Somnia Online by K.T. Hanna (reading strategies book txt) 📕

didn’t just continue to rain shit down on them, and then she checked. He had mana, and with a quick test of Mana Drain, she realized she could siphon it off. But his pool of power wasn’t large. In fact, he’d mostly drained it with that spell.

Murmur smiled to herself even as Michael fixed an irritated gaze on her. She knew what his biggest weakness was, and she could do something about it. Mana draining it was, and she would do it until he was dead.

As if in retaliation to her decision, Michael swatted Risk out of the way when the dread knight tried to taunt him, choosing to focus on Devlish instead. The taunt, it seemed, was only mildly effective on him, which meant he’d be able to ignore the ability every now and again.

He could hit like a wrecking ball, so now Murmur just had to keep his mana drained so he couldn’t add magic into the mix, and all they’d have to do is dodge his massive melee attacks.

She announced it over raid. “Keep out of his reach as much as you can. If you can do effective DPS on the outskirts, do it. If you can’t, just watch for telegraphed movements. If he’s dry on mana, he can’t fuel his melee attacks with spells.”

Between her and Belius, they’d leave Michael’s damned mana tank dry. She settled into a rhythm and watched as his health hit ninety percent and kept going down.

Hold him for as long as you can. We will be there shortly.

Somnia’s interruption caught Murmur unawares, and she frowned. Okay, but why? She had to keep her eye on their opponent and couldn’t miss a turn to drain him or they were going to get bombarded with lightning bolts again.

We have the solution in the works. It’s just taking a little longer to power up than expected. Somnia paused for a moment, and then added, Sorry.

Murmur sighed to herself. It’s okay. Just do whatever you need to do, we’ve got this.

But you can’t kill him yet.

Murmur paused, counting to three before answering so she wouldn’t snap. What the hell is your deal with not killing shit? Especially this total douchebag?

You can kill him—just wait until we get there. Somnia sounded impatient, and suddenly her presence was gone.

Unsure how long the world was going to take there, Murmur eyed Michael’s eighty-seven percent health and didn’t think waiting was going to be a problem.

While she’d been conversing with Somnia, the sun had come out overhead, almost like it was summoned. They’d spent the majority of their time on Gefängnis with dim lighting because the sky was overcast. But now those clouds were banished.

Michael preened in the sun, and the rays that struck him were swallowed up somehow. He flexed his wings like he was done warming up his muscles, and Murmur had a distinct feeling things were about to get a lot worse.

It wasn’t going to matter if his mana was unusable; the man had turned into a flying demon minotaur, and he had enough appendages to create severe pain. Regardless, she wasn’t about to let him have his mana back and give him a full arsenal. Just as she had the thought, Michael rose into the air, health ticking down to eighty-six percent as he did so.

Telvar and Devlish quickly put their heads together, and the AI gestured wildly while the tank listened, a thoughtful expression on his face. Then Dev shrugged as if to say, “what the hell,” and called out through the raid.

“Keep in your groups,” Devlish called out. “When he’s grounded again, Telvar and I will yo-yo him. Don’t get between us.”

Murmur didn’t even know if this was going to work, but if Telvar had suggested it, then that’s what they were going to do, simply because it was the only plan they had.

Michael’s wings flapped, creating gusts of wind on the ground as the entire raid craned their necks to see him, and then, after the last DoT on him wore off and dropped him to eighty-five percent, he folded in his wings and dropped.

“Clear the middle!” Havoc yelled as it became abundantly clear why.

Their opponent dropped down to the middle of the circle, landing in a kneeling fighter’s pose and caused all of the ground around him to reverberate and buckle momentarily.

Snowy growled next to her, standing with his legs splayed and his teeth bared.

Murmur almost missed her turn to drain his mana, but she got it just in time, and the beast turned to her with a scowl. “You think you’re so clever.”

And he began to stalk toward her. Devlish stepped in his path, firing both taunts off at once and forcing Michael to look at him. Glowering, the beast turned his head to the main tank, begrudgingly obeying the wonky physics of the game. Murmur had a feeling it had just put the man in a very bad mood.

DoTs were back on him, and rotations began again. There was no way for them to stop his rising into the air, but as long as they could prevent him from casting spells on them, she supposed that’d be enough. For now, anyway. His health moved so slowly, and he didn’t seem concerned in the least.

She kept an eye on her MA and her sensing nets, making sure everything involved in her Mental Acuity abilities was working to full capacity. She couldn’t afford to lower that shield and leave the entire raid susceptible to Michael’s manipulations.

Murmur refused to let another person screw Somnia over the way Jirald attempted to. Past eighty percent and Murmur began to worry. Michael was far too calm; he had to have more in his arsenal, and she doubted it was programmed. Like Jirald, Michael wasn’t going to let a lot of the game physics affect him. Those things he could control, he would.

It was like he read her mind as his health dropped further into the seventies.

He hefted his shoulder back, telegraphing an incoming punch. But