Dungeon Core Online 170 Chapter 170

The way Z's guild had lit up at his mention of a shrubbery really made James glad he'd watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He was also extremely happy that it seemed AI were able to make pop culture references. After all, Rue made them all the time, so he figured it was fine for him to make them as well. Artificial Intelligence was still intelligence, and he knew the developers had already put a lot of pop culture and references into the game.

The Knight's learning of their potential for a shrubbery, and automatically going in character, had readily agreed to James's request. He needed them to stall that dragon. Because they were his strongest adventurers, he was leaving it up to them to keep the dragon from getting too close for comfort, and ultimately keeping it away from James. In the meantime, James needed to wait roughly three minutes for what he had in mind. Because he had a brilliant, mad thought on how to bring that dragon down, and make it a lot easier for his players to kill it.

"Oy, Boss Slayers, let's go kill a dragon." Oak's voice echoed out as his guild ran towards their destination. James happened to know those two guilds got along quite well, and he also knew Skar and Oak had a friendly rivalry going on at times with regards to their tanking ability. The other members of both parties had also seemed to get along quite well.

"Do you guys have a plan?" Skar called back. He was standing with his party in a group of players, all watching the dragon as it rapidly approached. James was guessing it was going to be within range of attacking in less than 10 seconds.

"Yeah, we just need some essence." The Knights were yelling as they ran, adventurers parting from in their way as they ran. Already, James could see some of his mages preparing their spells. They were going to do what they could to blast that dragon before it got too close.

"How much?" The Boss Slayers began following the Knights as they spoke. All the while, James was doing his best not to seem too cowardly as he moved further away from the World Boss that was approaching. The beast was still locked onto him, and he could practically feel its bloodlust. James had played the Monster Hunter games before. He knew exactly what it felt like to have a dragon chasing you down… it was not a pleasant experience.

"The Mad Mage says we're going to need 10 essence each, for the five of us." Oak continued as they neared their destination. The had been rushing towards the mech station. As, James had decided to tell them what exactly that thing did. The Mech station allowed players to create a mech suit for themselves, at the cost of 10 essence currently, per player. If 5 players each used 10 essence on it, from the details James had from when he built it, an even larger mech, copiloted by all 5, could be summoned. Apparently, the station had upgrade features allowing even stronger and more expensive mechs to be created. But currently, James had only the first form of it.

"So are we supposed to help fight a dragon? Or gather essence for you guys?" Skar was glancing at Oak, as the Dread knight eyed the mech station.
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"Oh, we have no problem gathering the essence. We want you guys to stall the dragon while we do it though." Oak grinned even as a group of players came up to Z. From the corner of his eye, James saw them make a motion like they were pulling up their menu, and he guessed they were trading their essence to Z. He wasn't sure what exactly they were trading for the essence, or even who the players were, but Z had assured James he would be able to get the essence rather quickly.

"You've got to be kidding me." Skar let out a sigh, as he looked at his party. The five of them had been doing quite a good job at leveling, but they weren't level 40 yet. Skar was the closest to 40, at level 38, along with Gno-More and Olivia. Manly and Troll'd were level 37, which James guessed had come from an unfortunately timed wipe.

"Nah, completely serious buddy." Oak offered him a grin, before he stepped into the mech facility. The rest of the knights, save for Z, did the same, as Z continued accepting trades from a line of players. James really was curious what Z was trading the players for, or just what type of message the man had sent out.

"You owe us for this." Skar grumbled, turning back towards his party. "Guess we get to try and bring down a dragon." He shrugged and let out a sigh. "Let's-" Skar's voice was drowned out as the dragon let out another massive roar. The sound of it sent chills down James's spine, and he winced as the beast's eyes narrowed on him past its open maw.

The dragon closed its mouth for a moment, and James watched its chest enlarge, as if it were drawing in a large amount of air. A second later, its mouth opened again. James expected a breath weapon, a stream of fire perhaps, or a blast of perhaps icy cold? Instead, three solid objects burst forth from the dragon's mouth, flying rapidly towards James. He had been doing his best to make some distance between himself and the creature, but its focus had been solely set on him. Sure, it was in range of James's players now, and was taking a mass of attacks, but they weren't doing much damage to the beast. Mainly because it was a level 40 world boss, and because there was a mass of James's players that didn't have skills that could reach the beast.

Even his ranged DPS players only had a limited option of attacks on a dragon that high up in the sky, and those attacks usually either did a small amount of damage, or had long casting times. Either way, the World Boss was likely confident in its ability to kill James before it took too much damage. And if not, James could guess BLANKs players, and probably BLANK, still had even more to their attack prepared. He was getting increasingly worried that the chaos from The Candy Crush-ur was going to allow BLANKs players to launch a surprise attack on James's, which could be devastating.

However, James had to deal with the situation at hand as best he could. Which meant he needed to stay alive for 2 ½ more minutes. It also, unfortunately, meant while he was waiting for his summoner points to refresh for what he had planned, he couldn't summon more mobs. The downside of a pet class was that they generally were rather useless, when they didn't have their main mechanic, their pets, out and about.

"Protect the Mad Mage!" James heard the voice of Stryker123 call out just as the three objects neared him. The closer they got, the more they reminded him of warheads, a candy known to be extremely sour. One of the approaching ones was red, one was green, and the furthest back one was blue. Blue, James happened to know, was one of the sourest of the options, up there with the black cheery warheads.

The three candies crashed into James as golden light engulfed his avatar. Stryker123, along with most of the members of the Stryke Force guild, were at James's feet, casting both defensive and offensives skills at the same time. Stryker123 had activated his Paladin aura, and James could see his own status screen bursting to life with buffs. Increased hp, increased defense, increased resistance, a couple different types of Heal over time spells, etc. His status bar lit up with the amount of effects Stryke Force was placing on him. Part of him burst with pride and appreciation over the adventurer's sudden reaction to the situation.

Which burst apart a moment later as three consecutive eruptions occurred. James saw his health-bar flash violently, as a good chunk of his hp was suddenly wiped away, even with all of the buffs and damage mitigating skills placed upon him. At the same time, he saw countless orbs of light suddenly appear all around him, as over three dozen players simply died. Right, a level 40 world boss was likely to do devastating damage. And considering a lot of the Stryke Force players were under level 30… Well, James vowed to make sure their deaths weren't in vain. And on the plus side…at least BLANK couldn't get their essence from over here.

James opened his mouth to thank Stryker123, who was still standing, though badly damaged. In doing so though, James inhaled the strange, powdery substance floating in the air following the eruption of the warheads. A sudden rush of overwhelming sour flavor assaulted his tongue, causing him to keel over as a coughing fit began. His eyes closed as his face puckered, while the sour dust attacked his lungs. James managed to open his eyes just enough to glance at his status screen.

Sour Pucker- Debuff- 29s, blind, silence, stun

His eyes closed again as another wave of sour flavor washed over him. Great, just great he thought to himself. The dragon had launched literally warheads filled with explosive sour flavor towards him. And now he was a sitting duck.

"Mass Cleanse"

"Mass Revive"

"Mass Blessing"

A string of spells were called out all around, and suddenly his debuff was gone, and his health was full. Even better, the orbs on the ground were gone, replaced with the players who had been one shot. James players were cornered. They had been attacked by a world boss on their turf, but they weren't about to lose as a result of that. After all, the massive number of players in the area preparing to attack the dragon meant there was no possible way for it take them all on. Even if only a fraction of James's 10,000 players could get within range, due to the sheer lack of physical space. It was like a human stepping on a fire ant hill. BLANKs world boss was about to be swarmed.

"Holy Hand Grenade." BLANKs voice erupted across the battlefield even as James saw the dragon preparing another breath attack. Skar's group was rushing to engage the dragon, with Troll'd launching a barrage attacks at the world boss, but the dragon's altitude was keeping Skar from being able to draw aggro. In fact, that was likely why BLANK had sent the boss after James. It was practically impossible for any of the tanks to draw its aggro, and the AI in the boss was too smart to be pulled off of its target.

And now, James heard screams erupt as the closely packed players, who were launching attacks at the world boss, were suddenly blasted apart by the devastating attack from BLANKs level 30 Avatar. The Candied King had revealed himself, still extremely far away, but his long-ranged attack still had managed to kill half a dozen of James players. To make matters worse, it seemed BLANK had decided to end this as quickly as they possibly could.

"Shit." James groaned. BLANK had gained an upper hand, and James's players were in a panic. Something, anything, needed to happen, otherwise BLANK was going to use the chaos in order to overwhelm his forces and seize an extremely quick victory. And there was only one thing James could think of that was more chaotic than everything going on around him.

"Summon my fairy. Then summon everything else! Prepare to fight for your lives!"

Chapter end