I Stopped Simping and the Heroines Lost Their Minds

The pitch-black sphere of condensed dark magic didn’t just fly; it eradicated everything in its path.

Arthur didn’t try to block it. He didn’t try to parry it. With [Perception: 103], he saw the micro-movements of the Death Knight’s gauntlet adjusting its aim a fraction of a second before the spell actually fired.

He threw himself off the collapsed stone pillar.

BOOM!

The dark magic sphere slammed into the stone exactly where Arthur had been standing a millisecond prior. The sheer concussive force of the explosion deafened the entire cathedral. The massive stone pillar didn’t just crumble; it was completely atomized, sending a shower of lethal, jagged shrapnel raining down across the battlefield.

Arthur hit the dungeon floor rolling, using his [Dexterity: 105] to bleed off the momentum. He slid to a halt on one knee, completely untouched.

Aggro is officially on me, Arthur thought, his eyes narrowing as he looked through the dust. It knows I’m the one calling the shots.

”Keep the pressure on it!” Arthur roared, completely ignoring his near-death experience. ”Don’t let it breathe!”

Down at the altar, the battlefield was descending into absolute chaos.

The spectral steed, its skeletal legs encased in Elara’s thick glaciers, let out a furious, ghostly screech. With a violent jerk of its massive body, the undead horse shattered the ice. It bucked wildly, its heavy hooves catching Cedric squarely in the chest before the giant tank could swing his warhammer.

Cedric let out a breathless grunt, flying backward and crashing into the stone steps of the altar.

Freed from the ice and furious, the spectral steed completely ignored the vanguards. Its hollow, flaming blue eyes locked onto the weakest target on the field: Chloe.

The trembling healer was standing near the backline, her mahogany staff glowing as she tried to cast another recovery spell on Cedric. The massive, skinless horse charged her, its heavy hooves tearing up the stone floor.

”Eeeek!” Chloe shrieked, freezing entirely like a deer in headlights.

Felix tried to step in, but the Death Knight swung its massive black broadsword, forcing the shielder to hunker down behind his iron wall just to survive the blow.

The horse lowered its rotting head, preparing to trample the healer into a bloody paste.

”Not on my watch, you overgrown pony!”

Emily Thorne intercepted the charge. She didn’t use a weapon. She didn’t even try to dodge.

The martial artist stepped directly into the path of the charging, two-ton undead monstrosity. She dropped her stance impossibly low, her thick, athletic thighs flexing as they absorbed the immense kinetic shock of the impact.

As the steed tried to crush her, Emily reached up. Her hands, glowing with a blindingly dense, white martial aura, grabbed the skeletal beast directly by its massive jaw and the thick bone of its neck.

CRUNCH.

Her fingers literally dug into the ancient bone.

”Going down!” Emily roared.

Using her terrifying physical leverage and the beast’s own forward momentum, she violently pivoted on her heel. She lifted the colossal skeletal horse entirely off the ground and suplexed it brutally into the solid stone floor.

The impact shook the entire cathedral. The sound of the steed’s cervical spine shattering echoed like a cannon shot.

The spectral horse twitched once, its blue flaming eyes flickering out, and the massive beast dissolved into a cloud of purple ash.

The Death Knight was forced to abandon its mount. It leaped off the dissolving horse, landing gracefully on its heavy armored boots.

But a Death Knight on foot was a completely different nightmare.

Without the horse to worry about, the boss turned its absolute, undivided attention to the vanguards boxing it in. It gripped its heavy broadsword with both gauntlets, raising it high above its horned helmet. The dark aura surrounding the blade thickened, dripping like liquid tar onto the floor.

”Felix! Angle your shield! Don’t take it head-on!” Arthur yelled from the perimeter, drawing another mana arrow.

Felix tried to angle his stance, but he was completely exhausted. The Death Knight brought the broadsword down like an executioner’s block.

CLANGGG-CRACK!

Felix screamed. The massive iron tower shield—a standard, reliable piece of academy-issue gear—completely gave way under the monstrous Strength stat of a Level 45 Raid Boss. A massive, jagged crack split the thick iron right down the middle.

The kinetic shockwave traveled straight through the metal and into Felix’s arm. The sickening sound of his forearm snapping was audible over the clash of steel. Felix was thrown backward, tumbling into the dirt, clutching his useless, broken arm.

The Death Knight stepped forward, raising its blade to deliver the killing blow to the defenseless shielder.

”Back off!” Alicia Valentine screamed.

She stepped directly over Felix’s fallen body. Her green eyes were practically glowing with desperate resolve. She didn’t try to block the Death Knight’s heavy strike. Instead, she used her specialized Vanguard Knight Arts.

She thrust her wind-coated broadsword upward, sliding her blade directly against the flat of the Death Knight’s descending weapon. With a perfect, terrifyingly precise twist of her wrists, she parried the massive strike, deflecting the lethal blow so it crashed harmlessly into the stone floor inches from Felix’s head.

”Leon! Flank it!” Alicia ordered, her arms trembling wildly as she struggled to keep the boss’s sword pinned to the ground.

Leon Braveheart lunged from the shadows. His golden hair was matted with sweat, but his sword was burning with brilliant holy magic.

”Holy Smite!” Leon roared, driving his blade directly into the side of the Death Knight’s black breastplate.

The holy magic exploded, washing over the boss in a wave of blinding light. But when the light cleared, Leon’s eyes widened in horror.

The holy sword hadn’t pierced the armor. It had merely scorched the outer layer of the thick, jagged black steel. The Death Knight didn’t even flinch. It backhanded Leon with its empty gauntlet, sending the protagonist flying across the room.

The armor is too thick, Arthur realized, watching from fifty yards away. Leon’s base stats aren’t high enough to cut through a Level 45 defense parameter, even with an elemental advantage.

The Death Knight realized the gnats buzzing around its ankles were no longer a threat. It had taken a few scratches, but the frontline was broken. Cedric was concussed, Felix was out of the fight, Alicia was physically exhausted, and Leon couldn’t pierce its armor.

The boss slowly raised its broadsword, pointing the tip directly at the ceiling.

The ambient, toxic black mana in the room suddenly began to violently swirl inward, entirely congregating around the blade. A massive, expanding ring of pure death magic began to form on the floor beneath the Knight’s boots, slowly spreading outward toward the exhausted students.

”It’s casting an AoE!” Elara screamed from the backline, recognizing the spell formation. ”If that circle expands, it will rot the flesh right off our bones!”

”Everyone, fall back!” Alicia yelled, grabbing Felix by the collar and desperately dragging him away from the expanding black circle.

Arthur didn’t run. He stood perfectly still on the perimeter.

Any gamer worth their salt knows that a massive cast time leaves you completely exposed, Arthur thought coldly.

He didn’t target the thick breastplate. He didn’t aim for the heavy shoulder pauldrons.

He pulled the glowing blue string of the Whisperwind Longbow back to his cheek. He focused entirely on the narrow, glowing red slit of the Death Knight’s horned visor. It was a target barely two inches wide, currently obscured by swirling dark magic.

To a normal archer, it was an impossible shot.

To the Phantom Sniper with 103 Perception, it was perfectly clear.

Arthur released the string.

Thwip.

The condensed blue mana arrow sliced through the dark aura. It flew perfectly true, threading the needle through the violently swirling magic, and impacted directly into the glowing red slit of the boss’s visor.

CRACK!

The arrow didn’t kill the boss, but the concussive force of the concentrated mana exploding directly against its visual receptors caused a massive, localized disruption.

The Death Knight’s head violently snapped back. The cast bar was broken.

The expanding ring of death magic on the floor instantly fizzled out, dissolving harmlessly into the air.

The boss let out a furious, metallic screech. It completely abandoned the vanguards. It locked its glowing red eyes onto Arthur.

”Uh oh,” Emily panted, watching the massive juggernaut turn toward the archer. ”Vance, run!”

Arthur didn’t move. He smirked.

”Hey, ugly!” Arthur yelled, his voice echoing through the cathedral. ”Over here!”

The Death Knight charged him, its heavy boots thundering across the stone. It crossed the fifty yards in a matter of seconds, raising its massive broadsword to cleave the arrogant sniper in half.

The blade came down with terrifying force, slicing Arthur perfectly down the middle.

But there was no blood. There was no resistance.

The image of Arthur simply flickered and vanished into thin air like mist.

[Active Skill: Mirage Shot (Lv. 1) executed successfully.]

The Death Knight paused, its red eyes scanning the immediate area in absolute confusion.

”Looking for me?”

A voice echoed from the far left of the room. The boss turned. Arthur was standing near a broken pillar. The Knight charged, swinging its blade again.

Whoosh. Another illusion shattered.

”Too slow,” another voice mocked from the right flank.

Arthur was actively burning through his remaining MP, spamming [Mirage Shot] to scatter perfect visual and auditory clones of himself across the perimeter of the cathedral.

The elite Raid Boss was being completely humiliated. It blindly slashed at the phantoms, its aggro hopelessly tangled by the illusions, entirely turning its back on the heavily bruised and battered vanguard line.

Arthur stood safely hidden in the shadows near the altar, perfectly masked by his [Ghost in the Woods] trait. His breathing was heavy. His MP bar was critically low.

”We can’t keep this up forever,” Arthur muttered to himself, watching the boss furiously destroy another illusion. ”Felix is down. Elara is out of mana. We need a finisher, and we need it right now.”

He activated [Eagle Eye] one more time, zooming in on the frustrated, swinging Death Knight.

He analyzed every inch of the boss as it moved. He tracked the shifting of the heavy black plates, the grinding of the ancient metal.

And then, he saw it.

When Leon had hit the boss with his Holy Strike earlier, the attack hadn’t pierced the armor, but it had warped the metal. There was a tiny, jagged crack right in the center of the Death Knight’s breastplate.

And glowing faintly from deep inside that microscopic crack was a pulsing, corrupted crystal.

The Necrotic Core, Arthur realized, a dark, predatory smile spreading across his face.

He didn’t need to break the armor. He just needed to bypass it.

Arthur deactivated his stealth, stepping fully into the light of the cathedral.

”Braveheart! Thorne!” Arthur roared over the chaos, completely exposing his real position to the boss. ”I have a plan! But I need one clean opening!”