Reincarnated Avatar; I got 2 SSS-Rank Unique Skills
Chapter 193: Holiday [5]

Chapter 193: Holiday [5]

"Time to show him the power of real magic!" Benjamin yelled, grinning behind his monitor...

But they weren’t alone. The Wraiths of the Forgotten; faceless, shadow-clad horrors spawned around them, encircling the group in an instant.

"Damn," Jonathan muttered, his voice filled with grim resolve as he whipped out his glades, spinning into a frenzy. "Looks like we’ve got company".

With that, the battlefield exploded into action.

Aria and Jonathan took the vanguard this time, darting and striking against the Wraiths. Genevieve channeled healing auras while battling against the pull of the mental debuff.

The Wraiths didn’t stand a chance against their onslaught, but each time one fell, another rose from the shadows, summoned by the Herald’s bell tolls.

Noah locked eyes with the Herald, the final phase of this part of the dungeon had begun. With a sharp command, he led the charge toward the figure, his battle lance crackling with aetheric energy.

The Herald of Oblivion rose his bell once more, its tone discordant, filling the air with more than sound; it filled time itself.

His figure blurred as he ascended into the air, turning into an overwhelming, massive avatar of shadow and broken light.

But the power of the monastery was his prison.

This was not his true form.

This was only a reflection, only a piece.

Noah leapt forward, and the final strike rang through the air as Aetherforge cleaved the air with magic and steel in its battle lance form.

It was done.

The shadows exploded into dust, leaving behind only the stillness of the Grand Monastery.

The bell fell silent.

Then, a system notification.

DING!

~----~

[Your raid party have killed a reflection of the Herald of Oblivion!]

[You have triggered the ire of the Guardian of the Chamber of the Bell!]

~----~

Well, like they expected and as Aria pointed out, it was a fake.

The SSS-Rank level 100 dungeon, Grand Monastery of Aetheryos, like all other high level dungeons in Warstar had deep lore behind them, lore that is written in their advertisement boards to attract players to challenge them.

Of course, Noah and this group of players may all be pro players, retired and still active, the best of the best veterans but they were not reckless.

Before taking on the SSS-Rank dungeon, they read its official guide book.

The Grand Monastery of Aetheryos is a once-holy sanctuary now twisted by time and forbidden knowledge. The monastery blends divine architecture with eerie silence, filled with spectral enemies, sentient relics, and cursed high priests.

The deeper you go, the stronger the distortion becomes.

As for its final boss? It’s a being called the High Ascendant, Aetheryos himself.

There is a process and structure to get to the final boss. Apart from the final boss, there are 5 phases, locations in the SSS-Rank dungeon.

The first phase is the Courtyard of the Silent Choir.

A sprawling marble courtyard littered with cracked statues and decaying hymn books. The enemies are Choir Wailers and Faithbound Knights.

Choir Wailers are ghostly monks that debuff players with Silence and Confusion. Faithbound Knights are tanky melee foes with divine resistance.

It is the location that they arrived in first after entering the dungeon.

Phase 2 of the SSS-Rank dungeon is the Hall of Echoes. Long, cathedral-like halls where every step echoes unnaturally.

The enemies are Echobound Sentinels and the Voice of the Past; the former being the statues that are immune to ranged attacks unless marked by magic, while the latter being illusion-type enemies that mimic team members’ moves.

It was not even an hour yet since they entered the dungeon and yet the raid party was already in Phase 2. It was where they fought the Echobound Sentinels before suddenly encountering a reflection of the Herald of Oblivion.

They were reasonably surprised. After all, the Herald of Oblivion should not be in Phase 2. Rather, it was the mini boss of Phase 5, the final phase of the SSS-Rank dungeon before meeting the final boss.

Phase 3 is the Reliquary of Lost Kings; a chamber filled with shattered relics, thrones, and sarcophagi. Unlike in the first 2 phases, there is a mini boss in Phase 3, King Varnas the Hollowed.

The mechanics was straightforward. King Varnas absorbs relic energy to empower himself; players must disable relics to stand a chance at winning.

King Varnas also curses the entire raid party unless a player voluntrarily wears the Crown of Burden found in its domain, a relic that makes the player suffer 50% stat penalty but also makes him capable of damaging Varnas.

That is where the raid party was about to go after surviving the first encounter with the Herald of Oblivion’s reflection.

As for Phase 4? It’s called the Spiral of Testimony. A vertical, spiral staircase ascending to the heavens; each step a flicker between time periods.

The enemies are Time-Drunk Acolytes and Temporal Crawlers; the former being enemies that shift between child, adult, and old age forms, with the later being speed-based mobs immune to CC (crowd control).

The mechanics is also simple and like Phase 3, it has a mini boss. In Phase 4, environmental time shifts affect cooldowns; some shortened, some extended.

As for the boss, her name is Chrono Confessor Elyria, a mini boss that teleports through time to counter roles.

And then Phase 5, Chamber of the Bell. It’s a vast obsidian cathedral centered on a suspended, ancient bell. And of course, the mini boss is the Herald of Oblivion.

The mechanics? The Herald rings his bell every 30 seconds, applying stacking Oblivion debuff. He also summons Wraiths of the Forgotten and siphons memories to disable random skills, a truly devious ability.

And then, the final boss, High Ascendant Aetheryos.

There is very little recorded about the High Ascendant in the dungeon guide book, just that he’s a golden, radiant being bound in chains of light and shadow atop the monastery’s highest alter. With cracked wings and eyes sealed shut.

As for the reward structure? Apart from the lighthearted reunion that this dungeon raid was, they were also attracted by the reward structure of the dungeon. There’s a guaranteed SSS-Rank Relic equipment, 3-5 skill points per player, and the Title- Echo Slayer of Aetheryos.

There is also an RNG Loot Pool for legendary enchantments, transcendence scrolls, and a unique mount- Seraph of the Broken Bell.

Till date, Lord Doom was the only Avatar in the video game to have a mount.

Other players and their Avatars wanted to replicate his feat.

And now, having blitzed through Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the dungeon already at record time, the raid party moved on to the next.

...

The 20-man raid team stood at the threshold of a massive obsidian gate, carved with regal reliefs of ancient kings; some triumphant, others weeping, all of them crowned.

As the gates opened, a wave of cold, metallic air whooshed past them, almost like a sigh from a thousand-year-old tomb.

They entered the Reliquary of Lost Kings; a vast subterranean hall lit by chandeliers of everburning soulfire, suspended above rows of sarcophagi clad in enchanted gold.

Marble statues lined the aisles, each depicting a fallen monarch from the Age of Splintered Crowns. The floor was a mirror-polished obsidian slab, reflecting their footsteps with unsettling clarity.

At the center was a throne of silence, built from grave-silver and blackened bone, surrounded by six towering royal tombs.

Each was sealed by ancient magic; and each contained a Wraith King, a cursed sovereign who once ruled with pride, now reborn in eternal torment.

Their objective was simple. To open the path forward, the team must defeat all six Wraith Kings; each with unique mechanics before awakening the true monarch entombed beneath the Reliquary.

They didn’t know about the true monarch entombed beneath the Reliquary, but they did know about King Varan the Hollow who was instructed in the guide book, meaning he was the core figure of this phase of the SSS-Rank dungeon.

King Varan is part of the six Wraith Kings, the strongest. A spectral juggernaut wielding a two-handed sword and mirror clones.

Every 30 seconds, he splits into duplicates with inverted attack patterns.

But King Varan was not the only threat. There is Queen Althissa of Thorns, a Wraith Queen that wields necro-vines and summons spectral courtiers to charm players. If not broken, charmed players turn against their team.

Then King Duram of the Drowned. A powerful Wraith King that drenches the battlefield in ghostly seawater, creating zones of suffocating.

And then the Twin Kings of Flame and Frost. As soon as the players entered, two coffins opened at once. Both Wraith Kings must be fought together. If one dies before the other, it resurrects the second.

The final Wraith King is King Malrik, the Regretful. An insidious Wraith King that traps players in illusions of their worst fears.

Players must solve illusion puzzles to free their Avatars of the mind hex or face execution by guilt-phantoms.

Unlike the first 2 phases of this SSS-Rank dungeon, Phase 3 was the real deal.

Noah finally imposed his will on the raid team. "To win, we have to divine ourselves into four elite subgroups, each led by a veteran to handle a tomb".

"Personally, I’ll lead a team and find the Crown of Burden to take on King Varnas the Hollowed. He’s the most dangerous".

No one objected. Noah looked at them, waiting for a volunteer.

"I’ll lead a team to take on the Drowned King". Gabriel said calmly; not the retired one, but Dain Ironvalor’s controller.

"I’ll lead a team to take on that King Malrik". Jonathan said.

That left one last team.

Noah looked at the other, then spoke. "Aria, Caleb, you both lead a team to take on the Twin Kings".

"What of Queen Althissa?" Aria asked.

Noah smiled. "Leave her... for now".

"Due to the nature of her powers, she’s more of a territorial boss. She won’t leave her territory till we invade".

"So, let’s leave her for last".