Chapter 31: Nightmare, 3rd Floor (3) |
“…!”
The sudden blast of light forced me to squeeze my eyes shut.
Grwooooo…
When I opened them a moment later, the Undead around me were thrashing and melting away.
At the same time, my Concealment wore off.
A few of them, finally able to perceive me, lunged in my direction.
But they were already half-dead, so they weren’t much of a threat. I caved their heads in with my mace.
“Haa.”
Before long, every last Undead that had surrounded me dissolved into nothing.
…Is that it?
But no clear message appeared.
Yeah, figured as much.
Both the first and second floors had ended with a boss monster showing up.
The odds were high that the third floor wouldn’t be any different.
I stood still and thought.
“Do I need to go back up?”
There was nothing left underground beyond the central cavern and the three branching paths.
Going back to the surface was the only option, wasn’t it?
But what if the Undead up there were still intact…
With no other path available, I walked toward the passage leading to the surface.
The entrance pit I’d first come through.
“Huh?”
When I arrived, bright sunlight was streaming down from above.
Wait, did the sun actually rise?
It seemed like activating the emblem made the sun come up on the surface too.
I clamped the mace between my teeth and scaled the wall.
Then I poked my head cautiously out of the pit.
Beneath a sky where a brilliant sun hung high, a spectacular scene unfolded: countless Undead across the surface were thrashing and melting away.
“Wow…”
I sat there watching for a moment before snapping back to my senses.
It felt like everything was over, yet the floor still hadn’t been cleared… so what was left?
It had to be a boss.
I climbed the rest of the way out and scanned my surroundings like a meerkat.
Nothing stood out in particular, but then…
Grwooooo…
The Undead that had been melting under the sun suddenly began stampeding in one direction.
Plenty of them were already dead, but there had been an absurd number to begin with, so the ones still remaining were a staggering mass.
“Ugh…!”
I dove back into the pit to avoid getting swept up.
The ground shook. A few of them tumbled into the pit, so I smashed their heads in.
After a while, the trembling subsided.
I climbed back up and surveyed the outside.
And…
“…Huh.”
The sight before me left me speechless.
The countless Undead that had gathered to one side.
They were squirming and compressing, merging together into the shape of an enormous sphere.
In other words, a massive lump of flesh.
Hands jutting out from every angle twitched and writhed like antennae.
Its sheer, stupid size overwhelmed me more than any feeling of grotesqueness could.
Aaaaaa…
A low sound, like infrasound, leaked from the thing.
An eerie vibration that rattled my eardrums in all the wrong ways.
I grimaced and reflexively clapped my hands over my ears.
That thing… is the boss? That?
Fuck, it looks way too strong.
“…!”
The mass shuddered.
I barely had time to think it looked like an engine revving up.
Then it accelerated at a terrifying speed and rolled straight toward me.
It was insanely fast. Fast enough to send a chill down my spine.
I used Leap and hurled myself sideways.
KRAKOOOOM!
“Guh…!”
The shockwave that followed knocked me off balance.
I tumbled across the ground, landed, and stopped time to begin Mental Concentration.
Flame Strike. Fairy Light Bullet.
I cast the spells back to back and launched them.
Three balls of flame and five Light Bullets streaked toward the mass.
KABOOOOM!
Direct hits, all of them.
But against something that size, even Flame Strike’s explosion looked small, and the Light Bullets were little more than pellets.
Graaaah!
Still, it seemed to do some damage; the thing shrieked as if in pain.
‘Did it swallow a goddamn locomotive or something…!’
Another wave of that sickening infrasound.
I was still scowling when I looked at the mass and my eyes went wide.
The craters my spells had carved were already squirming shut, filling in and smoothing over. It regenerated in an instant.
Oh, come on… that’s cheating.
Before I even had time to feel cheated, another change was already happening.
This time, holes opened up all across its body and it sprayed something in every direction at once.
FWSHHHHH!
A torrent of purple liquid rained down from above.
I scrambled out of the way.
The ground where the acid landed hissed and dissolved.
“Sh…”
What the hell is this now…!
I barely escaped the biochemical bombardment and whipped around to look at the mass.
It was already rolling toward me again, not giving me a second to breathe.
I burned another Leap to throw myself clear!
KRAKOOOOM!
Everything in its path was obliterated.
I was scrambling to my feet after rolling across the ground when,
It was gone? Where?
‘Where’d it go?’
A shadow fell over the ground. I looked up.
The thing was plummeting from the sky like a meteor, directly onto my head.
“…!”
Son of a…
I was too late to dodge. I stopped time.
THUUUUD!
I Teleported to maximum range and rolled away desperately.
“Haa, haa…”
Despite its massive size, the thing bounced like a basketball and launched itself skyward again. Falling toward me once more.
The instant Leap came off cooldown, I used it and threw myself aside.
Flame Strike’s cooldown happened to be up too, so I fired another one at the mass.
KABOOOOM!
But just like before, the mass only screamed a little and regenerated in no time.
Wait a second…
Something was wrong here.
Because this thing was clearly not an enemy I could take down.
The sunlight didn’t even seem to faze it, and just surviving wasn’t going to cut it either…
“Ha.”
Here it comes again, already rolling.
I dodged with Leap.
The pit.
I need to get back into the pit.
Crushed by the overwhelming gap in power, I lost all will to fight and just tried to run.
But there was no opening for even that.
The mass rolled past, then slammed on the brakes, pulled a sharp turn, and came rolling right back, like some kind of circus trick.
Fuck.
With both Leap and Teleportation on cooldown, I had to dodge with my bare body.
But the thing was so massive that without Leap, I couldn’t fully clear its path.
WHAM!
For a split second, I saw death.
I’d only been grazed by the edge of it, yet my body was launched like I’d been hit by a hundred-ton truck.
I flew through the air, slammed into the ground.
I tumbled for what felt like forever before crashing into a boulder and finally stopping.
“Hrrgh…”
Through the unbelievable agony, I looked down at myself.
My right arm was twisted at a wrong angle, and my right ribs had caved inward.
The pain was so bad I stopped time.
The dizzying agony vanished as if washed away.
‘…I’m fucked.’
That was the first thought that came to mind.
Why did a monster this absurdly powerful show up as the boss?
And now I thought I understood.
That mass was born from all the remaining Undead on the field merging together.
In other words, there should never have been that many Undead on the field in the first place.
When I’d dug in and held out until full nightfall, that insane swarm had come pouring out.
That was where it had already gone wrong.
Before the Undead could pile up on the surface like that, I should have gone underground early and activated the Sun Emblem.
Then far fewer Undead would have merged, and whatever boss formed would have been something manageable. Not this monstrosity.
It was absurd.
How was anyone supposed to find the underground passage and head down there immediately with zero information?
But then again, this insane difficulty had never once failed to demand exactly that kind of unreasonable play.
I’d gotten the very first step wrong.
That was the sole reason I was in this situation now.
‘Is this the end?’
The moment I released time, the mass would come rolling again.
In this condition, I couldn’t dodge.
Teleportation was still on cooldown, and even if I dodged one more time, it wouldn’t matter.
…I was as good as dead already.
Facing my second death after the one underground, I felt calmer than before.
But was there really no way to survive? Was this truly it?
‘There isn’t.’
Attacks don’t work. Can’t dodge. What am I supposed to do?
…Ah.
There was one thing left.
[Item: Plligas’s Blood Necklace]
A necklace infused with the blood of Plligas, a predator of the demon realm. Defeat the summoned Plligas to form a Master-Servant Contract. The necklace is destroyed upon failure. (Level 50+ recommended)
A necklace that summoned a Familiar.
But using it was basically suicide.
I hadn’t tamed it yet, so this thing wasn’t on my side.
Whatever. I was about to die anyway.
This was no time to weigh the pros and cons.
I steeled myself and released time.
“…Gkh!”
The staggering pain crashed over my entire body again.
Blood surged up my throat and burst from my mouth.
It hurt… it hurt so much it was almost pitiful.
Why was I here, broken like this?
[Use ‘Item: Plligas’s Blood Necklace’?]
A message floated before my eyes.
Fuck it. Come out.
I played my last gamble.
Hissssss.
Dark crimson smoke rose from the necklace around my neck.
It coalesced right in front of me and began taking shape.
A massive four-legged beast.
Blazing red energy rippled around its black body, and the bristling fur that jutted from it looked like blades.
“Diul… ah…”
Before it had fully materialized, I called out desperately for Diul.
Diul let out something like a sigh and squeezed out the little strength it had left to cast Concealment on me.
KAOOOOO!
A roar that threatened to burst my eardrums. My whole body tingled.
Fully materialized, Plligas looked around, searching for whoever had summoned it.
But I was already concealed.
Luckily, the trick seemed to work; even with me right in front of it, the creature couldn’t find me.
KRRRUMBLE…
That was when the mass came rolling this way.
Plligas turned toward it and let out another roar.
The moment Plligas kicked off the ground, a shockwave erupted.
It shot forward like a cannonball at a terrifying speed, vaulted over the mass just before impact, and tore off a massive chunk in its jaws.
The mass screamed and wobbled past me, rolling off course.
“…!”
Plligas charged at the mass again without a moment’s pause.
I used Teleportation to put as much distance as I could between myself and the two monsters.
‘It actually worked…’
This was exactly the scenario I’d been banking on.
Getting the two of them to fight each other seemed to have worked.
The battle between Plligas and the mass was a kaiju war in every sense.
Plligas was enormous in its own right, but only about a third the size of the mass.
Yet it clung to the mass without giving it room to roll, tearing into it like a rabid animal, like a tiger hunting an elephant.
With a recommended level of 50 and above, Plligas was every bit as powerful as advertised.
WOOOOO!
The mass, bitten and torn and howling in agony, spewed acid again.
Drenched in the stuff, Plligas’s body began to dissolve and it staggered.
The mass seized the moment and tried to roll with Plligas still latched on.
Plligas was crushed against the ground several times before it finally tore free.
GRAAAAH!
Even so, Plligas’s ferocity hadn’t dimmed.
It charged in and tore at the mass, got thrown off, charged in and tore again, got thrown off again. That cycle repeated several times.
The two monsters fought on and on until, at last, the battle seemed to reach its conclusion.
Both the mass and Plligas were in ruins, but it was Plligas that ran out of strength first.
I watched as the staggering Plligas scattered like dust.
[Kill Contribution insufficient. The Master-Servant Contract is voided.]
A message appeared before my eyes.
Voided… so if I didn’t take it down myself, this is what happened?
But it didn’t seem to count as a failure either, since the necklace wasn’t destroyed.
None of that mattered right now, though.
WOOOOO…!
The mass looked like a half-eaten apple, chewed down to a sorry state.
Deep inside its exposed innards, at the very center, there was a section where the Undead were packed especially tight, like a wick.
It looked like the thing’s core. At least, that’s what it looked like to me.
The mass began squirming from the inside, trying to regenerate again.
“GRAAAAAAGH…!”
I screamed and forced my trembling body upright.
This was the last chance. The only chance.
After fully recovering my Willpower, I launched Flame Strike and Light Bullets all at once, aimed straight at the mass’s core.
KABOOOOM!
My upper body was completely fucked, but my legs still worked.
I broke into a run toward the mass.
Every movement was so excruciating I felt like I could collapse at any second.
But stopping meant death, so I clung to consciousness by a thread.
The flames cleared, and I could see the core, still wailing, with roughly half of it blown away, but it still held its shape.
This was it. The final blow.
I activated Leap and launched myself at the mass, then Teleported inside its body.
With the mangled core right in front of me, I unleashed Blade Storm.
KRAKOOOM!
The core was shredded to pieces.
Chunks of dead flesh rained down around me, and my body plummeted along with them.
[Successfully cleared Nightmare difficulty, Floor 3.]
[Absorbing the Power of the Floor.]
[Level has increased.]
[Level has increased.]
[Level has increased.]
.
.
.
As the messages scrolled before my eyes one after another, I smiled and closed my eyes.
That was rough. Really, truly rough.
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