Part 65: Ancient Path V - Infernal Depths

Update 65: Ancient Path V: Infernal Depths



Hello and welcome back as we continue down the Ancient Path. This time we’re headed into the Infernal Depths.




It is another Crystal fight, but the arena and enemies are very different from the previous two maps. In my opinion, this is the hardest fight of the Ancient Path. The enemies are powerful, tough to kill, and the map very strongly supports them.



On our side we have Kyrie (who I swapped to using a spear for a little bit of extra range on Infused Edge), Mongo, Selina, Reiner, Bzaro, and Bobby. A key thing to note is that both Bzaro and Reiner can float, so they can use the lava pits as areas of relative safety.



And on the enemy side, we have a Vulcan Bulldralisk, a Knight/Duelist, a Bulldrake/Kawa Bzil, an Adamantrog who for some reason never moves,



An Overscourge, an Aeoth, a Plague Doctor/Wizard, a Lich/Mender with Doublecast and Blood Magic, and another Demon Knight like the arena.
Much like the arena, while all of the enemies are dangerous, the Demon Knight is the most threatening by far. Instead of the Templar ability set, she has the Assassin set and floats so she can easily instakill most units by dunking them in lava. Which would then most likely put her in the middle of your lines with a free turn from Cleave and a guaranteed crit from the Boon passive.



That damage would then be boosted by 25% from her Scythe, allowing her to pretty easily one shot whoever she chooses. Add on to that solid defensive stats, resistances to a few common elements, a total immunity to debuffs, the No Flank passive and Evade Magic reaction, and an innate reraise and you get a unit that’s incredibly difficult to kill on its own, even discounting any healing or support from the 2 nearby mages.



For once, I’m actually faster than the enemies, so the fight starts off with Selina boosting Mongo’s MP and Reiner using Mirror Trick to do the same thing for Bzaro.



Mongo does a turn 1 Rally on my physical damage dealers.



And Bzaro puts out the first damage of the fight with a Plaugestorm.



The only notable result of which was to charm this Bzil.



The Demon Knight makes herself even more annoying to kill by getting a Mirage charge, while the other enemies spend a round clearing the small debuffs from Plaguestorm.



Though the Lich does respond by hitting everyone with a boosted Darkstorm.



Both sides advance a bit. I make sure to keep all of my units at least 4 squares away from a lava space that the Demon Knight can reach so that she can’t Sabotage me and kill them. While that’s happening, I retreat Bzaro a bit to a lava pool and fire off another Plaguestorm.



Which is immediately countered with a Plaguestorm from the Overscourge. Thankfully, I finally got around to equipping a lot of status immunity things on my units, so it’s not that much of a threat.



Still, Bobby’s able to take advantage of the Overscourge’s debuffs and thunder weakness to kill it with a Thunder Locus.



The Demon Knight moves up close to Bobby, but just out of range for any damage.



And I decide that I need to take her out ASAP, so I have Kyrie start the process.



Reiner and Mongo cooperate to nearly down her, and Selina ends up just out of range to finish her. I have Selina heal the group instead since the Lich did a good bit of damage with the single Darkstorm. Bobby can’t hurt her due to her Evade Magic reaction, so I just have him retreat and hurt the Bulldrake a bit.



But then the Lich is incredibly annoying and almost fully heals the Demon Knight.



Reiner, Mongo, and Kyrie are able to work together and take the Demon Knight’s first life out.



But Selina can’t do enough damage without magic to get a 2nd kill before the Demon Knight moves.



And just like I said, her first move is to dunk Mongo in the lava for an instakill.



And then she saunters over to Selina and absolutely obliterates her.



Bzaro’s last Plaguestorm charmed the Bulldralisk. It doesn’t do that much damage, but it does provide a bit of a distraction and give me some breathing room.



Bobby brings Selina back since I will absolutely still need her healing.



And Reiner takes out the Demon Knight. Now I just have to pray that no one revives her.



The Bzil fully heals itself with a potion and then advances. I have Kyrie attack and start a string of missing attacks as both parts of the Infused Edge fail to connect.



Selina keeps healing everyone.



And the Aeoth does a bit of friendly fire.



The Knight is annoying and Taunts Selina who is not immune to berserk. I have no remedies left, so I just have Bobby hit the group of enemies with a Water II.



Reiner’s then able to finish off the Bulldralisk with a Snipe.



While the Lich is quite rude and reanimates Mongo as a zombie.



Selina whacks Kyrie but doesn’t do a super threatening amount of damage with just a basic attack.



Kyrie whiffs again as she tries to kill the Bzil.



While Bzaro finds himself too low on MP for a Plaguestorm. Instead I have him open the chest to get us a 2nd Infinity.



Bobby keeps the Lich’s HP down to prevent anymore nasty spells.



And Selina gets pretty hurt by a Barrage from the Aeoth. This also fully heals the Knight thanks to their fire shield.



After Mongo’s corpse wanders off, Kyrie’s able to kill the Lich.



Though she almost dies to the Plague Doctor’s retaliation.



While poor Selina is barely hanging on, statused to hell, and is sitting inside another Barrage radius. I have Bzaro come up and heal her with a Heavy Potion.



Which the Knight takes advantage of to nearly OHKO Bzaro.



I have Kyrie retreat and heal since if goes down I’m finished, and Bobby keeps hurting people with map-wide attacks.



I get very lucky and Selina barely survives the 2nd Barrage. The berserk has finally worn off so I have her heal up Bobby and Kyrie.



Kyrie gets hit a bit more by the enemies, but uses her turn to finally kill the Knight.



But because Bobby was the slowest one in my party, the Aeoth’s speed boost finally catches up to him and kills him with an unavoidable Barrage



Soon afterwards Kyrie falls just short of killing the Bzil.



I have Reiner revive Bobby in a safe spot.



And Selina puts Mongo back down.



There’s a bit more healing before Kyrie actually kills the Bzil.




While Reiner sacrifices himself to take out the Aeoth before dying to a final Barrage.



And finally, Kyrie and Selina work together to take out the Plague Doctor and basically win the fight.



I realize a funny thing, in that Bobby actually can’t leave the area he’s in. Since you need to teleport out at the crystal to end the fight, and Bobby can’t kill himself thanks to Mystic Shield, I have Bzaro and Selina knock him out again.



Down in the corner, I beat up the Adamantrog that did absolutely nothing all fight.



And receive a Godwood crafting material, which is used to make a number of top-tier weapons.



And then shortly after I teleport out. The notable reward for this fight is a 2nd Godray, which is the best spear.

This was a really close one. The Demon Knight does such crazy damage that even just the single turn that she actually used nearly knocked me out of the fight, and then losing my healing from Selina while she was berserked nearly finished me off. While the ending wasn’t as nail bitingly close as the Arena final, this one still took me multiple tries to complete and really made me center my whole team around a specific strategy.