Chapter 509
The monstrous roar that echoes from the back of the 42nd-floor boss room reveals its form soon after I hear it.
At first, when teleporting into this white-floored room, my all-seeing eye picked up the presence of a man standing just as tall as me with a golden collar around his neck.
However, it immediately evolved into its monster form when I arrived. It jumps up and over the nearest white hill to come into my vision, and its 6-meter-tall light blue-skinned muscular body contrasts greatly with the grey sky.
It has three golden glowing eyes on its forehead, with a large matching collar around its neck too. It wears silver armor on its chest and feet, and carries two longswords that shimmer the same metallic shine.
Its gaze locks with mine and it speeds forward as I scan its status.
_________
[Lv.2091]
Active Items:
Enchanted Silver Sword Set [+411% Strength][+300 Speed][+288% Agility]
Enchanted Silver Chestplate [+391% Defense][+322% Strength]
Enchanted Silver Boots [+348% Speed][+340% Agility]
Active Skills:
Swordsmanship [Mythic Grade]
Dual Wielding [Legendary Grade]
Buffs:
Overseers Vision
Energy Enhancement of the Ultimate Swordsman
The Sun God's Curse Mark
_________
It seems like every floor above the 40th has been raising levels by about 500 each new boss. It is a considerable amount.
I feel an aura of mana control fill the dungeon and a denser layer of blue mana covers its body and swords. Both of its ranked-up buffs activate, and the graceful movements of its steps and blade are the handiwork of this monster's mythic-grade swordsmanship at work.
A thick Golden Aura leaks from its eyes and covers its arms and two blades while it comes at me.
I activate my own mythic-grade swordsmanship skill and channel my soul energy into defenses while activating my own ranked-up buff to grow in size and create a Dark Red Greater Energy form almost twice as large as the monster before me.
I lunge forward too, and both of us follow the instinctive thread of our skill's energy attacks.
My sword collides with one of his, blocking it and sending it flying backward, then twisting my body to block his second blade coming from the opposite side.
Blue and golden energy disperse into the air as the three-eyed swordsman calculates the perfect counter to my block.
In my Greater Form, I have the edge on it in all of my stats. However, I could tell that if I fought it in my base form while it was activating its buffs, I would have had trouble fending off the attack I just blocked.
My gaze locks on the monster's weak points. I need to focus on defeating this monster, not just testing out new skills and moves like I did on the 41st floor.
Its shoulders, knees, and neck are unprotected from armor, but it holds its dual swords in a peculiar stance that blocks these weak spots while in a resting position.
It even manages to guard these points while my sword was deflecting it during our last exchange.
The focused golden soul energy in its blades was nearly as dense as mine, but it seemed like it was using the majority of it only on its weapons. My Soul Energy covered my blades as well as my entire greater energy form, spreading out its density greatly.
The blue-skinned swordsman comes running back in with trails of golden mist behind its swords, and I block both attacks individually just like before, but lunge in to counter as it is moving away this time, aiming for its upper shoulder but get to witness a fast spinning motion from his upper body to block the attack too.
What I find interesting about this exchange is that a small amount of its Soul Energy transfers from its unused blade in this block to cover its shoulder on the off chance that my attack makes it through.
It is working with a limited amount of this high level power just as I assumed.
This gives me the go-ahead to allocate my own Soul Energy accordingly on the next exchange.
I'm confident in my ability to outmaneuver this monster in my greater form, so I channel over 50% of my Soul Energy directly into my blades and send my next attack just like the last.
Upon contact, both the golden and blue light that envelops its silver swords are eaten away, and the hard silver enchanted metal begins to melt and bend as my blade pushes through them.
Instead of having graceful spins and counters each time, the creature's golden eyes pulse and it jumps backward while holding up both damaged swords in the same unique defensive stance.
I don't regroup my thoughts or step back at all, I jump in again after it, slashing away at its defenses and continuously melting and incinerating through its borrowed golden energy.
This monster isn't weak, but I've found its weakness.
I'm carefully positioning each strike using all of my perception and buffs on full capacity, I even feel my body tiring as I ruthlessly beat my opponent down.
This swordsman is not capable of stopping me.
My fiery red and black sword finally breaks one of its silver weapons into pieces, landing my first blow through its right shoulder.
Three exchanges later and its other sword is shattered to pieces and melted into nothing from my strikes and I land more hits on its shoulders, knees, and neck area where its golden collar rests.
The monster is overwhelmed as I push it back, burning large black and red marks and slashes through the floor of this boss room while imbuing more and more of my corrosive soul energy into each slash I manage to make on the three-eyed swordsman.
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It seeps into its veins, burning it from the inside, and turning the blue mana that covers its body into red flames while the golden light in its eyes dims.
I'd go straight for a headshot right now if my only aim for this battle was to kill it.
Another 30 seconds of burning it from the inside and cheap shots in its weak spots go by. I even slice its arms and legs clean off, pinning it to the ground under my greater form's boot before I finally see purple-red notifications.
[Select 1 Option]
Swordsmanship [Mythic Grade]
Dual Wielding [Legendary Grade]
I choose swordsmanship and a more familiar window pops up.
[Use Absorption]
Skill: Swordsmanship [Mythic Grade]
[YES][NO]
Once I hit [YES], the same flash of white and blue system-colored light covers the monster's body. Then, my Soul Energy and subconscious activation of skills commences as well.
The instant I feel a Skill Orb enter my item storage, I let my flames engulf the monster entirely, and burn its flesh to ash.
A notification to absorb its MCP is presented, and a mana crystal as well as its chestplate and boots are left behind as loot.
I happily accept and place them into my inventory with the mythic-grade swordsmanship Skill Orb while being transported to the next floor while still in my greater form.
"Might as well keep going while I'm on a roll here..."
As the white transfer magic light brings me to the 43rd floor, I take in the rocky mountain landscape of brown dirt, green trees, and grey stone cliffsides.
The instant I try to gauge where I am, I have to lunge out of the way to dodge dozens of incoming rocks and trees sharpened into spears covered in dense golden soul energy.
Some of the projectiles narrowly miss me by less than a meter on each side, and as I weave through the barrage, I have to use my sword to block a few attacks that would have hit me straight on otherwise.
The Soul Energy shielding around all of these attacks is exactly even with my own. The best I can do is deflect them by changing their direction slightly, but it feels as if there is an external gravitational pull on them making them shoot toward me in a curving path.
After making my way through the bulk of the barrage, I don't manage to dodge them all. My Soul Energy shielding along with body hardening is torn through in the side of my stomach and lower left leg.
It leaves golden flakes of Soul Energy behind, but also makes immense bloody gashes on my real body as I escape into the sky.
They hit the ground where I stood moments ago and blast a massive crater in the soft ground.
I look toward where the attacks came from while flying through the air, healing my wounds with self-regeneration, and locking onto a status reading of a being far above me on a mountain peak almost a full kilometer away.
A large humanoid creature wearing armor made of stone stares down at me from up on its high cliff.
Its face looks like a rhinoceros, with a large pointed black horn coming off its nose and a smaller one above it.
Its skin is light brown, almost orange, and it carries a staff with a pointed blade at the top of it radiating golden light.
The monster's eyes are jet-black, and sharp, locked on me without wavering at all.
A curse mark forms a dense golden collar around its neck and it raises its staff, sending off over 50 massive fragments of rock, trees, and dungeon mass flying my way all covered in golden energy while my gaze scans its status.
_________
[Lv.2699]
Active Items:
Blade of the Mountain Hermit [+589% Mental Strength][+400 Strength]
Enchanted Charm of Protection [+310% Mental Strength][+300% Defense][+250% Speed][+220% Agility][+180% Strength]
Enhanced Stone Chestplate [+367% Defense][+311% Strength]
Active Skills:
Telekinesis [Mythic Grade]
Body Hardening [Mythic Grade]
Buffs:
Rhino's Focus [Target Lock]
Mountain Hermit's Ultimate Defense
The Sun God's Curse Mark
_________
As soon as I do, a downpour of more dungeon mass covered in soul energy comes raining on top of me.
Now as I weave through the violent attacks, the feeling of the nearby targets turning in mid-air and changing their direction to follow me make much more sense.
It must be a combination of its mythic-grade telekinesis skill and its first ranked-up buff that seems to have some kind of homing mechanism.
I let my aura of soul energy expand, and use my mythic-grade plunderer skill to take control of the dungeon around me, draining some of the mana from the soul energy that rains down on me, but there are still far too many and its borrowed golden power is too strong for me to deflect and dodge every incoming projectile.
I'm hit four more times in the legs and sides and have to heal while I travel upward to take away the high ground advantage that the beast atop the highest mountain in this dungeon stands.
Its aura radiates throughout the entire boss room, meaning as much as I run, I'll never be outside of its range.
The aura it gives off gets stronger the closer I get to it, but with its primary offensive ability being long-range, I don't have much of a choice other than attempt to close the gap between us.
I for one don't have my telekinesis skill upgraded at all, there are no natural dungeons that spawn monsters with this exact ability. Its skill is multiple ranks higher than mine. If we were to battle solely using this trait from long range, it would surely win.
If I get up close, I have many more skills in my arsenal that will be effective against it no matter how tough its mythic-grade body hardening or ultimate defensive ranked-up buff may be.
Letting my body glow with a constant state of self-regeneration, I fly forward into the danger zone.
The bulk of my soul energy covers my vitals and is imbued into my sword to directly deflect the dungeon mass that is thrown toward me with no possible way of changing its course.
I use some telekinesis of my own, but it hardly does anything to change the rigid flight pattern of sharpened trees and boulders.
Pulsing golden shockwaves come off the mountain while its natural resources are stripped away to send larger and more frequent attacks my way.
The relentless attacks are painful, and the damage it does to my body parts where I can't stop them only increases the closer I get.
I try many strategies to make my travel over more efficient. Once halfway there, less than 500 meters away, I come up with a few ways to slow its attacks.
The first is sending off waves of intimidation and confusion. My pulses don't immobilize it, as we're very close in mana control power, but they do catch the creature off guard the first few times I throw them out.
The second is using stealth. When I disappear, a large amount of the stones being sent toward me continue off in a straight line as the boss is most likely manually maneuvering them. However, a few still follow me like heat-seeking missiles, so this must be a feature of its [Target Lock] buff that I can't avoid even while invisible.
As I get within 300 meters range, the strength and frequency of attacks it throws at me become overwhelming.
While the damage done to my physical body can be healed almost instantly, and I never go below 80% of my total HP, I still have to concentrate entirely on every attack I counter and be diligent and patient while continuing to assess its skills and abilities.
This is a serious floor boss.
It is definitely the strongest and most intelligent Labyrinth monster I've ever fought.
It is tasked to protect this floor and not let any challengers pass, and it intends to do exactly that without question.
It gets straight to the point.
There are no useless flashy displays of power, arrogant speeches, or any signs of it letting up to allow me to get in closer for any reason.
It just stands high up on the mountain with its staff in hand, blocking me from getting near with minimal effort.
If I can figure out a way to defeat it, I don't think I'll be challenging the floor boss above this one before I do some more Soul Energy training. I've climbed up this Labyrinth far enough to find my limit again.
Without power and reflexes over double my own, there's no way any opponent could ever get in this close to it without high-grade regenerative abilities.
Even so, I've hardly closed the distance, and still haven't gotten to see its defensive buff or close-range battle tactics with that staff at close range yet.
I've seen everything it can do using this attack pattern, I need to switch things up and run a quick test using an entirely different strategy.
With this in mind, I activate stealth again, deflecting its homing missiles, and whisper to myself.
"Dungeon Walker."
Less than a tenth of a second goes by as I calculate and execute my surprise assault.
I spawn in less than 5 meters away from the creature's back, plunging my red soul energy-soaked blade forward.
Using mythic-grade plunderer, confusion, and intimidation on full blast, I shock the creature's system while activating lifesteal at close range to drain its health and make it my own.
I feel the soothing warm energy of HP and MP entering my body while I send a slash full of Soul Energy and murderous intent toward the beast.
As soon as it leaves my blade, the sharp eyes of the mountain hermit's beast form turn around to catch a glimpse of me in its peripherals.
It looks calm and unfazed, activating its second ranked-up buff.
A glossy diamond-textured armor shielding covers its body as my close-range Soul Energy attack collides with its back.
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