Chapter 98 97- The Horned Magma Cobra
After seeing that there were intruders, the giant snake slithered its way out of the lava pool it was resting in. Once it had pulled itself out of the lava completely, Milo noticed a row of spikes that trailed down its back to match the two spiraling horns coming out of the back of its head. The snake was as wide around as a person was tall, and was as long as a train. The beast let out a hiss that shook the boss room, before spitting out a stream of lava, as soon as the lava started to fly towards them, Harvey and Milo both screamed, "Scatter!"
With their only being the boss remaining, the team could split apart from their formation with less fear of there being consequences. Once the group had split up and avoided the lava being spewed from the snake's mouth, the tanks got into position and attracted the snake's aggro. Seeing the tanks in front of it, the snake swiped its tail, there was a loud bang once the snake's attack made contact with Harvey's shield, and Harvey was pushed back a bit. The ground where his feet had stopped was torn up from the force of him pushing back, trying to endure the attack. Without his Stalwart ability, he would've been flung across the room like a rag doll.
"It packs quite the punch," Harvey yelled through gritted teeth, "make sure you don't get hit."
The other shield tank, a man named Chuck, had a similar ability to the student Milo had faced in his final exam. The main difference being that rather than manipulating his own density he could only manipulate the density of an object he was carrying. Chuck ran forward and raised the density of his shield, planting it into the ground; with his help, Harvey was able to withstand the onslaught of the boss's tail. Once the tanks had gotten the aggro as well as the attacks of the boss under control, the dealers could finally get to work. The two healers were constantly healing the tanks, while Seamus siphoned away some of the snake's power. Noticing that the snake's power was decreasing, Ken also pushed in to help the tanks more. Due to the general sturdiness of the tanks, even the heat given off by the snake's body was being withstood.
Once the snake was a bit under control, Milo commanded the dealers to get to work. Activating his Hunter's eye ability, Milo was able to see red glows that showed the beast's weaknesses, with it not having limbs there was no way for them to slow down its movement permanently by cutting tendons, but the snake's eyes, as well as a small section of its torso glowed. Milo could only assume that the glow on its torso symbolized the location of the snake's heart but based on their ranger's call outs, the scales covering its body were very tough to break through, meaning they probably wouldn't be able to take it out so easily.
Their ranger was a telekinesis user named Claire and she had tried to shoot arrows into the chinks of the snake's scales but with every attack it made, it made it practically impossible for her to get a clean shot off.
"Aim for its eyes!" Milo shouted, "take away its vision!"
Hearing Milo's callouts, she began to shoot arrows towards the snake's head aiming to take out one of its eyes. While this was happening, the twins slapped hands to activate their ability, and attempted to run up the snake's torso to reach its head. Conner swung Cameron up to the snake's eye, who slashed at it, causing the snake to howl in pain, as its vision was taken away from it. The snake then did something that the team wasn't prepared for.
With its one good eye, it spotted Cameron and Conner regrouping and made a loud hiss obviously angry for having its eye taken away, once it did this, it ignored the tanks and rushed the twins going straight towards them. Seeing the twins in danger, Milo charged forward hoping to intercept the snake before it got too close to them. He activated his reinforce ability to boost his strength to the max. He then dashed and let loose a reinforced punch with all his strength, the punch sent the snake off to the side, away from the twins, and allowed them to reposition with the tanks for protection.
Once the snake recovered from the attack, it turned and eyed the group again, seeing that the twins, its original targets were now standing behind the people it had a lot of trouble dealing any damage to, the snake turned to face Milo who had just delivered the attack. With hatred in its eyes, the snake spewed another stream of lava towards Milo who dodged the attack rolling to the side.
After dodging the magma spit of the giant cobra, Milo began to think of how his team could kill it without taking it on much longer, he could see that the heat from the room they were in was taking a toll on his teammates and wanted to clear the gate before they sustained any major damage. Looking at the lava pools, the gears in Milo's head began to turn.
"Tanks! Pull it towards a lava pool, I've got a plan," he yelled.
Hearing the call, Harvey and Chuck both banged on their shield trying to aggravate the boss, they weren't sure what Milo's idea was, but they figured it was better than trying to brute force the beast. Eventually it worked, as it turned towards the two of them. The twins had since vacated the area, prepared to make another attack in case Milo's plan didn't work. Once it had locked onto its targets the snake made another dash towards them, Milo once again charged up a reinforced punch to knock the snake into the lava pool that the tanks had pulled it towards.
After taking the hit, the snake flew into the pool sending up a large wave of lava that the rest of the team had to avoid, Milo then jumped onto the snake's head and used his bind skill to lock the snake in place. When it was activated, chains wrapped around the neck and torso of the snake and lashed it to the ground holding it inside the lava pool. Once the snake was immobilized by the chains Milo leapt off its head and activated his ice ability. Mist came from his mouth as the freezing air from his ability met the heat inside the boss chamber, and he let out a massive wave of cold energy towards the lava pool the snake was stuck in. When the cold air met the molten rock, it flash cooled it causing it to revert back to its solid form. Milo didn't let up, completely cooling the lava pool, trapping the snake inside the rock that was melted rock not long ago.
This happened just in time too, as the chains dispersed releasing the bind effect that held the snake in position. The boss thrashed about trying to yank itself free from the newly formed stone, but to no avail. With the snake now completely stuck, it allowed the group to finish it off rather easily, only having to avoid the lava it spewed and blocking any strikes that it made with its head.
Eventually the group managed to exterminate the beast only sustaining a few injuries which were easily healed by the team's supports. After the snake had been killed, Milo had received a level up which he figured would be coming soon, due to the beasts he had killed in the simulation over the past few days. They gave much less experience than actual beasts but it was still gained exp nonetheless. With this he had reached level 27, each of his stats had risen by one aside from the Magic Power stat, and nothing new was unlocked in his plunder tab, as the next skill was locked until level 50.
After the boss was defeated, the heat from the boss room seemed to disappear immediately as it reverted back to the lobby where the group had started before the gate simulation was started. David had also appeared after spectating the group close the gate. He went through all the goods and bads he saw, but luckily there were more positives than negatives.
He gave extreme praise for Milo's use of the environment against the boss, even though they were fighting in a room that it should've been at an advantage in. He also praised the tanks for doing a good job keeping the boss's aggro long enough for the dealers to hurt the beast. His last bit of praise was for the whole group, as they had done a good job dealing with the gate overall, he had actually threw them into a more difficult B ranked gate for them to clear.
At the B rank, elemental type gates like the one they had just been through weren't common and were considered some of the toughest to clear. Because of this, outside the simulation once people entered and realized it had a specific elemental attribute, they'd normally back out and get a raid team centered around countering that attribute, which was something Milo's team didn't have the luxury of doing.
After going through the goods and bads of their run and informing the team of what their training would be like over the next few days, the group logged out and hung out in the lounge to build some more chemistry. They goofed off, played games, and talked about their experiences so far while training. After doing that for a while, Milo headed home and got some rest. It had been a long day and he was tired after clearing his first B ranked gate.
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