Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 684
Chapter 684: Butterfly (4)
The Bone Dragon was the special boss of Dragonskull Mountains, just as the Draizen was to the Dreaming Waterfalls.
To be honest, I was still in disbelief. I never expected to see one with my own two eyes after having seen the Draizen not all that long ago as well.
My luck’s just nowhere to be seen.
I couldn’t help but sigh. Still, there was nothing I could do either. Since I was in this situation, I just had to try and salvage it.
Pang!
Soon enough, the breath attack slamming into my shield stopped.
“Big bro, are you alright?” Baekho whispered so that no one else could hear us. He was standing behind me after having dragged me by the nape of my neck.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Thankfully, the Bone Dragon’s breath was more like a laser beam and its width was relatively narrow. If its breath attack spread out in a wide cone like the other dragons, I would’ve taken damage in areas that I didn’t block with my shield.
“Kraaaah!”
The Bone Dragon roared as if displeased that I had blocked its breath attack.
Looking at the monster, I asked Baekho one thing. “Did you calculate it?”
“What?”
“The Petrification duration. I’m asking if you came to rescue me after calculating that in your head.”
“…No? I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I just genuinely thought that even if I couldn’t save you, I would spend our last moments—”
So he was calculating it.
I supposed there wasn’t an adventurer alive who would jump into the line of a breath attack without a plan.
“It’s fine.” I ended up smiling as I pulled off Baekho’s hand from around my neck. It didn’t change much if he really did have a plan or not. “Thank you. For coming to save me.”
He just stared at me in response.
What the? I was being pretty genuine in that apology, and now this guy decided to stay silent.
Or could it be that even he could get embarrassed?
“…So why were you so slow? This wouldn’t have happened if you just ran when the rest of us did.”
So I was right. He was embarrassed.
Feeling a little flustered after catching him out, I stood from my half-crouch. “Do you have any plans on what to do next?”
“I don’t. I just ran in to try and save you first.”
Hmm, I see.
“Still, wouldn’t it be difficult for us to try and run? Everyone got hit by Dragon Fear.”
You know… Was it just my feeling that he was trying to emphasize that I was responsible for this?
I didn’t know, but I immediately began to make excuses for myself. “Even if they hadn’t gotten hit, we wouldn’t have been able to run from it like that, anyway. The fact that it appeared out of the sky means we’ve already drawn its aggro.”
“What? Still, if we keep our distance while running—”
Oh? Talking back? “And I’m telling you that wouldn’t have worked.”
He went quiet again.
“Still, since I took its first attack and even made it use its breath attack, I could consider that two lives saved already.”
Yeah, thinking about it that way, maybe the group should be thanking me instead—
“Argh!” Baekho shouted. “Whatever, just look straight ahead!”
I turned my attention back to the front and saw that black marbles were starting to form in the air around the Bone Dragon’s sixty-foot-long body.
[Bone Dragon has cast Blessing of Black Magic.]
It was an active skill that all dragons had. Well, the others just had Blessing of Magic rather than Black Magic like the Bone Dragon. Still, even though the two skills were slightly different, it didn’t change the fact that this was a tier 1 defensive active.
As the saying went, offense was the best defense.
Fwoong!
The black marbles that had been orbiting its body like drones flashed before firing rays of mana toward us. It was like the mini versions of the Bone Dragon’s breath attack that I just defended against.
[Defense successful.]
I blocked one that was fired directly at me.
Boom!
And the ones that flew in from the sides were destroyed by Baekho’s punches.
What do I do about this…?
Thoughts swirled through my mind. Regardless, though, the goal was simple.
A dragon raid? If we succeeded, we would obtain untold rewards.
Since we weren’t in the labyrinth, it would be difficult to expect an essence from it, but the material drops of dragons were worth a considerable amount in their own right, anyway. Dragon bones and the dragon heart for starters.
Since this is a Bone Dragon, I guess it won’t drop any dragon hide…
A successful raid would also be an accomplishment, and I would be able to get one stack of the Earth Dragon’s Blessing that I obtained through the dragon tribe’s secret technique. However…
Let’s do the raid later when we are prepared for it.
Our current selves couldn’t fight that thing.
With that, our goal became very simple.
“Have you thought about it? How to escape from here.”
How to get away from the Bone Dragon, which already had max aggro on us, without dying.
I began to command the battle as I thought over our options.
“We’ll help as well!”
“One at a time!” I ordered. “Don’t come closer all at once, just one person at a time!”
First, I made the members outside the range of Dragon Fear enter one at a time to decrease the risks as much as possible. The difficulty would skyrocket if multiple people got taken out by the debuff at the same time.
[There is a difference in power. Lek Aures is Petrified for 10 seconds.]
The ordered entry into the field would reduce our disadvantages even when the second fear happened since Dragon Fear was a passive that would be reapplied after a certain amount of time passed. I needed to construct the plan so that I could take into mind the intervals at which each person was taken out of commission.
“You won’t have to worry about me.”
The element of surprise came in Fallen Gramps. He wasn’t affected by the field even when he entered it.
Gramps is level ten as well…?
Of course, since wizards and priests couldn’t eat essences, their levels didn’t mean much. However, that didn’t mean that levels didn’t exist for them. They gained experience points like everyone else when they defeated monsters.
For some reason, only the warriors are Petrified.
Another surprising part was that excluding me and Aures, the rest were hit by Paralysis which was the debuff for level nines.
[Although small, there is a difference in power. Jaina Flyer is Paralyzed for 10 seconds.]
The priest of Karui was level nine.
[Although small, there is a difference in power. Yurven Harvellion is Paralyzed for 10 seconds.]
Even GM, who I heard hadn’t entered the labyrinth for many years, was level nine.
…So these guys really are the veteran team.
The desire to live more diligently in the future and the thought to get out of this situation in one piece coexisted in my mind.
“Havellion, Ruingenes. I have something to ask the two of you.”
To carry out the plan that I had suddenly thought up, I asked the two wizards one thing. The two of them also responded positively.
“…It is possible.”
“Are you thinking of using that magic to escape?”
Ah, of course, only the answer was positive, their reaction wasn’t. Everyone didn’t seem to have much faith in my plan.
“Well… Is that really possible…?”
“Do you have another plan?”
They didn’t respond.
Don’t complain if you don’t have anything else in mind.
“What’s with everyone? I don’t think this is a bad plan at all,” Baekho complained. “Don’t misunderstand. We’re not in a position to be picky about this.”
Still, with Baekho’s positive support, it was settled.
With that, we just needed to enact it.
“Behel—LAAAAA!”
As the wizards began to draw the magic circle, I let out my battle cry and charged forward. Baekho was right behind me.
We had only one goal from that point.
“Baron, you do know, right? If we want to do that, we need to deal at least 10 percent of that bastard’s health in damage.”
“I know.”
We needed to get past the Bone Dragon’s first phase. Without our two wizards, with just the five of us.
“And you also know that if your plan fails, we’ll have to go with Plan B, right?” When I didn’t respond, Baekho said, “Don’t worry. I’ve prepared Plan B already.”
Just what was Baekho’s Plan B? I was somewhat curious—
“Even in the worst case scenarios, those who need to live will need to live.”
Suddenly, I didn’t want to hear it. I wouldn’t need to know if Plan A succeeded in the first place.
“I’ll be borrowing your shoulder!”
As we got closer to the Bone Dragon, Baekho used my shoulder as a ramp to jump upward.
Fwoong!
The black orbs floating around the dragon fired a flurry of lasers toward Baekho, but he stepped into the air like doing acrobatics and dodged the attacks.
Boom!
He even landed a bold uppercut to the Bone Dragon’s jaw.
“Graaaah!”
Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to do too much damage.
Vwoong!
The arrows being fired from behind us also didn’t do much damage, but Jaina was more focused on supporting us than dealing damage.
Aures is closer to a pure tank in the first place…
Since his expected damage output was low, he was stationed at the back. His role in this raid was to tank the hits fired toward the wizards, the archer, and the priest.
…Baekho just had to not have access to that skill either.
As the battle continued, I grew more worried about our weak damage output. Baekho didn’t have his Stellar Extinction right now, and our main damage dealers were the wizards. However, the wizards were not in combat since they had to draw the magic circle.
And it wouldn’t have changed much even if they did join.
Until phase three, the wizards couldn’t do much except support.
The Bone Dragon was still a dragon after all, and all dragons had a cheat trait that gave them 100 percent magic damage immunity until they reached phase three.
[Leyton Bryat has cast Ability Overlap.]
[Leyton Bryat has cast Increase Tension.]
[Leyton Bryat has cast Increase Tension…]
Thus, we only had Baekho and Bryat as our damage dealers.
No, I guess it’s three with me?
With that, I put my empty hand into the sub-space.
[You have equipped No. 687, Siege Slaughterer. Overall Item Level has increased by +2,800.]
I took the three seconds of sub-space delay to equip the new weapon I had obtained not long ago.
[Strength stat has increased by 40%.]
[Agility stat has decreased by 80%.]
I used my noticeably slower body to swing the iron mace as hard as I could.
Boom!
At least for today…
[You have cast Swing.]
[Your Strength stat is over 1,200. Dealing double damage to enemies with over 90% HP.]
I was the main damage dealer.
***
One minute, two minutes, three minutes…
Up to that point, things weren’t all that bad. It just felt like I was doing some hard manual labor, like raising my pickaxe and swinging down on an indestructible piece of ore.
Five minutes, though. That was when I felt the battle become significantly more difficult.
As time passed, Dragon Fear activated again and Petrified me, and I nearly died from a few direct frontal assaults. I only survived thanks to the heals from our priest.
The Bone Dragon’s back leg I had been focusing on still looked fine.
Ten minutes.
Our archer, Leyton Bryat, who had been using skills nonstop with his arrows, finally ran out of MP. However, with the wizards having finished their magic circle, his loss wasn’t debilitating thanks to their support.
The Bone Dragon’s back legs looked a little worse for wear.
Twelve minutes.
Jaina ran out of resources, so the heals coming my and Aures’s way were dropped.
One good news was that I got pretty used to switching the iron mace in and out from my sub-space. Now, it only took around two seconds for me to swap weapons.
Ah, and the Bone Dragon’s back leg looked pretty beat up too.
Seventeen minutes.
After tanking all the long-ranged attacks up to that point, Aures finally couldn’t take it anymore and collapsed.
The Bone Dragon’s back leg began to show cracks.
Twenty-one minutes.
Baekho took a huge blow while trying to save me when I got Petrified again. Since the guy splitting the aggro of the dragon was taken out, it was several times harder for me to hit it with my iron mace.
However, it really wasn’t much longer now.
Twenty-two minutes.
I couldn’t block an attack and took massive damage. I thought I’d gotten used to its attack pattern, but I got hit with a mix-up when my guard was lowered.
Twenty-three minutes.
Because Aures was out of commission, one of our backlines got injured—Jaina, the priest of Karui. It seemed that she got hit straight in the stomach by a laser, and I couldn’t tell if she was alive or not.
Twenty-four minutes.
After drinking potions in the back, Baekho rejoined the battle, which increased the amount of swings I got in with my iron mace.
I figured I should only think about one thing and one thing alone from now on.
I swung the mace and put it into the sub-space. I then used my lightened body to step to the side and dodge its front claw attack.
I repeated this process again and again.
Twenty-five minutes.
Baekho revealed Plan B.
And it was useless as hell.
He said that it was fine now and we should just run with the Fallen Scholar, just the three of us, and I kindly reminded him that this was the reason he didn’t have any friends.
Twenty-six minutes.
I swung the iron mace. I was tired.
Twenty-seven minutes.
I swung the iron mace. I felt like I was going to die.
Twenty-eight minutes.
I swung the iron mace. I probably didn’t have much MP left at this point.
Did we really need to use Plan B?
…Don’t even think about it.
Whatever, I swung my iron—
Huh?
I got the feeling that the strike felt different than before, and I saw the dragon’s back leg, which was littered with cracks at this point, finally shatter as it collapsed to the ground.
Twenty-nine minutes.
Finally, one of the dragon’s legs was destroyed. It meant that we achieved our goal.
One of four legs, a horn, its wings—in the game, if one of these broke, it meant that the Bone Dragon had lost 10 percent of its HP.
[Bone Dragon has cast Magical Summit.]
Phase one was over.
[The effect of all magic cast within the range is increased by 10X.]
I didn’t even need to give the order. As if having waited just for this moment, the two wizards activated the magic circle.
[Belbev Ruingenes has cast the rank 4 space magic Mass Teleport.]
Sure, it was a spell that had been used multiple times… But there was a reason it was used so often, you know.
Shine!
When using a magic circle within the areas of Magical Summit, it could teleport us somewhere ten times as far as usual. To put it simply, we could even move from here to the Primordial Land. Even this guy wouldn’t be able to follow—
“(Where do you think you’re going?)”
“…Huh?” Did I just hear that right?
[Bone Dragon has cast Dispel.]
No, wait.
Bone Dragon…is using Dispel…? This wasn’t in the game…?
My mind went blank.
Ba-dump!
[Belbev Ruingenes’s mana stat is above 1,000. Although the effect is weak, Belbev Ruingenes has successfully resisted the Bone Dragon’s Dispel.]
Flash!
But for some reason, the special effect unique to teleporting manifested as a bright light that encased everyone.
[Imperfect casting.]
[You are moved to a random coordinate.]