Endzone: Simulated Apocalypse

Ragnar transformed into his Pyromaniac form before anyone could stop him, and dove towards the massive flower with his flaming body and enhanced strength. He latched himself onto the stem of the plant, and burned it with the fire on his body while the plant thrashed wildly. It couldn't get him off either, since any tentacles that got close to the guy simply burned to ashes. All the plant could do was sit there and bear the pain—serves it right for eating Ragnar's weapon.

… Just kidding. That would be too easy.

The plant suddenly gave off a loud screech, and from its stem, multiple sharp green spikes shot out, piercing Ragnar's body. Unfortunately for the plant, however, Ragnar was truly a maniac in this form, and despite still feeling pain, he was actually immune to all incoming physical damage. Laughing like a psychopath, he let out a bellow.

"HAHAHAHA! Is that all you got, damn flower?! Now, spit out my sword, asshole, or I'll burn straight through you and get it myself!"

"… Idiot," Cyanide muttered. Ragnar probably forgot this skill of his had a duration limit and drained his own HP, meaning the moment it was over, he was screwed.

Kirika, Dianna, and Luna were all combating the flower as well, but the flower's thick green tentacles blocked everything they threw at it. Unlike before, the tentacles were no longer vulnerable to sharp objects, and now had some sort of faint green defensive aura around them. Things weren't looking good—and when Cyanide ran [Inspect] on the botanic creature, he saw something he'd never seen on any other enemy before:

[Name: Flower of Envy 🛡]

[Level: 35]

[HP: 4570/5000]

[Category: Plant]

The shield icon. It was… weird. It definitely wasn't part of the name—it was more like a status effect, like it had a… shield?

Even though Ragnar was latched onto the flower's stem with his burning body, the plant's HP was not dropping at all. Obviously, the girls' attacks were ineffective as well.

"It's no use," Kirika muttered, gritting her teeth. "Our attacks aren't damaging it at all!"

"Hm…" Dianna narrowed her eyes as she tried to analyze the enemy, but couldn't find any weaknesses.

If Cyanide had to guess where they needed to go to break this shield, however…

Suddenly, the plant swiped a tentacle at him, and he leaped up into the air to dodge it before immediately pulling out his newly-obtained weapon, the «Anaconda's Fang». Then, to everyone's surprise, he performed a stunning frontflip in the air, and dove straight towards…

… The mouth of the flower.

"Cyanide!" Luna yelled in shock, as Kirika covered her mouth in surprise. Luna immediately tried to take off and save her master, but a hand pulled on her forearm and stopped her.

"What are you doing? Let me go!" Luna cried, but Dianna, the owner of the hand, held firm.

"Relax. He has a plan. Shouldn't you, who has been at his side for far longer than I have, know that he never makes a move without thinking first?"

"That's…" Luna bit her bottom lip as she watched Cyanide disappear into the mouth of the flower, and clenched her fists. "… Fine. You're right. Cyanide… please be safe."

"It's all up to you now, assassin!" Ragnar yelled. "Bring me my damn sword back!"

*****

Cyanide slid down the slippery throat of the flower and landed in what seemed like its stomach. The air here was humid and carried a horrible odor, but that was the least of Cyanide's worries. All around him, strong, corrosive acid dripped and dropped from the ceiling of the flower's stomach, and as one drop hit Cyanide's armor, it immediately began sizzling. His HP dropped by 5 at the initial hit, then ticked for 1 HP for several more seconds afterwards. Not to mention… the constant movement and rumbling of the flower was making remaining balanced and stable in here very difficult, and avoiding the acid would be hard.

In other words, it acted similarly to poison. But unfortunately for the flower… it was not the only one who had poison.

In here, it no longer had the shield protection it had on the outside. In here, the plant was defenseless. Cyanide had managed to catch it by surprise and avoid being chomped by the flower's teeth, thus making it down here in one piece. And now… it was time for some revenge.

Pulling out his weapon, Cyanide stabbed down at the flower's internal organs with his sword. And outside, the flower bellowed in pain, letting out a powerful screen enough to make ears bleed.

All Epic Weapons and above had special traits unique to that weapon and that weapon alone, along with a special perk unlocked at Enhancement Rank 5. In the «Anaconda's Fang»'s case, the base special trait was called [Serpent's Venom]: for every successful, damage-dealing hit with this weapon, the enemy who got hit would suffer from 1% max HP bleed damage every second for 5 ticks, ignoring all DEF.

That may not seem like much, but the trick here was that at Rank 5, the bleed effect could stack. If the initial hit with the weapon was followed up by another during the 5 seconds when the poison was still active, the [Serpent's Venom] damage would increase from 1% to 2%, and the duration would be refreshed. This effect could stack all the way up to 10 times, meaning 10% max HP damage poison per second.

Normally, it would be hard to execute consecutive hits like this to keep the stacks up. But in here, there was no defense mechanism against Cyanide. The acid? What was that going to do against a professional assassin with an agility stat of nearly 100?

Within seconds, the venom stacks was raised to the maximum, and on the outside, the flower screeched in pain as 10% of its max HP was being drained every second. To keep this effect going, Cyanide was relentless and continued to strike at the plant's innards. The flower had 5000 HP total, so every second it was losing 500.

And after 9 seconds, the flower was left with only 70 HP remaining. The flower realized its end was near, but even so, it wasn't going to go down without a fight.. Suddenly closing its petals and balling itself up as if charging up energy, the people watching outside widened their eyes.