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Paul had more or less already predicted the Wild Wolf to appear at any moment, but as prepared as he was, he couldn't help but feel surprised when it suddenly showed up out of nowhere. Although this was the easiest dungeon out of the three, because of its strange shape and form, monsters could easily appear without prior notice due to the invisible walls and gates.
Therefore, despite how easy it was supposed to be, it was rather clear that it was intended to also take by surprise any newbie that got too cocky and thought they could easily solo everything because they were "weak" monsters.
"It's really big!" Chris said. "Nothing like the other dogs~"
"Chris, don't take it for granted; that thing could easily kill you with one bite. Stay away from it if possible," Vlad said. "Your character can't revive either, like?"
"Yeah, apparently anybody with a legendary-grade background is unable to revive…" Chris said. "Ah, it's rushing here!"
"ROOAR!"
The Wild Wolf roared, rushing towards Vlad, the nearest target. It quickly noticed that Chris was above ground, too far away to reach on its own from where it was, but Vlad was right in front, an easy target to bite down on and eat.
"And do YOU have a way to tank it or something?!" Chris asked.
"I… do," Vlad smiled, his wand shining brightly.
"GROAR!"
The Wild Wolf's jaws opened in front of Vlad as a magic circle within the rune activated, and Arcana materialized into an elemental spell.
"{Stone Wall}"
RUMBLE!
A huge wall over four meters tall suddenly surged from underground.
It didn't appear in front of the wolf, though.
It appeared right from below its chin, as Vlad quickly dove to evade the jaws by using the Float Skill and manipulating small winds to push himself down, which was a much faster way to move than to use his low Agility Stat.
BAAAM!
"Gryyaargh!"
The Wild Wolf groaned in agony, biting its own tongue and dislocating its jaws. It quickly dropped to the ground and rolled, barely trying to stand up, its jaws in pain and bleeding.
"Woah, you used a defensive spell like that?!" Chris smiled in fascination. "So cool!"
"Don't distract yourself if he's Rank 5!"
Vlad was not fast enough with the relay of information, as the furious and pained Wild Wolf conjured a magic circle, and from within, a spear of darkness was lunged not at him.
But at Chris!
BOOOM!
The half-incubus was engulfed in an explosion of darkness after the spear pierced his stomach.
"Shit, no!"
Paul was already frustrated; if Chris died here, then he would not have a party member to rely on, and his flaw would slow him down even more progression-wise!
But above all, although he didn't like to admit it, he was really enjoying playing with Chris.
"Heh, did you get worried?"
"Huh?!"
Vlad almost jumped out of the ground as he saw Chris appear behind him.
"When did you..."
"Illusion! It's a pretty handy skill. I created an illusion near the Wild Wolf to bait it and hide behind you. Pretty smart, isn't it?"
"GRRHH…"
The Wild Wolf's Arcana surged from its body, resembling an Aura of Shadows.
"Now you pissed it off!" Vlad said. "It's coming again!"
The Wild Wolf started charging once more, now even faster than before, as it used its own Arcana to boost its movement speed and agility.
FLASH!
Leaving a trail of shadows behind, the Wild Wolf reached Vlad again, this time much faster. Vlad conjured the Stone Wall again, but this time it only hit the wolf's stomach.
BAAAM!
"GROARR!"
However, that only made it angrier than actually hurting it enough, as it slashed at Vlad with its sharp claws.
SLASH!
Vlad was pushed away after taking the slash on his left arm, whose bone dislocated almost instantly.
"Funking hell, it hurts!"
Paul couldn't believe how realistic the pain was.
"GRAAH!"
The Wilf Wolf wasn't giving him any time to rest. As Vlad was trying to stand up with the Float Spell, Chris appeared from above the Wild Wolf, his trident piercing the monster's back and then its head several times.
"Die fucker!"
CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!
"GRYARGH!"
The furious boss groaned in agony, blood coming out of its wounds. Its movements became slower, but it made sure to attack Chris, firing another spear at him.
"Shit!"
This time, Chris had no method of defense or escape; the illusion spell he used beforehand was already in a cooldown of a couple of seconds.
The only thing he could do was minimize damage, pushing his head down and taking the spear with his legs instead.
BOOM!
"Argh!"
His legs blew up on the spot, and the pain was agonizing, making Chris grit his teeth.
"What the fuck with this pain? Ugh…!"
It was definitely not as much pain as the real deal, but it was very big nonetheless. Enough to make someone lose their composure the first time.
"{Fireball}! {Fireball}!"
Paul saw Chris's sacrifice and quickly started firing spells. He was saving the Heavenly Demon Trait for later; he wanted to use it on something special, but it seemed like the more desperate the battle became against the easiest boss possible, the more he felt like he had to use it.
BOOM! BOOM!
The Wilf Wolf tanked both fireballs; its fur being set aflame wasn't much of an annoyance to it! Paul quickly realized it probably had some Basic Element Resistance Skill, to make it tougher than other monsters.
"Bastard, attack me instead!"
Vlad kept flying towards the Wilf Wolf, but the beast had already set its eyes on Chris, who was bleeding out and barely trying to fly higher, the power of gravity pushing him down as the pain cut his concentration needed to fly.
"GROAR!"
The Wilf Wolf licked its bleeding jaws as it pounced toward Chris to devour him whole.
In that very second, Paul concentrated almost half of his Soul Ether into his wounded arm, which was slowly healing thanks to his Vampire passive healing ability.
All the blood he bleeds suddenly starts swirling, fusing with his golden Soul Ether Aura.
"With my current stats, using this skill would be fucking useless, but what else can I do?!"
"{Blood Bending}!"
A blood spear made of his own blood and soul ether was sent flying at lightning speed, shocking Paul as his body was thrown away by the shockwave of the spear alone.
CRASH!
"Gryargh?!"
The Wild Wolf screamed in agony and confusion as a sharp spear of blood pierced its stomach while it leaped into midair to catch Chris. The spear glowed in that split second and exploded.
BOOOM!
With all the damage it accumulated, the Boss Monster finally perished, its innards exploding out and its body falling before it could reach the half-dead incubus.
"Chris!"
Vlad ran towards Chris, worried he would still die and end up losing his ability to play for a whole six months. He took out the pills he had in his inventory and quickly fed him three of them.
"Eat them quickly; swallow them with this!"
"Blood?!"
"I don't have anything else that's liquid; come on!"
"Ugh…"
Chris ended up accepting Paul's help, crushing the Healing pills and then swallowing them with the sweet yet iron-flavored blood bottle, which only made him nauseous.
"Ahh… Oh! Is it regenerating?" Chris looked at his wounds; the flesh and bones were slowly regrowing, leaving behind digital trails of light. In just ten seconds, both of his legs were back, but his boots were gone.
"Hah, thank God. This game doesn't have a proper HP bar, but if you bleed too much, you're bound to die anyway," Paul sighed in relief. "You're ok?"
"Yeah, I'm fine; that was pretty intense for the weakest boss in the game, though." Chris looked at the monster's corpse. "Just what was that, though? That super-strong projectile? It wasn't from your wand, right? How did you shoot something so strong with your debuff?"
"I think… It might be because I used my Soul. Somehow the soul is not affected by the Flaw debuff," Paul explained. "So when I used it to enchant the Blood Bending Spell, it was able to not only exceed my own casting speed but also attack power."
"Right, right, you were saying something about cultivating your soul, yeah." Chris nodded, his toes feeling the cold grass below. It was rather refreshing. "Phew! Now what do we do? We walk away, or what?"
"We're going to be kicked once the timer is down, but we can stay here for now. Just relax; I'll go pick up the corpse and drain its blood," Vlad said, as Chris nodded.
"Okay, I'm going to just rest here for now..." Chris looked mentally exhausted, resting his little head on the grass and sighing. "Man, this game's intense…"
"Hah, it sure is…"
Vlad felt slightly better after fully regenerating his wound, and he was thankful the debuff of his Flaw didn't affect his Skills effects.
This meant that even with his frail, weakened body, he could at least have the same regeneration as most other Vampires.
As long as he kept himself well fed with Blood, if not, he would slowly lose his regeneration potency.
"Now…"
The blood of the Wild Wolf was sapped completely, as he drank it heartily.
He felt it was a pity he couldn't absorb the whole thing due to Chris, but he had to admit Chris also helped to fight it, so he deserved his half of the prize.
[You have drunk the fresh blood of a strong Boss Monster.]
[You gained +500 Blood Energy.]
"Five hundred? For real?" Paul gasped. "If I kill three more, I could Rank Up again…"
The only time he gained this much Blood Energy was with the Vampire Butlers he killed in his Heavenly Demon mode; they gave him one thousand each.
After hearing the story of the carcass, he suddenly noticed something else near the area where the carcass had been resting.
"Huh? This is…?"
"Oooh!"
Chris's voice startled him, coming from behind him. The mischievous half-incubus had just appeared behind him quite sneakily, using his flight to move without noise.
"Do you have to startle me every time?" he sighed.
"Hehe, what's wrong?" Chris shrugged. "Relax dude~"
Chris teased Paul by placing his feet over his head and giving him a "head pat.".
Paul didn't know what to think in that moment.
Part of his mind thought that was rather hot.
The other part wanted to kill the little imp for doing such a thing.
But he decided to simply analyze the thing in front of him and remain stoic, if possible.
Although Chris could slightly tell he was embarrassed, it only made him smile even more smugly.
"Anyways, this is a treasure chest! I can't believe we got one on our first try," Vlad smiled, telling Chris the good news.
"Wait, they appear too?" Chris wondered, getting closer.
The sweet scent his entire body had was enchanting, to say the least, making Paul feel a bit dizzy.
"Y-Yeah, the chance of them appearing increases depending on the Dungeon difficulty. Usually, for this low, difficult dungeon, the chance is like, thirty percent? I think," Paul explained.
"Nice, open it! What's inside?!" Chris was pumped up. "Let me open it for you, actually!"
"Hey, wait…!" Vlad tried to stop him, but the half-incubus boy butted in, quite literally, using his butt to push him back, quickly opening the treasure chest. "Chris, don't open it; maybe your luck's terrible."
"Ohh, nice!"
However, when he heard Chris celebrating, Paul pushed the boy down and quickly looked for himself.
The small treasure chest, which had a wooden appearance, was full to the brim with white, silver-colored coins.
There were at least a few hundred!
"Credit coins!"
However, that wasn't all.
Two small prizes were resting over the pile of coins.
One was a small black ring with a black wolf motif on top, both eyes embedded with red jewels.
The other was a pair of black gloves with the black wolf's motif too, resembling a red-colored rune.
"Boss-exclusive equipment?! And two!" Vlad's crimson eyes shone brightly in shock and amusement.
"Heheh, see? And you said my luck was low, duh," Chris mocked Vlad's lack of faith in his fortune.
"Okay, sorry, now let me have one of them at least," Paul said, pulling Chris's tail from behind and making the half-incubus give a little moan of pain.
"Hyeeh! Ouchies! Don't do that; the tail's sensitive!" Chris cried angrily, punching Vlad's shoulder.
"I-Is that so? Okay, sorry, sorry." Paul sighed, feeling slightly embarrassed. "Now, what do these two do?"
The ring was called [Black Wolf's Revenge Ring] and the gloves were called [Crimson Wolf's Runic Gloves]. They were both D-Rank items of very high quality for a dungeon like this.
"This ring… It increases damage dealt based on the amount of blood lost," said Chris. "Huh, freaky… And the other, these gloves, they store up to one spell both, and use their own Arcana!"
"Ah, both are perfect for me." Paul felt frustrated. "But you gotta take one... I guess you should take the gloves; you're definitely not a tank; only I should use the ring with my regeneration."
"True, okay, thank you~" Chris equipped the gloves. "Wait, I don't even know a spell to engrave."
"Haha!" Paul mocked him, taking the ring and equipping it. "Don't worry, I can imbue spells into the two for you."
"Really dude? You're the best!" Chris smiled both happily and greedily.
"For a cost, of course," Paul smiled.
Chris's smile quickly turned into a face full of disgust.
Paul had his standards.
"You're so greedy."
"You're one to say that!"
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