With Hornsnapper dead, his domain vanished. The girls cheered at the scattered loot.
The victory had come easily, though it was anything but an easy fight. A standard Level 35 party would wipe here nine times out of ten. The massive healing debuff combined with Hornsnapper’s two-hundred-million health pool usually turned the fight into a brutal, unwinnable war of attrition.
To make matters worse, any player who died inside the runic array healed the boss—an absolute nightmare for under-leveled groups. Even if the players survived, the VIP, Morren, only had ten million HP and would inevitably be chipped to death by Hornsnapper's AoE attacks.
Beating the boss normally required strict adherence to complex mechanics. Players had to keep Morren at least 60 yards away from the Satyr Brutes to avoid triggering their dying pitchfork throws. They had to kite Hornsnapper out of the domain the exact moment fifteen Brutes remained—no more, no less. They had to perfectly position themselves to bait the boss's heavily telegraphed AoE strikes away from the squishy backline.
Or, they could take the simpler route: reach Level 40 and brute-force the encounter with higher-tier gear.
The mechanics were too intricate for Kael to explain to Lila beforehand. He had simply banked on Norlun's Pendant carrying Crimson Bloom through the fight. He just hadn't expected Norlun and a squad of boss-tier ants to completely steamroll the encounter.
After taking a moment to recover, the guild escorted Morren toward the sealing matrix. The path ahead was clear, and they reached their destination without any further surprises.
System: You have successfully escorted Morren to the [Matrix Core]. Quest complete.
A prompt popped up in front of Lila:
[Leave the Demon Tower? Y/N]
The Crimson Bloom members erupted in celebration.
"Finally done!"
"That was awesome!"
"Way easier than I thought it would be."
"Yeah, the big white bear totally carried us!"
"He's an anteater, not a bear!"
"Close enough!"
While the others cheered, Lila frowned. Something was wrong. There was no completion grade displayed. She distinctly remembered the quest reward only mentioning a "Level 2 Guild Upgrade." It said absolutely nothing about granting them a territory. Yet, General Oscar had explicitly brought up guild territory during their briefing.
There had to be a follow-up.
Lila selected [No].
She turned her attention to Morren, who was sitting in the center of the runic matrix, pulling out various materials to patch the broken sealing arrays. After a moment, the monk paused, staring at the ground with a dissatisfied scowl.
"Morren, do you need help?" Lila asked.
He didn't look up, muttering to the floor instead. "This matrix is barely passable. It needs further reinforcement, but doing so will attract more fiends."
System: Continue assisting Morren with the array repairs?
Lila didn't hesitate. [Yes]
Instantly, a warning flashed across the vision of every raid member:
System: Incoming fiend assault. Protect the array. Attack commences in: 90 seconds.
Simultaneously, a shimmering golden dome snapped into existence, encapsulating the entire runic matrix. A bright number floated above it: 100.
The girls blinked in confusion.
"The shield only has 100 HP?"
"What? It'll shatter in one hit!"
Someone quickly noticed the formatting and corrected them. "No, it's a hit-count shield, not a health bar. It can take exactly one hundred hits, regardless of how much damage they do."
"Oh, that's not so bad."
Lila immediately began barking orders. "Push the perimeter out! Everyone, hold the line sixty yards from the array! Do not let a single mob slip through. Spread the summons out and anchor the four corners. Hazel, take twenty people and lock down the East. Starbloom, you're on the West..."
The guild snapped into formation, taking their assigned positions in under a minute. They stood in silence, staring out into the darkness.
Inside the golden dome, Morren sat cross-legged, chanting softly as glowing glyphs orbited his body. The shield cast a brilliant light, illuminating a 300-yard radius around the array.
The tension spiked as the timer ticked down. No one knew what was coming.
Lila watched the system clock: 5... 4... 3... 2... 1.
Shadows breached the edge of the light. Minotaurs.
[Enraged Minotaur Brute]
Level: 38
HP: 18,000,000
Physical Attack: 25,000
[Stoic Minotaur Mystic]
Level: 38
HP: 12,000,000
Magic Attack: 25,000
They were the same level as the Satyr Brutes, just slightly beefier. However, they didn't swarm all at once. Twenty Minotaurs spawned from each cardinal direction, totaling eighty mobs. They struck in waves—a new batch spawned exactly every three minutes, for a total of ten waves.
Initially, Crimson Bloom held them off relying entirely on their own rotations, keeping the boss-tier summons in reserve. But the three-minute intervals were brutal. The moment they cleared a wave, the next one crashed into their shield wall. There was zero time to rest.
By the fifth wave, the strain began to show.
"I'm out of mana for Blizzard!" a Mage yelled.
"I'm running on fumes, and my mana pots are on cooldown!"
"I need to sit and drink!"
"Incoming wave six!"
"I've got more on my side!"
"Hold the line!"
Fortunately, the vanguard consisting of Hazel, Lila, and Starbloom was practically an impenetrable wall, taking the pressure off the Priests. However, with the Mages starved for mana, the raid's overall DPS plummeted. The Minotaurs began to stack up.
By the tenth wave, over fifty Minotaurs were battering against the shield wall on all four fronts.
Yet, they couldn't break the tanks. Crimson Bloom held their ground, slowly grinding the horde down until the final Minotaur collapsed. Not a single monster managed to touch the golden dome.
System: Defense successful.
An additional prompt pinged in Lila's interface.
System: Morren has successfully repaired the matrix. He deems its current state 'acceptable,' but believes it can be reinforced even further. Do you wish to continue assisting him?
Lila hit [Yes] without a second thought.