The Gene of the Ancients (Rogue Merchant Book #2): LitRPG Series by Roman Prokofiev (top books to read TXT) 📕

as soon as we made a few steps, passing under a pile of overhung dripstones, something strange occurred. The ceiling of the cave moved and swelled in a cloud of ink-black darkness that rapidly grew in size. Before my eyes, black blobs detached from the cloud and started falling right on our heads, releasing clusters of tentacles.

Abbot: Fall back, everyone! Defensive formation! What the (censored)?!

 

Darkness swept everything around us in just a few heartbeats. Blinded, all we could hear were screams of attacked players. HP bars of ten fighters in the raid interface dropped down at once. They got hit with a strange debuff called “Awe”. It prevented them from moving for ten seconds.

Olaf: Shadow Mantas! Fire, everburning light, silver!

 

Fortunately, the initial surge of panic was nipped in the bud by the precise orders of the raid leader. Everburning torches lit up, dispelling the aura of magical darkness. The majority of the raid had successfully escaped the zone of impact and were huddled behind raised shields. The creatures descending on us from above were met with fireballs and flaming arrows. The shadow mantas, as Olaf had called them, didn’t have a lot of hit points and dropped after one or two hits. Those unlucky enough to be grabbed by them screamed in horror, as the mantas landed right on their heads and latched on them, wrapping them with their tentacles. Then they activated Absorption, rapidly draining the life force of their blinded victims. Fortunately, it was possible to tear them away with outside help and finish them off. Physical damage didn’t work well against mantas, unlike magic. They were clearly somewhat spectral.

Ten minutes later, the fight was over. The torrent of descending monsters had waned, and the black blobs were strewn around the stone floor. I kicked one of them with the tip of my boot. It was an unmoving headless octopus about the size of a small dog, oozing black sticky sludge. Curiosity made me check the loot: Drop of Dark Ecloplasm, Shadow Manta Tentacles, Shadow Manta Eyes, and other entrails, obvious alchemical ingredients marked as blue, meaning rare. I quickly opened the Bazaar tab, made calculations... That wasn’t bad at all! One manta dropped loot worth fifty gold, and we had just killed several dozens of them. No wonder Olaf looked so happy as he collected everything. I had recently learned that he was a master alchemist; even one of his archetypes was apparently tied to this profession.

Komtur: Scouts, what the hell? How have you missed a whole room of that crap?

 

Inker: It was clear when we passed it...

 

Abbot: Peace, it’s all right. We’ve healed the raid. The scouts aren’t at fault, look at the bestiary description. The mantas are invisible and don’t aggro at invisible characters.

 

Abbot: All right, moving on. At least we’ve warmed up. What spot is there?

 

Abel: It’s big. A hundred and half signals, all elemental. Here’s an image; try to identify it. We’re in stealth on the edge.

 

He sent a picture of a huge cave illuminated by a faint greenish light. Most likely, that was the moss that blanketed the walls, the floor, and the many ledges. There were several hot springs around the area, and the center was filled by an entire lake of an amazing emerald color. Strange creatures slowly moved through the hazy mist of the cave: luminescent globes, blue, green, and red, as if woven from translucent light.

Abbot: Looks like an Elemental Nest.

 

Olaf: No. It’s a big-sized Elemental Plane. Will we go for it?

 

Abbot: Looks tasty. Let’s go. I hope no one forgot ghost traps.

 

Going by the conversation between our leaders and the subsequent reading of our tactics, we had stumbled on a big instance, one of the random dungeons materializing in the Endless Paths. We were to combat elemental spirits, while the lake contained the boss — a djinn or a marut, an extremely dangerous being. However, Abbot hoped that the instance wouldn’t pose a big problem. In the classification of random Helt Akor anomalies, the Elemental Place was considered a walk in a park.

* * *

 

Tao: What’s up, are you watching them?

 

Illith: They’ve gone into the first passage. It’s a dead end, Elemental Plane and nothing more. It should keep them busy for two hours or so.

 

Tao: Have you looked what respawned below? Would be nice to wipe them, like last time.

 

Illith: I’ll go check.

 

Illith: In short, the more, the merrier. Two layers below, there’s a random event, a Netherworld portal. Daine and her pack. Remember her?

 

Tao: Ahaha, how could I forget something like that? Could you pull her up to the Watchers? Let the girls have some fun!

 

Illith: I could try. Hope I won’t get swallowed myself...

 

* * *

 

Clearing and completing the instance took almost two hours. That was my first time in such a big and challenging PvE raid. I thought I had done a great job with my two tasks — protecting the buffers and avoiding dying. The guys from the support group, AlexOrder, Olaf, Nazgul, and even Fang the minstrel didn’t look like whipping boys. The monsters had broken through to them only once, and I was unable to show my skill, as Abbot incinerated the elemental with a cloud of hungry darkness. The only problem was the boss. Several tanks spent almost half an hour killing it, switching every minute. The translucent giant consisting of pure energy kept discharging sparks and arcs of lightning, killing everyone who came close. He was immune to half of our magic spells, and the healers had a hard time while we worked on figuring out the solution, constantly resurrecting players who dropped like flies. Three stages, the enrage phase when the boss transformed into a giant ball of lightning — we survived everything,