Steel Wolves of Craedia (Realm of Arkon, Book 3) by G. Akella Read Free Book Online Page B

the tifling. His haughty face expressed absolutely no emotion. Should anything go awry, this potion and the shield gifted by the goddess will be my overriding argument.
    "Ready!" Reena was the last to report. Steadying the traitorous tremble in the knees, I barked the command. "Attack!"
    "Vile creatures!" a voice boomed in my head, dripping with fury and madness. "Have you come to release your master? You shall die!"
    The tifling's left hand lit up with black flame, but I shut him up right away with a Silence. Then, coming up right on top of him with a Step through Darkness, I drove an Ice Blade into his flesh and followed the momentum with a shoulder, hoping to topple him to the floor. The necromancer's body shuddered, but he kept his footing—his strength seemed to be no lower than mine. The magus stabbed my exposed side with his hideous kris, shaving off around 10% HP, as I registered information in the combat log about the boss' immunity to freezing. Shit! I started backing away from him, alternating my attack skills as usual, shielding myself from the flashing black dagger and the lashings of the bone-tipped tail. Ten seconds later the rest of the party joined in the fight. A cool wave of healing washed over my body; at the same time, an Ice Spear and six arrows plunged into the magus' chest. In an instant, the fight scene became crowded with Charging warriors.
    For the next minute we hacked away furiously at the necromancer as he spun like a top. At exactly the sixtieth second, the tifling threw up his hands and let loose a dark wave that flung back everybody around him but me, then detonated in a series of ear-piercing mini explosions. The entire raid party's health dropped by a quarter, as searing pain shot through my body. Relief came several seconds later—a cool gentle touch lifting the anguish. Reena's alarmed voice boomed in the raid channel.
    "How are you, dar? The wave put Silence on everyone but the tank!"
    "I'm all right," I said, blocking another one of the magus' strikes. "Make sure to put Nourish on everyone before the next wave hits."
    In the second phase, the wave of darkness gave way to stalactites falling from the ceiling. The spots where they would fall would begin to glow white three seconds prior, which made them easy to avoid—the only annoyance were the showers of shards that would spray my armor upon shattering. The third phase brought back the wave of darkness to go with the falling stalactites, causing some initial confusion, as evidenced by the pained cussing of fighters after failing to avoid one or the other. Thankfully, the healers pulled through and kept everybody alive, as I kept my eyes on Magus Diarten's rapidly diminishing health bar and on the timer counting down the seconds remaining before the boss flew into a rage. So far so good—let's hope it stays that way, I thought as the necromancer's kris glanced off my shield with a grating sound, and I countered yet again, connecting with a Tongue of Flame.
    When the boss' health dropped to twenty percent, the fighters shifted into combat form and started taking turns popping Execution. The boss' chest began flashing with graphics of finishing shots and blows while to my right an earth elemental summoned by Reece crawled out of the ground and joined the fray.
    The fight was drawing close to its logical conclusion when, at around the twenty seven minute mark with less than 100,000 HP remaining, the necromancer suddenly threw up his hands. A terrible blow knocked me backwards, the momentum carrying me another fifteen feet or so. A new message flashed in the system log:
     
    Attention! Magus of Dark Magic Diarten dar Luan becomes enraged. Paralysis has been cast on the raid.
     
    "What the hell!" The channel blew up with groans of wounded demons, who were apparently hit harder than me. "Thirty minutes ain't up yet!"
    The magus shifted his shoulders, as if shrugging off a weight. He looked left and right, eventually fixing his gaze on me,