“Get back!” Kim yells. “He’s charging a skill!”
The monster anchors his hooves, twists his torso, and unleashes all his muscle tension into a devastating spin.
“[CHAOS WHIRLWIND]!”
He turns into a lethal top. The three-meter axe whirls at a crazy speed, ripping a vortex of cutting air. The range is massive. He sweeps everything in 360 degrees.
“Shit!” I shout, diving for the floor. “EVERYONE DOWN!”
We press our bellies flat against the burning onyx. Above us, it’s the apocalypse. The spinning axe whips up a violent wind, sucking in loose debris.
CRACK.
The Minotaur, blind and raging, veers off course. His blade smashes into a massive black marble pillar. The column shatters like glass, launching stone shrapnel across the room. The rotation stops dead. The monster staggers, dizzy from his own momentum and the impact.
“Now!” Kim yells.
She dumps the last of her mana into a burst. BRRRRT. Five bullets punch into the monster’s chest. One of them triggers the random effect from her legendary skill. A layer of bluish frost instantly coats the Minotaur’s arms.
[Effect Applied]: Instant Freeze (2 seconds).
The Boss’s muscles lock up. His fingers, numbed by the magical cold, pop open against his will.
BOOOOOM. The titanic axe hits the floor at his feet. I spot the opening. It’s a two-second window. I don’t attack. I toss my spade aside and dive forward, sliding on my knees right up to the fallen weapon. I slam both hands onto the war axe’s cold handle.
“Sorry, big guy,” I grimace. “Rule number one of looting: if it’s on the floor, it belongs to nobody.”
I trigger my forgotten skill.
“[RECYCLING]!”
The System analyzes the situation. The object is no longer in the Boss’s hands. It's on the ground. Status: Abandoned.
The giant axe starts vibrating. The black metal turns red, then white-hot. The Minotaur snaps out of his freeze and reaches down to grab it… but his fingers only close around glowing dust. The weapon disintegrates right in front of me, converting into pure energy that travels up my arms.
[Recycling Successful]: Axe of Torment (Rank: Epic).
[Gain]: +5 Attack (Permanent Bonus).
I stand up. The Boss’s weapon is nothing but a memory.
“He’s out of toys!” I shout, backing away.
The Minotaur fumbles around the floor, frantic. He finds nothing. He figures it out. He freezes and sniffs the air hard. And I am standing right in front of him. He senses me. He lets out a roar of pure frustration and pivots my way with terrifying speed.
“Shit!”
He raises a massive fist, pulling it back to channel all his power before bringing it down right on my skull. It’s a pile-driver blow. I am paralyzed. My spade is sitting three meters behind me from my dive. I am defenseless. I don’t have time to dodge. I watch death coming in the shape of a scarred black fist.
Suddenly, Chris charges toward us, hurling an object with everything he has. A protein bar flies across my field of vision, spinning, its foil wrapper flashing in the light.
“[MINOR INTERCEPTION]!” he yells.
The cereal bar freezes mid-air, right between my nose and the Boss’s fist. A micro-barrier of force, blue and shimmering, forms around the snack.
BAM. The Minotaur’s fist hits the bar. Physics takes a second off. The impact, capable of pulverizing stone, is entirely absorbed by fifty grams of compressed protein. The bar explodes into vaporized crumbs. The monster’s fist stops dead, its momentum halted like it hit an invisible wall.
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I am safe.
The Minotaur recoils, confused, shaking his aching hand.
“Are you serious?!” I scream, half-hysterical. “You just tanked a Boss with a snack?!”
“It works with any object!” Chris replies, triumphant, drawing his sword. “It’s in the description!”
I back away with a nervous laugh, scrambling to grab my spade. “Good job, kid! You’re thinking like me now!”
I scoop my spade off the floor. The Minotaur resumes his charge with renewed fury. Chris immediately throws himself forward to intercept, protecting our front line. He raises his [Guardian’s Bulwark].
Guided by the sound, the Minotaur brings his closed fist down on the shield.
GONG! It sounds like a church bell getting hit by a pile driver. Chris goes flying.
[Damage Taken]: -200 HP. [Chris HP]: 1,400 / 1,600
He’s launched backward like a rag doll, flying across half the room before crashing heavily into a wall.
[Damage Taken]: -50 HP. [Chris HP]: 1,350 / 1,600
He slides to the floor, dazed, but alive thanks to his massive HP pool.
“Chris!” I yell.
He bounces right back up, shaking his head to clear the stars, a nearly feral smile on his face. “Man… I thought my teeth were going to fly out!” he answers, spitting out some dust. “But don’t worry, Uncle Ben. With my HP, I can take a few more hits like that!”
The Boss is blind and unarmed, but he still hits like a truck. We have to end this.
The Minotaur shakes his head, bloody drool dripping from his lips. He stops looking for his weapon. He scrapes his hoof against the floor, carving a trench into the onyx. His entire body coils like a spring. Steam blasts from his nostrils. He locks onto Chris’s last known position.
“[UNSTOPPABLE CHARGE]!” Kim yells.
The monster takes off. He is a runaway freight train. He’s running blind, but his trajectory is dead on: he charges straight at Chris, ready to pulverize him against the back wall.
“Kid! Now! The second Totem!” I shout.
Chris doesn’t flinch. He slaps his hand against the floor.
“[CURSED SWAMP TOTEM]!”
An idol of mud and stone bursts from the ground. Instantly, the hard tiles liquefy for fifty meters. The zone turns into a foul, green, slimy bog.
The Minotaur, moving at top speed, hits the mud. Physics takes over. His hooves slip. He loses all traction. His charge instantly devolves into an uncontrolled slide of three tons of muscle. He stumbles, arms flailing wildly, carried strictly by his own momentum.
He misses Chris by two meters. But he doesn’t miss the pillar.
BOOOOOM.
It sounds like a mountain collapsing. The monster hits the black marble dead on, face first. The column shatters. The ceiling groans. A massive crack shoots across the vault.
“It’s coming down!” Kim yells. “Get out of the zone!”
We dive toward the entrance just as stone blocks the size of cars start raining down. The ceiling caves in on the Minotaur, burying him under tons of rubble and dust. Silence falls again, heavy and choking.
“Did… did we get him?” Chris coughs, covered in plaster dust.
A low growl rumbles from the ruins. The stones shift. A black, clawed hand bursts from the debris, followed by a shoulder, then a bloody head. The Minotaur rises. He is covered in gashes, his horns snapped off. He’s at death’s door.
His skin flushes bright red. His muscles double in size, shredding whatever is left of his armor. A bloody aura wraps around him.
[ALERT]: The Boss enters [BERSERK] mode. [HP]: 1,780 / 6,000
I run a quick analysis. The numbers make my head spin.
[Modified Statistics]
- Attack: 700
- Defense: 100
- Magic Defense: 100
- Speed: 100
“Watch out!” I yell. “He dumped his defense for attack power! He hits for 700! But look at his armor! It dropped from 300 down to 100! He’s squishy!”
“He’s too fast!” Kim panics. “100 Speed!”
I look at the floor. The monster is still standing inside Chris’s totem radius. “No! Look at his feet! He’s still in the Swamp! The minus 60% debuff is applying! His real speed is 40! We’re faster than him!”
This is the window. He is wounded and enraged, but slow and fragile.
“Kid! The Frenzy cooldown?!” “It’s up! I’ve got it back!” “POP IT AGAIN! Kim, empty the mag! We end this right now!”
Chris drops his totem for the second time this fight. The wooden wolf clacks its jaws. [Attack Speed +50%]. We charge.
The Minotaur roars and brings a massive fist down at Chris. The kid dodges with a side roll, and the monster’s punch pulverizes the stone right where he was standing.
“Eat this!” Kim triggers [Rapid Bite].
Five mana bullets slam into the monster’s bare chest. They tear right through the flesh, blowing out geysers of black blood. The monster shrieks. Chris slides behind him and slashes a hamstring with his sword. The blade sinks in like a hot knife through butter.
The giant drops to one knee. I step right up to him. I grip my Excali-Spade with both hands. I feel the energy of the weapon skill humming in the handle. The Minotaur lifts his blind head toward me, jaws opening wide to bite.
“Shut up.”
I trigger the weapon skill.
“[THE ASCENDING SCOOP]!”
I jam the blade into the floor, right under his chin, and heave upward with everything I’ve got in a titanic uppercut. The spade rips a chunk of stone straight out of the ground and slams into the monster’s jaw with the force of a freight train. The impact snaps his head back with a final, sickening crack of bone.
The Minotaur freezes, fully extended, his jaw obliterated. He hangs there for a second, defying gravity, before crashing heavily onto his back. His health bar drops to zero. His corpse starts to glow, fracturing with white light.
“It’s over,” I exhale, slumping backward into a sitting position. My hands are still shaking on the spade’s handle. “Floor 5 cleared.”
The devastated arena goes quiet. Chris and Kim collapse next to me, totally wiped out. Suddenly, a massive golden notification floods my vision.
[SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT]: Congratulations! Unique Feat Unlocked: ‘Legend Slayer’. You are the FIRST to defeat the Hidden Boss of Floor 5.
I sit frozen, rereading the sentence three times.
“The… the Hidden Boss?” I stammer.
Kim sits bolt upright in a panic. “Wait… If that was the Hidden Boss… does that mean we haven’t killed the Floor Guardian?”
Right on cue, a vibration ripples through the floor. Dead center in the room, exactly where the Minotaur died, the stone splits open. A new runic circle appears, carved right into the scorching rock. It pulses with a bloody red glow.
Floating right above it's a glowing inscription:
[Teleportation to: The Boss Room]
I stare at the rune.
“We’re in deep shit,” I breathe. “We just blew all our cooldowns on a bonus level, and the real fight hasn’t even started.”