“Are you ready?”

“I’m always ready,” I reply to Natalia’s question, “Let’s do it.”

We exchange a look and nod at the same time before stepping into the Freezer. There’s no need to talk, we know what to do next.

The first step of the plan is the easiest one: to ensure nothing will disrupt us in the next steps. For this, I, who am the fastest and most agile, start running through the first room and those that are connected to it, jumping on the frozen corpse mountains among other things, to trigger as many exploding corpses as possible. 

Tens of corpses explode in my wake, though not a single explosion hits me.

Meanwhile, Natalia uses her long staff to poke at the corpses she finds suspicious, making them explode upon contact if they’re traps.

Most players believe that traps like exploding corpses are unavoidable but they’re wrong. It takes a second for them to explode once they detect the invaders, but the lack of signs when they’re triggered makes it hard to know and jump away on time. The trick is to act as if they were always going to explode and run away as fast as possible.

It’s hard to execute, and very easy to lower your guard and get caught in the explosion, but once you get the knack for it, any skilled player can avoid them.

This only holds true as long as you aren’t preoccupied with something else, though. That’s why we’re doing this before the Hunters show up.

We continue the clean-up until no more corpses explode in the whole Freezer. We leave the Stitched alive, except for those that can spew flames like a dragon, which we kill. They’ll serve us nicely later and are too slow to pose a danger to us.

“It’s done,” I wipe my forehead, walking towards Natalia, “I can’t find any more.” There might be some traps left, but most of them are down and won’t bother us.

In total, it takes us less than five minutes to prepare de battlefield.

The preparations are necessary because the Hunters are designed to deal with players like us. Other bosses don’t leave the area they’re assigned to, and weak mobs don’t pose a threat to us unless they surround us. Roaming bosses are easy to deal with too, since we just need to avoid them.

Only strong enemies that continuously chase after us are dangerous; because we can’t defeat them, nor can we easily run away once they start tracking us. Furthermore, the Hunters are even more dangerous because they wait until we’re busy with other enemies to strike. Otherwise, we are the ones who have to engage them… or force them to engage us like we’re doing now.

There are several ways to know if the Hunters have detected and are following you. This time, we knew thanks to one of their skills: Shared Pain. When you suddenly start dealing less damage to the monsters and start taking damage every time you attack them, it’s a sign they’re nearby.

We had to relocate to the Freezer because it’s the safest area around this place, but also because the ceilings here are high, the rooms are wide, and there are multiple paths. A perfect place that allows us to manipulate the battlefield, unlike the narrow corridors of the previous area.

“They’re here,” warns Natalia.

“I know.”

As if on cue, swathes of purple bolts turn around the corner, flying at us at high speeds. We split up to avoid interfering with each other’s movements, running away from the magic missiles.

The magic missiles split up too, following after both of us. They avoid the obstacles and mountains of corpses, turning and changing directions as required. The purple glow they emit closes up on me.

Auto-targeting magic missiles are such a hassle to deal with…

I approach the first Stitched group I find. They swing their arms at me and spit a greenish substance, but I avoid their attacks by sidestepping. I run past them, but instead of taking distance, I use their bodies as cover.

*Pew, pew, pew!* Like fireworks, the sound of the missiles striking flesh plays behind me. When the sound ends and I turn around, I can only see corpses. No live Stitched, no missiles.

“So easy,” I shrug my shoulders, “As long as there are enemies nearby, I’ll be fine.”

Magic missiles and other auto-targeting projectiles can avoid terrain pretty easily, but they have trouble avoiding units. The calculations to avoid moving obstacles might have been too much for the game, or it might have been a design choice. Regardless, it’s to our advantage.

The Mountain is the one that shoots the Magic Missiles. It doesn’t move much, so it should be easy now that we know where it is. The problem will be the other one…

I look back at the place where the missiles came from, but instead of finding the other Hunter, what I see is a bird. Said bird, upon seeing me turns into a humanoid with a bird’s head and wings and flies towards the ceiling, stopping in mid-air without doing anything else.

“How unexpected…” I immediately inspect it, “...Is it a new Hunter introduced recently?” I raise my guard as I read the screen that appears in front of me. “Sloth? It doesn’t sound that dangerous when compared–”

A chill runs down my spine. In response, I immediately tilt my whole body to the left, just in time to avoid an attack. The snake’s fangs snap where my head was an instant ago. Our eyes meet.

“The River…!” Distracted by the missiles, I didn’t notice it approaching me.

Without hesitation, I start climbing the nearby frozen corpse mountain. The River is faster than I am, there’s no way I can outrun it in flat terrain. Successfully running away now that it has gotten so close to me will be impossible.

The uneven terrain and higher position give me an advantage over it, and I can successfully evade the flurry of attacks that follow the failed ambush. But it’s just a matter of time. I’ll eventually reach the peak and I’ll run out of places to run to.

When I reach the top of the corpse mountain, the River observes me from below. Is it just me, or is it making a mocking grin?

The monster lunges at me, fangs wide open.

“...did you think you got me?” I mock out loud. Before the fangs close, I use Leap to jump away. “Better luck next time!”

The River observes me with a dumbfounded expression as I escape to the air. Or it would have done so, if it had actual intelligence instead of a simple AI.

During my jump, I pass right next to what looks to be the third Hunter, but other than slightly getting burnt by its fire aura, it doesn’t react to me. Lucky!

As soon as my feet touch the wall of the room, I use the inertia to kick it, impulsing myself further away from the monster. Then, I run on the wall for a few more meters towards where Natalia is, before losing speed and starting to fall.

Upon seeing this, the River sprints like an arrow towards me. It’ll reach the ground below me before I can land. As expected, it’s too fast.

“Nataliaaa!” I shout.

She has been busy keeping the Mountain in check, something I appreciate. If I had to contend with the magic missiles while avoiding the River, I’d have surely died. But now I need her assistance.

“I know!”

With sinuous movements, the monster circles below me, waiting for me to fall. It takes some distance and then, it makes another lunge. I close my eyes and the spell I delayed activates.

Even through my closed eyelids, I can see the light burst filling the whole room. This is Flash, another very useful skill that has high synergy with Delayed Cast.

*Bam!* The River slams itself head-first on the stone wall that suddenly appeared in front of it. Being blinded at the last second, it didn’t know the wall was there and had no time to stop.

I land with my hand on top of the growing wall, impulsing my body up and towards the other side.

Everything is going according to the plan: the River is now isolated and will take a while to break through the wall or find another path to reach us. Furthermore, it lost sight of me and shouldn’t know where I am. It wouldn’t be as effective if it had seen me jump over the wall, but since it was blinded, the AI must be extremely confused right now.

Meanwhile, the bird hybrid is still doing nothing. …is that monster just a decoration? It does look cool, but what a waste.

“Good job!” I high-five Natalia, “Now for the third step of the plan: The Great Escape!”

Fighting the Hunters until either us or them are dead? That’s not feasible with our thrill-seeker build. The only feasible option is to escape from them in such a way that they can’t chase after us.

I crack my neck. “Leave the distraction to me. You go do your job.”

“Sure thing.”

Natalia nods and disappears from my sight, turning invisible. The Mountain, having lost its target, quickly focuses on me. Soon, swarms of magic missiles appear near the monster, flying at me in an almost life-like manner.

I struggle to get rid of them, jumping behind cover at the last second, or using nearby Stitched as temporary shields. Jumping around, climbing corpse mountains, and running into nearby rooms. I’ll do anything and everything to stay alive.

Meanwhile, I pay extra attention to vines suddenly sprouting from the ground. We know the Mountain can use Entangle. Getting ensnared even by a single second would spell doom for me.

“Mònica!” Finally, Natalia calls my name. She took her sweet time.

“Okay,” I wave to signal I’ve heard her, “I’m coming!”

I make a lap around a corpse mountain, chased by a swarm of magic missiles, and sprint towards Natalia. She’s still invisible, but I know where she is. Instead of looking in front of me, I keep my sight glued to the ground. This is so I can use Leap should vines start sprouting from the ground.

When running in a straight line, I can outrun magic missiles. The problem is finding such a straight path. But luckily, there aren’t many obstacles here. The only obstacle is the Mountain itself, standing right in the middle.

I use Leap and fly over the Mountain. At the same moment, I activate a delayed Flash behind me, blinding the Mountain like I did with the River. It won’t see what happens next.

As I fall, I feel the pull from gravity suddenly disappear. I start falling at a slower speed, but at the same forward speed I was running. This is thanks to Natalia’s Levitate.

My body continues moving in a straight line until I cross the door that connects to the sealed area. The door shuts down right behind me with a slam, followed by the impact of uncountable magic missiles striking it.

Natalia appears right next to me, giggling. She has undone her invisibility. “Good job.”

“Good job to you too,” I chuckle. “I’m sure their AIs are still processing what happened.”

I had to distract the Mountain so it didn’t notice that Natalia was opening and closing the door. It isn’t what you’d call a fast door. In this way, thanks to the blind and the broken line of sight thanks to the closed door, they won’t know where we are.

Levitate is just the tip of the cake. Some skills can track your footprints, but if you don’t leave footprints, they’re garbage.

We aren’t sure how the Hunters track the invaders. Do they roam the dungeon aimlessly? Do they follow the corpse trails? Or do they have a tracking skill? Regardless of what they do, they won’t be able to find us anymore. We’ve got the footprints covered, and we already cleared this area of enemies, so the corpses in this place aren’t anything new. We’re safe now! Hahaha!

Like this, while hovering a short distance over the ground, we reenter the sealed laboratory and aim for the dungeon core.

“Nothing can stop us!” I proclaim. “The thrill-seekers achieve victory yet again!”

Natalia glares at me. “Hey! Don’t say such things. Not until we break the dungeon core.”

“...fine.”

“And don’t forget the ice cream.”

 

“All DMA skills have at least another skill that can counter them. Of course, this is for balance reasons when it comes to PvP, but it’s also to make the game more interesting. Even overpowered skills that deal unavoidable damage can be countered in a multitude of ways, like skills that trigger upon death, skills that resurrect the dead, or skills that prevent death if certain conditions are met.

 If there were omnipotent skills, the players would do one of two things: they would all use the same skills because they were ‘The only way to win’; or they’d leave the game out of boredom because every single battle is always the same. Either option isn’t a good one.”

- Excerpt of an interview with a random DMA player.