The forces of sand and shadow clashed, flooding the boss room with their respective elements. Sol couldn't see what was happening beneath him as the room was nearly pitch black, and a sandstorm obscured what little visibility remained. If not for using [True Sight] to track their mana signatures, he would've had a tough time following the action.
Amber and the Shadow Crawler, however, had no such trouble. Amber used [Sand Sense], while the boss relied on its passive [One with Shadows]. The Shadow Crawler felt its surroundings through its shadow army, but even with that, it couldn't find its opponent—only its shadow creatures clashing with the sand soldiers.
The then detected platoon of sand soldiers was tearing through its army like paper, and the boss quickly deduced that Amber must be hiding among them. Chains of shadow rose up, twisting around the soldiers and crushing them into nothing—but nothing else happened.
'Was I mistaken?' It thought, expecting Amber to rise from the pile of sand on the ground. And indeed, it wasn't wrong. The sand began gathering together into a massive humanoid figure, standing 15 meters tall. Sol, who was floating above, had to move his stone platform back as it loomed over the battlefield.
The sand giant slammed its fists down, sending a tsunami of sand in all directions. The sand soldiers were unaffected, but the shadow creatures were crushed beneath the weight.
The boss rolled its eyes at the sight of the giant and scoffed. "So uninspired—first humans, and now a big human. What's next, a really big human?"
Thinking that her usage of sand was very basic, the boss fully transformed into shadows using [Shadow Elementalization]. This time, instead of a humanoid form, it morphed into something completely different—a massive, four legged reptile with enormous wings. It was a shadow dragon, rivaling the size of the sand giant.
The dragon opened its maw, unleashing a torrent of shadow fire that blasted the sand giant, knocking it onto its back.
The giant tried to block with its hands, but the shadow flames burned through them. From the side of the sand giant, two new arms formed, grabbing the head of the shadow dragon and pushing it upward, sending the shadow flames skyward, scorching the walls and ceiling behind them.
Seizing the opportunity, the sand giant stood and tackled the shadow dragon, transforming into a massive sand blanket in an attempt to smother the boss.
Not wanting to be crushed, the Shadow Crawler rapidly shrank its form into a spear and launched itself through the sand blanket, piercing straight through. On the other side, it reverted to its normal form, clinging to the roof with its tail as it watched Amber reform from the sea of sand below. The two locked eyes, reading each other's condition.
'She's used up a lot of mana, but so have I…' the boss thought. 'It's hard for either of us to lose since we can't truly harm each other in our elemental forms. This will come down to who runs out of mana first, or if one of us can catch the other by surprise. But from her expression, I can't even tell if she's tired. She looks exactly the same as before the fight started.'
There was one more aspect it had been ignoring as it knew thinking about it would worsen its mood even more. She had access to something it didn't, potions. Unless for some reason she ran out which the boss highly doubted, it was unsure if it could win in a battle of endurance, the boss opted for a surprise attack.
It summoned its shadow creatures once again. Despite the room being filled with sand, it could still summon them as long as there was darkness. The shadow army charged at Amber, who raised her sand soldiers to meet them. As the two forces clashed once more, the boss was nowhere to be seen.
Amber continued fighting the shadow army, staying alert for an attack, but none came. She cut down a large shadow beast with a few sand slashes, only for the creature to explode in a burst of darkness, sending her flying backward.
Before she could even land, another shadow creature lunged at her and exploded. More shadow creatures detonated around her, coming from all directions. There was nowhere to escape. Surrounded by explosions, Amber was at the mercy of the boss that appeared from above and hurled two black orbs at her.
"Say goodbye!"
The orbs were packed with explosive shadow energy, capable of destroying the sand and leaving her unable to recover.
The explosions covered the entire area in thick shadows, obliterating what little sand remained. Even if Amber wanted to, she couldn't create more sand in this environment, flooded in another's energy.
The Shadow Crawler observed the room, now devoid of anything but shadows, and turned proudly toward Sol, who stood on his floating stone platform.
"Haha! I win! Now fulfill your end of the deal."
'That took a lot of mana, but I won in the end.' The boss was eager to report to its mother that it had succeeded in fulfilling her wishes and obtaining the void root. But Sol didn't respond, he just shook his head silently.
"What? Are you going back on our bet? Is this the deceitful nature of humans I've heard so much about? I won fair and square. It's not my fault her control over the sand was too easy to read and counter. Don't be a sore loser, or I'll tell my mother. She'll intervene since you made a deal with me."
The Shadow Crawler's mother had every right to enforce the bet, meaning she could trap Sol here and even summon A-rank monsters from deeper floors to take the void root from his corpse if she so chose.
Sol shook his head again. "Trust me, if you were really about to win, I would've stopped the fight before she got hurt. It's not over yet."
"Wha—" Before it could ask what he meant, the boss felt a surge of danger from behind. It instinctively merged with the shadows, narrowly dodging a blast of sand that struck where it had been standing.
As it rose from the shadows, it saw Amber completely unharmed, standing atop a sand dragon.
"How?! I obliterated all the sand around you!"
Amber remained silent as always so Sol explained in her stead. "You did, except that wasn't her. She made a sand soldier look like her. You had been fighting her fake since the beginning."
"She can do that?!" Even with centuries of experience in the dungeon, the boss had never been able to make its shadows take on a physical appearance, much less resemble itself.
Amber silently raised her hand, and the sand dragon beneath her, which looked identical to the shadow dragon from earlier, opened its maw and unleashed a breath of sand toward the Shadow Crawler.
"Fine, so be it! I'll still prevail!" The boss shifted into its shadow dragon form and fired back with its own shadow breath. The two elemental attacks collided, creating a storm of shadow and sand that clouded the entire room once again. Still, the two dragons maintained their attacks, both rapidly draining their remaining mana.
The shadow dragon grimaced as the boss thought, 'This is exactly what I didn't want… Now it's just a matter of who has the most mana, and I've already wasted so much!'
It held out hope, continuing its attack, but things took a turn for the worse when two additional breaths of sand struck the shadow dragon from seemingly nowhere.
'Are there three sand dragons?! I can barely make one!' the boss thought in shock.
Overwhelmed by the triple sand breath, it was unable to maintain the shadow dragon any longer and was destroyed by the deluge of sand.
Sensing no further resistance, Amber ceased her attack, clearing the area to reveal a haggard Shadow Crawler lying on the ground and a towering, three headed sand dragon standing victorious.
"We have a winner!" Sol announced, playing the part of both announcer and audience, clapping alongside the multiple magic hands he summoned.