Free Web NovelChapter 40: [40]: The Apothecary’s Gamble, Tears of the Warlord
The massive Elite Siege-Beast was dead. As its polygons dissolved into the mud, the endless sea of basic Orcs and Trolls actually stopped spawning. A strange, heavy silence fell over the Northern Gate.
Levi knew exactly what this meant. It was the intermission phase. The game was giving the player base a brief five-minute window to repair their gear, revive their dead party members, and chug their health potions before dropping the final nuke on them.
Levi didn’t wait around on the battlefield. He turned his back on the red plains and sprinted directly through the shattered wooden barricades, ignoring the dumbfounded stares of the surviving players and NPC guards, and headed straight into the City of Thresholds.
He needed supplies, and he needed them right now.
He opened his inventory as he ran down the cobblestone streets. His stack of top-tier mana potions was completely depleted. He had burned through his entire supply keeping his Siphon Aura and Hollow’s Ward active during the Siege-Beast rodeo.
But a lack of mana potions wasn’t his biggest problem.
The final boss of the Blood Moon Eclipse was about to spawn. It was the Blood Moon Herald, a Level 30 Event Boss.
Levi was Level 19. That was an eleven-level gap.
In Aethelgard, an eleven-level difference wasn’t just a minor annoyance; it was a mathematical death sentence. It imposed a staggering 55% Level Suppression damage penalty.
Levi ran the numbers in his head while sprinting past the empty market stalls.
"Even with my four hundred and eighty-two Attack," Levi muttered, "a fifty-five percent penalty is going to completely choke my damage. I’ll be hitting the boss for pocket change. I can’t burst it down, and I definitely can’t out-trade it if the fight goes on for twenty minutes. I need a massive buff."
He couldn’t rely on his raw stats to break the suppression wall. He needed a consumable trump card.
Levi navigated the panicked, crowded streets until he reached the local NPC Apothecary. The shop was a small, dusty building with glowing green vials sitting in the windows. The NPC behind the counter, an old woman named Elara, was currently trying to board up her own shop window.
Levi didn’t bother with small talk. He slammed his hand on the wooden counter to get her attention and pulled up the shop interface.
He scrolled completely past the standard health and mana potions. He looked at the combat buffs. At the very bottom of the list was a highly specific, offensive potion.
[Tiger’s Blood Vial]
[Rarity: Uncommon]
[Effect: Grants +30% Base Attack for 1 minute. Cooldown: 10 minutes.]
Thirty percent was a decent buff for a normal player trying to burst down a dungeon boss, but for Levi, it wasn’t nearly enough to offset a 55% suppression penalty. Plus, the one-minute duration was a joke. He needed something that broke the game’s boundaries.
"I’ll take the Tiger’s Blood," Levi said, tapping the interface. "Give me nine of them."
The NPC apothecary just stared at him. "Nine? Boy, drinking more than one will stop your virtual heart. The toxicity levels don’t stack."
"I have a very high tolerance," Levi said dryly, hitting the buyout button.
The nine Uncommon vials cost him a decent chunk of silver, but it barely made a dent in his massive gold reserves. He grabbed the glowing orange vials, ignored the NPC’s warnings, and ran out of the shop.
He didn’t have time to go back to the inn. He ducked into a narrow, dark alleyway right next to the Apothecary, making sure no other players were watching him.
"Alright, let’s gamble," Levi said.
He opened his status menu and pulled up the Boundless Fusion interface. The glowing golden slots materialized in the shadows of the alley.
He dragged the nine Uncommon [Tiger’s Blood Vials] into the fusion window in batches of three. He tapped ’Fuse’ three times in rapid succession.
The alley lit up with a bright silver flash. The nine small vials melted together, compressing and purifying until three sleek, silver-banded flasks dropped into his hand.
[Lion’s Roar Serum]
[Rarity: Silver]
[Effect: Grants +60% Base Attack for 3 minutes. Cooldown: 30 minutes.]
"Sixty percent is great, but we can do better," Levi muttered, his eyes glued to the timer in the sky. He had exactly two minutes before the final boss spawned.
He placed the three Silver-tier [Lion’s Roar Serums] right back into the fusion slots.
The system immediately threw up the massive red catalyst warning.
[Warning: Fusing Silver-tier consumables into Gold-tier requires a raw currency fee of 500 Gold Coins. Failure to provide the catalyst will destroy the items.]
Levi didn’t even blink. He had looted thousands of gold coins over the last few days from selling gear and farming bosses. He dumped 500 Gold directly into the payment slot and hit confirm.
A blinding, prismatic explosion of color lit up the dark alley. The light was so bright it actually cast harsh shadows against the brick walls. The three silver flasks completely dissolved. The orange liquid inside them boiled furiously, shifting into a deep, heavy crimson color that looked exactly like liquid fire.
The digital grinding noise stopped, and a single, ornate gold vial dropped perfectly into Levi’s open palm.
Levi checked the tooltip, and his breath hitched.
[Tears of the Warlord]
[Rarity: Gold]
[Effect: Grants +150% Base Attack for 3 minutes. ALL active healing and Lifesteal effects are completely disabled for the duration. Cooldown: 24 Hours.]
Levi stared at the text. It was a massive, incredibly dangerous gamble.
One hundred and fifty percent extra base attack was game-breaking. It would easily shatter the 55% suppression penalty and allow him to hit the boss like a runaway train.
But the drawback was horrific. It completely disabled his healing. That meant his scythe’s 10% Lifesteal would stop working. His Siphon Aura wouldn’t heal him. Health potions wouldn’t even register.
If he drank this potion, he was locked at his 1,320 Max HP for three straight minutes. Every single hit he took would be permanent damage. If his health hit zero, he died. There was no recovering from a mistake. It was a pure, high-stakes DPS race. Kill the boss before the boss killed him.
"High risk, high reward," Levi said, a ruthless smile spreading across his face.
He took the gold vial and slotted it directly into his quick-belt, right next to his hand.
He spent another chunk of gold buying a fresh stack of top-tier mana potions from the Apothecary, just to make sure his fuel tank was topped off for his dodges and shields. He checked his stats one last time.
HP: 1,320. Mana: 560. Speed: 83.
Right as he closed his menu, the ambient audio of the game completely cut out. The croaking frogs, the wind, the distant shouts of players—it all went dead silent.
Then, the sky turned completely pitch black. The bleeding red moon was swallowed by shadows.
A deafening, earth-shattering roar echoed across the entire server. It didn’t sound like an animal. It sounded like a demon waking up from a thousand-year nap. The sound physically shook the cobblestones under Levi’s boots.
The final boss had arrived.
Levi walked out of the alleyway. The players in the streets were completely frozen in terror, staring up at the pitch-black sky. Levi just ignored them. He drew the Sovereign’s Deathknell from his inventory, the heavy Gold-tier scythe humming with dark energy, and calmly walked back toward the Northern Gate.
It was time to reap the moon.
—-
Updated Stat Sheet:
- Name: Levi | Level: 19
- Class: [Herald of the Hollow (SSS)] | Talent: [Supreme Harvester (SSS)]
- HP: 1320/1320 | Mana: 560/560
- STR: 131 | AGI: 78 | VIT: 61 | INT: 51 | LUK: 25
- Attack: 482 | Defense: 91 | Speed: 83
- Core Skills: [Reaping Arc], [Phantom Step], [Siphon Aura], [Soul Harvest], [Hollow’s Ward].
