This smile could be seen normally on battle crazed maniacs and sadists. Trying not to show it to much outwardly, I was really looking foward to my rematch with the so called Kalaponos, and this time, ohhhh this time I will come out the winner even if I have to lose the little remnants of humanity I still had left.
I started to think back on my recent behaviour, and when I did I opened my eyes wide in suprise and shock but out of view of the girls. I really saw myself changing even though we have only been in this world for maybe like 2 days at most. I was starting to fear my own future self because I did not know who or what I would become if certain things happened.
I guess the only thing I can control is in the here and now and when my future self gets to one of those impassable roads..... I actually do not know what I would do in the future, but I hope it won't be that extreme. For now I will focus on getting out of this stupid private dungeon.
"Girls," I called to them in a slightly loud voice to grab their attention, "Yes!" they answered back together. "Do you remember the roles I assigned both of you?" I asked while keeping my eyes foward, scanning the walls and dark ahead.
"Yes, Sarah will be ranged support that will mostly distract the monsters from afar while also dealing little damage. And I will be basically pure support to heal up all your guys wounds" Sasha answered. ""What she said," Sarah added to not be left out.
I chuckled a little, Sarah always had to have the final word or final say in anything. It wasn't anything worth of note but its nice to know that even though her outwards apperance may have changed, but her former personality has not changed with her looks, I hope it is the same with Sasha.
We continued to walk in the same direction that we ran. I then started to think about how we are going to really deal with the BOSS of this dungeon. It never even crossed my mind that we might have crossed paths with it even if a prompt said we would. Like what stupid dungeon has the boss just walk around it like a normal mob.
There are just to many questions and not enough answers. I put that at the back of my head for now and procceded to hype myself up for this battle. When I really started thinking about fighting a strong and powerful foe, I started to feel an itch all up and down my arms and torso and little in my legs, I do not know may have changed about me physically or mentally but I can only get as many answers before the insanity of way to many questions pile up.
The time for that was not now when we needed to focus getting out of this damned dungeon. As I walked thorugh the wide corridor a loud thud could be heared farther down.
I looked over in the direction of the noise and deep in the darkness a pair of glowing eyes were staring straight back at me, and before I could do or say anything, it vanished. I looked around with a bit of fear not knowing where it might pop up again, I turned to the girls and told them to raise there guards and be ready becuase the boss came to us and not the other way around.
"Raise your guard, I believe that the boss came to us!" I shouted towards them. I then turned back around to notice a tendril slithering back into the shadows, the errie feeling I was getting was high and not only that, I felt dread.
I was franticly swinging my eyes left and right looking everywhere to see what was making me feel this dread. Scanning the entire area I found nothing other than the same walls and ceiling and floor. Then all of a sudden I was yanked from my place and thrown across the entire cave.
*THUD*
"UGH," I shouted not in pain but as reaction of hitting something really hard. I then climbed out of the crator I made in the wall as fast as I could, but I wasn't quick enough in doing so. Upon finally climbing out of the crator, I saw the boss, and when I say it was weird looking as it was horrifying.
A monster standing around 5 meters at the shoulder with the body of a tiger, head of a crocodile, and tail of what could only be described as a possible dragons tail. The arms and legs of this being were something straight out of lovecraft. The forearms had the apperance of a chicken leg and it formed another pair of ankles and feet at the knee joint area, this was the same for the other forearm.
Its hind legs were the sutff of nightmares, the width of the legs could almost match that of a semi-truck trailer, with weird growths all over it kind of like having pimples or sun blisters that are full of liquid. With spike running from where its shoulders meet its neck all the way down to its tail to make up a gnarly looking spiked tail.
Trying to imagine this was once multiple beasts was getting more and more difficult than I thought. Its eyes which it used to have only a single pair of, now has 24 eyes, each pair that of a different color.
I had gazed at this monstrosity in a daze for longer than I should, those few seconds caused me to lose focus, and the monster noticed that. The monsters tendril moved faster than one could fathom, and using those extra seconds it wrapped me up in its vine like tendrils while also restricting my movement. Being caught unaware gave me a wake up call on not getting to suprised or shocked.
After my shock and suprise at this monstrosity has calmed down, I attempted to get out of its hold. I started to flex my muscles and pull both my arms and legs inward towards my chest trying to snap the tendrils. I failed in snapping the appendages so I had grabbed one suprisingly slippery tenticles and yanked it while digging my elongated nails that came with my transformation into it and seperated it from the middle of it.
Each tenticle seemed to be nearly 30 meters in length, each tendril was seamlessly moving around one another without hindering the others movements. Each tenticle seemed to move with calulated precision, moving up and over and around each other to get there target. A tenticle darted towards Sasha and before I could do anything to stop it I saw Sarah act and shove her to the side while also jumping back to avoid the tenticle.
I noticed that both Sasha and Sarah were both doing very well in attacking and defending from the shadow like appendages, this made me think of a way to fight the big boss. I looked around trying to spot said boss but I did not see it anywhere. You would think a 4 meter tall abomination straight out of lovecraft lore would be easy to spot. I ducked down and threw my right shoulder down and to the right, I was shocked because for one, I did this in a split second and two, I did it subconiously.
Rolling to the side, I got back up and got into a random matial stance not noticing my skill activating. I had my head on a swivel and kept trying to spot where that attack came from, I had no luck in finding the source so I headed to the girls to see if I could be of help to them.
As soon as I turned my back I reacted again but this time, I stomped down hard with my left leg and piveted which turned into a spin with my right leg extended out turning it into a roundhouse kick going backwards. My foot connected with something very solid, but I did feel it give a little and a little crunching noise could be heared.
I turned my head a second after my kick had landed and I laid my eyes on a open maw that appeared to be part snake due to the way it could open its jaw nearly 90 degrees. Having the jaw close in on me, I lightly kicked up off the ground and stomped really hard and fast on the same limb my foot had connected with and propelled myself away from that nightmare enducing maw.
After distancing myself from the monstorous beast, I quickly got into another stance, this new stance weirded me out, I had both my legs behind me while being on my hands, knees and toes. I was questioning myself about all this until I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, my body was already one step ahead of me and launched away from that spot so fast it could have looked like I had teleported.
I had lost myself in this whole commotion, I did not know if I was in control of my body or if the skill (Martial Prowess) was in control of me. I had come to the conclusion that even though I can activate the skill, it is also a passive one. With this in mind I let the skill take hold and continued to rip and tear the tendrils I was able to get a hold of when I wasn't dodging multiple at once.
I had to have ripped apart maybe 200 feet of shadow tendrils before I had to completely let go of the tendril I was about to completely rip off the shadow body and jump back about 20 meters. The Boss had made it's appearance again and it wasn't happy, the glint in its eyes spoke of unbridled rage, then it disappeared from my sight.
I raised my guard just in time to block an incoming swipe that felt more like a punch than a slash. This time however I stood my ground, I was forced into the rock getting pushed further and further in it until I was at my knees before I had a chance to react. The monster pulled back and then started to pound on my forearms that were above my head and chest. The pain was incomprehensible, I never would have thought any type of pain like this could ever exist but I persisted.
After about 15 minutes the monster slipped up a little bit by slightly swinging a right hook a little to wide and 'I' capitalized off of it, I now waist deep in stone and rock grabbed the hand while slightly moving my head to the right while the fist barely missed my head. A dinging noise went off, the noise never really registered due to the adreniline pumping through my veins and heart pounding. While my grip on the monster was strong it was not permenant. I yanked myself up and out of the little hole I was in using all my strength and shot across the cave away from the monster.
The Boss was a monster through and through, I did not think that with my stats it would be this difficult to actually damage it let alone kill it. I recollected myself and started rushing towards it as fast as I could, while I was doing so I chanced a glance at the girls and to my relief they were okish. They were bloodied and bruised but alive and had killed the remaining tendrils somehow, I turned my gaze back to the boss that was now infront of me with both arms and hands stretched out and closing in on me trying to squash me like a hanging bug.
I dropped down to my stomach and launched towards its legs and attempted to pick it up, but to my suprise it was nearly impossible to do so but not completely impossible. I continued to use more and more strength and pick it up, and slowly but surely I did so much to the suprise of the boss and then I threw it up. I jumped up to get into another fight with it but this time in the air, when I reached it I grabbed onto the legs of it and started to claw my way up towards its head at a speed that was hard to track.
Each time I dug my hands into the monster I dug trenches in the flesh of it cause it to roar in pain for the first time. With each freashly dug flesh trench the bleeding started to get worse and worse like it was pumping more and more blood throughout itself to keep it alive and something else that I did not know of. I finally got to the head and then sat down behind it and started to wail on it until I was grabbed and thrown away by a fading tendril.
I again was lodged in a wall and I did not like it. I pulled myself out again and looked around for what had thrown me, I locked eyeswith the monster and charged without a second of hesitiation and the monster did a second later. In a battle every second is precious and is vital because you may never know if that one second you let pass will be your downfall. Within that one second that the monster granted me I had closed the distance between the two of us to 3 meters, this caused the monster to freeze in shock due to my speed.
I had now noticed that the monster had been showing more and more sentience throughout the entire fight, this gave me a brief pause before I had continued but never stopping. I reached to monster running at full speed and tackled its huge legs while also picking it up and running it into the wall hard enough to make the whole wall have spider-web cracks reaching out over 40 meters. I knew that the monster would not let these oppurtunity happen again so I had to keep up the onslaught, I jumped up to the monsters head and began a extremely brutal flurry of attacks. I had started to pummel the monsters face with either hammer fists, staight punches, hooks, elbows and headbutts, but his monster seemed to be taking it with almost no reacation, 'ALMOST.'
With each hit that had landed a small spasm caused the Boss monster to do a sutble twitch that as almost imperceptible to a normals humans eye. After continuing to rain punches that contained enough force to obliterate a normal person for about 5 minutes the monster made a attempt to throw me away.
The monster, The Boss Kapalonos was a worthy foe, even though it looked like it was an amalgamation of a crocodile, whale, tiger and eagel it still was something that can not be ignored. I had started to thrash around violently, swinging its massive tail, arms and legs around to get me off of it and try to distance itself from me.... well the former worked as I did not have any good grip on it as was sent flying. In mid air I gathered myself and started to right myself and started to spin backwards and land in a crouched position that was ready to start running foward whenever I wanted, and that was now.
I rushed back to the monster that was hastily trying to get up while trying with a new found desperation I never had from any being before now kept me far enough away as to not either get a hold of it or be within arms reach of it. I continued to try to get around the sporadicly flailing limbs with no luck I tried something else, I leaned foward and used as much strength as I could and jumped up in the air so fast and strongly that I had reached the ceiling of the cave. After jumping with all that strength and launching myself at a speed that even the boss couldnt follow I had reached the roof of the cave ready to end this fight once and for all.
The few seconds before the jump I had come up with a plan to end this battle, but this plan was an all or nothing shot in the dark, if I am to succeed all three of us will be walking out of here but if I fail.... That wasn't something I wanted to think about. The plan was to use all my strength twice in quick succession that would enevitably cause me to completely drain myself, First, I would use all my strength and agaility and speed to launch myself up to the cave ceiling and second, I would use my strength again but this time push myself as much as I could and jump from the ceiling with as much strength as I could muster and crash into the monster hopefully killing it in one blow that would annihilate.
I started to gather all the strength I could in my legs and once I knew I was ready I jumped and the punched connected with the monster before even the sonicboom was heard, but by the time the boom was heard the monster was on the floor dead. When I launched myself for the second time I had put so much strength into my legs that I had litterally seemed to teleport infront of the boss while also having the kenetic energy of a 600 ton locomotive going at 500 miles per hour, and when my hand had connected with the monsters head I had felt slight resistence then it disappeared and the body became two.
I lay there exhausted and breathing heavily and suprisingly with almost no wounds for some odd reason, then I heard a ding.
[Ding]
{Quest Complete: Even though you did not find the door, the guardian has been defeated. The location of the door has been moved closer to you and your rewards have been given.}
{Rewards: 1x Grand Arcane Bow (Custom, Growth) [UNIQUE] , 1x Skill - ( Reality Warper ) [UNIQUE] *Limited for now*, 1x Staff of the unorthodox [UNIQUE] (Custom, Growth)
I was not able to read anything else other than "Quest Complete" and glancing over to the girls who had collapased from exhaustion. I breathed a sigh of relief before exhaustion over took me and I had closed my eyes and drifted off.