Free Web NovelChapter 19: [19]: The Rotting Behemoth, Sustaining the Blight
Levi wiped a layer of toxic gray sludge off his scythe and kept walking.
Hitting Level 13 was exactly the bump he needed. The game’s math was absolute, and crossing that specific level threshold meant his Level Suppression penalty against the Level 18 mobs dropped from a brutal 30% down to 25%.
It didn’t sound like a massive difference on paper, but in a game where every single point of damage mattered, it was huge. It meant fewer swings per kill, less stamina drained, and less time standing in the poisonous fog of the Blighted Marches.
He ventured into the deepest, nastiest sector of the zone. The dead trees here were completely petrified and choked by massive, pulsing black roots that broke through the crust of the earth. The toxic gas was thicker here, giving the air a permanent, sickly yellow filter.
Levi stepped over a puddle of bubbling acid.
He was looking for the apex predator of this zone. According to his past-life memories, every major grinding zone had a Field Boss, but they also had localized Elite spawns meant to terrorize careless players.
He heard it before he saw it. A deep, wooden groaning sound that vibrated through the mud.
Levi stopped and looked up. One of the massive, dead trees up ahead wasn’t actually a tree. It was standing up. Thick, rotting branches shifted into the shape of massive arms, and two glowing, toxic green eyes snapped open in the center of its bark-covered trunk!
[Blighted Treant]
[Level: 18 | Elite]
[HP: 6,000 | ATK: 150 | DEF: 80]
"That’s a big piece of firewood," Levi muttered.
He didn’t rush in blindly. He stayed just out of its aggro range and ran the math in his head. This was a pure test of his build’s sustain.
He started with the enemy’s defense. The Treant had 80 Defense. His Arachnid’s Fang Scythe ignored 15% of that naturally. Fifteen percent of 80 was 12, dropping the boss’s effective Defense to 68.
Levi’s Total Attack was 125. 125 minus 68 left 57 raw damage. Now, apply the 25% Level Suppression penalty for the five-level gap. 57 multiplied by 0.75 meant his basic physical strikes would hit for exactly 42 Final Damage.
He calculated his Reaping Arc skill next. 125 Attack multiplied by the 1.8 skill modifier gave him 225 raw damage. Subtract the 68 Defense, leaving 157. Minus the 25% suppression penalty, a clean skill hit would deal 117 Final Damage.
"Forty-two on a basic, one-seventeen on a skill," Levi said, doing the division against the boss’s massive 6,000 HP pool. "This is going to take a ridiculous amount of swings."
He checked the defensive math. The Treant had an Attack of 150. Levi’s Obsidian Carapace and base Vitality gave him exactly 46 Defense. If that thing hit him cleanly, 150 minus 46 meant he was taking 104 damage per hit. With a Max HP of 420, he could only survive four hits before he was dead.
He checked his mana pool. It was sitting perfectly at 150/150 thanks to his recent stat allocation into Intelligence.
"Alright. Let’s get to work."
Levi sprinted forward, intentionally splashing through the mud to make noise. The Blighted Treant roared a sound like a collapsing wooden cabin and swung its massive right arm. The branch was as thick as a car, and it swept across the ground in a wide, horizontal arc.
Levi used his 43 Speed to dive under the swing. He felt the wind of the heavy branch scrape past his back. He popped up right next to the Treant’s trunk and swung his scythe.
"Reaping Arc!"
[-117]
He immediately followed up with a fast basic attack.
[-42]
The weapon’s passive triggered instantly. The small, bleeding teardrop icon appeared over the Treant’s head, ticking for 5 true damage per second.
The Treant didn’t stagger. Its mass was simply too high. It immediately brought its left arm down in a crushing overhead slam!
Levi tried to Phantom Step away, but his boot caught on one of the thick roots jutting out of the mud. He couldn’t dodge perfectly. The edge of the massive branch clipped his left shoulder.
The VR pain engine flared violently, sending a dull, bruising shockwave down his entire arm. He was thrown backward, sliding through the sludge.
[-104]
His health bar instantly dropped from 420 down to 316.
"Yeah, nope. Not doing that again," Levi grunted, pushing himself up off the mud. Trading blows was mathematical suicide.
He immediately toggled on his Siphon Aura. The warm green light wrapped around him, and his mana began ticking down by 2 points every second. Almost instantly, a green [+15] floated above his head, slowly starting to patch up the massive chunk of missing health.
The Treant stomped forward, the ground shaking with every step. It raised both arms and slammed them into the mud. Suddenly, sharp, jagged roots erupted from the ground in a straight line, shooting directly toward Levi like organic spears!
"Phantom Step."
burned 20 Mana.
His body dissolved into a dark shadow, bypassing the linear root attack entirely, and reappeared directly behind the massive boss.
He unleashed a rapid flurry of basic attacks, targeting the softer, mossy joints at the back of the Treant’s knees.
[-42] [-42] [-42]
He kept his eyes glued to the bleeding icon.
The 5 damage per second was his most reliable source of DPS because it completely bypassed the boss’s 80 Defense and the 25% suppression penalty. He just had to keep refreshing it.
For the next seven agonizing minutes, the deep sector of the Blighted Marches turned into a high-stakes rodeo.
Levi couldn’t stop moving.
The Treant’s attack patterns were slow, but their hitboxes were massive. Levi relied entirely on his 43 Speed to physically run out of the way of the sweeping branch attacks. Whenever the boss used its linear root-spikes, Levi used Phantom Step to blink through them, immediately punishing the boss’s recovery frames with a Reaping Arc.
His Siphon Aura constantly ticked in the background. It slowly healed his lost HP back up to the 420 cap, completely neutralizing the zone’s toxic ambient damage, but it was absolutely violently chewing through his mana pool.
Between the 2 Mana per second drain, the 10 Mana for Reaping Arc, and the 20 Mana for Phantom Step, his 150 Mana pool was constantly crying for help.
"Don’t get greedy, Levi," he muttered to himself, forcing his avatar to backpedal instead of going for an extra swing.
When his mana pool hit a critical 10 points, Levi didn’t hesitate. He reached down to his quick-belt, popped the cork off one of the top-tier mana potions he had bought in the city, and downed it while running sideways. The cool blue liquid instantly injected 100 Mana back into his system, extending the fight.
The Treant’s health bar slowly, painfully whittled down. 3,000. 1,500. 500.
Levi was sweating profusely inside his NerveDive helmet. His virtual arms felt like lead from swinging the heavy scythe over a hundred times. But his focus never broke. He didn’t take a single direct hit after that first mistake.
The Treant’s health finally hit 100 HP. It raised its massive wooden arms for one final, desperate area-of-effect slam.
Levi didn’t blink away. He charged straight in.
"Reaping Arc!"
He dumped his last bit of mana. The scythe ignited in a blinding red arc, tearing completely through the center of the Treant’s rotted wooden core!
[-117]
The massive tree monster froze.
A loud, splitting crack echoed through the toxic swamp. The Treant’s glowing green eyes flickered and died. The massive trunk split perfectly in half, and the entire boss shattered into a mountain of blue polygons, lumber, and glowing item boxes.
[System Notification: You have slain the Level 18 Elite Blighted Treant. Level gap bonus applied. Gained 14,000 XP!]
Levi instantly toggled off Siphon Aura to stop the mana drain. He dropped his scythe into the mud and fell onto his back, staring up at the sickly purple sky. His virtual chest heaved as he caught his breath.
"Seven minutes of perfect dodging," Levi wheezed, a tired grin spreading across his face. "I really need to hit harder."
He laid in the mud for a solid thirty seconds before the system notifications finally caught up to him. He sat up, looking at the massive pile of loot. It was time to reap the real rewards of fighting an elite.
