Fallen Priestess Lucia – 2

I appropriately rolled to avoid Lucia’s right arm, which was trying to crush me, and before she could approach, I instead dove in first.

Paradoxically, because the boss was so grotesquely shaped, it was much easier to deal with her by diving in close like this rather than maintaining a certain distance.

Her body parts had lower defense than other areas, allowing for more damage, and it was also possible to completely avoid some of her right arm’s swinging patterns.

Countless times, I had been hit by her swings, which covered an unimaginably wide area, and died mysteriously, simply because I was intimidated by Lucia’s appearance and tried to awkwardly keep my distance.

ㅡThwack!

Of course, even when sticking close in Dark Mode, it’s by no means easy.

I parried all of Lucia’s continuously swinging arms, then landed a basic attack and retreated. A tentacle that had sprung from her split abdomen stabbed deeply into the spot where I had just been.

It was a new suppressive pattern added in Dark Mode. I absolutely had to keep such things in the back of my mind. If I couldn’t react, it was obvious what would happen next.

Lucia’s shoulder twitched significantly. It meant she was about to start her consecutive slam pattern. There was no need to roll or anything; I could just parry everything.

I watched her two arms prepare to strike down, then swung my sword in time.

Loud thudding sounds echoed continuously. My body was pushed back slightly, and Lucia advanced by the same amount, but that was all. There was nothing particularly to watch out for.

As soon as the seven-hit combo ended, I swung my sword once more, parrying Lucia’s right arm attack. The massive mass of flesh swept away all the nearby ground, and I barely managed to stop my body from being pushed back by the recoil.

Lucia’s clothes, which had turned into rags, flapped wildly for a moment.

‘……I really can’t focus worth a damn.’

The biggest problem wasn’t Lucia’s difficulty or patterns. The biggest problem was that my thoughts and gaze kept drifting to inappropriate places because of her scantily clad body.

The fact that her skin was covered in black liquid wasn’t important. Her appearance itself was human, wasn’t it? Naturally, her physical characteristics from her human days remained intact.

And that damn mod was playing a huge role.

Lucia was female even in vanilla, but she didn’t wear such attire. The original Battle Priestesses, who were the basis for the Battle Sisters, wore habits that completely covered their bodies, and her attire was just appropriately torn from that.

However, with the mod installed, all Battle Priestesses were changed to female, and their outfits boasted an enormous degree of exposure. Since that attire was tattered and torn, it was obvious what she would look like.

Every time she moved, her exposed breasts violently swayed, and her movements seemed to emphasize her chest and buttocks to the fullest.

As for the figure she emphasized so much, it would be a waste of breath to even speak of it.

What’s more, she wasn’t even wearing underwear, making the area between her legs precariously exposed. I truly felt relieved that at least the black liquid covered her entire body.

Her main body’s left arm collided with my blood-stained sword and was greatly parried away. From that recoil, the mass of flesh hanging from her chest showed violent movement once again.

‘Good thoughts. Good thoughts.’

The situation was similar during the Arachnainera boss fight. Furthermore, unlike Lucia, who had a human-like appearance, Arachnainera was perfectly human, at least her upper body.

Yet, the reason I was particularly bothered by such things only during this Lucia boss fight seemed to be largely due to the strip show that Stella and her subordinate Battle Sisters performed under the guise of identifying heretics.

They collectively stripped in front of me, and in the end, the Inquisitor even forced me to fondle her breasts. How could that not be imprinted in my mind?

Because of that, the events of that time kept overlapping, and it was even worse because Lucia’s attire was coincidentally identical to that of the Battle Sisters.

‘Was the shock too great?’

Both the ones who attempted the heresy identification, the one who received it, and the one who witnessed it, all froze up and were collectively out of their minds. Though the reasons for all three freezing were different.

‘No, let’s just not think about it.’

Barely calming myself, I took a defensive stance to lower my combat fatigue gauge and caught my breath for a moment.

I had done something useless. Focusing on the battle was the top priority right now. I didn’t want to get distracted by something irrelevant and just die instantly.

I deliberately stared intently at the patterns Lucia was using. It was to shake off distracting thoughts. Rather than thinking about not recalling *those* kinds of things, I filled my head with the thought of focusing on the patterns.

‘This attack is off-beat.’

I saw her right arm withdraw to an awkward position, paused for a beat internally, then rolled. At that exact moment, I heard the sound of her arm swinging.

Lucia used her right arm, which she had slammed into the ground, as a support to leap into the air. The arm on her back began to writhe and split into multiple branches. Each split tentacle transformed into a sharp spike.

After confirming that, I stood in an appropriate position. If I could dodge it properly, it was a pattern that provided a very clear damage window.

The pattern starts with the things on the right side, relative to the boss. I moved one step to the right, and right next to me, a tentacle slammed down with a thud.

Next, I twisted my body to the left. This time too, a tentacle directly struck right next to me with a thud. It was a precarious difference, barely even the width of a finger joint.

I evaded all the numerous tentacles that continuously slammed down, simply by moving one step at a time or twisting my body.

This was also possible in games. It’s a situation commonly referred to as ‘hitbox porn,’ and if you really looked for it, quite a few bosses had at least one pattern where such actions were possible.

Unless you were looking for style points, there was no reason to precariously dodge instead of just rolling or parrying.

After dodging the tentacles about 12 times in that manner, the attack ceased. Lucia’s body, having finished the pattern, slowly began to descend.

I didn’t wait for that and immediately swung my sword. Until her main body fully descended to the ground, I could unilaterally beat her without worrying about counterattacks.

Lucia initiated her next attack after taking almost seven hits. *Blink*, the blessing enchantment applied to my blood-stained sword disappeared just in time.

Instead of rolling closer to Lucia, I widened the distance. Maintaining an appropriate distance to prevent her from using her jump and body press pattern, I pulled out my Holy Catalyst.

Once again, a dark, sun-like light was applied to the red blade.

“Aaaahhh…… Ugh, ugh…….”

Lucia staggered and retreated. The arm that had sprouted from her back couldn’t withstand the accumulated damage and melted into black liquid. Painful groans escaped from between her lips.

The battle was one-sided. In fact, if it weren’t one-sided, I wouldn’t be standing here perfectly fine.

Lucia tried to gather her strength again to regenerate the arm on her back, but a body that had taken damage and collapsed wouldn’t easily recover. It would often seem to regenerate only to break apart again.

Suddenly, a small object rolled off her neck.

Confirming Lucia’s head bowed, I lowered the sword I had aimed. It was a cutscene signaling the start of Phase 2, so there was no chance of being attacked during it.

Lucia’s black-stained pupils stared intently at the object that had just rolled off. It was a necklace. A necklace that, by some strange harmony, had remained quietly around her neck amidst her tattered, rag-like clothes.

And it was also an object adorned with the symbol of the Holy Kingdom’s god.

“Oh, ohhhhhh…….”

Lucia let out a beastly cry and slowly knelt, then with her still unmutated left hand, she laboriously picked up the necklace lying on the ground. The fingers that picked it up trembled violently.

Though stained and dirty, only the symbol engraved on its surface was clearly visible. From Lucia’s eyes, as she carefully caressed the symbol, black liquid dripped like tears.

Lucia carefully embraced the necklace to her chest, then unsteadily rose to her feet. Her mouth, which had only emitted beastly cries and roars, slightly parted and formed human words.

“Oh, Sun…… Oh, benevolent light that watches over all creation…….”

Lucia, who had been gazing blankly at her right arm, which had already grown several times larger than her body, recited a prayer and then firmly grasped that shoulder with her other hand.

ㅡCrack!

Her left hand, gripping her right shoulder, began to tear it off whole.

Even as flesh tore, joints twisted, and black liquid streamed down, her left hand, tearing off the arm, did not stop. Horrifying sounds of flesh separating from flesh, and bone from bone, echoed through the boss room.

Finally, Lucia completely tore off her mutated right arm. The massive pile of rotten flesh limply collapsed, decayed, and was absorbed into the floor.

“Receive the prayer of this poor lamb……”

Her left hand, drenched in black liquid, gripped another Holy Catalyst tied at her waist.

Then, a brilliant golden light burst forth. It was a light so splendid and bright that it couldn’t be compared to the blessing enchantment applied to my blood-stained sword.

Because her body was still tainted by the abyss, her entire skin began to glow fiery red and burn as if she had suffered burns, but she didn’t seem to care in the slightest whether her body was burning or not.

Lucia brought the Holy Catalyst to her right shoulder, where the black liquid had begun to writhe and gather again. White flames erupted from her shoulder where it made contact with the Holy Catalyst.

Her clothes were still rags, and her right shoulder was burning from the white flames, but the atmosphere she exuded was completely different. Now, her body was no longer covered in black liquid.

A hint of vitality returned to her black-stained pupils.

“……Grant me the strength to rise once more.”

A woman, no longer the Fallen Priestess Lucia but returned as Lucia, Priestess of the Sun, caused a brilliant golden light to erupt from the Holy Catalyst.