Eli stood perfectly still, he had come out of that crack in the side of the volcano to a large chamber surrounded by lava on the outside. In the middle was a bird's nest made of piled up rocks and held together by what looked to be cooled lava. The part that had him frozen was what was in that nest, it was an ash vulture, but it was a very large ash vulture, 30 feet long or longer and it was asleep. Once he regained his senses, he focused on it to see if he could glean any information about it and what came up made him freeze all over again.
"Ash vulture Matriarch - Level 55"
"This monster is 1 of 3 who rule this zone"
"This is a world boss-level monster - 5 level 50+ common class recommended for fighting"
Eli's blood ran cold, he wasn't sure he would survive this thing if it woke up but then again, he did kind of want to see how strong it was. His new fire node made the heat in this chamber feel like a warm summer day instead of inside a volcano so all he had to worry about was that thing landing a hit. At this size it would have to be slow enough to dodge any physical attacks but he was sure it would blast him with ash. He then realized that he was just standing in the open and as quietly as he could he made his way behind a boulder near the wall just to the right of the opening.
As soon as he stepped away he heard some rocks fall and fill in the crack he used to get here, he guessed that the system wasn't going to let people escape. But would it wake the monster up or would he have the chance to get the first hit in. This didn't look like he was going to get away without a fight but he didn't want to start it before checking the room further for anything he could use for an advantage. Peaking around the rock he was hiding behind, Eli checked out the wall floor and ceiling, which all looked pretty solid except a few places in the ceiling. To have a better idea though he needed to see what was on the other side of the nest, this monster has to have a way out of this room.
Again moving as quietly as possible Eli made his way around the outside edge of the room, following the path of the lava that was on the outside edge against the wall. By the time he had gone far enough around to see what was on the far wall, he was hearing rustling from inside the nest. This was not going to be easy but he needed to make sure he got his first hit in before this thing filled this room with ash. Just as he thought, the far wall had a tunnel that looked like it went into the center of the volcano, he could see an orange glow coming from it, hinting that there was probably some really hot lava in there. From the look of the heat haze coming out of it, even with his resistance and fire node he wouldn't survive there.
Eli decided to just go for broke and plan on using a large smash burning a ton of magic right from the start to make sure his first hit was clean and impactful. The best place to hit it would be its eye so he did his best to calm himself and prepare to run in, but just before he pushed off he heard a raspy chirping from inside the nest. There were baby vultures in there and this was for sure going to wake the big one so instead of running he blinked half way through a smash wind-up and appeared above its eye right when it opened. The smash came down with tremendous force, crushing the monster's head into the ground and splattering its eye and half its face in a shower of gore.
For a split second Eli thought that it was unconscious, but right when he thought that its huge wings opened and blasted burning ash at him knocking him back and and into the wall cracking it and his ribs. He recovered from that quickly and pushed off the wall to land on the ground away from the moat of lava. The Vulture Matriarch stared at him with one remaining eye and he could feel its fury, this monster was probably not supposed to be woken up for at least another month. Keeping a tight grip on his cudgel, he ran straight towards the monster and did his best to maintain eye contact, hoping he could stare it down. It stood up and opened its wings fully as ash poured off them, it flapped them slowly filling the room with ash making it harder and harder to see.
Eli jumped up so he could see better and cast his light boost spell, he landed closer to the giant and kept running toward where he remembered it being. Then when he jumped again to try and get out of the ash cloud that was staying close to the ground it's head shot out beak pointed right at him glowing with heat. Eli used the massive weight of his cudgel to maneuver his body in mid air making the monsters attack a glancing hit instead of a killing blow. It still hurt, taking a chunk out of his side and burning him at the same time, but he was still ok to fight. The Matriarch almost got him again when it brought its head back toward its body but it missed and he landed on the ground.
The ash was fully blinding him now, so he couldn't trust his eyes and started focusing on his hearing and his magic sense. It was hard to get a read on it since all the ash had magic as well, but its wings stood out with enough magic to be distinct. The downside was that he was having trouble telling where its head was, he was hoping with the damage he had done that it would not be able to see him or sense him better than he could. Wanting to pop out of the ash cloud in a different place, Eli ran toward the nest but instead of getting a different angle on the big vulture he ran into the 6 foot tall baby birds.
These baby birds pecked at him randomly, not able to really tell where he was. He took some scratches and probably would have been bleeding badly if the blood did not vaporize as soon as it left him from the heat. He didn't attack them, because he didn't want to give away his position and because they were not a real threat at the moment. This time when he jumped he pushed hard with a little magic so he would hit the ceiling giving him something to push off to change his direction. When he came up over the ash cloud the vulture was already headed his way with its beak, but it underestimated his speed and the attack passed below him.
Eli made it to the ceiling and pushed off to make contact with its neck but just as he did, the monster's head turned around and came at him while it was pulling its neck back. He could take a hit that was only going to be half power from this angle and get a good hit in or try to block it and try for a hit again. Going for a more conservative strategy, he opted to block with his cudgel and he got knocked into the ground but it only felt like he had cracked his ribs again and not anything else. While passing through the ash cloud he had seen its feet and it's feet looked vulnerable and thin.
Quickly getting up, he dashed for its legs, and without being able to see he had to guess where they would be based on the position of its wings. Its wings were not still, it was moving around using a crazy amount of magic to keep the ash cloud going. Eli stopped and felt the ground with his hand, he felt a foot fall and sprinted in that direction with everything he had, using a smash he tried to break its leg just above the foot. He ended up hitting it harder than he thought because it was broken clean in two and the Vulture fell to the ground. It quickly brought its wings in and sat on the ground, no longer able to stay standing.
The ash cloud started to dissipate as he was working his way around to the side of the monster with no eye. When he got there he jumped to the ceiling again and since nothing attacked him, he pushed off the ceiling hard and prepared a smash for its head. The monster seemed not to notice until its wing came up to block him, probably ready to take the hit on the wing to avoid another blow to the head. Right before he lost line-of-sight, he used blink to put him right on the vulture's head and also put him well below half on his magic supply. The smash came down on its head but missed its other eye causing more damage and breaking half its beak off, but it was still alive.
This time, when eli landed after an attack he stepped back to collect himself and take stock. He was at about a quarter of his magic, his ribs were cracked, he was covered in cuts and the monster wasn't dead yet. If he did another blink and high power smash that would be all his magic so it was time to wear it out. This had been his original strategy, if the big guns don't work just keep swinging until it's down. Without much more thought, he got to work. First he ran around it taking a swing with his cudgel when he got the chance to hit anything that seemed like more than feathers. This seemed to be doing damage but he couldn't tell how much, finally when he would run in front it would try to peck him with its broken beak. After three misses and more pieces falling off of it, it switched tactics and tried to use its wings to push him away.
It was starting to seem like it was getting desperate and making wild risky moves so Eli kept up the pressure, waiting for his moment. Which came when he took a swing at its neck, the monster tried another peck and at that moment he sidestepped and shifted his momentum to get a strong swing in with a smash right under where its lower beak met its head. The monster head was already so damaged that the top of it exploded out and it went limp. While he had won, it took him a long time because he ran out of magic and had to get some solid swings in when he could.
He almost sat down when he remembered the chicks in the nest and walked over toward them, he looked at them just wandering around confused and fighting each other. After smashing all 8 to goo he walked back to the big one and sat taking in a breath and really thinking about what he had done, what he had accomplished by winning this fight. If it was supposed to take 5 level 50s with common classes to kill this thing and he mostly managed it on his own just how strong was he going to be compared to everyone else. With most of the ash cloud gone, and he had visual confirmation that everything was dead he decided to finally look at his system windows.
"You have defeated an Ash Vulture Matriarch"
"Experience earned"
"Your magic level has increased from 34 to 38"
"Stat points available"
"Defeating a zone boss gives the zone a smaller monster horde attack for the next 2 horde attacks."
"Zone bosses take 24 days to respawn naturally"
Getting four levels from that fight seemed a bit much but maybe he was close to a level to begin with. He put enough points into wisdom to hit the threshold so he would have more control over his fire node magic. Then he put 1 in strength, 2 in reaction and 1 in vitality which made his stats look like this.
"Magic level 38"
"Stats: Strength 18, Reaction 19, Vitality 18, Intellect 20, Wisdom 25, Resistance 25, Will 121"
Overall he was feeling pretty good about where he was going with his stats so far. He remained seated until he could feel his stats settle and then the threshold bonus kicked in and he had to wait for them to settle again. Standing, he moved over to the big ugly culture and poked it to see if he got any good loot.
"You receive 30000 system coins"
"You receive 3 fire affinity gems"
"You receive Cloak - Feathered Ashen Cloak of Consumption"