When I slipped into unconsciousness again, I sincerely believed that it meant the end for me. There was more of my blood pooled on the floor around me than there was in my veins. It was hard to believe that I opened my eyes to see the stone ceiling of the dungeon above me instead of the pearly gates (or fire and brimstone). Before I even had a chance to sit up and look around, or check on my leg, a notification popped up to block my view.

Berserker’s Toll

Because you used the Gem of Berserker’s Rage while on death’s door, the magic within has tainted your body. Until removed, this curse will reduce your maximum Aura and Stamina to half.

The simple fact that I had survived made it worth it, as being dead was obviously less than ideal, but fuck me that curse would be debilitating. I brought up my Status window to confirm it.

Class: Artificer

Level: 8

Soul Energy: 174/150

Aura: 50% (Max 50%)

Stamina: 50/50

Mana: 1/4

Strength: 2

Endurance: 3

Intellect: -

Wisdom: -

Dexterity: 3

Curses: Berserker’s Toll

Boons: None

Debuffs: None

Abilities: Minor Speed, Quick Craft, Revert

Enchantments Known: Toggle Invisibility, Limited Animation (Flight), Lesser Firebolt (Consumable), Thunderous Impact, Energy Projectile Creation

The new numbers for my Aura and Stamina were downright heartbreaking to look at. I had hoped for a brief moment that the System would glitch, or take pity on me, and that they’d still be normal. But there they were, clear as day.

But hey, at least I was still alive so I could sit there and bitch about it.

I dismissed the window and finally looked down at my leg. My pants were absolutely caked with dried blood, there would be no saving them, they were doomed to the trash can when I got home. Two clean cuts went right through the fabric, through which I could see the pale skin of my leg peeking through. The two mortal wounds had completely healed over, with no hint of scar tissue, even the hair had grown back.

I slowly stood up and put my weight on the leg to test it out, and found that it was holding me up just fine. As far as I could tell, there was no lasting damage. I thought back to my uncle, after his leg had been crushed. The knife wound had been bad enough, but the doctor said he would have made a full recovery from that. The ice chunk however had shattered his kneecap and his tibia. At his age there was no real coming back from that. He kept a good attitude about it, and often said the cane gave him “a good excuse to carry around an improvised bludgeoning device”.

Unlike him, it didn’t appear that I’d be continuing my life as a cripple. I would be needing to stock up on pants, and another set of new clothes in general given the amount of blood that stained everything I was wearing. I retrieved my water, chugged the rest of it, then looked around the room.

There were, of course, ten XP gems scattered about the room alongside the dozens upon dozens of spent brass casings and empty mags. Once again there was not a single item of loot to be found. It took me a few minutes to walk around and collect the gems and my mags, making sure I didn’t trip on the brass. I had the idea to bring a broom with me in the future, so I might collect and reuse all of it. I switched out the empty mags with the full ones in my pack.

Gained 20 Soul Energy, 194/150

The door that led back to the entrance was still locked down tight, and my prodding with the crowbar yielded no results. The door in the northwest corner however had opened up at some point. I decided to hold off from walking through for the moment, and do a bit of prep work. Despite the challenge and my near-death experience, I could tell that this wasn’t meant to be the boss room. If the Lord was indicative of proper boss fights, then there would be ability stones and loot chests to pick from.

I believed that made this room a sort of mini-boss encounter, like the angler fish before the Lord. If the real boss chamber was through the next door, then I sure as shit wasn’t going in there in my current state without some preparation.

I held my rifle by the new abyssal iron barrel and focused.

Piece of Abyssal Iron detected. Tier 2 material, small size. Required Soul Energy for enchantment equals 10. Requires 1 Mana.

Enchant piece of Abyssal Iron with Energy Projectile Creation?

Yes.

Soul Energy 184/150

Mana: 0/4

It was an as of yet untested enchantment, but I needed some extra firepower and didn’t have the resources to spare on more Fuck You’s. The reusable nature of the enchantment also sounded nice.

I watched the barrel as the sigils slowly inscribed themselves along the length of it, from muzzle to barrel nut.

Piece of Abyssal Iron has been enchanted! Would you like to name it?

Name: Laser Pointer

Confirm?

Laser Pointer (0 Charges)

At the cost of 1 Mana per five shots, this item will create and project a bolt of solidified energy.

Since it didn’t come with pre-loaded charges that meant I was going to have to do some waiting. It was time for me to sit down and break out the book that I had left in my backpack for just this kind of situation. Six hours later, having finished the entire book again, my stomach began gurgling from lack of sustenance. My Mana had refilled a bit.

Mana: 2/4

I held the enchanted barrel and focused, trying to will my Mana to transfer to it.

Mana: 1/4

Laser Pointer (5 Charges)

I was surprised at how naturally my Mana flowed out of my Manawell and into the weapon. My next test was to see how long the charge would last if left unattended. I laid the rifle down and walked away, starting the book over from the beginning. After thirty minutes I came back and picked it back up.

Laser Pointer (5 Charges)

I now knew that the charge would last for at least half an hour without discharging. But could I give it more charges?

Mana: 0/4

Laser Pointer (10 Charges)

I will save your eyes from having to read the description of the noises that I made when that worked. What I will say is that they were primal in nature and quite suggestive. Then I got to thinking that perhaps I should level up so that I could get another point of Mana to charge it up with. That thought led me to realize that there were two things that I had never checked on.

Intellect: A measure of one’s mental processing ability. This determines how fast one can perform mental operations in their head and the quality of their memory retention.

If I was understanding the description correctly, then it seemed that a higher Intellect would not actually directly make me smarter but instead made it easier and faster to utilize what I already knew. It wouldn’t make me start inventing laser rifles or anything (the magic one in my hands didn’t count). I was going to give it a pass for the moment.

Wisdom: A measure of one’s mental fortitude and insight. This determines one’s ability to resist attacks upon their mind, and their perception of the environment around them.

Well, that didn’t sound so shabby. Having better perception was always a boon in combat. If I could detect stuff like the voidcrawlers easier that would be lovely. But how useful would resistance against mental attacks be? It wasn’t like I had encountered anything in the dungeon that used that sort o—

Holy shit.

I didn’t know how I had already forgotten exactly how I’d gotten into this situation in the first place. I had been effectively powerless to resist whatever force that it was that had compelled me to walk right through that door and up the stairs. If that was just an example of what kind of things a high Wisdom would help me resist, then sign me right up!

Level: 9

Soul Energy: 34/190

1 points assignable

Wisdom: - -> 1

Confirm?

The only real question was why hadn’t I considered looking into it sooner. I felt downright stupid for never bothering to check the description until now. I felt a sudden headache come on, but it died down within seconds. Right away I noticed that everything around the room just seemed more… crisp?

My eyesight was never exactly bad, I didn’t wear glasses or anything like that, but now everything seemed just so much clearer when I looked around. I couldn't really put a thumb on it, but all of the details around the room had a distinct pop to them that they hadn’t previously.

The texturing of the floor, the cracks in the stone around where the crabs had chipped away at it as they attacked. And the sound! All of the noises my clothes made as I moved registered in my ears just that much more. No, it wasn’t like my hearing had actually gotten better, more like I could pick out each noise and discern what was making it. Focus on that sound a bit.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I hope I was able to get my point across there. It was an easy decision to make that I’d be upgrading my Wisdom more in the future.

There wasn’t much else I could do to prepare for the coming boss fight without waiting several more hours. I had no food this time as the compulsion had pulled me in before I could restock my MRE’s. My water was empty. My best option was to don my gear and go face the boss. Yeah, it sucked that I’d be fighting with that insane curse debuff but it wasn’t like I had any choice in it.

I walked through the northwest door and followed the short hallway for over a hundred feet until I found the end. I stepped through the door and was surprised at the amount of light. The room was an impossible scale of size, dwarfing the Lord’s arena. The ceiling had to have been over two hundred feet high with a single massive boulder of abyssalite in the middle that served as a makeshift sun of sorts. The opposite wall was far enough that I couldn’t see it.

Maybe I could’ve told you how big it was, but the fog and foliage was blocking my view. Yep. Foliage. I had just walked into an underground jungle. The air on this dungeon floor had been unpleasantly warm, but now it was downright humid and muggy. In minutes I felt like I was swimming in my clothes.

I wouldn’t exactly call the ground mud, but it did squish between my feet as I walked slowly through the trees. Every direction I looked was full of green. I had to carefully step over giant roots that grew out of the ground so I wouldn’t trip and break my face, and duck under branches that were just begging to smack me in the nose.

There were bushes as well of a species that I’d never seen on Earth. One of these new plants sported berries. They grew on thin needle-covered branches in groups of three, with a set of three blood red leaves that sprouted around them. The berries themselves were light gray, almost white, in color. I was hesitant to even touch them, I remembered from survival training that you should avoid white berries and groups of three leaves. Did that even apply here?

If there was a possibility though that I could eat these then that would be stellar. The proper tests to see if these were toxic would take me two or three days though, which was time that I did not have.

I did have an idea though. I picked a single berry from the branch and held it while I focused.

Ash Pom detected. Produce item, small size. Unsuitable for enchantment.

I suppose that being an Artificer didn’t give me information on foodstuffs or poisons, but it was worth a shot. To play it on the safe side I just ditched the idea of eating them entirely and tossed the berry away. I moved on through the thick brush.

As I walked I began to wonder what was the point of this boss room being so gargantuan. Where the hell was the actual boss? Was I supposed to just wander around and die of bored—

The ground began to rumble underneath me. In the distance I heard wood splintering as trees were violently ripped apart.

“Me and my fucking mouth.”

I took off running in the opposite direction of whatever the hell that was. Even as I ran I could hear the noise getting closer as it picked up speed. I risked a glance over my shoulder to see trees falling to the side as something cut right through them in its pursuit of me. I looked back ahead in time to duck under a branch. I started thinking of what I needed to do.

I went ahead and replaced my mag with an AP. The thing was going to catch up to me within the minute, there was no point in exhausting my already-low Stamina by continuing to flee. I turned around and aimed at the coming threat.

The thing that came through the trees was over thirty feet tall with four large crab-like claws that had razor-sharp chitinous blades in place of pincers. Its head was that of a cicada. Eight legs as thick as tree trunks held up its monolithic body. Behind it trailed a long tail which ended with a stinger that looked like it could punch through a tank’s armor with ease.

I do believe that some might refer to this as “the Ultimate Lifeform” due to the crustacean features, but I named it “Crab Boss” in my head.

Without thinking long about it, I opened fire at its head. Two rounds of the 110gr AP struck it in the left side near the eyes and I could see right away that the only effect on it was chipping away at the thick armor-like carapace. It raised up a claw to chop through the last tree in its path and completely ignored my attack as it approached.

Then it took a swipe at me.

Ability: Minor Speed activated

The only way I had a chance in dodging it was to use my ability, even with my crippled Stamina. It was the only way I could outmaneuver it. I barely stepped to the side in time and the claw pulverized the ground where I had just been standing. I took off running right past it and fired four rounds at the first leg on its left side while my Blade flew right for its eyes to try and blind it.

I could hear the tip of the Blade bounce off the chitin of its claw before it swiped at it and sent the weapon sailing into the treeline. My rounds only cracked the armor around its knee joint, and it scuttled to the side while covering its flank with one of its claws. I aimed again at its face and put two more rounds around its eyes but with four claws it had no trouble in blocking my shots.

Its stinger shot forward with a reach that I hadn’t expected. It seemed that it had a piston-like system of segments that extended. I dived left and the stinger went through the tree behind me like an artillery shell. I took a few shots at the stinger but it seemed just as armored as the rest of it. After that I tried firing at the tail itself before it could retract, and finally found success. Four rounds ripped into the exposed portions of muscle (do insects have muscle? I don’t know, I’m not an entomologist) and the thing’s cicada-like noises bore right into my eardrums even with my ear-pro on.

I found myself deafened. I couldn’t slow down, even with the pain in my ears, and I sent the Blade in toward the tail to get to work at disabling it. The boss didn’t like that very much as it smashed its claw into a tree making it fall over in my direction. I had been trying to stay behind the crab where its claws couldn’t easily get to me, and had to dive again to avoid being crushed.

I felt my mag run dry and dropped it to reload. I had one more mag in my glove which went into the rifle, and the two in the backpack but I couldn’t stop moving to get them out. I found another clear shot at the leg and took it, adding to the small amount of damage.

Ability: Minor Speed deactivated

Stamina: 0/50

“Fuck!”

It certainly didn't feel like fifty seconds had already passed, but I immediately felt my muscles starting to tire as I tried to keep up my speed. While I wasn’t immediately out of the game, I now had a set timer of how much longer I could last before my tank was empty.

That tank had a few leaking holes in it.

I put four more rounds into its leg and the armor finally shattered. I could see the squishy stuff underneath that was begging for a decisive blow. My Blade flew in and buried itself to the hilt in the joint. With the next step that the boss took, the bottom half of its leg was gruesomely cut away. It stumbled a bit, giving me time to put distance between us, but with seven more legs to rely on it wasn’t very hampered. Still, any amount of debuff on its part was welcomed by me.

As I ran away I cursed my lack of cardio and took a few shots at its next leg to try and take that one out as well. It tore after me cutting through tree after tree as I ducked and jumped over roots. A path of destruction followed us through the jungle as it pursued me. My Blade flew back and forth looking for any weak points in its armor where I could strike, but was finding nothing.

Just ahead, maybe a dozen yards, I saw a clearing in the trees. I came to a skidding halt just short of going right over a cliff. The drop was only about twenty feet, but that would have almost certainly meant a broken leg if I had landed wrong. The crab boss was hot on my trail, so I took off to the right running along the side of the cliff’s edge. I had hoped that the big bastard’s momentum would carry it right off the side and maybe injure it or slow it down. I had no such luck.

It was easily able to change course by digging all seven of its legs into the ground and its four claws hooked onto the trees. I gained only a few feet on it.

I took cover behind a boulder and watched it run past me. I took a few pot shots at its leg before it could turn around. My bolt caught as the last brass ejected, and I quickly reloaded with a standard magazine before I took off running in the opposite direction. The gouge in the treeline made my backwards journey that much easier. As I sprinted I took every chance I had to fire at its legs, hitting what I could. Then my mag ran dry again.

There was no time to stop and grab my two AP mags from my backpack, the thing would crush me the moment I stopped. I needed one hell of a distraction to keep it bu—

I felt like an idiot when I remembered that I had three flashbangs. I plucked one out and pulled out the pin. The spoon went flying and I held it for a second before tossing it right at its face. The grenade bounced off of its claw as it instinctively covered its face from the incoming object, but it still exploded midair. The creature began to thrash around as it was partially blinded.

That gave me a few seconds to drop my backpack on the ground and pull it open. I found the two mags and pulled them both out, storing one in my glove and loading the other. I said a silent prayer as the bolt chambered the first round.

While the crab was still under the effects of the bang I took the opportunity to open fire on its leg again, and ten rounds later the limb broke free. As I started working on the third leg its stringer plunged down at me. I hopped backward just in the nick of time and refocused my fire on the weakened part. Fifteen rounds was what it took for its tail to go limp. The stinger dangled uselessly.

With one of its five weapons out of the fight, I breathed a small sign of relief. Then I took off running as its eyes focused on me. Much like the Lord, it recovered in seconds. It was noticeably slower now, as it hobbled on the two legs using a claw like a crutch. With just five rounds left in the mag, I did a u-turn and ran past it, dumping all of them into the leg. I reloaded the last magazine.

It refused to give me access to its left side again, so I changed my focus to the right. I hit the first three legs with five rounds, and it slammed its claws into the ground, kicking up clouds of dirt that obscured my aim. I pulled another flashbang from my vest and primed it, then tossed it toward the crab again.

With it blinded again, I put five more into each of the first three right legs and my gun was finally dry. I knew my normal ammo could do nothing against that carapace. But I did have one weapon I hadn’t tried yet.

I aimed the rifle as the thing regained its sense and began to hobble toward me.

Charges 9/10

A green light gathered at the end of the barrel and then shot out like a laser, impacting the first right leg with an explosion of light. When the dust settled and I could see it again, the leg was no longer attached.

“Oh you are fucked now buddy!”

I put two more shots into the other two legs and they fell free, and the boss slammed into the ground, unable to move.

I took aim at its face and fired. It tried to drag itself along with its claws, but I just kept shooting.

I think it was a good thing that my ears were still ringing, because the sounds it was making were shaking the ground beneath me.

I used every single one of my charges on its head, and the thing still wasn’t fully dead even with its brain open to the public. I considered using the rest of my 7.62x39 ammo, but that would’ve been a waste, I could see that it was enshrouded with a blue aura like the Lord’s heart had been. A few pokes with the Blade were too weak to affect it much.

Well, the thing wasn’t moving much, and I did have another weapon.

I withdrew the Sealed Sword from my pouch and held it. It felt light in my hands despite the size, but I recalled that real longswords were never actually that heavy to begin with, lighter than a conventional rifle nowadays.

I approached the downed creature and lifted the sword up, point facing its exposed brain. I had to stab it more times than I could count before the aura dissipated, then countless more times after that.

I’m not sure how long it actually took. My arms were like jello by the time it finally started to dissolve but I fucking killed that big fuck off crab.

Who’s the ultimate lifeform now?

Sealed Sword (0%) (Quest of Unsealing 1%)