343 I Alone am Worth Thousands of you

– 2047!

Everyone's mouth dropped upon seeing the ridiculous damage. Their Mages were already considered powerful, but they were barely scraping fifty-plus damage each, betting at their numbers to bring the boss's hit points down.

Just how high was Ren's INT to be able to ditch that amount of damage?

"Care to enlighten me on how we are going to kill him again?" Eric asked his sister.

Erica pouted, and her forehead creased. "He must have poured all his EXP to INT, so his DEF must be low. Have you seen his HP and MP bar? They're only in the three hundred."

Though Erica thought that something wasn't right since she saw before, inside Jibblinplip interiors, that Ren's HP was in the 600. Was she merely hallucinating then?

Eric could only shake his head. "Uncertainty is a dangerous thing. We don't thread in that path.

". . ."

"But I guess that we don't have to kill him after all," Eric added as he nodded in their members' direction.

Erica roved her gaze and found that with just Ren's single shot, the tense and hateful aura the other players directed at him was gone, completely replaced by acknowledgment and hope.

Finally, they could kill the boss! All of them thought. It was written all over their faces. With Ren's help, their chances of finally killing the Thunder King, the boss who had given them countless nightmares, heartaches, pain, and frustration, would finally be achieved.

The tide of the battle shifted, and due to that four-digit damage, White Unicorns' morale increased.

At Ren's awesome display of power, those who ridiculed him before now finally understood why he had come alone and why his pay was so astronomical.

It was because he alone was already equivalent to thousands of them!

"Death's Cavalry has a very long cooldown," said Ren when he felt that all stopped attacking the boss and only stared at him with gaping mouths. "I suggest that you don't stop attacking it while I wait for the end of my spells cooldown."

At Ren's voice, Ivan woke from his daze and immediately shouted, "G-group 2, rain hell upon it, while group 1, take mana potions and recharge your spells. Don't forget to watch your weapons' durability! Group 3, be ready and change positions with group 2 once their spells are in cooldown!"

At Ivan's booming voice, the others were also brought back to reality. They immediately assumed their position and attacked the Thunder King from its blind spots.

Once the Thunder King was engaged, it could only alternate between Hurricane Winds, Lightning Strike, and Rolling Thunder since it couldn't summon two regional weather effects at the same time.

Lightning Strike and Rolling Thunder could easily be avoided. The most troublesome of all of its weathering spells was the Hurricane Winds. It would fling around not just projectiles but also tier-one spells that most mages have at their current level, like Fire, Water, Air, Earth, and Ice.

So, whenever Hurricane Winds was summoned, all range attacks would cease, and the melee units would take control of the battlefield.

Usually, because the Thunder King was too tall, regular tier-one spells wouldn't even reach its arms. Those spells, after reaching their peak height, would accelerate downward due to gravity, following the rule of physics.

White Unicorns was prepared for that, though. Within their inventory were siege machines, like Ballistas, Flame Thrower, and Catapults, all of which could perfectly hit their target even if it was from a hundred meters away.

Those machines were only available through the guild features, and they weren't just something acquired through a shop in town. They were machines exclusive to guilds.

The ballistas were loaded with arrows, while the Flame Throwers were loaded with four balls of concentrated fire. There were also bombs, which would serve as the bullet of the catapults. All of this ammunition was also acquired through the Guild features.

Not only were they expensive, but they were also one-time use. White Unicorns really spent so much in this campaign — all the more reason for them to get that second-tier spell as well as the rewards for first-blood.

However, despite White Unicorns' best efforts, the Thunder King only treated the players like pests. Until it had received serious damage, then its focus would only be on the destruction of everything around it.

Of course, it wasn't a pushover and wouldn't just take all of the players' attacks without retaliation. Its left arm grabbed players and used Throw to get them out of the battlefield.

Everyone who suffered from Throw received blunt damage more than their current HP, so they died instantly.

On the other hand, the Thunder King's legs surprisingly kept away from the range of slow melee characters with incredible agility despite the difficult terrain. It would sometimes leap to a distance and deal devastating damage around the space where it landed.

Voice of Thunder would then follow its attacks. A loud roaring sound made its way into the players' ears, almost bursting their eardrums. Those who were close to it sensed what was going to happen, so they managed to [Blink] a few meters back, successfully evading critical damage. There was damage and Stun, but nevertheless, the White Mages were there to cover for them quickly.

After that, the players attacked again, determined to reduce the Thunder King's HP to zero as soon as possible. The more they attacked it, the more the Thunder King retaliated using Two-handed Fighting and Cleaving Striker, reducing White Unicorns' numbers.

The Thunder King was a master of collateral damage, and it would try to attack as many targets as possible, including those who were not attacking it.

The only thing that saved White Unicorns from total annihilation was their incorporation of status effects in their attacks. Since the Thunder King wasn't immune to a lot of status effects and its LCK wasn't high enough to deflect it, using magic and items that cause status effects were very effective. Knowing this, White Unicorns used it to their advantage.

Although it wasn't much, it gave them extra seconds to inflict more damage on the giant without suffering from its retaliation.

As Ren looked over at the fight, he estimated that it wouldn't be long until White Unicorn finally let him take control. His strategy was even simpler than this, yet they just had to take the much more difficult route.

( . . . continuation on NOTES)