgment could only be activated when certain conditions were met.

There were only two possible triggers.

Either Tetraseia’s health had fallen to 30%…

Or—

[Tetraseia’s sadness deepens once more.]

—the message that appeared every time its health dropped by 5% failed to appear within fifteen minutes of the previous one.

What an idiotic gimmick.

Honestly, this was one of the reasons I had chosen to raid the monster in the first place.

If things went badly, we could at least try to hold out until the dimensional collapse resumed, then escape through the dimensional walls.

But that no longer mattered.

“Kiyaaak!”

Because now, I was going to kill this bastard no matter what.

Shwooo!

As the rain began pouring again, I shouted toward the main group.

“Aynar, start preparing!”

“Wh-what do you mean?!”

It seemed Armin had not explained the plan to her yet.

I had no time to explain it myself in the middle of all this.

“Ask Armin!”

I left the main group to Armin and focused entirely on keeping Tetraseia pinned down.

Even though we had entered the final stretch of the raid, my role had not changed.

Its attack pattern was painfully simple.

Bang!

Its only real physical attack was swinging its front limbs around like an overgrown infant.

The move itself was not especially dangerous. Even after my stats had been reduced by thirty percent, that much did not change.

[Lord of Tears, Tetraseia has cast Teardrop.]

Its main attack was not particularly impressive either.

The damage was high, yes, but with the main group healing me the moment I was hit, it was not enough to put me in real danger.

If I ignored the fact that Twisted Endurance made every hit hurt like absolute hell, holding the boss back was not that difficult.

My health had not fallen below seventy percent even once.

That was the kind of boss Tetraseia was.

Overwhelming pain.

Absurd regeneration.

A massive aura.

Wide-range mental crowd control.

Endless disposable monsters.

And on top of all that, every one of its abilities became stronger as its health dropped.

Its direct attacks were manageable.

The problem was its passives.

They were ridiculous.

If you chose to fight it, the battle naturally turned into a war of attrition.

Like standing in morning mist until your clothes were soaked through, the attacking side would slowly be worn down until they collapsed.

If Tetraseia had not already been in its fourth phase, and if we had not been fighting on top of a ravine, I would never have even considered challenging it with our current numbers.

“Huh…?”

I had been distracting myself with other thoughts to endure the pain.

Because of that, I noticed it a little late.

[Tetraseia’s sadness deepens once more.]

At some point, the crying had stopped.

[Lord of Tears, Tetraseia has cast Self-Pity.]

I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them again.

“Haah…”

The moment had finally come.

***

Self-Pity.

The Lord of Tears, Tetraseia, used its final skill once its health dropped to twenty-five percent.

Shwooo!

Just like with Spillover, liquid began pouring from every hole across its body.

But this was different.

The fluid did not spill down into the ravine. Instead, it rose upward, hovering in the air as though gravity no longer applied to it.

Fwoosh!

The more liquid Tetraseia released, the smaller its body became.

It was like watching air drain from a balloon.

The main group kept firing at it, of course.

Splish, splash!

However, the floating masses of liquid spread open like umbrellas, blocking every attack before it could reach the monster.

I raised my arm and signaled to them.

Stop attacking.

There was no point wasting strength.

Just like anime characters somehow never got hit during a transformation scene, Tetraseia was completely immune to damage while Self-Pity was active.

I had wondered how this would look in reality, but it was almost exactly the same as in the game.

Honestly, that was a little disappointing.

So you really don’t plan on dying easily, huh?

I gave the next signal.

Get ready.

Naturally, the signal after that would be to attack.

When it came, we would pour every last bit of power we had into one final strike.

Shwooo!

Roughly a minute passed after Tetraseia began shrinking.

By then, its body had become slightly smaller than me in my Giantization state.

It’s time.

At that moment, the liquid stopped flowing.

The acid floating in the air began to compress, spreading into thin sheets before wrapping around the monster’s body.

One layer.

Two layers.

Three layers.

Four layers.

The stacked liquid darkened to black, then hardened, forming a shell meant to protect it from all outside attacks.

This was the last part of the fourth phase.

The final barrier before the Lord of Tears could be defeated.

A wall that could not be broken through if we were lacking even one percent of the necessary damage.

[All skills are temporarily sealed.]

From this point onward, Twisted Endurance, Unfair Judgment, Teardrop, and even the Rain Cloud spreading acidic fog around us would be sealed.

Tetraseia would stop attacking as well.

Naturally, Endless Rain would also cease, and no more summons would appear.

But in exchange—

[Tetraseia’s resistances have risen to the maximum value.]

Its defenses increased to an absurd degree.

And once the skill finished its duration…

No.

There was no point thinking about that.

We would end this here.

“Fire!”

The moment I shouted the command to the main group, I reached into my subspace and pulled something out.

Open.

A tiny stone, no bigger than a fingernail, rested in my hand.

Tears of a Goddess.

Back when I was still a barbarian without a single essence, this item had allowed me to survive an encounter with a Rank 5 monster—the guardian vampire.

…No time for memories.

I pushed away the useless thoughts and crushed the gem in my palm.

Crunch.

The instant it shattered, brilliant light flooded the entire ravine.

[Tears of a Goddess has been destroyed.]

[Grace has descended at the destruction location.]

It felt strange.

Smirk.

I never thought the day would come when I used this item again.

I had expected even less that I would once again entrust my life to it.

[By Grace, all resistances of Lord of Tears, Tetraseia have been temporarily suppressed.]

Originally, we would have needed to use the raid field’s environment and fulfill special conditions to lower its resistances.

But this item did more than that.

It pushed far beyond the normal mechanics.

Tears of a Goddess had forcibly reduced Tetraseia’s resistances to zero.

Well, the downside was that the effect would not last long.

But complaining here would be absurd.

This situation was already unbelievable enough.

Bang!

The main party’s bombardment arrived the instant the brilliant light burst across the ravine.

This time, the battlefield sounded completely different.

There was no rain.

No summons.

Nothing else demanding our attention.

Every ounce of damage we had could be poured directly into the boss.

There was no need to rotate people out for healing either.

We killed it here, or we died here.

This was the final exchange.

[One layer of pity has been removed from Tetraseia.]

The first layer broke away in only a few seconds.

Rip, rip!

As though the shell could no longer withstand the damage, cracks spread across its surface, and pieces of its outer skin crashed to the ground.

“Viscount, please move farther back!” Armin shouted from the main group.

Since I no longer had to keep Tetraseia pinned down, I had already stepped back after using Tears of a Goddess.

But Armin was telling me to retreat even more.

I see.

I did not question him.

I simply took several more steps back.

Fwoong!

A massive magic circle formed above the main party.

Flash!

Then, for one brief instant, it released a blinding light.

My senses were specialized for strength and endurance, so my bare eyes could not follow what had just been fired.

Even so, I knew what it was.

[Charlotte Emblut has cast Rank 2 attack magic, Spear of Annihilation.]

It was the same spell I had seen during the battle against the Hipramajent on the first underground floor.

Even in the middle of this chaotic raid, the mages had managed to combine their power and cast a group spell.

Stab!

By the time I realized it, a gigantic white spear had already pierced deep into Tetraseia’s thick shell.

[One layer of pity has been removed from Tetraseia.]

[One layer of pity has been removed from Tetraseia.]

[One layer of pity has been removed from…]

[…]

As several layers peeled away at once, I steadied my breathing.

Four layers in a single strike.

That was better than I had expected.

I knew Tears of a Goddess had weakened its resistances, but I had only expected them to break through three layers at most.

“We cannot use another high-grade attack spell due to mana consumption! The remaining wizards will focus on maintaining basic curses!” Armin reported.

It seemed the wizards had poured almost all of their remaining mana into that one combined spell.

Then it’s my turn.

Since we had to deal as much damage as possible before the window closed, I used the attack I had been saving.

[Character has used Dragonplate of Aegis.]

Dragonplate of Aegis.

A cheat-like item for tanks.

The more damage you endured, the more damage it returned.

[Reflecting all accumulated damage.]

A massive spirit warrior appeared behind me and brought its greatsword down.

Crack!

One layer of the shell shattered into countless fragments.

[One layer of pity has been removed from Tetraseia.]

But the spirit warrior was not done.

As if that single blow was not enough, it raised its greatsword high once more.

And then—

[The accumulated damage has exceeded the threshold.]

[The ability is activated one more time.]

Again.

Crunch!

Another layer was destroyed.

I had expected this much.

To be honest, after taking that many hits, I knew I had enough accumulated damage for two activations.

But as a human, I could not help hoping for more.

And so, one question crossed my mind.

[One layer of pity has been removed from Tetraseia.]

Because of all the holy power being poured into me, my health had never dropped to a critical level.

But over the past few hours, I had been hit again and again.

Leaving aside the fact that it hurt far worse because of my reduced pain resistance, had I ever taken this much damage before?

…Will it be different this time?

With that faint hope in my chest, I looked up at the spirit warrior.

[The accumulated damage has exceeded the threshold.]

It was still there.

Like a man who had yet to finish his work.

Seeing that, I smiled.

Yeah.

I really did get hit more than usual this time.

There was still one more step left.

A new level I had never reached before.