15 times.
15 fucking times.
I'm so fucking tired of this stupid boss.
Every single time I am about to kill this thing, I fuck up and die.
It's been so long I even made it to spear mastery IV
Every little bit helps.
And every time I get more and more upset, because it's always my fault that I die so I can't even get mad at the boss.
Try a boss early and die I guess.
It's always something so stupid, like I position the boss wrong around a pile of rubble and it destroys it and crushes me, or I dodge and it breaks the pile before I’m ready.
There was one time I even fell into the hole that the grave keeper dug up.
Pretty crazy that, I fell for like 2 seconds before hitting a death plane and dying.
But round 16, I can feel it, this will be the one. Last time I just barely lost after breaking 3 of the cores because I positioned wrong again.
Though one thing I noticed is that the boss gets progressively smaller as I destroy its core. The final core will probably have it being around double the size of a normal slime.
But despite everything, I’ve got this
____________________________________________________________________________
Stepping up to the plate for hopefully one last time, I challenge the boss.
Boss Encountered- Amalgamated Slime of the Deep
‘Here we go’
Rushing forward in my classic opener, I stab the amalgam in around 20 random places before it can move into the room.
Pursuing, I begin to circle and keep stabbing it.
The reason I try to stab so much in the beginning is because there is a pile right to the left of the entrance.
It seems I’m in luck as I manage to shatter a core before it can make it too far from me.
*Shatter*
Diving behind the pile, I wait for the amalgam to do its thing and destroy the pile.
*Rumble*
After the pile in front of me crumbles away, and the slime retracts its whips, I dash towards it, positioning myself between it and the nearest pile.
Taking potshots when I can, I let it swing at me to lure it closer to the rubble.
Once I get close enough to another pile, I go on a full offensive, attacking at every opportunity I get.
After around 45 seconds
*shatter*
I get another core.
Dashing behind the pile of rubble, I wait out the storm.
*rumble*
Once again moving between the boss and a pile, I can only assume there are 2 more to go, corresponding to the remaining number of piles.
Rinse and repeat, lure the boss, find the core.
Rinse and repeat, shatter the core
*Shatter*
And let the boss rage
*rumble*
Maneuver yourself properly Ren.
Alright, this is where I fucked it up last time.
Better not this time
Or I swear to god Imma start geeking
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
The boss, now noticeably smaller, swings 2 pseudopods out at me at the same time.
This is what got me last time, but I’m prepared now.
Praise the lord for bullet time, I don’t know how I would cope without it
Swinging at me at crazy speeds, I tilt my body to the left and duck slightly to avoid both of the swipes.
Y’know, I haven’t considered what I’ll do if there are more cores than piles.
Whatever, I’ll get to it when I get to it.
Making another couple more quick doges, I kite the boss towards the last pile remaining.
Probing around inside the boss for what I hope is the final core with my pike, I finally feel it.
*Shatter*
Dodging to behind the rock, just in case this isn’t the final one, the pulsing storm of whips is much harder this time.
*RUMBLE*
The slime, having destroyed my last bastion
Still stands
‘Oh fuck oh shit oh fuck’
‘What I do’
‘Why didn’t it die’
‘There are no more piles’
In my panic, the boss sends out 3 swipes this time
Time seemingly slows down even faster, and all sounds seem to fade out
I can see three strike coming for me, and almost without thinking, on pure instinct,
I bend one knee, spread the other leg far out, bringing my chest so low it almost touches the ground.
*hew*
I can hear the whips tear apart the wind inches above my head
I am barely spared another death
Regaining my wits, I stand up and start madly dodging, doing everything in my power to
Not
Get
Hit
“Woah!”
‘Holy shit that was cool’
Dodge rolling to the right, I avoid another swipe
Coming out of my roll into something resembling a long jump, I start to move in a circle around the boss again, taking more thrusts with my pike.
‘Okay, start thinking’
‘Maybe this is the final one, and it wont do the thing when I break the last one?’
Desperately dodging and stabbing for what feels like an agonizingly long time, I feel hope return.
*Shatter*
‘All right, moment of truth, was there something I was supposed to do, or have I won.’
Pulsing harder and harder, the boss swells to around the same size it started out as
Before making a loud popping noise, and deflating into nothing, and bursting into pixels.
GOD SLAIN
It didn’t actually say that, in my exhaustion addled brain, I am comparing this fight to dark souls so much that I’m seeing the victory screen for it.
What it actually says is
Amalgamated Slime of the Deep Defeated
“Hell Yeah”
“Victory achieved, boss slain, prey slaughtered, eat your heart out Fromsoft gods”
“Fuck you you stupid slime boss”
Coming down from the high of my victory, I take a moment to look at my notifications.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
You have reached level 31
+15 stat points
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
31!?
6 levels in one fight at this level?
That's insane!
I put the 15 points into AGI and Move on
*Skill acquired - Adrenaline: When fighting a strong enemy, your blood starts pumping hard, Background distractions fade, and time seems to slow down. Focusing effect, Time perception +15% in battle* (Dev note - When players unlock their first time perception manipulation skill, if agreed to it enables them to receive various other skills with more esoteric, brain manipulating effects, such as a focusing effect, and even further speeding up of perception speeds. These effects can be turned off or modulated so that players with extreme time dilation don’t experience time at 10 times speed and have to play the game and interact with friends in super slow motion. These options can be found in the settings menu.)
Well that's certainly something, I guess I got that when it sent out 3 swipes at once. I noticed things seemed to slow down even further after that.
*Skill acquired - Avenger: After being defeated by a certain kind of enemy more than 5 times, gain +10% base STR when fighting enemies of that same type.*
That one is useless to me, seeing as I have an STR stat with a grand total of 0.
And finally, last and definitely least
Spear mastery V
Womp womp
And that's all the notifications I got.
At the bottomless grave, where the headstone would be, lies a treasure chest.
I walk up to it. Opening it, it releases a very bright gold light, just like in the show.
*Keeper’s garb (Unique Series)- The cloak and under clothes worn by the wardens of the deep, designed to aid in the unique movements needed to navigate the deep. +50 AGI, +Warping body skill* (Warping Body - The space around the wearer is larger than appears, so when an attack looks as though it will hit the edges of the body, there is actually a larger margin of safe space than it seems, and the attack will harmlessly pass.)
*Deep Striders (Unique Series)- Plated greaves worn by the wardens of the deep, designed to aid in the unique movements needed to navigate the deep, along with protecting their lifeline, the legs. +100 AGI, +Space Striding skill* (Space Striding - When willed, the wearer floats around a foot into the air, and can intuitively maneuver through space)
*Reaving Scythe (Unique Series)- The primary weapon used by wardens of the deep, forged through hunting, it is used to fend off the unforeseen threats of the deep. +30 STR, +Reave skill* (Reave - Temporarily robs the slain enemies of their essence, when a certain amount of kills is met, releases the stored essence in an explosive burst, upgrading the scythe in the process, and increasing the requirements. (0/3)
*Unique Series - Items with the tag (Unique Series) are not unbreakable, but when destroyed, reform stronger. Only the first person to defeat a dungeon alone receives these items, and only rarely.*
Uuuuuuh
Uhhh
Uh
I don't even know where to start.
Umm, Yes?
Shocked to silence, describes me pretty well.
Uh, starting with the Keeper’s garb, being the least outrageous of the lot.
Pretty good.
Pretty good?
More like fucking amazing!
Holy shit!
Starting with the +50 AGI, while not the best currently. It will only get better over time, so awesome.
Next, the skill. The fucking skill.
That's absolutely busted.
Enemies already struggle to hit me, and when they do it’s only glancing blows on the edge of my body.
This makes it so that as I get faster and faster, It will get exponentially harder to hit me. Even then, their hits will be ineffective if they don’t hit center mass, which will only get harder and harder.
Basically, With a high enough AGI, I’ll be untouchable.
This definitely solves my squishy problem by just being even faster.
The Scythe is up next.
Awesome, absolutely amazing.
That burst skill is amazing, and enables me to pretty much max at war lust in an instant.
Ant being refined every burst, along with getting stronger when it breaks, means it's going to grow at a crazy speed.
It will pretty much always be a viable option in battles.
Though I’ll probably use it mostly when I’m fighting large groups of weak enemies.
It also isn’t very compatible with my threads, so that’s a bit of a bummer.
And Finally, possibly the best item here. The boots.
Um.
Where do I even start?
+100 speed is crazy, and will only get better as time goes.
And the skill
Oh my god, the skill.
That sounds absolutely busted.
Without having to touch the ground, my speed will probably rise drastically.
Though I doubt I can fully fly or cross large gaps, but even still. This is so cool.
And an intuitive movement system sounds like it's not just flying, so it’ll probably look and feel really cool.
Equipping my new gear, I take a look at my avatar in my status screen.