The golem was an easy target, being within range but not sure where Sam was as there were now several paths of steps, Sam got in the needed attacks before it managed to find out where to hit, although it did try to beam some seemingly random locations. Sam took a note of this for the others to have a hand or two make fake steps to the sides so he wouldn’t randomly get hit.
Getting the core before moving on, he got to the first little side room. It was more like a nook into the wall of the ‘tower’, almost like the side bulge in a tunnel where you can stop. There was a bronze mirror-like contraption which was entirely frozen over. The guide explained that he should thaw it and not hammer at it as the latter might break the mirror surface. Luckily enough he had a fiery axe he could just hold against it, and though it took a while it was safe and non-damaging, freeping up the contraption the mirror was standing on.
Now that it was free and reflective, he was able to bounce some light coming from seemingly nowhere to go up towards the next one, though due to the nook’s material construction, it was strangely hard to aim, as the bleed light from it would bounce off the irregular ice-like walls and make it hard to see. The guides accounted for this as well but suggested someone standing outside of the room to explain where to aim.
Sam worked around this by having his Psyhands move the mirror, it had some cranks to move it back and forth and now that everything was thawed, there weren’t any problems with moving them. He got it aimed where he needed to easily enough now that the problems were gone.
Once that was done, he moved on, he had 9 more mirrors to move and a lot of height to cover. But instead, he opted to take a break, he had been moving and working on this for hours and needed some energy before the climb.
He considered doing it easy and heating some food on the axe, as it was fire and all that, he had also used it as a weapon for a while without cleaning it so... That was ignored in favour of the camp stove. He cooked up a little meal with something warm to drink, taking a small stool out of his Item Box to sit on while he worked on things. All in all, it was surprisingly calm and nice.
“Hey, Janik, can you hear me?” Sam tried the walkie-talkie as he sat there, cooking.
There was no reply besides some heavily staticky garbled noise, it sounded like there was talking in there but it was impossible to hear a single word.
“Well, if you can hear me, I can’t hear you but, I’m safe and good and going up the tower now should reach the boss in a few hours or so.”
He didn’t know if that would go through but he hoped that Janik could hear him at least. However, if this came through as garbled on his side as well... Then he might have the wrong ideas and think something horrible was going on.
They were too far away to see each other live-stats in the System, he didn’t know what the range or conditions for that was, but if he had died the System wouldn’t display it as it was.
Hoping that things were positive he continued with his break before packing down and continuing.
Having figured out the trick with the Golems, the rest of the path up was surprisingly uneventful. He dedicated a few pairs of hands to ‘walk’ before him, faking out some attacks, he then had them move to the sides so the Golem started using its ground slam or beamed to those sides as Sam stood as far away as he could and swung at the Golem until it died. A few managed to find out something was going on but besides on rogue beam, none of the following 15 Golems landed a single hit on him.
Thawing and moving the mirrors was also not a problem as he made sure to kill the Golems so they didn’t get to do anything once he left a room.
The damage was easily healed after the fight and he found himself at the top. There were only 17 Golems in total, which means that there were 7 unaccounted-for monsters. This annoyed him more than he expected it to. They were most likely in the Glacier or Chasm zones, it was very easy to hide there after all. Having used about two hours and many small breaks to get up here, he had no interest in going back to find them.
Taking a final break, he made something warm to drink again as he read through the guide material for the boss again, just to be sure.
There were three phases. The first phase had it turn around and thrash a lot, freezing the area it was in and using its tail a lot. The second phase was worse, it dived into the ice and reappeared from under the ice like a shark breaking the water after prey, you only get a few seconds to react as the icy ground is reacting to the movement of the water underneath. Then the last phase where it coils around the arena and slowly makes it smaller as it breathes frost on the Players within, crushing them in the end even if they can survive the frost.
There were some tips for the Phases. Tips for the first one is to have someone with enough elemental defence to take the focus and handle the Breath. The others in the party should just attack it as much as possible. It’s kind of dumb so that’s the most common strategy unless you had something that could block the breath entirely. The tail can be jumped or dodged, but it’s quite tall and thick so flight might be needed for that.
In the second phase, it doesn’t see too well through the ice, so if you could throw around something heavy or somehow ‘stomp on the ice elsewhere’, it would draw aggro and have it come up over there.
In the third it becomes a similar race as the first, just that it’s harder to dodge, you have a limited timer on you before it crushes you. So focusing on defence was important here.
The guide states that the Leviathan has 3100 health and 150 Defence. It has this health per phase, bringing it to zero resets it back to 3100 and starts the next phase. This part Sam didn’t see before, he skimmed through it and somewhat got that it had -only- 3100 health in total.
Well, either it couldn’t see him, giving him a good attempt at staying hidden, or it could detect him and he’d just use all his hands for combat. He had gone too far to turn back now, he also had 11 D-rank potions, so hopefully he had needed backup...
Having packed up the mini camp he set up and double-checked everything, he opened the ice door which triggered the transport into the boss arena.
The white light faded and Sam found himself in a gigantic arena, it was somewhat round with mountains all around, much like standing in a frozen-over volcano caldera. There was some wind and snow but it wasn’t enough to limit visibility to the other side.
In the middle sat a titanic serpent-like creature. It had crystalline scales and jagged icy fins and was lightly glowing with frost emanating from its mouth. Though the caldera they both found themselves in was twice the size of two football fields put together, it looked long enough to reach around the outer perimeter of it.
[ Glacial Leviathan
Level: 45
STR: 48
DEX: 5
VIT: 40
SPT: 0
HP: 3100 / 3100
Damage: Claw 159, Tail 212, Bite 318, Cryo Breath 100.
Defence: 150
Abilities: HP boon, STR dmg boon, Cryo Breath attack, Frostquake, Elemental Resistance. ]
[ Cryo Breath: Exhale a conical freezing attack. ]
[ Frostquake: Shake the ground creating icy fissures. ]
[ Elemental Resistance: 50% Elemental Resistance. ]
Sam didn’t wait, he needed to get closer. His unaugmented range was much shorter than the football field they had between them.
Running to the left he activated Invisibility, whereafter he turned to the right while dedicating to Psyhands to fake-running in the same direction he originally ran.
This seemed to work as the first breath attack came towards the fake runner, hitting nothing of importance. Sam had to despawn and re-manifest the two hands as, though undamaged, they were caught in the icy prison of its breath. Continuing the fake running worked for now as a tail came down in a vertical slap towards them. Sam could feel the immense pressure hit them like someone sitting on his hands. But since they couldn’t take any damage he was luckily fine.
The creature had noticed the second runner, Sam, coming towards it, turning its gaze towards him it inhaled and exhaled a blizzard at him. Throwing himself to the side, the vigorous movement broke Invisibility, this just had the leviathan fling its tail after him.
Struggling to get up, he didn’t have much chance to dodge the tail, it crushed him against the ice beneath him.
[ Armour, Defence 55 has lowered the damage. ]
[ HP: 98 / 250 ████?????? ]
Taking out a potion he chugged that as he got back on his feet and ran with all his might.
[ HP: 223 / 250 ████████?? ]
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The tail was lifted up but not before he got a full volley into it. Several crits, the Void Fang, Emberslash Blade and Vampiric Blade triggered their bonuses. Penetrating a little more damage, setting the target on fire as well as absorbing one health from it, Void Fang always triggered its 5-health drain, giving him 6hp recharge this round. And Static Charge did its pulse. The Leviathan being on fire didn’t last long, it was covered in ice, and snow and was generally extremely cold so that didn’t do anything.
[ Leviathan HP: 1842 / 3100 ]
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 5 damage.]
As the tail recoiled from the damage, Sam stored his weapons and activated Invisibility, he fake-ran ahead with two Psyhands as he changed direction, not as dramatic this time but he needed to get closer. But he also needed to stay hidden, so he did his best to move around fast but silently, a paradoxical concept to someone as lacking in skill as him.
However, it worked like last time. A breath attack came first, followed by a powerful tail slap. Sam, keeping his Invisibility, attacked with the rest of his hands as the tail came into range.
[ Leviathan HP: 1316 / 3100 ]
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 10 damage.]
Void Rot was stacking, no other abilities triggered and there were no critical hits. However, as he put the weapons back in the box and fake ran away, opting to stand still with his actual body, his fakeout seemed to work.
The Leviathan let out a roar as it slapped down its tail a bit of distance away and started swiping it along the ground towards Sam. There was no chance to avoid this other than up.
[ Telekinetic Boost active, 13 seconds remaining. ]
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 10 damage.]
He lifted himself straight up, deactivating the skill as he reached the needed height but after the tail had swept under him. This ordeal used three seconds but as the tail swept past he got a chance to send another limited volley towards the tail.
A few weapons were missed due to the suddenness of the attack, as well as the tail already moving away from him, but the Bleeding Edge triggered its bleeding attack!
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 15 damage.]
[ Target has taken bleed damage: 5 damage.]
[ Leviathan HP: 855 / 3100 ]
Sam’s landing was less than stellar, he felt fine but realised he had to fake-land several other places as well. Storing his weapons he Force Pulsed a few places on the ice to simulate a hard landing, which didn’t seem to be enough. He was also slightly annoyed to realize that Silent Hunter didn’t trigger.
The tail came back down vertically, Sam had just landed, hard, so dodging didn’t do much on the slippery ice.
[ Armour, Defence 55 has lowered the damage. ]
[ HP: 77 / 250 ███??????? ]
Realizing that this was, sadly, a very good opportunity, Sam dismissed Invisibility and manifested his full arsenal as he used his normal hands to drink a potion.
The potion did its job instantly as the swarm aimed for the tail.
The volley was devastating. Several critical hits, the Void Fang being one of them. Many activated abilities increased damage and made the situation worse, all in all, this ended up doing just above a thousand damage after all resistances were calculated.
Sam got the time to fill his health by chugging another potion as he got to his feet while the Leviathan screamed out in pain, thrashing around like it was being electrocuted. This made large cracks in the ice and forced Sam to widen his stance so he wouldn’t fall.
The thrashing ended up with the Leviathan diving through the ice with its head, pulling the long tail after it into the water below through a surprisingly long-winded movement, it was quite long after all.
Sam reactivated his Invisibility right away, remembering the tactics suggested by the Guide. This was going to be surprisingly easy. He manifested two sets of hands, using only two Energy. Using the rest to extend the range of his Area to its max he used those hands to fake-step in the distance as he stood still.
He could see a massive, terrifying shadow under the water. It was deep, very deep. And due to its length down there, it was hard to see what the head, tail or just a part in between as it moved back and forth.
Suddenly there was a weak push of the ice on top of the water near one of his hand pairs. It didn't take long before the ice exploded upwards as his hands were attacked and eaten. Luckily he could just despawn them and respawn them alongside his weapons. He had to deactivate invisibility to get the entire wave out, sending them at the exposed head.
A few crits, but many misses. Sam didn’t fully expect the creature to stop with only its head sticking out before pulling back. Giving him exactly one attack all of a sudden. It was again set on fire but it just came out of the water so that stopped before it started.
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 5 damage.]
[ Leviathan HP: 2388 / 3100 ]
He was not happy seeing that the Void Rot and Bleed was reset, but how the Static Charge cooldown had not... At least he got another Rot one going. The bleed was trigger chance but the Void Rot always happened. He could feel the weird energies of the Void Fang trying to attack his hand but it didn’t matter, putting his weapons back in the Item Box, the Leviathan pulled his head down as Sam activated Invisibility, moving his location.
Sam left a pair of hands in the area the Leviathan saw him stand in just now and did his best to avoid being tracked to his new location by walking. The Leviathan kept circling underwater for a while.
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 5 damage.]
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 5 damage.]
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 5 damage.]
Sam was fine with this, if it just kept circling down there it’d eventually die.
Like before, the ice suddenly bulged, and to Sam’s glee, it was still around one of his fake locations. This time he was more prepared and as soon as it broke the ice he dismissed his Invisibility and delivered a new volley!
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 10 damage.]
[ Leviathan HP: 2363 / 3100 ]
Not many things triggered this time, which was a shame. However, since he was prepared this time he had a chance to strike the head as it was pulling it back down. Since this was done hastily and during a weird movement a considerable amount of weapons missed their target.
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 15 damage.]
[ Leviathan HP: 1815 / 3100 ]
Void Rot was slowly ticking away and stacking as it should, the power of S-rank weapons was becoming very clear.
As it disappeared down yet again, Sam repeated his process. Invisibility, running, walking carefully and faking several stepping areas.
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 15 damage.]
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 15 damage.]
Yet again, he was ecstatic that it worked as planned. The ice again bulged out and the Leviathan came out, letting him get a proper attack at it. Again most of his attacks landed properly, Void Rot got another stack going and Sam was feeling good.
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 20 damage.]
[ Leviathan HP: 885 / 3100 ]
As Sam was preparing for the next attempt at a lucky shot, the Leviathan didn’t pull its head down but had already aimed at him and inhaled. The only thing Sam saw was a blizzard of breath enveloping him as it almost solidified. He tried to dodge to the side but it was too late.
[ HP: 150 / 250 ██████???? ]
Thinking that this was manageable, he just needed one more attack, he noticed one major problem. Though he was still alive, his leg was frozen to the icy ground.
As the mist around him faded, letting him see the Leviathan properly again it opened its mouth and came at him for a bite. A bite that was expected to do 318 damage before defence.
In his panic, Sam chugged a potion as he sent his swarm of weapons towards the creature hoping to do enough damage.
