Evolution: A Warlock’s Rise To Power

The elemental Boss snorted in disdain while he was pinned by the holy sword and shackled by the divine chains. When the melee fighters of the Willow organization were almost upon he… He suddenly disappeared.

Turning directly into a shadow, he slipped out of the restrains and appeared directly behind a knight. The boss raised his hand and his fleshy fingers turned into a single dark shadow blade and plunged into the knight's back. The attack penetrated his armor and directly killed him.

Sturdy saw everything happened.

"Watch out! This boss is an assassin class."

There were good and bad things when fighting a boss that was an assassin, but mostly their were bad things.

To start with the good, most assassin class bosses usually had low health. Since it was a boss, it still had a very large health pool, but it was lowered compared to tother boss of the same level.

As for the bad, assassins excelled at single target damage. If the assassin boss locked onto you, there was a good chance that you would die in a single strike. Not only that, but assassin class bosses tended to move at high speeds and were incredibly hard to pin down. They were known to be fast and deadly.

Lucan saw what happened, but he was at a loss and didn't know what to do.

'Out of all elements, why did it have to be shadow?'

Of course, Lucan knew why it was a shadow elemental boss. They were in the shadow realm next to the dark territory, if it wasn't shadow, what else would it be. Unfortunately, his shadow magic wasn't nearly as strong as the bosses which made him not even want to try his own shadow magic on it.

Six clerics had spread out through the room while communicating. They raised their maces and struck the ground together.

"Six sided cage of light."

White elemental slight formed barriers, creating a hexagon with each of the clerics standing on a point of the cage.

"YOU DARE TO TRAP ME!!!" The boss yelled.

But it was obvious to everyone that the incredible speed of the boss was slowed compared to before.

The boss spun and unleashed a spinning kick towards the wall of light near him. Before the collision, the bosses leg was overcome by the shadows and transformed into a black metal whip that lashed out at the wall.

*CLANK*

The wall of light waved and flicked but didn't shatter.

The two clerics who held up either side of the wall that was attack spit out a mouthful of blood.

"Don't let him break free!" Sturdy yelled.

He, along with two dozen other players were trapped inside the cage with the boss. They didn't hold back as the unleashed all the powerful abilities while the boss was forced to stay inside the cage. With so many players unleashing powerful attacks it looked like a firework demonstration gone bad.

Inside the cage of light, all sorts of colorful explosions were going off. Deafening bangs rattled out one after another. Smoke, dirt and fire were everywhere followed by splash of blood spraying against the walls of light.

The boss didn't waste time and charged directly through a group of players to another wall and through himself against it with all his might.

The clerics shook and tried to stay on their feet. This time the boss didn't let up. He ignored the players he was trapped with and started an unrelenting assault on the wall. The healers were unable to keep up with the damage that the boss was doing.

Instead of dying, the two clerics taking the brunt of the damage, deactivated the cage of light and tried to flee. The boss disagreed with their actions and appeared before them, claiming their lives with a single swing of his blade like hand.

The all out attack inside of the cage of light took away a quarter of the bosses health, but almost everyone inside the cage had perished. Besides holding him in place while others did damage, the cage of light bought time for the spell casters outside so they could fi9nish the chants for their powerful spells without getting a knife in the back.

When he noticed that the spell casters were hesitating, Sturdy Willow called out. "DO IT!"

The spell casters no longer held back. Dozens of large scale area of effect spells started to unleash their might.

The assassin class boss was too fast, that single target spells could easily be dodged by him. Sturdy had instructed his people to us their spells that affected a large area. The down side was that a lot of Willow players were caught in the cross fire. Those who were close to the boss knew was coming and didn't hesitate to unleash everything they had while they threw themselves towards the boss in a suicidal charge.

Meteors, phoenixes and dragons made of flame, and a blizzard of ice pounded on the boss. Spears made of earth rose from the ground at astonishing speeds.

*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*

The room shook as powerful magic ripped a deep hole in the center of the command room. Over a hundred players died, but not before they aimed their final attacks towards the boss.

With attack coming form every direction it wasn't possible to dodge every attack.

*Boom* *Boom* *Boom*

The advance warriors that were trying to push in through the eastern and western entrances self-destructed, breaking open the defensive line that stopped the grunts and the others from pouring into the room.

Sturdy cursed as more enemies rushed in. The boss had 40% perecent of his health left, but he entered his second phase. The shadow elementals shrunk in size until he was only five feet tall. When sturdy saw this his heart dropped.

It was common from bosses to have more than one phase, but seeing an assassin shrink was never a good thing. The bosses speed doubled. He was already hard enough o pin down, but now he moved through the group of players like a knife through butter.

Lucan had been blown off his feet when an advanced warrior elemental detonated near him. Before he could get to his feet, the boss carved through the people near him and struck towards Lucan himself.

With a pulse of ethereal energy, Lucan used ethereal step and avoided the insta-kill blow, but the others near him weren't as lucky.

Lucan looked at the doorway and knew he wouldn't be able to guard it by himself. Look at the other end of the command room, he knew they were in the same position.

He cursed himself for being so weak. Lucan was initially thrilled when he saw the boss. It was a being made completely of shadow energy. His flesh was formed from shadows and could transform into weapons. If he could harness that power, didn't that mean that he could create a new arm purely with shadow energy.

But now he realized that they had bitten off more than they could chew. Killing this boss seemed like an impossible task.

Sturdy looked around at the carnage and knew they were in a bad position. With every step the boss took, another player died. With every step the boss took, four more elemental grunts rushed into the command room.

Over two thirds of the Willow team had been slaughtered and killed off. At this time, they were also outnumbered by the grunts and the boss was killing faster and faster.

The room descended into chaos. The Willow members were unleashing everything they had because they didn't know if they would survive the next second as the boss flashed from person to person, executing everyone in his way.

Lucan gave up defending the entrance and ran towards Sturdy. The others were doing the same. Lucan put aside his greed. He gave up on trying to kill the boss and refocused on his true goal, conquering the fortress.

With most of the players grouped together, the boss killed a few of the stragglers before turning towards the group in the center of the room.

The boss was surprised for a moment to see Lucan still alive, he could have sworn that his hand went through the warlocks chest earlier. But it didn't matter, his next strike would kill Lucan.

The warlock barely had time to raise his wand before the assassin class boss with double speed was in front of him.

The boss could see the end in sight, there were only a handful of people left. He charged forward and was about to impale the warlock when a green portal appeared in front of him. Unfortunately, his speed was too great and he wasn't able to stop. The boss ran straight through the portal.

Before the boss could turn around, the portal had closed.

Lucan sighed, he really didn't want to cast away all the rewards that came with killing the boss, but what else could he do.

His attempt on the boss was a failure.