Chapter 104 - A Guild’s Resilience

”Giving up is a taboo concept in the best guilds. But not everyone is that insane to start. Most of the time, that resilience is engraved into them through harsh training and vast experience.” ~Maxims Ya Yobore, Guildmaster of the Gaiamaxims Guild

Yoshelle’s senses weren’t working. The biggest problem concerning defending against three massive lightning beams was them attacking all the senses at the same time as the body.

It all happened in an instant. But as she stared death in the face, everything seemed to slow down at ridiculous levels.

Light was the most obvious of them all. Blinding light. Trying to defend against something that burned the eyes one would use to see it was a challenge only few could succeed at.

The air was harsh with electricity, like sharp needles that relentlessly penetrated the skin until it was all she could feel. The very air grew hot and burned, attacking both her senses of taste and smell.

But of them all, the thundering boom was the greatest hindrance. Yoshelle had to fight with her instincts to stop herself from covering her ears. She needed her hands to defend against the lightning beams, and there were ways to restore hearing down the line.

The giant harnessed the lightning, and aimed it at the guild before them.

Desperation was in the air. Yoshelle could feel the entire guild’s confidence crumbling away, even as they stood valiantly, awaiting their deaths. No one wanted to give in and be the cause of a mass panic, which would absolutely devastate even further what little chance of survival they had.

Three lightning beams combined into one as they flashed out, and it instantaneously split down the middle before it reached the guild. In front, where the beam had been cut, were three people.

It made a sound like glass being scratched and shattered at the same time, the very sound of lightning snapping. A high pitched boom of abnormal thunder that caused a sharp ringing in everyone’s head. Some couldn’t hold back and flinched, covering their ears. Yoshelle barely held on.

Maxims, Coraline, and Valor’el.

Yoshelle could feel the mana the three were pushing out. Together, their mana pressure bent space as their defensive skills protected the guild. And when the beam was finally gone, the seraph emitted a brilliant shine.

With a sword in each hand, Valor’el sliced towards the copies of the storm giant. Thunder boomed once more, as lightning flashed and struck the duplicates.

Yoshelle understood the logic behind it. She didn’t know the spell, but she recognized that the seraphim used a reflection-type skill that would allow him to absorb attacks and unleash them at will.

Given that they were dealing with a storm giant, and a raid boss to boot, its resistance to lightning would be absurd. But the same couldn’t be said about the copies. Only simulacrums would be able to copy the exact traits of the caster’s physical form, and that would involve a ritual that could take days or even weeks to perform. And resistant or not, these storm giant clones were fragile imitations of the real thing.

Surviving the lightning beams gave the guild an incredible boost in morale. People roared as their adrenaline spiked, ready to take down the giant monster.

At the same time, a surge of energy filled Yoshelle. She saw a golden glow on the ground, enveloping the guild in rejuvenating energies. She felt fresh, as if she had just finished warming up. Her mana reserves were filled to the brim, and she felt like she could cast spells and activate skills at their most optimal potency.

It was a miracle.

Yoshelle turned to the only Archdevout in the guild. Phey’lan.

“It’ll only last for a minute!” said the female seraph. “Give him hell!”

Everyone turned their attention to the storm giant. Spells and skills fired off one after the other. Yoshelle unleashed her strongest spell, Time-Echo: Frigid Blade. A fusion spell that could only be learned by being both an Elemental Archmage and a Chronoadept. This created a massive Frigid Blade that would deal multiple times the damage, and then a repeating echo damage for a few seconds after it hit.

Valor’el and Maxims were unrelenting, keeping the monster as stationary as possible. They defended against the giant’s retaliations, and neither man backed away even as their wounds built up. The seraph’s armor was damaged. Even as a Favor class holder, his Mana Armor simply couldn’t hold up against a raid boss’s continuous assault. But he timed his damage mitigation skills, repairing his armor with mana whenever he could afford a breath.

As for the Guildmaster of the Gaiamaxims Guild, the man displayed a tremendous amount of focus. Parrying deathblows one after the other was a feat only few could achieve, especially if they had to do it for a full minute. Aftershocks, however, were difficult to defend against. But even as his armor chipped, and his face was covered in blood, Maxims refused to back down.

Their sacrifice bore fruit.

The guild’s retaliation finally reached the storm giant. Explosions and effects erupted one after the other. Yoshelle even noticed Shallies perfectly timing her constellation of Dancing Stars with all the collisions. Suddenly, hundreds of starlight beams were added to the assault.

She felt pride when the storm giant was forced to step back. Then utter joy filled her when it lost its balance and fell. The guild roared in triumph.

But she was also quick to notice that not everyone had let their guards down. Not Shallies, not the seraphim, and neither the Favored class holders. Maxims faced the guild, his face twisted in an urgent frown.

“It’s about to enrage!”

Yoshelle turned to make sure everyone was prepared for the sudden spike in mana pressure. It only took her a second to confirm that Shallies and the seraphim were already ready. Phey’lan was with Arun’dul, and Valor’el was directly engaging the giant. The Guild Princess had nothing to worry about regarding them.

But as she turned to find the other people, and as the mana pressure made it difficult to breathe and stand, she noticed something that made her feel her heart drop. It took all she could do to just make sure she stayed conscious. And while she knew she had to prioritize the raid fight, she couldn’t help but worry.

Someone was missing.

Shallies watched as the Gaiamaxims Guild valiantly withstood the mana pressure. Phey’lan’s miracle was a great help, and the timing was in their favor, since the storm giant couldn’t maintain such heavy mana output. The effectiveness of the area-wide buff ran out just as soon as the raid boss stopped unleashing mana.

She saw people fall to the ground, though most of them were able to stay on their feet. But even those brave adventurers who fell were still conscious and refused to give up.

“I’m tapped out,” Phey’lan said, falling on one knee. She took a single breath and recovered back on her feet. “Unless I contact Lorf, I can’t make anymore miracles today.”

“You did good,” Shallies said. “The counter attack starts now.”

The mana pressure was the storm giant’s final ace in the hole. Any fortunate adventurer, who had prepared enough to survive its lightning attacks, would usually fall victim to the pressure, since the move was outside of its main profile. After that, however, it would have nothing left but physical strength. Even if it had innate with lightning-based moves, using a lot of them, and topping them off with unleashing mana, would still be costly.

The Gaiamaxims Guild unleashed a plethora of spells. The non-spellcasting combatants initiated skills to join Valor’el and Maxims into the fray. Together, they were pushing back the storm giant.

Shallies barely even had to do anything. She had provided her buffing skills to the seraphim, which left her with just casting the upgraded version of Shooting Stars called Starfires. She also employed Dancing Stars, rapidly creating them, even if it was a little too fast.

Her casting was rapid and precise. She didn’t have any wasted movements. Her mind was unleashing invocations on layers on top of layers, while combining multiple phrases with shortcuts to cut off even more milliseconds. At the same time, she was also casting spells with her engaged Focus, allowing her to cast them both with and without invocations.

Shallies was also subtle with it. People were already too focused on the storm giant, but she didn’t let her guard down. It would take an adventurer leaving their duty and focus on her to even have an inkling that she was doing something supposedly out of her league.

As for the raid boss, its desperate attempts to defeat the guild were futile. Valor’el was at the top of his game, blocking any physical attacks without needing to switch with anyone. He also called out any stray elemental attacks that the storm giant could barely afford. They were weak and easily deflected.

This allowed Maxims and the rest of the guild to go on the offensive.

After that, it didn’t take long for everyone to finally defeat it.

As the storm giant vanished in residues of mana, leaving behind it a Loot Source the size of a house, the Gaiamaxims Guild celebrated.

People quickly took stock of their resources. They had lost so many. From the fifty strong that had engaged the giant, only thirty-eight could stay in the raid and fight. Fifteen of those needed to recover for the rest of the day. And out of those twelve that would have to back out of the rest of the raid, unfortunately, two of them had died during the boss fight.

Shallies watched as the people close to them cried. And she realized that they were familiar to her. They were the couple that had once visited her tavern, who now lay on the ground, lifeless. They had gotten a bad impression of her establishment, sure, but that didn’t matter now.

These two had been brave. For that reason, Shallies couldn’t exactly hate them. And even then, she hadn’t wished them ill when they didn’t like her tavern. It was a normal thing to happen. Not everyone would like her place. She didn’t fault them for that.

The Godkiller observed as small orbs of light floated from the couple’s corpses. Their souls. No one without any Divine Authority could see them. So the orbs were left ignored, even as they fluttered around the mourning people.

She noticed that they didn’t manifest their physical forms, a sign that these souls had still to accept their death. But rather than meddle with that, Shallies quietly beckoned them over.

Normally, a person dying in a dungeon or raid would have their soul follow the living group. This way, the souls could find their way out and return safely to Ysvil. If an entire party or raid group were to die, however, then all those souls would be lost. Should a rescue party find them early, then there would be a good chance that the souls could get out. But these stories didn’t always have a happy ending, or a peaceful closure.

So for now, Shallies sheltered the souls of the dead couple, quietly promising that she would guide them out of the raid once they were done.

And that was when she noticed Yoshelle frantically running towards her father.

Shallies noticed the urgency, and the seraphim as well. They made their way towards Maxims while the Guild Princess caught her breath.

“It’s Laika,” Yoshelle started, breathing heavily. “We can’t find her!”

When the lightning beam had been split apart, the ricocheting force caught Laika. The dog-ferim blamed it on her luck. As a vanguard, she was used to getting thrown around by large monsters. It was basically part of the job.

What she didn’t expect was the stillness of her surroundings the moment she got back on her feet.

Her guildmates were gone. Yoshelle, Krevan, Maxims, Coraline, even Shallies. She couldn’t find any of them.

She was in an emptiness. The solid ground, where she stood with her feet, was deep black. White ripples of mana echoed atop it, following the way she distributed her weight.

The rest was just nothing.

No walls, no roof, no skies.

Whether she walked or ran, she reached nothing and saw nothing.

Just nothing.

Alone.

In an empty space.

With a soft sob, desperately turning everywhere and finding nowhere, tears fell down Laika’s face.