Chapter 1163 – Prep Grinding 4 – Stomping


    Boss design was a tricky thing.


    Optimally, a boss was both challenging and fair. Mechanics represented had clear interconnections, be they through synergistic effects or consistent design themes, and every failure left one wanting to improve their abilities to cope with the challenges presented. In order to create such a challenge, numbers had to be finely tuned. Numbers too high made mechanics too punishing. In order to properly strike a balance, the game designer had to determine the expected power range of the players at this particular time and go from there.


    When exceeding that power, an encounter got laughably easy pretty fast.


    ‘Doubly true for encounters designed around adds,’ John thought, stomping the remaining life out of the Void Abomination that had been battered by Gnome moments before. With it killed, the group, scattered around the pitch-black abyss, stood there and waited. John even had time to turn to Lorelei, who waited outside the boss arena. There had been a clause that a boss encounter could only be started once everyone was in for the first Raid, but Gaia had done away with that. Thankfully, as John would not have wanted Lorelei even near these enemies.


    To him they were mildly dangerous. To her, he was quite certain that they could pull her limb from limb without issue.


    The design of an add-focused encounter went one of two ways. Either there were a ton of adds to start with or they spawned in continuously. In both cases, handling them alongside the boss’ mechanics was key to success in the encounter. Adds in the former case were typically stronger and had their own set of minor mechanics, while those in the latter case had to be acknowledged specifically because they kept on spawning and ignoring them would lead to the group being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. The difficulty of such encounters was therefore tied to how much trouble it was for the party to handle both the steady demands of add clearing and the primary DPS target (the boss).


    As soon as the kill rate was notably above the spawn rate, encounters like these turned into an absolute snooze fest.


    Of course, all bosses that had been out-scaled were dull in some way. There was a notable difference, however, between a boss where the unwanted power difference allowed one to face-tank five instead of two of the super-power attacks and an add-focused encounter where there was nothing to do between inconsequential adds that died within ten seconds of spawning. One was silly in how forgiving it was with mechanics designed to be punishing. The other was just plain boring.


    ‘At least we can hurry this along pretty well,’ John thought, watching the bombardment of elemental attacks hail down on the purple energy field. Each attack intensified the colour. Translucency was gradually removed. Finally, the priests within were entirely invisible, hidden under a bubble that started to crack.


    A burst of sound echoed over a battlefield, like a hundred windows shattering at the same time, and the energy shield exploded into a myriad of shards. The complete sphere, half of it submerged under the invisible line that served as the floor, scattered outwards. Suddenly, all of the shards stopped and realigned themselves, jagged edges pointing at one of the five priests. In a flurry of light, the solid energy fragments embedded themselves in that one Priest of Darkness.


    The human, their sex was obscured by the thick robes, snapped out of the chants and stumbled backwards three steps. They held their head, the glowing of their eyes intensifying. With a violent scream, their spine snapped backwards. Arms flying to the side, as if crucified, the priest yelled gargled nonsense. Then a wave of black mist exploded from their every orifice, consuming their shape in wavering darkness.


    A primal, distorted roar accompanied the birth of the Voidborne, a massive snake-like creature with two heads. Where the two necks split along its long body, a knot of lashing tentacles writhed like a nightmarish mane. Hands rushed outwards, supporting the serpentine Voidborne in its rush forwards.


    Confirmation that progress would continue to be easy made John consider his path forwards. In terms of acquiring Experience, the Raid was inefficient until they hit actually dangerous parts. In order to get there, they had to invest the time to clear these easy segments. Walking was the major factor there.


    Luckily for the Gamer he had the body strength, the Perk, and the willing partners required to make even walking a highly stimulating endeavour. Particularly Sylph was incredibly useful as a walk-fuck, small and light as she was. Not that other haremettes couldn’t take the role. All John had to do was hang back a little bit during encounters and let everyone else do the work, while he fucked for eight hours of grinding. A blissful solution to achieving levels and Raid progress.


    Sometimes the environment demanded that he actually paid attention to it. Raids often threw obstacles other than enemies at them. Parkour of the deadly variety was a secondary threat. They hadn’t been faced with it for the last area, the maze likely had been meant to fill that design niche. Now, however, there were various areas where pits filled with void-ooze had to be crossed using broken pillars, the occasional resting platform, and plain old speed. John hated those stretches, since he was always worse at them than most of his girls. Admittedly, it was refreshing that those still posed a challenge. Environmental obstacles typically cared little about damage resistance.


    Much as John loathed having his weaknesses highlighted, the true victim here was Lorelei. Carrying her across was too risky, so the very first obstacle course they came across was where she had to opt out of following them. John left her with Jack at the spawning platform, so she wouldn’t be lonely for several hours.


    Admittedly, John could have used his double to solve the Experience of Love issue. No reason to skip out on the opportunity to have sex in inappropriate places though. There was something truly thrilling about dumping a giant load inside a big-titted fire elemental while the rest of his harem fought off a giant void monster a few dozen metres away. On-site fucking therefore continued.


    Distracted as he was by jiggling femininity, John still noticed the various changes in the environment. From corridors, they transitioned into a system of underground city layers. Various buildings had been erected underneath ceilings that flickered with broken magic that was meant to conjure artificial skies. What had once been lively bazaars and homes now lay barren, claimed by black mist. Dozens of Ohmior Knights lay across the place, some of them jutting back to life when approached. Controlled by the energy of the void, these Ohmior Knights were equipped with mana-reaving attacks in addition to the skills associated with their respective weapon. They were still easily discarded.


    They descended several layers, each time following a corridor that, rather than just using stairs, shifted the direction gravity worked in. This would have been quite disorienting, had the entire architecture not also changed to accommodate. Up turned down and vice versa, without any real consequence. It was just flavour.


    A last twisted corridor and they emerged, after over ten hours of travel, at the next boss arena.


    It was the literal bottom of the city. The Raid in its entirety was located in a massive bowl-like structure. Upside down as they stood, the depression was now a rise under them. At the highest point of the convex shape was the platform on which they emerged. The pedestals with the balefully glowing spheres led up to a massive altar, a ziggurat of dark magic, guarded by four Void Chimeras patrolling the base and the square of pedestals around it.


    A flight of stairs on each side led up to the top of the altar, where a shifting knot of snakes and tentacles squeezed out of itself a steady flow of liquid void energy which simultaneously drenched and held the Guardian of the Seal, the second boss of the Raid, underneath it.


    ‘Always with the unpronounceable void names,’ John thought.