I thought I’d made it out of his range, but then Hecatoncheires disappeared into mist and reappeared right in front of me, greatsword already mid-swing.
Crap! He chased me with Shadow Dance!
I pulled my wings in front of me to block the slash. His blade sliced through them, sending searing pain through my body.
‹Hng…!› I was focusing too much on attacking. Hecatoncheires’s attack and agility were lower than mine, but he was still a Legendary rank with excellent skills and some major talent with a sword. He was a remnant of a Hero. I couldn’t underestimate him.
I slammed my tail into Hecatoncheires. The blow barely even staggered him, but I used the recoil to create some distance between us.
His Shadow Dance was a major issue. It prevented me from cornering him and made it easy for him to catch up to me. It was perfect for dragging battles out too: The longer the fight went on, the less I’d risk coming in close to damage him, and the more he’d come in to attack.
Hecatoncheires didn’t let himself take too much damage by accident, or unexpectedly, and his attacks were weak but steady. Because his attacks were low-damage and simple, I hadn’t felt like there was any danger. However, this battle was slowly but surely luring me into exhaustion. It was a strange feeling, like he was draining my life away one point at a time. Even now that I’d identified this as Hecatoncheires’s fighting style, I still didn’t feel a sense of serious danger—and that scared me.
Hecatoncheires didn’t have the power to kill me in one decisive blow. But that was exactly why I needed to be even more careful.
I flew up in a spiral, keeping my distance from Hecatoncheires. His main strategy was to counter my attacks and use Shadow Dance to close the gap in our agility, so I’d keep applying pressure from just outside his range and force him to move instead. If we attacked at the same time, my speed advantage should mean I could land some serious hits on him.
I circled around Hecatoncheires from above. He didn’t move. I circled around him again; still Hecatoncheires remained stationary. He didn’t even seem remotely interested in keeping up the pressure.
Huh. I’d thought if I stopped swooping down at him, he’d at least try to use Dimension Slash and that’d give me an opportunity, but now he wasn’t moving at all. When I raised my claws to intimidate him, he drew his sword in response, but that was it.
And all the while, as I tried to bait Hecatoncheires into attacking, he was steadily recovering HP and MP with his powerful recovery abilities. He just stood and waited, a stone gargoyle waiting for the perfect moment to come to life again.
Well, I guess that idea’s a bust. Hecatoncheires wouldn’t try to attack me first while I was up here; that’d only be putting himself at a disadvantage. The thought of peppering him with a million more Dimension Claws was less than appealing as well: He’d probably use that to his advantage to hit me back with Dimension Slash.
Strategy wouldn’t work against Hecatoncheires, I realized. Dealing fatal blows was hard enough, and he could escape from any corner I backed him into with Shadow Dance. I couldn’t outsmart Hecatoncheires; instead, I needed to outmaneuver him. Specifically, I needed a way to repeatedly and continuously inflict damage against his superior stats. But no matter what I tried, Hecatoncheires seemed like he was always a step ahead.
His abilities were so airtight that I couldn’t find any weaknesses to exploit. He was a true guardian. Despite my best efforts so far, he’d barely taken any damage at all. And slowly but surely, he was driving me into a corner.
This wasn’t going to work. I kept feeling like I’d be able to beat him if I took advantage of our stat differences, but I could see that was just wishful thinking. At this rate, I’d run out of juice before Hecatoncheires was even down to half his max MP.
It was time to change my strategy. I needed to somehow get through Hecatoncheires’s defenses and aim to land continuous attacks that would deal massive damage. It felt like Hecatoncheires would only engage in direct physical fights, but I’d never beat him if I kept fighting on his terms. I’d have to use up a lot of MP, but it wasn’t like my current fighting style was getting anywhere. I resolved to try out every skill I had to find out what would cut through Hecatoncheires’s seemingly impermeable defense.
First, I approached Hecatoncheires, swiped at him with my claws, and then quickly disengaged. Although he blocked me with his greatsword this time, our difference in agility meant I could potentially outpace him and do some major damage by aiming between his arms. But this attack method wasn’t particularly appealing. Hecatoncheires’s high defense and recovery abilities meant basic blows would only damage him by a fraction of a percent of his max HP every time.
With Shadow Dance, I always had to be cautious of him escaping while I attacked, so I couldn’t just beat on him over and over. And my stats just couldn’t handle a proper head-on fight. Instead, my goal in this encounter was simply to observe.
After exchanging several blows—him with his sword, me with my claws—I fell back and unleashed a Scorching Breath toward Hecatoncheires. Raging flames flew from my mouth, engulfing him completely.
With Hecatoncheires’s resistances and immunities, using a fire skill to try to hurt him would be a waste of MP. But I wanted to see how he reacted when the flames obscured his vision.
As the flames engulfed Hecatoncheires, his silhouette remained between them, unmoving. He didn’t use Shadow Dance to escape. The flames couldn’t hurt him, so I figured he was saving his MP for more dire situations. He was waiting it out, as always.