12:00 AT, Day Twenty Six | Central Floodplains

  I place my hand upon the barrier and get the familiar confirmation menu.

  ‘Do you wish to begin the challenge: Legend Raid for Uak The Loud?

  Recommended Party: At least 20 great-level challengers and 150 high-level challengers.

  Current Party (432): Contains 204% of recommended combat strength. Estimated Difficulty: Trivial.

  Estimated reward for Legend Raid: 2500 Ri, 5000 Ti, Slayer of Uak The Loud commendation and 10 Legend Equipment Drops (Extreme-level) + 1 per participant (432). (Equipment rewards have been decreased due to trivial difficulty)

  Yes / No’

  We guessed that bringing such an excess of troops would come with some form of penalty. But, we decided to just go with it, in favor of an easier fight.

  I look at Ray who has a brilliant smile on her face. A glimmer of that super cute violence can be seen in her eyes, she is ready to go murder something for sure. Which is good, because there is definitely no time to rethink our battle strategy.

  We press the confirmation and the world around us changes into the arena. Pretty typical, but this time it appears the arena is surrounded by a large river. In the center stands a giant egg.

  It starts to crack open and we quickly get into position, ready for the Legend that shall emerge, apparently known as Uak the Loud. Perhaps we should've brought earmuffs.

  The beast emerges from the egg, it's a giant duck. For a moment, I can feel a few tears rise as I remember the great legends, Stabby I-V. But I quickly regain my composure and refocus. After all, we've got a duck to slay.

  Ray and Linda start off with a barrage of projectiles, which quickly tear through the duck. Only for its health bar to drop a mere 2%. It seems to have 3 skills, alongside the typical 5 segmented healthbar.

  “Well klack, this is one fat duck.” Ray says, earning a collective laugh. “Looks like we are in for a feast, fellas, so let's get this guy spitroasting over a fire, pronto.”

  “Darling, do remember that we can't actually cook the legends. The game masters are cruel.”

  “Oh well, we can probably find some smaller ducks in the food supplies and roast those instead. Once we slay this guy of course.”

  Before we can finish our discussion for our dinner, Uak flares its wings and prepares a great quack, a {Sonic Quack}.

  Before I can give the order to take cover, the quack ripples outwards, resulting in a shockwave that quickly flattens anything nearby. Several of our groups were loitering nearby and got flattened into pancakes at the sheer force.

  The shockwave rips through the rest of our troops, it even pushes me back a little bit. We end up losing about 40 high-levels and one great-level.

  I suppose trivial difficulty doesn't mean we won't take any losses. Simply that we are certain to actually defeat it by sheer attrition.

  I quickly reassembled our troops into a full on assault, we can't afford to let it get many {Sonic Quack}s in.

  Bullets, missiles and various other projectiles and explosives rain down. The health bar slowly ticks down, repairing any physical damage we manage to inflict.

  I join the melee squad as we fly in and aim for the critical weak spots.

  I score a bunch of nice hits to its knees with my spear. It seems that the duck itself is actually fairly weak armor wise. Perhaps it has a large health pool to compensate for this fact.

  It does make sense, ducks aren't exactly the most armored animals in the wild. Though they can be quite loud and annoying with their incessant quacking all the time.

  This Uak guy is just filled with a bunch of who knows what. Creating a giant monster duck with quacks that can shatter metal armor. It's only mildly terrifying.

  We continue our assault and dodge a few {Sonic Quack}s with minimal losses. But the health bar only barely moves despite all of our efforts. It appears we are in for a long haul, we should've brought some bigger guns and explosives for sure.

  Ray and I pass by each other as we move in for another pass. Ray’s blades flash like a storm of beautiful metal (attached to a super duper cute Ray of course) as they slice and dice Uak into a nice mince.

  “For Kek’s sake, this thing just won't die!” Ray exclaims at the fact that we have only taken out 40% of its health despite our relentless assault.

  In response to Ray’s complaint, Uak activates its second ability, {Tidal Quack}.

  It starts off like a normal sonic quack, only for the shockwave to instead bounce off the walls of the arena and deflect into the river surrounding us.

  The shockwave creates a giant tsunami of water that rushes up, threatening to consume anything that stands in its path. Unfortunately, we are currently in its path.

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  “Everyone, if you don't wanna die, stick something into the ground and hold on for your lives!” I command.

  The wave sweeps across the arena, harmlessly passing over Uak who simply floats on top of the wave with his fancy webbed feet. Our soldiers fare far worse, we lose about half of our remaining troops in the wave.

  I never would've guessed a single quack could have such a devastating effect.

  After about a minute, the wave passes and the water disappears. Quickly, everyone recollects themselves and resumes the assault.

  I rush over to Ray, who is looking quite cute, her long wet hair is quite alluring for some reason. Perhaps I shall have to explore further this appearance of wet hair, it seems to have much potential.

  Fantasies aside, I give Ray a quick kiss and a smile. Which she returns with that comforting steadiness that she always seems to radiate on battlefields.

  “Darling, let's teach this duck a lesson.” Ray says, tapping her blade against my armor.

  “Yeah, this guy is gonna regret messing with the Moonlight Duo.” I say. Once again reminding myself that we technically started this. Once again I think about how history is written by the victors.

  We renew our assault on Uak. This time, Ray and I work side by side, my spear retracts only for her blades to extend. We form a machine, a whirlwind of blades and points.

  Later on, I hear a soldier describe us as a lunar storm, with nothing that can stand in our path. A pretty apt description, after all, we are the Moonlight Duo.

  Nothing shall stand in our way. After all, luce lunae per aspera ad astra et ultra.

  We, along with the rest of our troops, mercilessly tear through Uak’s health bar. He lets out a few more quacks, but we manage to handle them with minimal losses. We won't fall into the same traps again.

  Our blades and guns shred the duck. Its health quite rapidly drops to 20%. Though, it does come at a great cost of our stamina. We will definitely need a big feast to help our soldiers recuperate from this battle.

  Ray and I take a small break, resting against each other near the edge of the river. Explosions and the whizzing of projectiles can still be heard.

  Uak’s health reaches 15% and I immediately sense a drastic shift in the air.

  “Everyone, get the klack away from that duck now!” I shout, as I rush in towards the duck.

  Everyone rushes away, immediately trusting my order. Even Ray stays back, even though she looks like she wants to chase after me. I bet I’ll owe her a few headrubs after this next stunt.

  I stop a few dozen meters away from the duck, just as he lets out a world-shattering quack.

  It feels as though someone has created a hyperspace bubble right in the middle of the arena, and a massive surge of energy flows out of the duck’s beak.

  I stand steady, and my eyes meet with Uak’s. For a brief moment, I think I can see something like fear. Which makes sense, if you just let out your strongest attack and the enemy merely stands there, that would be quite terrifying.

  The energy rushes towards me and I point my spear towards it, relying on a recent ability that I haven't had a chance to test out. After all, everyone knows the best time to test out new skills and abilities is mid-battle. It wouldn't be fun or stylish otherwise.

  The energy impacts me, some combination of electricity and pure kinetic energy.

  It flows into my spear, which gets very hot, it starts to burn my hands right through my armor. I can feel the energy pulsing through my spear as I slowly spin around, holding the enormous amount of energy within my spear.

  With a great effort, I launch myself forward, carrying the momentum from my spin and aim directly for Uak’s chest.

  Unable to dodge at such short range, my spear connects.

  All of that energy from its ultimate skill surges out and into Uak himself, with a massive explosion of fire and sound. Some of it rushes back into me, breaking my arms and definitely a few ribs, thankfully it seems that my armor absorbs or deflects the worst of it.

  I think my eardrums shatter, even through my helmet.

  I am tossed across the arena and against the barrier, landing in the water, barely managing to keep myself afloat to watch the end result.

  The energy courses through Uak, seemingly lightning up his skeleton like one of those cartoon figures when they get a big electric shock.

  A quack of agony rises from Uak, only to barely be heard over the sizzling sound of the roast duck I just started cooking.

  Immediately, the health bar starts to drop at a rapid pace, within mere moments it hits zero.

  Uak falls to the ground, smoke rises out of its body, slain.

  It died by its own final attack. If that doesn't count as style, I don't know what does. Everyone lets out a cheer at the defeat of the loud duck, thankful that our eardrums will no longer be destroyed by its horrifically strong quacks.

  ‘Legend Raid: Uak The Loud has now been completed.

  Rewards have been dispersed into inventories and commendations unlocked.

  Fallen challengers shall receive compensation if they survived for more than 30 minutes.

  Zone 3 will open in 4 days and 10 hours.’

  Completely exhausted, with many burns, shattered eardrums and with no desire other than to rest in Ray’s arms, I pass out.

  I am sure that whatever comes in the future, Ray and I will overcome it together. After all, we are the Moonlight Duo, and luce lunae per aspera ad astra et ultra. Plus, we have earned lots of style points, so we can't possibly lose at this point.

  So, bring it on.

  End of Chapter 117

  Next: Chapter 118 | Interlude: Shattered Self

  Skills for Uak The Loud

  {Duck Supremacy}: Passive. Webbed feet, sleek feathers and metal-shredding beak allow the beast to have superior combat capabilities in this terrain.

  {Sonic Quack}: The beast lets out a quack that breaks the sound barrier. Causes massive damage to those nearby and stuns most combatants in the arena.

  {Tidal Quack}: The beast lets out a quack with enough force to summon a tidal wave. Encompasses the entire field in a fierce wave that destroys anything in its path.

  {Ultimate: The Final Quack}: The beast lets out a quack so great that it disturbs the structure of the arena. This creates a massive surge of energy that obliterates anything that is caught in its path.

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