Your Commander-in-Chief – Chapter 88

A week has passed since the new raid opened.

Which means, once today is over, the raid dungeon will reset.

Countless raid parties have attempted to challenge [Plague City Fest], but not a single one has cleared it.

My squishy, bouncy raid party is also stuck on the final boss, [Source of the Corrupted Plague].

The massive beast draped in green plague energies was silently glaring at the party members.

How many tries has it been now? I couldn’t remember the exact number.

I had a vague recollection that it had exceeded 70.

“Ugh…”

I’m feeling drained. It felt like standing before an insurmountable wall.

If I felt this way, would the other party members feel any different?

Dark shadows were cast across the faces of the party members as well.

Now’s the time for the party leader to muster some strength.

After all, I am the leader who guides all these people.

The break time was over. I stood up and spoke.

“Everyone, get ready.”

At my words, the party members got up and began preparing their buffs.

The main tank, Dogrik, also rose, gripping his shield tightly.

“I’m going in.”

Thus, the battle against the final boss began.

[Are you back to die again? I’m getting really tired of this.]

The Source of Plague, bleeding Corrupted Blood, slowly approached with its massive body.

The molten blood dripped to the floor, scattering plague energy around.

This was the basic pattern of the plague.

As the battle dragged on, this boss room would fill to the brim with the plague energy released by the beast.

There was no way to clear the plague energy. The personnel attacking the plague had to fight while burdened with the debuff [Corrupted Blood].

As time passed, the stacks of Corrupted Blood would increase.

If too many stacks accumulated, the continuous damage would become unmanageable for even the healers, making detox potions and cure skills essential.

But even that was just a temporary measure. Detox potions and cure skills couldn’t completely remove Corrupted Blood.

They merely reset the stack count.

The most basic strategy against the plague.

Maintain as many stacks of Corrupted Blood as you can personally handle.

The main tank, taking the boss’s hits, would accumulate Corrupted Blood stacks more quickly.

Thus, all healer’s cure skills had to be directed towards the main tank.

As the wizard and warlock’s ranged skills flew in, the warrior and thief’s blades tore into the plague’s body.

With each attack, green blood dripped down to the ground and spread in all directions.

When the plague’s health dropped to 80%, the swamp of plague pattern activated.

The gigantic plague would fully melt away, flooding the entire boss room and severely reducing user movement speed.

At this time, the rate of accumulation for Corrupted Blood would double, requiring careful calculation of detox potion cooldowns.

But the swamp of plague pattern didn’t end there.

The melted plague would manipulate its body, raising colossal waves towards the users.

It wasn’t a challenging pattern. A red area would appear before the waves struck.

Using charge skills or blinking would be enough to avoid it.

“Wave pattern!”

With my warning, a red mark appeared on the ground.

The attack range of the wave was revealing itself.

The wizards within the wave’s range quickly used blink or deployed their protective ice wall skills.

They successfully evaded the wave pattern, but the dealers’ health was looking ragged.

The stacks of Corrupted Blood had become excessive.

As the swamp of plague slowly began to dissipate, all members used detox and health potions.

And then, the attack resumed.

The plague would use the swamp of plague pattern every time its health dropped by 10%.

If they miscalculated their damage and failed to manage the detox potion cooldowns, the soon-to-ramp up Corrupted Blood from the swamp of plague would take them out.

Therefore, they had to deal damage until just before the plague activated the swamp of plague pattern, timing all the party members’ detox potion cooldowns.

After adjusting the timing with the party members to bring the plague’s health down to 50%, the next pattern would emerge.

It was the doppelganger pattern.

“Plague health at 50%! Doppelganger pattern starting!”

With the main tank’s warning, the plague’s body melted down to the floor.

Immediately after, [Plague’s Doppelganger] appeared in the center of the boss room.

This doppelganger had the same specs as the plague but didn’t use any special skills.

As the sub-tank, who was waiting to the side, directed the doppelganger to the corner, a red mark appeared over the group of dealers.

It was the wave pattern.

But this wasn’t a regular wave pattern. The plague that spawned the doppelganger used not one, but two wave attacks.

Two waves crashing down caused the dealers to perish.

Two waves hitting consecutively. Due to the randomly generated attack range, if luck ran out, another wave could crash down exactly where someone just blinked to.

This time, 5 people died. The healers, using detox potions on themselves while also curing the main and sub tanks, had no time to use resurrection skills.

Helena’s Time Acceleration skill didn’t apply to resurrection-related skills, so it wouldn’t help at all.

“Focus on boss damage!”

After the swamp of plague pattern ended, the plague appeared again.

I warned the dealers loudly. With the doppelganger looking exactly like the boss, there were times when people would mistakenly hit the doppelganger instead.

Once the plague’s health dropped to 30%, the final pattern would activate.

The doppelganger summoned by the plague would transform into a massive whirlwind of plague, intensely chasing a single user.

The whirlwind’s range was lengthy and it moved quickly, so only a limited number of people would be able to dribble it.

If the doppelganger was taken down before the plague’s health reached 30%, this whirlwind pattern wouldn’t appear.

Instead, the gore that spilled from the fallen doppelganger would cover the entire map, accelerating the stack time of the debuff.

The doppelganger wasn’t meant to be defeated. It was a pattern designed to have you lead the whirlwind around.

I took on the job of managing the whirlwind. I had the [Charge], [Jump Slam], and [Flight] skills, along with a Berserker passive that made my movement speed the fastest.

With the whirlwind pattern began the wave pattern.

The consecutive crashing waves of plague and the users who couldn’t predict the whirlwind’s movement area were getting cleaved.

Too many dealers had died.

If the damage was lacking, the battle would drag on. This also meant the mana of the healers, who had to constantly heal, would run dry quickly.

Retry.

Again!

*

The promised time of 10 o’clock was approaching.

In the end, we still couldn’t overcome the wall of the plague today.

“Haah- everyone did great. Let’s disband~”

I had to say something that wouldn’t fall from my mouth. It was a line I didn’t want to say.

But what could I do? The promised time was nearly here.

The party members looked disappointed, but they didn’t have the guts to suggest trying again with those who had spare time.

As we were about to use the return stone to head back together, suddenly, the distinctive hit sound rang out, and my body turned green.

Naturally, using the return stone was cancelled as well.

“What’s going on?”

I noticed the debuff [Corrupted Blood] activating at the bottom of my screen.

We hadn’t even entered the boss room yet. The boss, the plague, was also standing still in place.

It was inexplicable. Why on earth had I been afflicted with Corrupted Blood?

“What’s going on…?”

“Did someone start the boss fight?”

The entire raid party was in a panic. They too seemed clueless as to why this was happening.

I frowned.

I couldn’t use the return stone while afflicted by [Corrupted Blood].

This debuff was one that couldn’t be cleared even with cure and detox potions, meaning I had to die once to remove it.

Of course, dying wasn’t the only option. The [Corrupted Blood] debuff would disappear upon leaving the dungeon.

But we had already gone deep into the raid dungeon. Who would walk all the way back to the entrance?

“This is a bug. Looks like we all have to die once.”

At my words, everyone nodded in agreement. They had chosen to die with me.

I left those words and dashed outside the building.

The plague’s boss room was the highest point on this map.

Jumping off the building meant I would inevitably die from falling damage.

The party members thinking the same as me followed suit, jumping off the building behind me.

And just like that, 40 people hit the ground, coloring the area gray.

While I lay on the cold ground surveying the party members, an extremely out-of-place presence caught my eye.

A small demon adorned with the [Corrupted Blood] debuff icon was scuttling around.

The demon, splattering green blood everywhere, was an Imp, summoned and carried around by Hell Priests.

It seemed likely that this petite Imp had spread the Corrupted Blood to the party members.

As the revived party members confirmed their [Corrupted Blood] debuff had cleared, they quickly used the return stone to vanish.

I watched from a bit of a distance as they disappeared.

The Hell Priests, who had been carrying the Imps, also immediately utilized the return stones.

There wasn’t an Imp to be seen around them. It appeared that the skill had cleared upon resurrection.

I cautiously asked Chloe, who was just using her return stone.

“Chloe?”

“Yes?”

“Do those Imps you summon and carry around have no health at all?”

“Uh, probably? If I die, I die, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Imp die.”

Chloe said that and vanished with a flash of light.

I hurriedly sent a message to Chloe.

Yeo- [Chloe, have you summoned an Imp yet?]

Chloe- [An Imp? I’ll summon one now.]

Then there followed a brief silence.

I cautiously typed to Chloe again.

Yeo- [Chloe?]

It seemed like something had gone wrong.

I hurriedly used the return stone.

After a long casting time, I was transported with a burst of light to Lunaris Capital City.

The moment I arrived at the return location, the familiar hit sound played and green blood splattered in front of me.

Plick-

Turning to look back, I saw green blood flowing down the body of the NPC managing the return stone.

The NPC had been afflicted with the [Corrupted Blood] debuff.