“This Raid is just full of surprises,” John commented.

The roads all converged around another plaza and on the plaza were two noteworthy structures. One was the inner keep itself, the centre of the entire Segment. It was surprisingly small for the vast area around it. A singular, open gate led into a large throne room. The throne itself was just out of view from outside the building. John could spot the dais it was located on, however.

The other building was a massive cathedral. Despite all of the decrepit architecture around them, the religious building was kept mostly intact. Dust and cobwebs had been carefully cleaned, leaving behind only the soot and ash that was inherent to the burning undead of the area. Even that had been scrubbed off the great stained glass windows. The circular diorama atop the entrance depicted a wheel made of bone, iron and fire.

“Which path do you believe we ought to take?” Romulus asked.

“If we are going for the full clear, we have to identify which one is the ‘wrong’ path forwards.” John recalled the words of the Hellboar once more. ‘To break the seal of flame, you must make an avatar of the first one to accept the curse of fire. Find the burning wheel and offer it at the herald’s circle, to empower the master of the castle.’ He paused for a moment. ‘The herald’s circle is behind us… and the location of the wheel should be pretty obvious.’

Thus, they entered the cathedral. Every step echoed on the ancient stone. The further they advanced into the building, the stranger it became. Crosses were littered about, the Christian kind, alongside wheels both of wood and metal. Skeletons had been broken into the spokes of some wheels. They quivered still with the un-life, but served only as set pieces.

What was stranger than any of this were the walls. Simple religious architecture began to fracture and meld, break and stack on top of itself in glitched structures of arches and interrupted windows. It was as if various assets clipped into each other. By the time they found the congregation, not even the distances in the room made sense anymore.

The floor was covered in lesser undead. The skeletons were bereft of the flame that animated their kin. Tiny sparks remained in their eye sockets, enough to indicate that they were all staring up at the boss monster.

Like the goliaths before, it was a fusion of a multitude of melted skeletons. Hundreds, if not thousands, must have been necessary to achieve the mass of the creature. Wooden influences appeared to weave in. Particularly the left arm of the monster looked more like a grafted, dead tree than a skeletal hand. The rotund torso and skull of the creature vaguely resembled a tortoise.

[ charged forwards before John could even read the Observe window. Not that him reading it would have made any difference. The fight unfolded with the usual straightforwardness that the Apex engaged in.

The skeletons on the ground were blown to bits in the first exchange of blows. Romulus met the attacks of the Bone Turtle (that was the boss’ uncreative name) head on. Each time mace and giant limbs met, the Godslayer was shoved in one direction or another. In the corner of his vision, John could follow Romulus’ HP dropping a little bit each time he was hit. This enemy actually overcame the Apex’s base defences.

A particularly hard punch flung Romulus backwards and through several rows of rotting pews. He got up immediately, slinging a projectile across the divide. It hit something hidden inside the ribcage of the boss. A wet squelch, then a pained roar from the monstrosity. It dropped to all fours.

‘Ah, one of these fights,’ John thought, unsurprised.

The boss kept its vulnerable belly low to the ground. Its head and bone limbs were practically all that was visible. Spikes all over the back extended like lances from a phalanx. Like that, the boss advanced. The flames glowing from beneath the shell intensified.

John decided that he was safest behind Aclysia. No sooner had he gotten in that position than a stream of fire flowed from the maw of the monster. It was too dense to be called regular fire, borderline liquid in its behaviour. It met Aclysia’s glacial aura. Since the maid was in the appropriate level bracket, that did not neutralize the attack. Her Fire Immunity, however, did, and what little still got past her John did not mind being exposed to.

A leap, a descending swing, a mace striking the monster’s face, and the stream came to an end. Romulus backed away when the phalanx on the back of the Bone Turtle jabbed at him. The boss pursued, keeping the various sub-skeletons within it in range to keep on stabbing from within the shell.

Acknowledging the strength of his enemy, Romulus withdrew a shield from his inventory. Using armaments in both his hands was a step up from the casual warfare he had engaged in so far, without going so far as to equip either of his familiars. The shield was a Greek-style round, a sturdy metal band surrounding a convex body of a red crystal. To complement it, Romulus changed his weapon as well, replacing the sling/mace with a spear.

‘I would judge him for having an unnecessarily big arsenal, but from one hoarder to another, that would be an empty criticism,’ John thought.

The repeated attacks by the turtle’s spears achieved nothing now that Romulus had an instrument to block them. Either because of that or because a timer was up around the same time, the Bone Turtle suddenly changed its entire strategy.

Flames flared and limbs retracted. A hop took the turtle on its side and then it spun. It spun on the spot, like a Sonic character gathering speed. The cathedral around them expanded into an impossible landscape full of ridges and pathways.

John could see what the usual intent here was as soon as the Bone Turtle started rolling. Dodge around it, coax it to the grooves, knock it off balance and then attack the vulnerable underside. All of that was invalidated when Romulus leapt, enveloped himself with gravitational energy, and then kicked the upper ridge of the turtle just as it passed him.

Immediately, the monster slipped, slammed to the ground, and wiggled its massive limbs in confusion. No doubt there was some kind of reset mechanic. Maybe a firestorm or perhaps it would stretch out its limbs after a set time. Whatever it was, they never got to find out. Romulus landed on the sternum of the creature and began to stab. One attack turned into dozens in the blink of an eye.

‘Is that Needle Assault?’ John asked himself. The visual of the rapid thrusts and retractions overlapping into a multitude of spears striking simultaneously was practically the same as Beatrice’s Skill. ‘Just another reminder that Romulus has a foot in every door.’

The rapid barrage ended the boss before the reset mechanic could trigger. The cathedral collapsed back into a singular room, leaving them with a shattered congregation and an orange chest on top of an altar.

The Loot was unremarkable. A few powerful weapons, crafting materials, and consumables, all of the usual stuff. Another World Disease Shard went into John’s hands. Romulus had a friendly grumble about it, but he was too happy about his growing selection of rare and exotic materials to care. Besides that, the Wheel of the Flame was the only notable item.

It wasn’t bad on its own at all. A consumable, it let the person using it pray to set a single target on their mind on fire. After usage, the wheel was destroyed. The fire scaled with the user’s Spellpower, so it could be used as a damaging tool across the entire planet.

Truthfully, John would have liked to keep it. Alas, it was the item they needed to activate the hardmode for the final boss. A quick backtrack later, they stood above the platform the Herald Veneer had been on. All John had to do there was place the wheel down. It activated a runic circle carved into the surface of the pedestal. With that done, they went to the inner keep.

“This is just how videogames are,” John explained.

“I did not find that part too odd,” Romulus responded. “One does not get water from a well without walking to it. I reckon it’s your modern sensibility of pipes and cables bringing everything into your home that makes this unusual.”

John… could not disagree with that one.

“Ah… guests…” the voice of the next boss distracted them, “…here to end me…? I deserve it, no doubt…” A sudden shift took his words from apathetic to angry. “I deserve respect! Where are my servants?! AT LEAST THAT DUMB HERALD OF MINE POWERED THE CIRCLE! Not that he… needed to… it only makes this next part so much harder for both of us…”

The boss came into view. Seated on the throne was a singular skeleton. It looked almost simplistic. Red robes, trimmed with gold, and a crown of the same design covered him. It all looked very Catholic and did not surpass cardinal garments in their splendour. The skeleton itself was that of a human. The only oddity about it was the charred black of the arms. The Curse Fire that had befallen all the undead in the city had run its course within this one.

[ Charred Lich,’ John read the name of the boss, just as Romulus went ahead and opened the fight. The description made clear that it was the first entity to accept the curse and the one that had driven back the Skinwalkers and melted the tunnel in-between. Now, the lich was perpetually torn between the loathing of its own existence and the wrath caused by the curse it had accepted.

John found the plot of the Raid interesting enough, it just wasn’t as intriguing as watching the Apex fight an actually threatening spellcaster.

A cage of thunder around the throne protected the Charred Lich from the first strikes of the Apex. Lightning bent in jagged patterns. The purple tip of the spear bounced off repeatedly. Romulus attempted to raw power his way through, then to find an opening. All the while, the Charred Lich reached for the ceiling.

“AND LET THE BURNING WHEEL TAKE THE WORLD!”

John glanced up at the hard mode mechanic. An ornate chandelier turned into a spinning wheel of fire and death. Candles made from corpse wax melted down, sputtering their vile material all over the room. Luna was first to intervene, her barrier creating a shield that the wax then piled on top of. “Let me do it,” Sol groaned and manifested her own defensive measures.

A shield of heat evaporated the wax, turning it into hissing gas. Where the blotches covered the ground, they congealed into facsimiles of enemies. They moved slowly, until a fire spell from the Charred Lich accidentally hit one of them. After that, they charged with frightful speed.

Something shifted in the posture of the celestial goddesses. John could guess that they had a quick mental correspondence with Romulus. The result of which was a flick of the wrist from Luna. The barrier she had previously used to protect them was turned into a slicing crescent thin as silver foil.

The reversal of roles between them on a day to day basis was created to confuse their enemies. For all of her aggressive temperament, it was Sol that excelled in defence and supportive measure, and for all of her patience and grace, Luna excelled at ending lives and bringing harm. Neither was exclusively capable of the other and that was what made the trick so believable.

While the celestial goddesses took care of the adds, Romulus had his usual duel with the boss.

It was an incredible fight in the same way that most shounen anime fights were incredible. Powerful attacks were thrown back and forth. Romulus was struck by lightning, only to tank through with the sheer force of his will, break through the shield, and dethrone the Charred Lich with a shield slam. That initiated phase 2 of the fight.

The Charred Lich alternated between hyper-aggressive spell barrages and lethargic defensive spells. Both were tricky to deal with. Romulus put one foot before the other and continued on raw combat instinct. At some point, the toga covering his chest was completely burned. A noteworthy occasion because it almost led to John getting an axe to the skull. Sol and Luna drooled over their man’s sweaty chest as if it was the first time they had seen it.

It was all very epic, all very flashy, but what it lacked was any emotional connection for John to take more than an analytical interest in it. Watching Romulus’ approach to fighting spellcasters was useful to John for obvious reasons. Beyond that, it was just… a lot of explosions he had to manoeuvre around. In terms of the various feats that John had watched Romulus pull off that day, this was somehow the least fascinating to watch.

The fight took a long time, by previous standards. Fifteen minutes of Romulus working around the attacks and protective measures of the Charred Lich. Things got a little more interesting in the last minute. The Charred Lich gathered all of the corpse wax constructs around itself and created a hulking body. That phase needed to be merely survived, as the boss’ remaining health pool visibly diminished by the second.

“Finally… peace…” the Charred Lich croaked, before exploding into a harmless pillar of flame.

John picked the extra levels again, then joined with Romulus at the chest. Once again, nothing noteworthy on the item front. They split it between them.

“Is this it then?” Romulus asked. “Or must we search for the path ahead once more?”

“No, neither of those,” John told the Apex. “Remember that big boar fellow?” A nod. “Before you joined this Raid, that was the last boss we beat and he told us to come back to him once we finished a few bonus conditions – which we now have. There’s a bonus boss waiting for us.” The Gamer rolled his neck. “We’re already way ahead of schedule though. If you don’t mind, I would call it a day here.”

The Apex agreed.