Honestly, Orson didn't expect the Dark Elf Queen to move this fast. But what really caught him off guard was how hideous she looked up close. At a distance, the Queen seemed like a divine figure descending to Earth. Up close, though, she was more like a horror show. The sight of her bristling, needle-like leg hair almost triggered an "electronic dysfunction" in him. Thank goodness for the patches of dark armor covering her "vital areas"—without them, he might've lost his sanity.
"Whoever wrote the strategy guide for this boss… you really tricked a lot of clueless guys into certain death," Orson muttered. As a man, he felt betrayed!
The Queen seemed to sense the sheer disdain in Orson's gaze. With her eight legs raised, she launched a relentless stomping attack. Orson had anticipated this, swiftly moving to evade her brutal physical strikes. But the Queen was fast, quickly blocking his escape path with her outstretched legs. Suddenly, three dark streaks slashed toward him from her hand.
Orson smirked, summoning a Sunfire Shield underfoot and deftly leaping into the air to evade the attack from an unnatural angle.
No matter the life he was in, few could match Orson's mastery of combat tactics and spell techniques. Facing a boss with limited attack patterns—only a fraction of her true power at that—Orson found it surprisingly easy to handle.
As he landed, he quickly fired off three consecutive fireballs, all aimed precisely at the boss's armored chest.
The rapid-fire barrage barely left a scratch on her chest armor, causing no real damage, but Orson hadn't expected much.
In Infinite Dimensions, attacks could either hit unarmored areas for full damage or be partially or entirely absorbed by high-tier armor. This fell into the latter category.
With a few anguished roars, wisps of flame began spreading across the Queen's chest. Although his attacks hadn't broken her defenses, his fire mage passive was still triggering.
With that success, Orson retreated again. Enraged, the Queen increased her assault, a spear of dark magic manifesting behind her and hurling itself directly at Orson with a deadly hiss.
Orson narrowed his eyes, watching the space around the spear ripple as it approached. The blast radius had to be at least three meters. With his measly 300 HP, even a slight graze would be fatal.
"Shield, shield… shield and more shields!"
He generated four Sunfire Shields in quick succession.
"The magic attack on this thing is insane!"
A cold sweat trickled down Orson's back as the spear smashed through three of his shields, the fourth barely managing to absorb the final blow.
Each Sunfire Shield could absorb 700 damage, meaning the Queen's attack packed over 2,000 damage in a single hit—more than enough to kill him several times over.
Realizing the danger, Orson abandoned any playful mindset he'd had about this boss fight. Focusing his mana, he followed up with another set of fireballs, all targeted at her armored chest.
Despite being fully absorbed, each hit now did a bit more damage than before.
Noting the effect, Orson retreated again, conjuring another Sunfire Shield to absorb the Queen's relentless attacks, while the surroundings took a beating, as though an earthquake was ripping through the beastman camp. His Blazing Burn passive was doing its job, but the Queen's 500,000 HP was staggering. If he didn't find a way to drain it faster, he'd run out of mana long before she went down.
"I'll probably need another few dozen fireballs just to break her defenses," he calculated grimly, then resumed his rapid-fire assault on the Queen's chest.
He wasn't aiming there for any unsavory reason; the chest area was a strategic weak point in Infinite Dimensions.
While armor here didn't have a "durability" value, sustained attacks could destroy it, allowing players to deal critical hits to unprotected weak points like the heart or head. Such an opening not only increased critical hit rates but also occasionally inflicted stun, knockback, or even floating effects.
Ten minutes in, the armor around the Queen's chest was beginning to crack, revealing slivers of pale skin underneath. Any hint of beauty was utterly lost on Orson; he wanted only to finish off this screeching monster.
At 20% HP, the Queen paused, stopping her chase.
"She's changing her attack stance," Orson thought, immediately recognizing the pattern.
The more powerful the boss, the more attack modes it would have as players depleted its HP. This was the core challenge of boss fights in Infinite Dimensions.
A massive dark hexagram suddenly appeared behind the Queen, blotting out the sky. From the hexagram, a blood-red magic sigil descended, bypassing Orson's Sunfire Shield and striking him directly.
Glancing at the new sigils etched on his skin, Orson muttered, "An A-level curse spell… Death Sigil."
[A-Rank Dark Spell: Death Sigil]
Effect: Reduces all targets' HP within range to 10%, lasting 1 minute, with effects decreasing based on magic resistance. 30-minute cooldown.
This curse spell was absurdly powerful. Without a light mage present to counter it, even the best-equipped players would be gutted by such a debuff. The Death Sigil had brought down entire guilds in Orson's previous life, leaving top players defenseless before even weaker opponents.
But on Orson, this spell was overkill.
"That's it? That's all you've got?" Orson scoffed, unimpressed.
Against a regular player, this move would have been devastating. But Orson had committed to a no-hit run; he was fine as long as he had his shields up. With 35 HP remaining, he wasn't nervous at all. With his mana reserve, his nine Sunfire Shields functioned like an extra health bar.
The Queen let out a smug, mocking shriek as she watched her prey struggle under the curse. With a flick of her six enormous wings, she conjured three swords of dark magic that flew toward Orson.
Orson calmly responded by summoning six Sunfire Shields, deflecting two swords with each shield. He glanced at his mana pool—only about 1,000 points left.
With barely any mana remaining, Orson kept up his assault on the Queen's chest, chipping away at her cracked armor.
Every hit struck with pinpoint accuracy, and Orson felt like he was born to do this. His precision was terrifying, even to himself.
With his mana nearing zero and the Queen's chest armor breaking apart, Orson seized the opportunity. Raising his starter staff, he declared, "You're going down!"
With a crack, the armor shattered, and Orson activated his inner "sage mode" to ignore the Queen's exposed chest.
The Queen's towering form reeled backward, screeching in pain, as Orson's fireballs continued to strike her exposed heart, suspending her in mid-air with successive knockbacks.
In a masterful display of attack timing, each of Orson's basic attacks chained together perfectly, keeping the Queen suspended, defenseless. It was a feat few could accomplish with a starter staff's 0.5 attack speed. Even a fraction-of-a-second error would have broken the combo.
On top of that, Orson effortlessly activated his game's recording function to capture this insane display of skill.
One minute passed, and the "Combo x33" message appeared over the Queen's head.
Ten minutes in, the counter climbed to 352.
Thirty minutes later, the combo count reached an unbelievable 900, and the Queen's HP hit rock bottom.
Had any Sword and Conquest veterans been watching, they would have shouted, "That's just Orson in action! Basic moves, no big deal!"