Before they moved on to the frog, Logan remembered the box.
```
[ Random Gear Box ]
```
The reward from that first player, still sitting untouched in his storage ring since that same night. He cracked it open right there at the edge of the ponds.
A pair of gloves fell out, plain leather stitched through with fine metal thread.
```
[ Ironthread Gloves (Tier-1/Rare) ]
+20% Attack
```
Logan turned them over once. His own Attack sat at ten. Twenty percent of that wasn’t much of anything.
"Solveig. Catch."
He tossed them over without much ceremony. Solveig’s Attack already sat at thirty-five, and twenty percent of that was worth actually having.
"Lord?"
"You’ll get more out of these than I will. Put them on."
Solveig pulled them on over his gauntlets and flexed one fist once the fit settled.
"Thank you, Lord."
The Frog’s eyes opened.
Nothing else about it moved yet, but the eyes tracked straight to Logan’s group the moment they cleared the last of the ponds, wide black slits set into skin the color of drowned moss.
"It’s awake." Stonewing dropped low. "Was hoping we’d get a free hit."
"We might still." Logan raised a hand. ’Encouragement.’
```
[ Encouragement used on Solveig, Juggernaut, Stitchgrin, Vex, and Stonewing ]
-250 MP
Attack +10% | Defense +10% for 60 seconds
```
The Stormlord Frog moved first.
It didn’t leap. It just opened its mouth, and the air around it went dark, storm clouds rolling in low and fast from nowhere at all.
Thunderclap Roar!
A wall of sound and lightning rolled outward from its throat, fast enough that nobody had time to dodge clean.
Solveig’s greatsword came up on reflex, Aegis of Light flaring across the whole group a half second before the wave hit. It wasn’t enough to stop it completely. Everyone still standing after it felt their ears ringing and their skin buzzing with leftover current, but nobody went down.
"That thing hits like a truck," Stonewing muttered, shaking out one wing.
"Then let’s hit back harder." Logan’s eyes narrowed. "Juggernaut, open with the cannons. Everyone else, spread out. Don’t let it get a clean shot at more than one of us."
Juggernaut planted all four legs into the mud.
Siege Cannon Barrage! -1000 MP.
Twelve shells screamed out in a spread, punching craters across the frog’s chest and one shoulder before it could even think about moving. The Stormlord Frog staggered back a full step, mud flying up around its feet.
```
HP: 21,400/25,000
```
It didn’t stay staggered for more than a second.
A long, thick tongue lashed out faster than anything that size should move, aimed straight at Juggernaut while he was still locked in place from the cannon volley.
Solveig cut it off mid-strike, Dawnbreaker Slash opening a line clean through the tongue before it could wrap around anything. The frog reeled back, croaking something that shook the ground under its feet.
Vex used the opening. Shadow Stroll carried him under the frog’s guard and up one massive leg, Black Flame Claws raking three long gouges into skin thick as armor plate. Two Cinder Shadow Clones followed the same path a heartbeat later, doubling the damage before the frog even registered where the first strike had landed.
```
[ Wraith Mark applied x3 ]
```
Damage taken increased by 15% for five seconds! Refreshes duration and keeps the stack if a mark is applied within time.
"Vex, you can easily move around there, so keep the Wraith Marks up. We’ll finish this quickly."
"Stitchgrin, bring out the toys," Logan called it without looking away from the boss.
Stitchgrin didn’t need telling twice. Ten Voltfin Ambushers dropped out of the light around him at once, fins already crackling, and scattered low across the mud toward the frog’s legs.
It wasn’t graceful. It didn’t need to be. Ten sets of claws and stored lightning tearing at the same pair of legs bought the rest of the group room to breathe, and Stitchgrin’s own HP ticked upward every time one of them landed a hit.
The frog had had enough of being picked apart. It planted both hind legs and leapt straight up, high enough that its shadow swallowed the whole clearing.
Titan Drop!
Logan didn’t wait to see how bad the landing would be. ’Safe Haven.’
```
[ Safe Haven activated ]
-1000 MP
Barrier Durability: 2000
```
The barrier snapped up around the closest cluster of the group a heartbeat before the frog came down.
The impact hit like the sky itself had dropped. The barrier held for exactly as long as it took the shockwave to finish crossing it, then shattered outward in a burst of broken light, throwing everyone behind it clean off their feet.
Most of the force had already gone into breaking the barrier instead of them. What got through still stung, but nobody came out of it with more than a scrape.
Two of Stitchgrin’s Voltfin toys hadn’t been so lucky, caught too close to the landing itself, and didn’t get up again.
Stonewing wiped mud out of his eyes. "Ugly thing hits harder than it looks."
"It’s slowing down." Vex, perched on the frog’s shoulder now, dug his claws in deeper. "HP’s dropping faster than it’s healing, if it’s even trying to."
```
HP: 11,200/25,000
```
"Then we finish it here." Logan looked to Juggernaut. "Go all in."
Juggernaut’s chest furnace flared brighter, steam hissing from every vent along his spine.
```
Overdrive Surge!
-1000 MP
```
Every stat he had spiked at once, and the ground cracked under his next step before he’d even started moving. The surge bought him one skill free of cost, and he didn’t waste it.
Crush Charge!
He hit the frog’s flank at a dead run, and the impact folded half its ribcage inward on contact. The frog’s whole body lurched sideways, one leg buckling under the sudden weight, its defense cracked down by thirty percent for the next ten seconds.
Juggernaut planted his stance again, ready to press the opening, and found his tank running close to empty.
’Restore.’
```
[ Restore used on Juggernaut ]
-100 MP
```
That was enough to bring him back into range. The cannons opened up a second time.
Siege Cannon Barrage! -1000 MP.
Twelve more shells tore into the same ruined side, and this time the frog didn’t get back up from it clean. It swayed, one eye rolling, croaking out something low and broken.
Solveig didn’t wait for an invitation.
He came down out of the sky in a single dive, Dawnbreaker Slash already glowing white along the blade’s edge, and drove it straight through the crack Juggernaut’s charge had already opened.
With 50% defence penetration and serious damage, it was over.
```
[ Orvanfield Stormlord Frog (Special) - Elite Field Boss defeated. + 5000 Tower Points. ]
[ Player L is the first player to kill an Elite Field Boss. +1000 Tower Points. ]
[ Elite Field Boss Reward: Random Gear Box (Epic/Legendary/Mythic). ]
```
[ Floor 1 level cap (10) already reached. No further levels possible until Tier advancement. ]
[ Your class has reached level 6. ]
```
The clearing went quiet all at once, the storm clouds the frog had summoned drifting apart and thinning into nothing overhead.
For a moment nobody moved. Then Stonewing let out a whoop that echoed off the twin canopy above them.
Logan’s knees finally gave out, and he let himself drop onto a half-sunk log at the pond’s edge.
"We killed that big guy," Stonewing Pugilist grinned.
"That we did." Solveig nodded.
"Roar!" Juggernaut roared as if establishing his dominance.
"It was easy, heh." Vex nonchalantly commented from the side.
"Hehehehe..." Stitchgrin...just grinned and chuckled scarily.
Stonewing wryly smiled. "You four are crazy powerful. I can only act like an annoying fly, haha."
Logan looked out at the massive, unmoving shape slumped across the mud where the frog had fallen. The storm clouds were gone, and the whole clearing had gone quiet and still.
Suddenly, the giant body of the Field Boss turned into motes and disappeared.
But a person became visible once the frog was gone. Sporting a big box thrice his size at the back, and wearing rags-like clothes.
"Thu, thu, thu! Damn it. The tower had to put me in that disgusting thing’s belly. Fuck you."
Logan blinked.
[ Magiko Merchant Romen ]