She was shocked, how could he appear so fast in front of her? She was a swordswoman, and had 500 Agility, and yet she couldn't even see a Level 25 move?
Seeing her shock, Adam grinned and roared at her face. She went from shock to terrifying fear, and the immense stress created from the fear blocked her brain from working for a second.
This is an interesting reaction humans had when faced with stress. Stress is a physical reaction, which secretes a substance that shuts off the front of the brain, and enhancing the reptilian brain, which is ruled by reflexes.
That's why many people would get paralyzed when they are stressed, why students would forget everything they learned in front of their test, why most people would freeze in front of danger instead of running away.
Adam squeezed some more, and saw her HP start to dwindle down, and her consciousness started waving. He slammed her against the ground, and approached his face to hers as he said "Don't. Provoke. Me!"
He then kicked her away, starring her down. The girl sat on the ground and touched her throat with a scared expression. She took out a crystal and made it fall twice before successfully crushing it and disappearing, leaving Adam alone.
[Relationship with Aemon's Cult set back to Neutral.]
Once again alone, Adam turned to look at the dungeon behind him. Being a Sovereign really made his strength go off the charts, this should be a dungeon for level 30s, and yet he was able to solo it as a Level 25, and he was about to go through its hardest difficulty.
While his chances of successfully clearing this difficulty, his chances were pretty high, but for normal players even a team of 5 Level 50 Silvers wouldn't necessarily be able to kill the monster.
Fortunately for the other players he had his XP debuff, or he would truly be invincible among other players. But even with his debuff, he believed only other Sovereigns would be able to equal him.
Adam eventually entered the dungeon in its highest difficulty, and received several warnings doing so because of his level. He ignored them though and walked forward. As soon as he entered he noticed something was strange, this wasn't the same mine as earlier.
This mine was much wider and bigger, and Adam couldn't see what was supporting it since all the pillars had been smashed apart. This looked like a bigger desolate version of the dungeon.
It didn't take long for him to find the first monster, although it wasn't alone by accompanied by several tens of monsters, all of them having the same status.
[Big Cave Spider] (Elite, Level 30)
12500/12500
Each of the spiders were bigger than Adam, but they were still able to swarm on him thanks to the new width of the tunnel. Adam now understood why this was called 'Nightmare' difficulty.
No matter the difficulty though, Adam was just stronger. He wanted to test his new skills though, and so he first used [Barbarous Roar].
The roar was so mighty that the spiders stopped in place, looking at Adam in fear. He smirked and jumped toward them as he activated [Icy Stomp] and tried to apply [Mighty Strike], but found himself unable to so he stuck with only [Icy Stomp].
-10948 HP!
All the spiders more or less received the same amount of damage, almost emptying out their health point in a single strike. Moreover, the crash against the walls of the tunnel took away some more damage.
Adam once again roared, and the spiders that could still stand lowered themselves. Adam received multiple notifications about him subduing multiple monsters, but more interestingly he had leveled up the skill.
[Barbarous Roar has leveled up to Level 2!]
Adam tried to find any difference in his status, but the description of the skill. As he roared once again thanks to the lack of cooldown though, he felt that his roar was even louder than before, and now all the spiders that hadn't submitted yet did so.
Unfortunately for them, Adam had no interest whatsoever into taking them as pets, and so he killed them all.
Following this, Adam began his conquest of the dungeon. Every time he crossed spiders, he would first make them submit before killing them. That made his throat a little soar, but he had a fun time shooting around, and killing the spiders like that somehow made him excited.
As for the dungeon, it was really quite different from the three other difficulties. There was a difference in size, but there were also more paths to be followed, as well as more monsters. The spiders he met on the main path were all Elite rank but there were two to three more of them.
As for those in the paths, while the majority were Elite Rank, there would always be at least two Chieftains in each. Unfortunately, their drop was lessened like every other monster, so despite the rarity of the monsters he killed, the loot he got wasn't that great.
Another difference was that the ores he could see before had now disappeared, and the only ore he got was out of the spiders, all the chests were empty.
Finally, there was also the mini boss, who turned out to be a Lord, the same one as the final boss of the 'Hardcore' difficulty, which he killed with the same ease.
By the time he reached the final boss' room, his XP hadn't moved that much, but his skills had leveled up a few times.
His [Icy Stomp] got to Level 4, while his [Barbarous Roar] was now Level 3. The only skills he hadn't used were [Totemic Rage] and [Misty Escape] because of their cooldowns. He kept them for emergencies, so maybe for his fight against the final boss.
The door leading to the final boss was one of the only things left intact, and so Adam pushed them open. He figured there wasn't really any use into kicking them open since the mini boss was able to stop it completely.
As he entered the room, Adam expected some changes, but he was mindblown by how different the room was. This wasn't a storage room anymore, it was only an enormous cave.
The only thing Adam could see in the room was a chest as well as eight pillars. Looking up, those pillars turned out to be the legs of a ten meters tall spider. Great.
[Black Heart Spider] (Overlord, Chosen, Level 30)
750000/750000
Upon seeing the additional 'Chosen' tag Adam frowned. What was this supposed to mean? He didn't have much time to think though as one of the thick legs came crashing toward him with an incredible speed. A speed not inferior's to Adam's in the least.
Moreover, the size of the leg and the power behind it bended the air around it, forcing a strong wind onto Adam that made him slow down and so unable to dodge and forced to block in the end.
Adam slammed his sword against the leg, using [Mighty Strike] and [Crushing Blow].
-10000 HP!
Adam was able to push back the leg and deal some damage to it, but the damage wasn't big enough to really damage the boss.
The boss took its leg back and screeched at Adam, releasing an enhanced version of the killing intent from the Lord Boss. Adam countered and overwhelmed it by using his [Barbarous Roar], and activated [Wind Blade] to jump toward the spider's head.
Adam looked like a super human as he made that impossible jump, and he activated his strongest skills for this combo.
-27900 HP!
-27900 HP! Cripple!
-27900 HP!
-27900 HP! Cripple!
With his attack, the four blades from his [Lunar Smite] were able to destroy two of the spider's eight eyes, and deal a remarkable amount of damage.
However, Adam was now in the air and couldn't dodge any attack. He expected the spider to attack him once again, and he was prepared for it, but instead the spider screeched even louder than before, and Adam felt his inside shake and his ears bleed. That was a sound wave attack!
Adam hurriedly circulated his Qi through his body, stopping the sound wave from making any other damage, but he had already lost more than half his health.
But he had no time to rest as he saw another leg coming for him, a leg bigger than his body. He wanted to parry it, but found out he was unable to move!
One of the Berserker's biggest weakness was their weakness to status effects, such as stuns as they were more effective on them than on other classes.
Adam hadn't noticed right away, but that sonic attack had forced some of his muscles to stiffen and made him unable to move, and so he had to take the full brunt of the boss' attack.
Right before he was hit though, thanks to an extraordinary quick thinking, he activated his set's first skill, which instantly healed 20% of his HP.
Then, the spider's leg slammed into his body.
-9000 HP! Cripple!