Chapter 49: Final Boss – The Dark King pt.1?

The party now once more joined by Isla finished up their break by checking their equipment was in tip top shape, and leaving behind anything they wouldn’t immediately require in this fight or anything that would be of no help. Unburdened for the first time since they set out from Daphnie the party were able to set a brisk pace because of the fact they are no longer weighed down by all of the camping gear and food they carry in order to survive the long trips they’ve grown accustomed to taking throughout this world. They move through the empty echoing halls of the castle towards the throne room the place where all of this will finally reach its conclusion, the party move together in silence the only sound is that of their boots on the stone floor of the castle. Lexa led the way having spent time within the castle before the party turned up, Ami and Arano trailed close behind alert for anything unexpected to occur, then came Lexa, Ilev and Aromi in a in a flat line at the center of the formation, leaving Lekly and Suieol to bring up the rear of the party. As they approached the throne room doors each member had their own idea of what awaited them on the other side of the grand Darkwood doors, but each remembered the words of Ehccihster’s crown, wanting them to try and negotiate a peaceful end to everything and allowing that pair to reconcile their differences and become friends once more. Isla turned back to face the party her face reading but with only one question “are you all ready?” and each member of the party responded with their own faces reading “of course”. And with that Isla threw open the doors and lead the party into the throne room, at the opposite end there was a single simple seat with someone sitting upon it, looking rather bored. Ilev shuffled between Ami and Arano before stepping around Isla, positioning himself at the head of the party before speaking.

“I assume you’re the one that everyone is calling the Dark King? If that is the case, may I ask for your name? We have come ready for combat as you can very well see but that is not our intention, we wish to resolve this peacefully and without the need of any further bloodshed. For which I must apologise for being unable to reach such a conclusion with both the Burasu and Ogre that were a part of your inner circle.”
“Human you speak of wanting to know my name and yet do not give yours to me first.”

The Dark King lets out a long sigh before continuing.

“My name is Grace. And if you are here to talk to me on behalf of the crown on Ehccihster then we might as well just fight. As I have no desire to hear words spoken by vassals sent by her.”

Grace then rises from what the party assume would be her throne and she begins walking towards the party, magic circles appearing behind her with each step until she reaches the center of the room where she stops and all manner of creatures that would belong in the Dark Army rise out of the floor at the magic circles. The party seeing this draw their blades and prepare their own spells, buffs or course of action. Ilev is quickly pushed past by Ami and Isla with Arano only brushing by as they set up the front line waiting on Ilev’s buffs before charging into combat with the large number of Dark Army soldiers which have just been summoned, the remaining quartet don’t wait on Ilev’s buffs to begin attacking the Dark Army. Lekly and Suieol both attacking through a combination of potions and manipulations of the ground, Aromi cast the spell causing a wall of fire right in the middle of the Dark Army ranks, and Lexa had cast landslide to try and take out multiple targets in one go. With Ilev having cast the plethora of buffs the frontliners wanted they also got into the action with the Dark Army forces, cutting and slashing their way through the menial low rank fighters as they tried to get close to Grace, still with the goal of making her listen to them and resolve everything peacefully. Now seeing the power put on display by the party, Grace too upped the anti by beginning once more to move around the room but also casting larger circles for more powerful members of her Army to emerge from.

“Frontliners, focus on breaking the circles to limit the number of soldiers that are spawning. We in the backline will sort out the fodder that comes out of them.”

With that Ilev cast a mana reduction buff onto Aromi and Lexa, giving them more freedom in their spell selection as each cast would take up less of their mana for a while, on top of this a buff to magic power was cast on the entire backline quartet. With those buffs applied the backline started clearing out the low-level enemies without needing to break a sweat, the more elite enemies were still causing some problems needing more than one person to focus on the enemy to take it down. As for the frontliners between dodging attacks from both sides they were making progress on shutting down the spawning circles, even though Grace kept opening more as they shut them down. She was now even throwing low-tier fire spells from the fire element at the backline formation to distract them in-between her own casting of spawners. Each of these probes were easily blocked out by either a counter spell from Aromi or Lexa, a wall of rock mutated by Lekly or Suieol or even by a buff to magic resistance and defence from Ilev. With the battle seemingly locked in a stalemate that would only put Grace at a disadvantage if it were to drag on, she realised that the party were too strong for her spawning trick to work while also having a solid counter to any low-tier magic, so she put distance and bodies between herself and the party before beginning to cast a new spell.