I place both my hands on big stone double doors, I entered the last room of the dungeon. Upon entering the room. What greeted Mirelle and I was a wide circular open space, with stone pillars and brick walls surrounding all the walls of the area. The area itself had a distinct feeling of being an arena, imposing a grand and overwhelming feeling. It was a big dome room.
Despite what I was feeling just now, the overall sight of the whole area in front of me was just too beautiful with how intricately design each pillar was, each tower having its own engraving while style maintaining a sense of connection with one another and the ceiling of the dome was a circle filled to the brimmed with engravings. However, I couldn't find any boss monster in the room, even when carefully surveying the area it was still empty.
While the whole area was beautiful, the only thing I could find in wide empty space was emptiness, no boss monster or just regular monster roaming around, except for a white stone pedestal that stood way back in into the room in between two stone pillars, which on top of the pedestal was a floating crystalized glass sphere that was 3 times the size of Mirelle's Golem Core slowly bobbing up and down.
I could immediately tell that the crystal sphere was the dungeon's core, as I could feel a thick amount of Mana emanating from the Sphere from where I was standing, which was quite a bit of distance away from it. Yet still, there was no monster nor a boss guarding such an important thing.
Looking all over the room, I was suspicious of the whole area. It was far too quiet and empty for it to be the last room containing an important item such as the core of this dungeon which housed those dungeon monsters. With my suspicion not subsiding, I decided against rashly taking another step forward, and carefully inspected the whole area again, taking care not to miss a single detail as I took [Dungeons] out of the holster and quickly wrote down notes and drew the whole area I was in.
To my surprise, it seemed that I had overlook a small mound on the ground in the middle of the room. It was so inconspicuous that I had barely noticed it at all, and it felt like it was just a part of the area. Realizing this, I walked around the room sticking close to the walls of the dungeons as I carefully scrutinized the mound on the middle of the room.
With my gazed fixed on the mound as I circled around it from a distance carefully going back the other way around when I got too close to the crystal sphere, I noticed that the mound was quite wide and the more I looked at it, the more it felt off.
"Mirelle, be on guard. We'll be approaching the center of the room towards that mound on the ground."
"Mii!" Mirelle noised with a focused tone, as she held her sword up as she followed me to the center of the room towards the mound, and just as we were approaching the center of the ground. The whole room we were in started shaking fiercely along with loud thumping and rumbling noises filling the whole room with dust and debris flying everywhere, blocking our vision as Mirelle and I swiftly backed to one of the pillars for cover and for support.
As the ground shook heavily, I almost lost my balance with both how sudden and strong the whole room shook. Out of nowhere, as the ground continue to shake endlessly but with less power, a rumbling sound could be heard from the center of the room, At the same time, the ground in the middle of the room, where the shaking was strongest, was crumbling and something slowly rose from the splitting earth as more dust and debris was covering our vision.
I swiftly activated [Identify] as the creature emerged from the ground. The spell revealed it as a "Stone Wyrm." As the dust and debris settled, the serpent-like monster slowly became visible. Its body was made entirely of jagged stone and earth, with sharp scales resembling shattered rocks. It moved slowly at first, its massive, glowing eyes peering from its rocky head, cold and unnerving.
The Wyrm's massive form coiled, and with each movement, the ground trembled. Its body undulated with an eerie grace, scraping against the stone floor as it grew larger, filling the room. The room seemed to shrink as the Stone Wyrm's form unfurled, its tail crashing against the ground and sending cracks through the floor. Its eyes locked onto us; its presence overwhelming as it emerged fully from the earth.
Stunned by the appearance of the stone wyrm in front of me, I momentarily forgot what I was doing or what I was even supposed to do. Its size alone was already a lethal weapon, but its skin was hard and covered by sharp jagged scales. Mirelle will most likely have difficulties with facing such an opponent even with me here.
Realizing the amount of danger the boss truly had, I immediately lifted [Verdant staff] with both hands as I turned sideways towards Mirelle and murmured.
"Mirelle, get ready. This is it. We've reached the heart of the dungeon."
"Mii!" Mirelle's voice rang out, full of resolve as she tightened her grip on her sword. Her hollow eyes gleaming with excitement and newfound confidence, she was ready to fight as she put herself into a stance.
I took a deep breath, gathering my mana not letting even one bit leak outside of me. This was no ordinary enemy, while it was slow its size was numerous times our own and its body had already covered most of the room, its scale could injure me, and Mirelle's core would get destroyed by its size. If we were to defeat it, we'd need every ounce of strength we had. There would be no second chances here.
"Let's do this, Mirelle," I said, my voice firm despite the storm of nerves churning in my chest. Together, we moved to face the Stone Wyrm—our final challenge in this dungeon.