I turned my focus away from Mark and instead looked to Alan, who was still in that no-man’s land of blood. The boss in front of him was still in human form, his hands slicing out like blades and tearing the earth asunder. His attacks were ferocious as he glided like a specter.

  Chunks of earth and even pieces of demon bodies flew by Alan constantly as he expertly evaded the devastating attacks. Those he couldn’t evade were deflected by his blade, and occasionally struck the sides of his body when he was too slow to move out of the way. I could see why his HP ping-ponged so much now.

  “How is he doing?” I asked Jessica. Not very long had passed since we left to dispatch the demons.

  “Barely holding on.” She didn’t sugar coat it. “We’ve not seen anything from the boss besides brutal, endless attacks.”

  I turned to Lucas, “How much longer can we keep this up?” I wanted to see any sort of pattern in the onslaught, but nothing was coming. “We can’t fight on forever.” Two dead and the fight hadn’t truly begun.

  “Now you’re back we have to give it all we’ve got!” Lucas said to everyone, “Melee into line, protect our ranged attackers, even if that means using your body!” He positioned himself in front of Anna and prepared to fall on the next blood spike like a martyr.

  This was a good example of putting your money where your mouth was, although perhaps not as valiant as it looked. Fighting in melee with Alan was liable to get you chopped into little pieces, while blocking a blood spear that may never come was a much, much better gamble.

  Marcus, Nicole, and Richard formed up in a solid wall at the front on Lucas’ order. We made sure the spot was free of blood. The remaining melee kept the sides protected and I put my two demon reincarnations behind us as they covered enough space to protect the back. Whether they would act as a good pin cushion was another story.

  The rest of my undead troops swarmed the battle field in a wide circle and carefully enclosed Alan and the boss inside. Once they were there, ranged attacks started to reign down upon the greater demon.

  With my summoned forces acting as a new arena, Jessica and Maria didn’t hold back with the CC. Thick vines interlaced the ground and grasped at the hem of the greater demon’s robes constantly. His movement became more erratic, but more predictable as he attempted to evade the slows.

  The miasma from Quagmire crept up to his knees, and carefully hid the climbing vines from view. Before long I saw a noticeable decrease in the boss’s speed, as he was unable to evade the plant growth all around him.

  That was enough for Anna to unleash her Blizzard, which sent the entire area into a torrential hell. Poor Alan could barely see, and while the effects didn’t hurt him, he must have been hindered by the display of magic washing out his vision. Nor could we keep track of him.

  Nicole had a solution to that, casting some form of buff onto Alan that made him glow a greenish hue. The creeping cold slowing his movements receded immediately and he attacked with newfound vigor. His HP in the party window even exceeded his previous maximum, gaining an entire 20% total to his life.

  The chance Alan could be one shot now was almost non-existent, and he attacked with even more fervor and frenzy. Rebekah was here to help heal now, too, and Thomas could focus solely on his MP consumption and efficient heals.

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  Still, none of this was for anything if we couldn’t damage the boss. Outside of Godless Arrow, the boss hadn’t taken any meaningful damage from our ranged attackers. He was slower than before, but the speed at which he moved was still enough to keep Alan on his toes.

  I could feel the confidence from Spikey #1 and #2, who were in that outer-circle waiting. They were itching to fight, and as summoned creatures that were literally expendable, I couldn’t find any reason to not send them in. On my command they joined into the fray, fragments of rock and ice clattering into their bones.

  The ringing out of metal and bone and ice formed something of an orchestra of death. The items in the debris hit hard enough to kill a man in one blow, and yet Alan and my two undead shrugged them off, merely a scratch or bone crack here and there.

  Spikey #1 and #2 stuck to the boss like glue, not caring in the slightest for their own well being. The pieces of bones that flew off them were picked up by the howling wind and sliced through the air like knives. The robe of the greater demon was torn to tatters in moments.

  Spikey #1 was faring better with his meticulous fighting style. Of the two, it was him that drew first blood. He lost his entire left arm for it, but the Zweihander had gouged a cavity several inches deep in the waist of the greater demon. The blood was red, just like ours, even the wound was no different—the flesh and gore all seemed the same.

  And yet it wasn’t. In a moment or two the wound closed up, healing on its own. All the damage we were dealing was healing in the same way, disappearing as it never happened in the first place.

  Every closing wound lowered my morale just a bit, but it wasn’t for nothing. “The blood is disappearing!” Marcus was the first to notice on account of being at the front. His only job was to watch the ground carefully for any sneak attacks.

  “Keep it up!” Lucas let out a newfound roar, sending a rather hopeful but super-long Wind Slash towards the boss. The damage was meager, enough to leave a nick on its thigh that closed instantly. Still, the proof that things were progressing ignited hope.

  Evidently, the demon’s healing didn’t come without a cost. The blood that soaked the ground was receding little by little as the damage accumulated. Eventually the biggest worry of ours would disappear, and then the fight’s outcome would be sealed.

  As if aware of our thoughts, a blood spike suddenly jutted out of the ground towards Nicole. Fortunately, Marcus was being hyper vigilant, and managed to aid her in blocking the strike, which still removed almost half her health. The reality of how Bethany fell became clear instantly.

  Even though the boss was slowly being whittled down, the explosive power of the blood spears was just as deadly as if the fight just started. The reality was the boss was using them as a stalemate, to keep us out of the fight so we couldn’t over-run it. Without Alan having exceeded my expectations, we might have been massacred.

  Watching our tanks evade attacks that would slice off limbs and easily decapitate a giant, I wondered when he got so fearless, crazy even. It looked as if Alan was not a man but a beast, and that thought didn’t scare me. He was evolving as expected by the system, and without him we would die today.

  We were being whittled down by the system, day by day, becoming something less human. But the alternative to that was to die. I didn’t want to give up and die. None of us wanted to die.

  So all we could do was fight, and as a group we put that much more into it. The attacks rained down upon the greater demon without pause. The rate of his attacks diminished to almost none as all he could do was evade.

  By the end of it, the robe he wore became tattered to the seams. His entire bare upper chest and legs were exposed and covered in dried blood. Outside of his crotch, he was completely bare.

  The wounds there had already healed, but the land of death Alan fought upon was dry now, without a visible drop of blood. If I hadn’t witnessed the greater demon’s incredible regeneration, I’d have no trouble believing he was human.

  It wasn’t a stalemate situation. We had been slowly dominating him for the past several minutes. Our resources were still good, and outside of Ryan and Bethany, no one else had suffered life-threatening wounds. By all accounts we were grasping victory.

  So why did he look so damn calm?