The HP of the second boss, Lion Balgar, was beyond comprehension.

There were no special gimmick structures in the battle area.

Chris' raid party had no choice but to confront it head-on.

"The boss's attack patterns are faster than expected!"

Deathmaster was barely keeping up with Balgar's rapid attacks, struggling to counter them. The ranged dealers hesitated to deal too much damage, fearing that they might draw aggro.

Balgar charged forward with his massive body, swinging his heavy fists in quick succession. His legs, firmly planted in place, did not move.

"We need to observe the situation until Deathmaster gets used to the patterns!"

Chris moved swiftly, surveying the entire battlefield with sharp eyes. With an HP pool that large, it would take a while to reach the special phase, assuming there was one.

Time-based patterns? HP-triggered patterns? It would only become clear as the fight progressed.

*Whoosh!*

Balgar extended his fists to either side and spun his massive body.

His enormous, rock-like fists, propelled by the momentum of his spin, swept across the surrounding area.

"Gasp!"

Deathmaster's eyes flashed with determination.

As Balgar’s fists approached him, Deathmaster moved fluidly, positioning his hands above and below, ready to counter.

---

[Counter (B)]
[Counter the enemy's attack]
[(B-rank) Successful counter within 0.5 seconds grants 1 second of invulnerability]

---

*Wham! Wham! Wham!*

Deathmaster perfectly timed his counter for Balgar’s first rotation. Balgar spun two more times, but the invulnerability from the counter negated the damage.

Immediately after, Deathmaster landed powerful punches on Balgar’s body, taking advantage of the boss’s exposed openings.

*Boom! Boom!*

Chris let out a sound of admiration.

"Perfect guard!"

Deathmaster had flawlessly earned the perfect guard advantage despite the synchronization penalty that burdened him.

"It's just like real boxing. You need to judge even the smallest distances and time everything perfectly."

*Boom! Boom!*

Deathmaster continued to weave around Balgar, delivering punches left and right.

Chris' raid party's reliable tank, the fighter Deathmaster, was using the perfect guard mechanic to his full advantage.

"All that reckless training paid off, huh?"

Chris chuckled, remembering Deathmaster’s extreme training methods.

Now that Deathmaster had switched from defense to offense, the other damage dealers could unleash their attacks more freely. Both Cherni and Beimerung began to pour out their skills without restraint.

*Crash! Boom!*

---

[Second Boss]
[Lion Balgar]
[HP 19,000,541/20,000,000]

---

With the combined firepower of the party, Balgar's HP began to drop rapidly.

Then, when Balgar’s HP had dropped by 5%, the first significant change occurred in the battlefield.

*Clank.*

Chris quickly turned her head toward the sound.

On the wall of the tower, a massive gear protruded.

*Whirrr!*

The gear began spinning rapidly.

*Boom!*

At that moment, Beimerung launched a fireball at the gear. Chris gave Beimerung a thumbs up.

"Nice one, Beimerung!"

"Dribbling, right? I could tell just by looking!"

With the experience of dribbling the Galovan spheres in the *Demon Army Outpost*, Beimerung reacted immediately. If the gear had moved toward the tank, Deathmaster would have been in serious trouble.

*Whirrr!*

The gear now moved toward Beimerung. She expertly led the massive gear away from the other party members while still dealing damage to Balgar.

When Balgar’s HP reached 90%, a second gear emerged from the wall.

"My turn now!"

*Boom!*

Cherni responded instantly and began dribbling the second gear.

Shortly after, a third gear appeared, and Chris took responsibility for it.

The three ranged DPS members, seasoned from countless dungeon runs, continued to dribble the gears while maintaining their relentless assault on Balgar.

Balgar's HP dropped to 80% before long.

*Crash!*

Just as the fourth gear appeared, the first one, which Beimerung had been handling, shattered against the wall. Its durability had run out after pursuing Beimerung for so long.

Without missing a beat, Beimerung moved toward the fourth gear and began dribbling it again.

If the gear pattern was the only challenge, it might take some time, but the boss wouldn’t be impossible to clear.

"Alright! Its HP is huge, but as long as we stay focused, we’ll be fine! Let’s keep whittling it down while dribbling the gears!"

Chris encouraged her party members.

---

[Second Boss]
[Lion Balgar]
[HP 8,216,331/20,000,000]

---

Balgar's HP had dropped below 50%. The battle was progressing steadily.

The ranged DPS members continued to dribble the gears while chipping away at the boss’s health. It was a simple but concentration-intensive task, and Chris' raid party was handling it without mistakes.

The second boss was past the halfway point.

Balgar had threatening attack patterns and special moves, but they weren’t enough to stop Chris’ party’s steady advance.

At this pace, the boss would be cleared without issue.

The party members began to show signs of relief, their faces brightening.

But then—

*Boom!*

Something unexpected happened.

Balgar made a strange movement.

"Graaaagh!"

*Boom!*

With a roar, Balgar pounded his chest with both fists.

"What the!?"

"Is this a special phase? Were the gears not all there was?"

The party members tensed up, closely watching Balgar’s movements. However, after two chest pounds, Balgar resumed his attack on Deathmaster.

The first to sense something off was Deathmaster, who was still handling the boss's patterns at the frontline.

"Ugh! Something’s wrong!"

Chris hurriedly checked the party’s status window. Deathmaster’s HP was dropping rapidly.

Had he been hit? No, he was still successfully countering the boss’s attacks.

That left only one possibility.

"Massive attack power increase!?"

Balgar’s attacks were now bypassing Deathmaster’s counter damage reduction.

"We’re not dealing any damage!"

"What’s going on? Has its defense skyrocketed!?"

The next ones to notice the anomaly were the ranged DPS members.

Balgar’s HP had stopped decreasing, despite their continued onslaught of skills.

Balgar suddenly extended his arms outward.

*Clatter-clatter-clatter!*

Chains shot out from the shackles on Balgar’s wrists, binding every member of Chris’ raid party.

"Eek!?"

"Ugh!"

"What the!?"

The party members, caught off guard, were all pulled toward Balgar.

At the same time, Balgar slammed his fists into the ground.

*Boom!*

Chris’ eyes widened in shock.

A sign of an area-wide attack.

But everyone was immobilized.

They couldn’t react.

*BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!*

A massive explosion erupted from Balgar, engulfing the entire battlefield.

---

"What just happened!?"

Chris was in a state of confusion. Their well-coordinated attempt to clear the second boss had been obliterated in an instant.

"It’s not just the chains we need to worry about. Its attack and defense have both skyrocketed. With such a massive HP pool, we can’t continue like this."

Deathmaster’s observation was spot on. Chris bit her nails, her frustration obvious.

"The strategy was going smoothly. There was no indication that we were about to hit a special phase."

"If there was another special pattern, it would’ve shown up earlier. The gears every 5% must be the only one."

Cherni, who had been lost in thought, spoke up.

"Remember that bus customer we had? The one who talked about old raid games from decades ago? They mentioned a boss with a ‘Berserk’ phase."

"Berserk?"

"Yeah. It’s a pattern where the boss becomes impossible to defeat if you don’t kill it within a certain time."

"A kind of time attack, then."

Deathmaster nodded. Beimerung looked uncertain as she asked.

"None of the bosses we’ve fought so far had a pattern like that, though."

Chris shook her head.

"Not exactly. Think of the second boss in *Demon’s Tomb* or *Galovan* in the *Outpost*."

"True. The longer the fight went on, the harder it became."

The *Demon’s Tomb* second boss had statues of knights that slowly came to life, and *Galovan* filled the battlefield with magic mines the longer the fight went on.

As the fight dragged on, the battlefield became more restrictive, monsters piled up, and eventually, the battle became impossible to win.

"Even though a four-person party can handle it, those were technically forms of a berserk phase."

Beimerung stomped her feet in frustration.

"So, what do we do?"

"It’s one of two things. Either we missed something, or we simply don’t have enough DPS."

"If we hadn’t wasted time adapting to the early patterns, maybe we could’ve pushed through."

But when the boss went berserk, it had over 40% of its HP left. Could they really burn through 40% more with just extra effort?

Chris shook her head.

If their DPS wasn’t enough, no party would be able to clear it.

"There’s definitely a gimmick to reduce its HP. I have some ideas. We’ll need to test a few things."

---

[Second Boss]
[Lion Balgar]
[HP 3,553,007/20,000,000]

---

*Wham! Wh

am! Wham!*

I perfectly guarded against the first rotation, blocked the second, and countered during the third spin.

*Whirr!*

I glanced in the direction of the sound. A massive gear was whizzing toward me. I turned my body slightly, narrowly avoiding it.

"Graaaagh!"

The gear grazed Balgar, tearing into its body.

Balgar was now covered in red wounds, his entire body bathed in blood.

His once-human-like appearance was gone, now resembling nothing more than the blood-soaked monstrosity *Blood-Maw* had been.

I smirked as I watched him.

"A time attack pattern. A gimmick-based boss."

I’d cleared every dungeon solo up to this point.

I’d encountered plenty of time attack patterns before.

The moment I saw the second boss’s HP, I knew it was a gimmick fight with a time attack mechanic.

I had already figured out how to use the gears after seeing the first gear’s erratic movements.

Usually, the game’s system didn’t allow bosses to damage their minions, but there were exceptions, like *Craksa*.

So, I figured the reverse could work, and I was right.

*Crack.*

One of the gears chasing me shattered. Dodging Balgar’s fist, I sent a flying sword at the newly revealed gear.

---

[Sword Technique]
[Launches a sword at an enemy within 15 meters, attacking and then retrieving it]

---

*Slash! Clang!*

The damage from the flying sword wasn’t great, but it was enough to draw the gear’s attention.

The gear locked onto me and started rolling toward the line between me and Balgar.

When the gear scraped against Balgar, it left deep wounds.

I couldn’t see any debuffs, but the more cuts that appeared on his body, the faster his HP dropped.

*Whirr!*

Three gears spun furiously, heading toward me simultaneously.

I dodged the first one, used a counter on the second, and when the third one approached, I used *Flash Step* to dash to the opposite side, slicing through Balgar as I went.

"Graaaagh!"

With a pained roar, Balgar spun three more times in rapid succession.

*Clang-clang-clang!*

I blocked them all on the spot.

At this point, I didn’t even need to rely on my own damage to win.

There was no need to aim for perfect guards or even counterattacks; all I had to do was dodge the gears.

Balgar’s HP was now dropping by hundreds of thousands per second.

I grinned at the sight of his pitiful, battered form.

"I don’t even have to hit you anymore."