I Reincarnated into a Game Filled with Mods – Chapter 80

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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If asked to choose the most challenging boss to defeat in the Brightest Darkness series, bosses that completely change their concept and patterns with each phase would likely top the list.

After dying dozens of times to reach Phase 2, players would then struggle to adapt to the drastically changed concept, dying dozens more times.

Just when they thought they had adapted to Phase 2, they would forget how to handle Phase 1, creating a vicious cycle.

The Eater of Worlds, the de facto final boss of Brightest Darkness 4, was a prime example.

With four phases, each with different patterns and concepts, it was excruciatingly difficult to fully adapt to.

“Fallen Priestess Lucia,” or “Priestess of the Sun Lucia,” also fell into this category.

In Phase 1, she fought like a monster with a hideously mutated body, having lost her sanity.

In Phase 2, she tore off her transformed right arm herself and fought more like a human.

As the Brightest Darkness series progressed to its fourth installment, the number of bosses that changed concepts with each phase naturally increased.

However, Lucia’s popularity stood out due to her moving storyline.

Lucia’s boss fight portrayed the journey of a priestess who had lost her sanity to the abyss, regaining her senses through faith and meeting a human-like end.

It was a process worthy of being called a hymn to humanity, so it was natural that many people liked it.

Of course, while the story was touching, those who struggled to defeat Lucia despite countless attempts cursed in frustration.

A blade of light swung vertically, creating a massive shockwave.

The golden light forming the holy sword originated from the sacred catalyst in Lucia’s left hand.

As the plunged sword dissipated into a bright mass of light, sacred power began to gather in the catalyst once again.

I considered closing the distance but decided to wait patiently, unsure of what pattern might emerge next.

The light mass transformed into a huge spear.

Lucia raised her arm, assuming a javelin-throwing stance.

This was a pattern where I could move in close.

I swiftly moved my feet.

I circled clockwise around Lucia, and just as a clear tinkling sound rang out and her left arm moved to throw the spear, I rolled deeply inward, completing a full rotation.

The holy spear lodged precisely where I had been moments ago, then exploded.

Having already moved out of the blast range, I ignored it and swung the blood-red blade of my sword at Lucia.

With no need to apply the Blessing Enchantment using the sacred catalyst, it was time to utilize the attack power buff, the special ability of the blood-stained sword.

This would be the last buff I could apply, as I had used up all my potions to replenish health since Phase 1.

“Ugh!”

Lucia staggered greatly, letting out a groan as she was struck by the blood-stained sword.

In Phase 2, Lucia’s resistance to all other types of damage dropped to the level of a normal human boss, but her resistance to holy attacks became incredibly high.

It was the exact opposite of Phase 1.

While clerical characters could breeze through Phase 1, they would struggle in Phase 2 unless they had prepared alternative means of attack.

Lucia was barely able to put up a proper resistance, groaning and taking hits as I struck her.

This was due to her extremely low stagger resistance as a boss.

However, I couldn’t keep hitting her until she died.

After landing exactly four strikes, I rolled backward and retreated.

Immediately after, a golden explosion occurred near Lucia.

This was a pattern designed to punish players who thoughtlessly stuck close and spammed left-clicks, taking advantage of the boss’s low stagger resistance.

In vanilla, there was at least a slight startup delay, but in the Darkest Light mod, it was practically instantaneous with no casting time, making it almost impossible to dodge on sight.

It was meant to encourage players to strike appropriately and then retreat.

“The Sun watches over me…”

A prayer flowed from Lucia’s lips.

Her knees touched the ground in worship, and as if offering something, she bowed her head and raised her left palm upward.

The sacred catalyst placed before her kneeling form shone brightly.

Sacred power overflowed, blocking my approach, and a golden spherical object formed on the ceiling of the boss room.

A small sun rose to the highest point.

In sync with this, Lucia stood up.

The sacred catalyst in her left hand, which she had picked up again at some point, continued to emit light.

The light transformed into the shape of a mace.

Lucia took a step forward.

Simultaneously, the sphere that had split itself into multiple fragments began to fire towards me.

‘…It’s too late to circle counterclockwise now.’

I quickly calculated which direction to dodge while looking up at the blazing sun.

This was a pattern that could be avoided similarly to the final desperate attack of the Human Butcher, the boss from the tutorial area.

That is, if Lucia wasn’t charging at me from right in front.

Lucia reached me in an instant.

Unlike Phase 1 where she never ran, in Phase 2 she unhesitatingly used leaps, teleportation, and running to try to kill the player.

Ignoring the sun falling to the right, I also ran full speed to create distance from Lucia, then rolled forward just before the small sun impacted.

A fierce explosion sound rang out behind me.

As the light struck down for the second time, Lucia swung the mace she had created with the sacred catalyst.

First a holy sword, then a spear, and now a mace.

In vanilla, she had stuck faithfully to the setting and only used a mace, but in the Darkest Light mod, for some reason, she had become a weapon master creating all sorts of weapons.

‘What a dirty way to play.’

After inwardly giving Lucia high praise, I deflected the mace swinging down as if to crush my head.

At least the movement set for swinging the mace was shared with Stella, so it wasn’t particularly difficult to handle.

A light mass exploded right next to me, but since it was outside the range anyway, I ignored it and focused only on parrying the mace.

After deflecting the last attack of the three-hit combo, I stopped my body that was being pushed back, then checked the position of the falling spheres and rolled in the opposite direction to escape.

The attack that detonated those sun-like spheres was classified as a spell, so it couldn’t be properly defended against by deflecting.

Even if deflected perfectly, the spell damage would penetrate through.

Moreover, in the worst case, combat fatigue might be maxed out from deflecting the mace, making it impossible to roll, which would naturally lead to instant death.

In fact, it was much better to dodge by rolling rather than deflecting the weapons Lucia was swinging whenever possible.

But given the situation, there was no choice.

‘I wonder how much the stagger gauge has built up. I shouldn’t deflect the next attack.’

I estimated that I could probably use deflection once more, or at most twice, before being staggered.

To perfectly block status effects, I would need to use a shield with 100% resistance.

If I didn’t have the attack power buff active, getting staggered wouldn’t be a big deal – I could just run around to kill time.

But I still had the buff active, so that wasn’t an option.

The small sun, having expended all its power, flickered and gradually faded.

Dense darkness descended upon the boss room.

Only the sacred catalyst in Lucia’s hand served as the sole source of light.

At that moment, the blood-red glow enveloping the blade began to flicker and waver.

It was a signal that the duration of the attack power buff was nearly over.

‘Already?’

I glanced at Lucia.

Her gait seemed normal, and there were no visible signs of major injuries, so I couldn’t tell how much health she had left.

‘Shouldn’t she be close to dying by now?’

I missed that damn HUD every time I thought about it.

I had been hitting her quite efficiently throughout the duration of the attack power buff, except when patterns didn’t allow it, but I couldn’t confirm how much health she had left.

It was virtually impossible to drag Phase 2 Lucia into a prolonged battle.

This was because the holy spells she used included healing effects, and they recovered her health in percentage units.

If there was no means to interrupt and stop the healing, it was common for her to go from near death to full health, and the moment my attack power buff wore off, I would have no means to inflict stagger on Lucia.

‘Tch. No choice, I guess.’

Based on my calculations, I figured I could probably take her down with just a few more hits before the attack power buff wore off.

It was fair to consider this the last opportunity.

I charged at Lucia while focusing all my attention on the sacred catalyst.

I deflected the mace, dodged the holy spear, and stuck close to her front.

Normal attack, normal attack, and another normal attack.

‘…Now.’

And the moment I sensed she was about to unleash a holy explosion, I rolled to the side.

Having cleanly avoided the sacred power bursting out in all directions, I stuck close to Lucia again and swung my sword.

With each hit, Lucia staggered, groaning and barely keeping her balance.

It was an action I tried to avoid as much as possible due to the high risk, but with the damage calculation going off somewhere and a forced time attack beginning, it was an unavoidable choice.

‘If it weren’t for this situation, I wouldn’t even have considered it, really.’

I continued to grumble inwardly even after avoiding her attack.

As the expression “practically instantaneous with no casting time” suggested, it wasn’t completely impossible to dodge by rolling if one’s reaction speed was up to par.

It was just that the dodge difficulty was so insane that even highly experienced players rarely dared to attempt it, with the technique being 95% or more prediction rather than reaction.

Anyway, I had managed to succeed on the first attempt, and now all that remained was to pray that I could maintain that level of concentration until I cleared Lucia.

“Aaaaah…!”

Lucia let out a final death cry.

The golden light imbued in the sacred catalyst gradually began to fade.

‘Wow, that’s not something I could do twice.’

It seemed her health really had been very low, as Lucia collapsed after barely putting up a fight once I started my all-out assault.

Honestly, when the healing pattern came out at the end, I thought my heart was going to drop.

It was fortunate that her health ran out during the startup animation for the heal; otherwise, I might never have been able to defeat her.

There was a splat as the human body fell.

No, it was something that could barely be called a human body anymore.

Her entire body was melting, rotting and collapsing into a mushy state.

With the holy power that had been suppressing the mutation completely gone, even the flames burning on her right shoulder died down.

Something strange wriggled at that cross-section.

It seemed her arm was trying to regrow.

Lucia was gasping for breath, spewing black liquid from every orifice on her face.

A half-sobbing sound of “huu, huu” kept escaping her lips.

With this, the Lucia boss fight was cleared.

I sat down on the floor, feeling all the tension drain from my body at once.

This wasn’t some world’s greatest undead tournament, so I felt a sense of self-loathing for why I was killing a DLC boss at this level.

If only this were still a game.

‘Damn Holy Kingdom.’

I wondered why on earth that Pope had to make me anxious by uttering the DLC story dialogue at this timing.

As if to prove that I had indeed defeated Lucia, the black sludge washed away, revealing a rune stele that had been embedded in the wall.

A faint green light flowed from the characters engraved on the stele.

I could acquire the rune and go straight to the surface from here, but there was something I needed to finish first.

I stood up and approached Lucia, who was gasping for breath with her entire body melting.

I had used the acquired sacred catalyst more than 3 times, so the event condition was met.

There was no reward for progressing this event, but it wasn’t something I was doing for compensation anyway.

Hearing my footsteps, her head that had begun to melt turned towards me with difficulty.

It was surprising how accurately she faced my direction, even though her eyes were barely visible due to the black liquid.

“Is… someone there beside me?”

Her lips moved faintly.

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