The rat was indeed one of the strongest monsters they had ever faced. When Ella tried to hit its neck, the bone just got deflected by the yellow crystals. The only spot where an attack could do any damage was the rats face. All of its other body parts were either covered in thick black fur, shielded by the surprisingly hard yellow crystals or covered in spikes.
Since Ella had hit the rat on its snout, it had been way more protective. Everyone that came near its head had to evade its teeth and its front claws.
Only when Ella dodged the rat's bite and brought down her weapon onto its head, the rat finally showed an opening again.
As soon as Gorden saw that the rat had been stunned, he jumped forwards again and struck at the rat's eye.
It squeaked in pain and backed up. Elo already thought the fight would be over when the rats remaining eye suddenly became red. And it was not only its eyes that changed.
The crystals around its neck became red too, and they started moving. At the same time the rat's fur got way thinner and underneath its muscles became clearly visible. When the crystals stopped moving, they were pointing in all directions. It looked like they were able to pierce everyone who dared to come near the rat, but it's protective properties were no more.
Elo was stunned, he hadn't thought that he would encounter such a strong enemy so high in the dungeon.
"Watch out, it seems the rat has some kind of attack form. It will most likely be more aggressive now."
And indeed, the rat's attitude had changed completely. It seemed to have entered some kind of battle frenzy. Without worrying about its own life, the rat charged into the three humans.
Elo would have no way of evading, but thankfully he had already put a significant distance between himself and the fight. Because of their speed stats, it wasn't too hard for the others to not get caught by the charging rat.
But when it turned around though, it hit Gorden with its spiked tail. He raised his arms in time, but that's all he could do. When the tale hit him, deep wounds opened on his arms, and he became airborne for a few seconds. After he hit the cave's wall, he fell to the floor and did not stand up again.
When Lara was about to run to his side, Elo inwardly cursed her for her stupidity. He shouted:
"No, I will heal him. If you split up, the rat will kill you one after another."
Only when Lara turned around to face the rat again, Elo started running towards Gorden.
-"Thank god the rat hit Gorden, everyone else would have been hurt way worse."-
Because Gorden had two points in Endurance, he had taken the blow without any life-threatening wounds. Elo only had to heal him for five minutes, and he would be as healthy as before. But five minutes is a long time when you are fighting a huge black rat.
Ella and Lara would have to fight the rat without Gorden now, and there would be nobody to heal them if one of them fell.
When Elo turned around while healing, to see the fight again, Ella had just delivered a blow onto the rat's front leg. Because the fur had lost its protective ability as well, the bone hit the limb with full force, and a loud crash could be heard. The rat's front leg was clearly broken, but the rat didn't seem to realize.
It limped further into Ella's direction. But that made it easy prey for the two humans. Ella rushed towards its back to shatter its hind leg as well.
The rat still didn't react, but it couldn't walk anymore, so the only thing it could do was crawling towards its enemies.
They now only needed to evade the rat's bites, which wasn't hard and could just hit it from every side. Only a few good aimed hits later, the rat stopped moving.
"Ding"
"Hell Rat (dungeon boss, hard) has been defeated.
The resources are being transferred to the leader of the team."
"You resaved:
-12 rat meat
-1 dungeon key (1)
-1 soul gem (rare)
-1 ancient box (very rare)"
As soon as the rat had died, the two women had run towards Elo. Lara seemed to be pretty worried.
"Is everything ok with him?" she pointed at Gorden.
"Yes, he is alright, he will wake up in two minutes. Let's wait for him before looking at the drops, he had been so excited, I don't want to ruin this for him."
As soon as Gorden waked up, Elo took out the soul gems and the ancient box. Gorden actually was not the only one who had been exited to see the dungeons spoils.
When Gorden asked "What's that?", a screen appeared over the box.
"Ding"
"Ancient box (very rare):
A box that was made a long time ago. Can be opened with 10 ancient gold coins. It contains one item of the "very rare" class or higher."
Gorden's eyes seemed to shine.
"Wow, that's great, we haven't even seen a very rare item yet, and now we can obtain at least a very rare item."
Elo shared his enthusiasm, but he also wanted the others to level up, so he gave them 10 soul games to Lara and Gorden. Then he started speaking again.
"You two can level up, Ella and I have already done so. I wanted to tell for you for a while now, but I never got the chance. I get red crystals, that can be used as soul gems. I already told Ella and helped her to level up once."
Elo had thought about this for a long time, and he had realized that he could trust his companions enough to share his secret with them. Also, he just didn't want to hide it anymore.
"What? Really, how is that fair? You just get soul gems by doing nothing?"
Elo grinned.
"Yes, that's right. But because of that you can all level up faster, so stop crying about it. I'll level up as well. By the way…"
He took out some Power stones from his pocket.
"Ding"
"You received:
-9 Power Stones, gifted by lilleplutt and others"
"You have 20/20 soul gems. Do you want to level up?"
-"Yes!"-
"You have one available stat point, how do you want to spend it?"
-"I want more charisma. Soon I'll be able to lead this team to glory and a place to live in this new world."-