Chapter 1262: Shattered Shields and Broken Skulls

Capítulo 1262: Shattered Shields and Broken Skulls

When Ethan dropped a Tier 17 red-skin in two hits, Chris and the others just about popped their eyes out.

They hadn’t even really started yet, and the boss was already done?

Cross-tier fights could be that vicious?

Captain really was Captain. Insane.

“We need to step it up too,” Chris said.

“Yeah.” Everyone nodded.

“Sean, you’re up first!”

“Got it!”

“Hey—Chris,” Big Mike said, suddenly puzzled. “Why aren’t you going invisible?”

“Invisible my ass,” Chris snapped, rolling his eyes. “The whole place is on fire. You think I can cloak in this?”

It was honestly the first time he’d ever felt countered this hard.

Big Mike blinked. “Uh… then aren’t you, like, half useless?”

“Even without invis, my damage is still the highest,” Chris said, full confidence.

“Cut the chatter,” Ethan said. “Sean’s already in. Move.”

“Oh—right!”

By then, Sean and Garrick were already charging the two Tier 16 red-skins.

Sean’s entire body turned metallic. Thornmail spread over him from head to toe, and Henry stacked a Divine Shield on top.

He looked like a walking tank.

He charged straight through the flames at one of the red-skins and swung his club down at its head.

The red-skin didn’t flinch. It drove a fist forward to meet him head-on.

At the last second, Sean’s club slipped off-line, dodging the fist and angling back toward the monster’s head anyway.

Thump—!

Thump—!

Two impacts landed at the same time.

The red-skin reacted fast—right as the club came down, it jerked its head aside. Sean’s blow ended up smashing into its shoulder instead.

But the monster’s punch still crashed solidly into Sean’s chest.

Sean got launched more than thirty feet, rolled several times across the ground, then sprang back up.

No visible injuries.

The red-skin, on the other hand, hadn’t moved from its spot—but its arm was trembling, clearly taking Thornmail’s reflect damage.

Sean didn’t hesitate for even a heartbeat. The moment he was up, he charged again.

Garrick was the same—Earthen Armor wrapped his body, Henry’s Divine Shield layered over it. He stepped right up to the other Tier 16 red-skin, activated Suppression Field, and started dropping massive meteors on it one after another.

The rest of the squad joined in too. Everyone had a Divine Shield up, cutting off most of the ambient fire damage.

Henry’s Divine Shield was tied to his mental energy—the more he spent, the stronger it was and the longer it lasted.

He’d shielded everyone, which had nearly drained him dry. He immediately swallowed a crystal core and retreated to a safer distance, clearly not planning to fight directly.

At this point, he’d positioned himself as pure support: if he didn’t need to swing, he wouldn’t.

More importantly, he had to keep eyes on the battlefield and refresh shields at the right moments.

The red-skins’ flames blanketed the entire area. Without Divine Shield, nobody here would be able to withstand it for long.

After reaching Stage C (Tier 12), everyone had picked up a lot of new skills, and their attacks had gotten way more varied.

Skinny Pete whipped up a tornado that sucked in the surrounding flames, then latched onto one of the red-skins and started tearing at it like a blender.

Emily’s Vampiric Vines shot out and tried to wrap the monster up too.

But the fire on its body was brutal. The moment her vines emerged, they scorched to ash. Emily could only grit her teeth in frustration.

Big Mike had it rough too. These red-skins clearly had high resistance to fire-type abilities—his Rain of Flames was almost useless. It had him hopping mad.

“Dude, you’re seriously trash at this,” Chris laughed.

Then he blurred forward, flicked his arm, and launched a pitch-black spear at the red-skin that Skinny Pete and Emily were holding in place.

The red-skin sensed danger on instinct. It ripped free of the tornado’s pull and tried to dodge—

And then a spike of agony stabbed straight through its brain. It nearly blacked out.

Mia’s [Soul Spike] had landed.

Silent. No wind-up. No warning. Basically impossible to defend against.

Chris’s Corrupting Spear hit dead-on, punching into its head.

A terrifying corrosive force bloomed on impact. You could see the skin on its skull sloughing off with the naked eye, stripping away in seconds.

“RRAAGH—!”

The red-skin howled, eyes bloodshot, locking onto Chris. Flames coated its arm in an instant as it hammered a punch toward him.

Garrick moved without thinking, stepping in front of Chris and swinging his staff up to intercept.

Boom—

Garrick got blasted backward. His Divine Shield shattered on the spot.

Chris seized the opening. His spear flared with sharp, cutting force, and he thrust straight at the monster’s already-corroded head.

The red-skin reacted fast, snapping a hand out to grab the spear shaft—

Another flash of brain-splitting pain hit it, freezing its movement for a fraction of a second.

Shk—!

Chris drove the spear straight into the softened, corroded skull.

“AAAGH—!”

The red-skin screamed and clamped down hard on the spear, stopping it from going any deeper.

Then Big Mike came charging in from the side like a linebacker and kicked the butt-end of Chris’s spear as hard as he could.

Shk—!

The spear punched straight through the red-skin’s head and burst out the other side.

The monster’s eyes were full of rage and unwillingness—then the light drained out. It toppled slowly onto the ground.

“Heh.” Big Mike lifted his chin like a champion. “Who’s ‘trash’ now? That one was all me!”

“Sure, sure. All you,” Chris said, shaking his head.

But honestly… Big Mike’s timing had been perfect.

Chris’s momentum had already spent, and he really didn’t have the leverage to push the spear deeper himself.

“Move,” Chris snapped. “Go help Sean!”

They’d needed a whole group to take down that one.

Meanwhile, Sean was still holding the other Tier 16 off by himself.

Luckily, they hadn’t wasted much time—less than a minute, tops.

The moment the first red-skin dropped, the group sprinted toward Sean’s fight.

Seeing them come, the remaining red-skin’s heart basically fell out of its chest. It chose the only smart option—

Run.

But the instant it turned, Sean was already back in its path, blocking it again.

The red-skin stared at him with a mix of hate and helplessness.

Sean was like a damn porcupine—hard to kill, and every time you hit him, you hurt yourself.

But if you didn’t hit him, he stuck to you like gum. Annoying as hell.

This time the red-skin didn’t care about the pain anymore. It threw another punch and blasted Sean away, ready to bolt—

A dark hand suddenly appeared and grabbed its ankle.

Then a tornado yanked it up and swallowed it whole.

Vines surged right after, climbing and binding wherever they could.

Three control skills hit at once, snuffing out its escape completely.

It finally tore free—

And immediately ate another black spear, plus that familiar, mind-splitting pain.

Chris’s spear, wrapped in that razor-edged force, drove straight through and ended it.

Not far away, Ethan watched and nodded.

Their combat power really had jumped. Their coordination was sharp, too—fast, clean, no wasted motion.

But there was still a clear weakness.

They lacked heavy burst damage.

Against opponents stronger than them, only Chris could reliably deliver the killing blow. Everyone else was mostly playing setup—control, disruption, shielding, pressure.

Still… considering they were only Tier 14, killing enemies two tiers higher was already insane.

They couldn’t choose their skills, either. Not everyone got something as monstrous as [Annihilation Strike].

The fact they could cross two tiers at all was because they worked together so well.

And if they were only fighting someone one tier higher?

Ethan was pretty sure more than a few of them could pull off a solo kill.