章 11: Round 36
With a roar, the Bone Golem threw a power packed punch towards Draco, aiming to crush him into a pulp. The Golem knew it had very little chance of landing a hit on him with the display he had put up so far, so it wasn't optimistic.
However, it had a devious plan up its sleeves.
Draco himself just gave a low shout and leap up and over the encroaching fist, landing close to one of the legs of the Golem. With a powerful horizontal swing from Durandal, one of the tendons attached to its left ankles was severed.
The Golem roared in pain and anger, with a mixture of fear within. The Bone Golem's plan was based on the assumption that Draco's weapons were low tier and could barely do damage. Never could it have expected this lone human to wield magical weapons!
Actually, Durandal and Excalibur weren't magical weapons, just rare ones. It was only due to the passive effect of the Revenger skill that Draco was able to inflict minor magical damage with each attack.
The damage dealt through such a means was calculated based on his normal attack damage. So while his physical attack damage was high but had a weak effect on a monster with a high defense like the Golem, he could still deal slow damage with his minor magical damage. That damage was then boosted by the Lightbringer title as well as Lord Richmond's heraldry and the Dragon Soul's effects.
The simple fact was, with just the Lightbringer title and a same level playing field, the monsters in the Nightingale's Cry dungeon were destined to have a hard time today. The other effects were honestly just overkill at this point.
Draco didn't even use any flashy combat techniques he had honed in his past life. He just brandished his blade calmly and relaxedly, which further drove the Bone golem into a frenzy.
What was with this strange human?! At least, show signs of struggle and difficulty so that the Bone Golem could die with some dignity. What was with that infuriating expression that made it seem as if you felt bad for bullying the weak!?
"Sigh… I really shouldn't enjoy this. Brother Golem, why don't you make this easy on both of us and commit suicide?" Draco lamented with a burdened expression.
If the Bone Golem had organs and veins, it would've spat blood in anger. Commit suicide your mother! Make it easy on both of us your mother! At least let us have a thrilling fight to death, what is with this belittling?
Damage notifications kept ringing above the Golems head as its health dropped rapidly. Soon, it fell into the 10% range. Even though Sergeant rank monsters normally wouldn't possess a rage mode, this Bone Golem did.
After all he had a name – Boneshaker. Boneshaker was a special named monster, which was an elite of those among its tier. In fact, it was this same reason that Draco had failed to dispatch it in the first few seconds of the fight. Durandal and Excalibur may be rare swords, but they were far from the kind of weapons needed to solo a party boss monster, especially one with high physical defense.
Activating Absolute Void was also very pointless without a horde of enemies. It was one of the crowd control skills of the Avenger class and such skills had a poor effect on single targets, as the power was dispersed over a large area.
Similarly, Boneshaker could not use any of his AOE's because he was fighting a single target and Draco would just dodge them anyway, which would mean wasted time and energy.
Soon, Draco blinked onto Boneshaker's skull and thrust downwards with both blades, cracking and eventually piercing the cranium while hitting the brain beneath.
With a roar of anguish and unwillingness, Boneshaker crumbled into pieces as his HP bottomed out under Draco's critical hit.
"Whew. That took far too long for something that was far too easy," Draco commented while flourishing his blades.
If Boneshaker were alive to hear his words… he might just shatter into a million pieces from anger and shame.
.....
Deep in a forest, two women were walking while cautiously observing their surroundings. One was garbed in tight leathers that revealed a slim and lithe form with curves that would make any man ponder the true meaning of life. Although her sizes weren't large, her form was still attractive. To her side was another woman that was the opposite. With bright blonde curls draped around her temples, she had a cutesy face that made her look immature. Despite that, her assets were quite large. If Draco were here, he would use the term "Oppai loli" to describe her.
These two were Riveting Night and Sublime Notion. Currently, they were traversing the forested area around one of the Native's hamlet. They had accepted a quest from a guild outpost to scout for information. As Riveting Night's primary class focus was geared towards rogues, she had an advantage in this regard.
"Ugh, Guild leader, this forest is full of nasty bugs!" Sublime Notion complained bitterly while slapping her chest. The recoil jiggle of her cannons would've set fire to any male in sight.
"It's not that bad. We won't be here for long anyway, so try to hold out." Riveting Night consoled her friend.
"Easy for you to say, you're tightly bound in that BDSM outfit!"
Riveting Night blushed and flicked her friend's forehead. "It's not BDSM!"
"Teehee… You can hide your true nature from others but not me! If you don't like being bound, why would you wear something that tight??"
Riveting Night sighed in exasperation. This was not the first time she had faced this accusation and frankly, it was pretty annoying to have to say the same thing over and over again.
"It's form fitting, allows for swift and easy movement while providing some modicum of defense. Need I say more?" Riveting Night answered sullenly.
Sublime Notion simply smiled smugly and refused to answer. Riveting Night gnashed her teeth, feeling as if her friend had won one over her in some way or form. She made a vow to punish her when they returned to the university.
"Wait…"
Suddenly, Riveting Night stopped and became wary. She had played countless new wave FIVR games and had always stuck to the same rogue class, so she had developed a sharp sixth sense outside of her class based skills. She could tell that their situation had suddenly changed at some point during their argument.
"What's wrong…?" Sublime Notion knew her friend's sharp instincts were never wrong, so she immediately complied and halted her steps. She also clutched her stave warily, checking her surroundings but failing to notice anything.
"We are being watched." Riveting Night's eyes glowed under the darkness of her hood, her focus engaged towards a certain direction. In reply to her words, a raucous laugh erupted as a group of men and women emerged from the forest.
They were all dark skinned and tall, dressed in a mixture of animal skins and khaki. They wielded a variety of weapons, from spears to swords and even daggers.
Surprisingly, there was no archer among them.
"What a sharp woman! Shame you chose the wrong side to fight for," One of the men in the lead spoke in a mirthful voice, as if this was a joke.
Riveting Night remained quiet, contemplating their chances. However, the same couldn't be said about Sublime Notion as she immediately began mouthing off. "Hmph, as if you can do anything to us. Don't you know we are Immortal Adventurers? You can kill us today, but we'll return tomorrow with a hundred more of us to destroy you all!"
Her vicious words seemed to have an effect on them as their expressions changed greatly. If there was one thing the NPCs of Boundless feared more than the Gods… it would be their chosen ones, the Immortal Adventurers who could almost infinitely return from death.
The NPCs only tolerated them because the Gods had mandated it to be so. Besides, with the sheer number of Immortal Adventurers entering their world every day, it wasn't feasible to incur their hatred by suppressing them.
Especially the indigenes. They had all the more reason to be wary of Immortal Adventurers, given that almost everyone coveted their land. If those forces teamed up with them… their outcome wouldn't be pleasant.
And it could easily start with the deaths of these two.
Realizing that, the one who spoke had an ugly expression on his face, as If he had swallowed a bitter pill. His allies also glared at Sublime Notion, who had a smug look on her face. If there was one talent this cutesy big breasted girl had, it was the ability to infuriate people.
"You might be right, but such a scenario requires something first." The dark skinned leader stated coldly.
"Oh? What would that be, savage?" Sublime Notion asked with a mocking tone.
With a wicked smile, he leapt forth with his arms outstretched. "You'll need to die first!"
Sublime Notion's blood froze as she failed to understand his words. She thought he was attempting to actually kill her and she stiffened in fear. She made all that big talk, but it was mostly a bluff. Who would care about the death of some level 4 players?
However, Riveting Night understood his words clearly. With a swift motion, she performed a flawless front flip and landed behind one of the women spectating the whole thing. Before she could even cry out, her throat was plugged with the end of a dagger.
If that were all, it wouldn't have left a scar in the mind of Sublime Notion. Within the next few moments, Riveting Night had already rolled forward to another fellow, passing under his legs.
When she climbed up and leapt towards another target, that person realized that his stomach area seemed a bit… loose. It's very hard to describe the feeling of looking down to see your own intestines flopping out of your abdomen.
In just a few seconds, two members of the native's group were dead and Riveting Night was speeding towards her next kill, who was hastily trying to put up his defense.
They didn't expect these women they thought to be victims to suddenly launch a vicious attack! They had them trapped and boxed in. In such a situation, they should've been thinking on how to escape or plead, not commence a fight to the death.
Suddenly, the rude girl's words from earlier reverberated in their minds. They may die, but they could easily return and hunt them down… suddenly they understood.
In the world of Boundless, most combatants would do everything to protect their lives and retreat when necessary. These young fighters had yet to see a situation where someone would carelessly throw themselves at the enemy just to take them down. It would be one thing if it was a desperate last ditch effort from Riveting Night before she died permanently, but she would resurrect with barely any strength lost.
In this fight, they were disadvantaged from the start!
With this in mind, they didn't try to fight back surprisingly. Instead they focused on making an orderly retreat. Even with Riveting Night's skill, she couldn't prevent them from leaving. Heck, if they decided to fight back, she'd barely be able to get an extra kill in before she was vanquished.
She only got this far due to her skill and the element of surprise.
The one who had leapt at Sublime notion had a dangerous look on his face. Trapped between a madwoman and her foulmouthed friend, he made the obvious choice and rushed at Sublime Notion, who was still dazed from Riveting Night's sudden brutality. She felt like this was the first time she was getting to see her friend who she had spent almost all her life with.
This sudden lapse of attention would've been fatal for Sublime Notion had her assailant not keeled over right in front of her, his arms mere inches from her body.
Sublime Notion was startled by his sudden fall. He was just about to attack her, so how did he suddenly become unconscious?
The answer lay in the nape of his neck. One of Riveting Night's daggers had embedded itself accurately in his spine, killing him instantly. A golden glow surrounded both their bodies as they both leveled up from the kills.
This fact snapped Sublime Notion out of her daze as she stared at her friend with a complicated expression. They may not be from Draco's timeline where NPCs were on the same tier as humans, but they could hardly distinguish the difference between them and 'real' people. That was the reason why Sublime Notion had frozen up suddenly. After all, she was still a combat expert of Darkrow, so had it been a monster, she would've sneered and counterattacked.
She had also partaken in PvP, so a person attacking her wouldn't have scared her, but PvP usually meant that the loser can respawn from death. The fact that he had one life meant that killing him was similar to killing a real person, so she hesitated.
Riveting Night however, hadn't paused for even a second. Killing two of them in a surprise attack was worrying but understandable… yet what made Sublime Notion cold inside was the death of the last one: the leader.
His attack had been sudden to the point where even she couldn't respond even though it was his second attempt. Yet, Riveting Night had been able to kill him and accurately too… this spoke of a severe disregard for human life. She didn't even spend a picosecond to doubt whether she should kill him or not.
The person in question quietly retrieved her dagger and stared at Sublime Notion silently, making the latter feel slightly wary. Eventually, Riveting Night turned away soundlessly and continued on the mission as it were.
Sublime Notion could never have known that her friend was being heavily influenced by memories and emotions from a decaying timeline. If Draco had become a heartless monster that seeped his hands in blood as a mere vice guild leader of Darkrow, how could the guild leader be any different?
......….
Draco sighed as he stared at the remains of various monsters around him. He was currently going strong at the 35th wave, easily breaking the AI's standard record and setting a new one. After every four rounds, a Sergeant rank Bone Golem would assault him, but unlike the first round, their numbers increased linearly upon each instance.
The last one had him fighting against 8 of them at once, which was considerably taxing even with his level of skill. Draco felt that he had a lot more work to do.
Soloing 8 Sergeant rank monsters and thinking you could do better… Just die bro, we all hate you.
The 36th round would be his breaking point, he guessed. Against 9 of the Bone Golems, he doubted that he could win unscathed. At best, he could aim for mutual destruction.
Without fanfare, 9 hands burst out of the earth and clamored to raise and equivalent amount of huge monsters from it. When the 9 Bone Golems stood arrayed around Draco, his face became solemn.
Yet, even though the round had started, the monsters had made no move to accost him. In fact, a few of them were trembling slightly. This was because the AI used the same scripts for Bone Golems that had died and resurrected.
In other words, aside from the new Bone Golem that joined in this round, the previous eight were all those Draco had managed to kill. The newer ones were slightly apprehensive due to Draco's power and speed in defeating them earlier, but the ones who had seem him for more than five rounds were trembling in fear.
The first one from the fourth round was particularly damaged mentally and emotionally, never to be confident against humankind again. Draco was like the boogeyman to it and it couldn't muster the will to attack. After being destroyed eight times, it had lost all hope.
The new Bone Golem noticed its brother's fear and worry, leaving it baffled. What on earth had this tiny pipsqueak done to them to make them feel like this? Each new Bone Golem was slightly stronger than the last, so the previous eight turned to the new one with pleading eyes. Some form of communication was occurring between them.
[Big Brother Golem Nine, you must avenge us! We have been bullied by this evil human the past few fights!]
[What? How come? Tell me everything little brothers, Big Brother here will make sure to alleviate your pains.]
[Little Brother Golem One would be the best candidate to explain.]
Soon, all the Bone Golems turned to Golem One and sought an explanation of the human's past deeds. After remaining silent for a few seconds, Golem One – Boneshaker – burst into tears and tried to explain everything through traumatized sobs.
Seeing this, Golem Nine was shocked, then angered. How dare this puny little vermin degrade his brothers to this extent? Even though Golem Two and co weren't in tears, they didn't look too far off. From this, it could easily be seen that Draco had bullied them thoroughly.
With a piercing roar, Golem Nine swung its arm towards Draco furiously. When it crashed on the earth, it formed a crater far larger than the one Golem One had caused. Its speed was also exponentially higher than that of its brothers, so it was confident the human had been crushed into meat paste.
In fact, Golem Nine was surprised. From the way its brothers were behaving it expected a grueling fight. This was too easy wasn't it?
However, when the dust cleared it saw that its hated target was lazing around on its fist. With a smirk, Draco pointed at it and spoke in a mocking tone.
"Haha! What a loser. You should go home and drink milk to buff up your calcium, Bonehead. Maybe then you might be able to hit my shadow."
These were the same words uttered to Golem One and Draco had repeated it for each one of them. Unbeknownst to Golem Nine, these words would herald a period of intense trauma for it.
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