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“The forbidden flame, ever-blazing crystal! Devourer of all…!”
The skeletons that had merged began speaking nonsense, perhaps for the first time. Neither Paul nor Chris had ever seen these monsters speak a single word. The only one who could speak was their Lord, however.
But this was surely different; it was as if something else had possessed them! The four surviving skeletons merged, bones and crystals moving as if they were worms sticking together, creating an aberrant four-headed and winged monstrosity.
“Bone and crystal, fire, and death! Become his ungracefulness’ sacrifice!”
With a roar made out of the combined voices of all four skeletons, the monster charged forward, summoning a gigantic spear of crimson crystal, and aiming at Chris.
The thing happened so fast that both Chris and Paul had almost zero time to react. Chris tried to fly away, but the spear was about to pierce his stomach.
CRASH!
“Woof!”
However, instead of piercing Chris' stomach, at the very last moment, Rocky appeared in front of Chris, having already predicted the trajectory with his beastly instincts. The Stone Wolf Summon took the hit head-on.
“Rocky?!”
Chris was surprised as he saw the summon sacrifice itself for him; its entire body gained countless cracks, flames erupting from their cracks as they started to engulf the creature.
“Awoooo!”
BOOOM!
With a howl full of pain, the creature exploded into pieces. The shockwave of fire and stone alone sent Chris flying down. Vlad rapidly went to catch him with his arms, using Float to make his fall much gentler.
“Fuck, are you okay? Nothing is broken, right? I hate how this game has no freaking health bars,” sighed Vlad, carrying Chris as far as possible.
“Rocky died!” cried Chris, almost about to cry.
“It’s a summons, Chris! You’ll be able to summon it again later!” said Vlad. “He’s not technically dead; he has gone back to your equipment, the gloves.”
“Oh… Really? I… I almost cried." Chris sighed. “I got too emotional for nothing!”
“You sure did! Have you lost a pet before or something?” Paul wondered.
“Maybe… What does that matter now?! The thing’s coming!” Chris cried.
And indeed, it was coming.
The flying skeleton aberration rushed down, giving chase and spreading out its wings.
Spears of red crystal grew from the wings, which were fired like deadly projectiles.
Upon contact, they exploded, creating small eruptions of fire.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
“Give it! Give your life to the crystal flame! To the ever-living and the ever-dying!”
“What kind of nonsense is it talking about?!” Chris said.
“I have no idea, but you better get behind me, use your bow, and shoot that thing with ice arrows and anything else you have!" Vlad said. “I’m going to confront it one-on-one!”
“What? Are you insane?!” asked Chris. “Your character’s going to die, dude!”
“Trust me, bro, I got this... Or well, at least trust this armor,” Vlad smiled.
“Ugh, fine! But don’t blame me if you have to wait months to create a new character!” said Chris.
He quickly skipped in the air, using his little incubus wings to fly as far as possible. While wielding his Magic Bow, a veil of shadows suddenly encompassed him, almost making him invisible.
He pointed his bow at the incoming monster, and three arrows appeared: wind, fire, and ice. Their elemental affinities clashed against one another, but through his Aura of Arcana, Chris managed to combine their essence, creating a single, rainbow arrow.
“Woah, this is a thing?” He muttered to himself. “No! concentrate!”
As he tried to concentrate, Vlad clashed against the skeleton, conjuring a Stone Wall that was quickly shattered, only to conjure a dozen Ice Shards, sharp, spear-like ice projectiles.
The projectiles reached the four-headed skeleton before it could shake away all the rubble covering its body when it destroyed the wall.
FLASH!
The shards not only pierced its crystal exterior and cracked it, but quickly spread ice across its body, slowing down the beast. But it didn’t back down; even as it was freezing, the monstrosity stepped forward.
Its spear clashed against Vlad several times, the young vampire using his arms and gauntlets to take on the hits. The durability of his armor went down by over a hundred with each blow!
BAAM! BAAM! BAAM! BAAM!
Explosions of crimson flames erupted with each spear strike that Vlad took, but the vampire tried his best to not back down. However, his weight wasn’t enough to hold him in place.
“I guess this is the perfect time!”
The rings on his hands quickly activated one after another, small blue lights surged from each of his fingers, and his Aura of Arcana surpassed everything that any player has achieved yet in the entire game, erupting into the ceiling and blowing up a hole through it!
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
FLASH!
“Guhh?!”
The skeleton felt shaken by the tremendous aura of raw magic coming not from the vampire but from his equipment! However, Vlad was immobile, the weight of his Arcana so high that he could barely breathe.
“Feed your Arcana to the lord of the red crystal, the soul eater, and the devourer of death!”
The skeletons roared, clashing against Paul, and trying to push him away and blow him up, but...
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Each blow was incredibly strong and made Paul’s entire body tremble, but it was not making him move a single inch.
He strategically used the tremendous weight of his own Aura of Arcana defensively, becoming an unmovable sentinel.
“GRAAAH! What thou are?!”
Whatever the malefic spirit inside the skeleton monster roared at that moment did not matter, as a rainbow arrow was fired right from behind, piercing its back and then staying stuck there.
“Ugh?!”
“Well done, Chris.”
BOOOM!
The skeleton exploded into pieces as the arrow erupted into an explosion of bright green, blue, and red light. The crystals and bones shattered, leaving nothing behind but a pile of materials.
Both players quickly fell to the floor, resting their exhausted bodies. Paul deactivated the overwhelming pressure of his Arcana Aura, and Chris threw the bow into the ground.
“I’m beat,” sighed Paul. “Maybe we should just retreat for now?”
“What?! No way I’m retreating now, dude, this is... Oof, this is the… Hahh…” Chris couldn’t believe how realistic the feeling of exhaustion was in the game. “This is a big opportunity to cash in with a video of what I’ll call a “Dungeon Mutation”! So there’s no way we’re backing down.”
“Hah… I thought you would be all over that idea; that’s why I suggested it in the first place,” Vlad gently floated towards Chris. “Can you heal yourself with your magic?”
“Yeah, yeah…” The incubus suddenly conjured a bright sphere of golden light from his hands.
“{Healing Sphere}”
The sphere then constantly exuded an aura of light; anybody who touched it would feel their body heal rapidly. Vlad didn’t have to worry with his False Immortality Skill, but Incubus didn’t have any super regeneration power.
“Much better~ Phew…” Chris sighed. “Anyways, did we get any good loot out of that bozo or what?”
“Hmm…” Paul walked towards the pile of bones and found something. “Oh? It did drop something! I had no idea monsters could drop items like this; usually, it’s a dungeon treasure chest.”
“What is it?!” Chris greedily asked, rushing to see.
“A book,” Vlad said. “A Skill Book, to be precise.”
“Wait, what? That’s a bit... interesting,” Chris smiled, resting his head over Vlad’s armored shoulders. “So?”
“It’s called… Blazing Soul Skill Book, weird,” said Vlad, analyzing it.
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[Skill Book: Blazing Soul (A Grade)]
A Skill Book forged by the Crystal Flame, the Devourer of Death, and the Unending Crimson.
Upon usage, the Racial Skill: [Blazing Soul] can be learned.
“Turn your soul ablaze; show me the resolve of the living and the despair of the dying. Bring forth flame and burn it all; the fire shall crystalize, and that is where I will give you form.”
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“Creepy…” Chris read the description and had the same thoughts as Vlad. “But it’s just a Skill, right? It couldn’t be so bad.”
“I suppose, let’s store it for now,” said Vlad. “But what is this thing anyway? Crystal Flame, Devourer of Death, and Unending Crimson?”
“I don’t know, maybe something like some sort of... Hmm, boss? Maybe a big boss of the game?” wondered Chris.
“I guess so. Is this some sort of world event or something? Like he’s clearly trying to take over this dungeon,” said Vlad. “I had a bad feeling about this... I think we should hurry before things get worse.”
“It’s a game; it can’t get worse, silly goober,” giggled Chris, poking Vlad’s handsome face.
“I know, I know what you mean, but I mean it in the other sense, in-game. It could still cause a disaster to the NPCs, you know?” said Vlad. “And well, the worst that can happen is having all our progress deleted, so I don’t really like that either.”
“Hmm, true, I guess we should take this more seriously—I mean, I was the one that said we should continue after all,” Chris nodded, quickly sitting over Vlad’s head.
“Can you not?” Paul sighed, grabbing Chris' tail.
The moment he grabbed his tail, the Incubus reflexively jumped away out of the sensitiveness it had.
“Ouch! Don't touch that!”
“Hahah, I knew that was your weak spot.”
“Eeeh, you asshole…”
“Now let’s go; we have to hurry; no time to play around.”
“True… You ready?”
“I am.”
The two stepped forward after storing the corpses left behind and the skill book. The door opened to reveal twenty Obsidian Skeletons, all of which were covered with red crystals.
This was the second out of five rooms before the boss, yet it was almost the same as before. The skeletons immediately charged upon seeing them.
The formation was simple, and they already knew how to do this. Vlad charged forward, Redy, the familiar fire wolf, stayed behind him, Chris in the air firing arrows, and his trident.
“GRAAH!”
The skeleton’s ruthless charge impacted Paul head-first, dozens of explosive spear attacks clashing against his fists as he quickly punched their bones and crystals into pieces, absorbing their souls with each blow.
His soul gained power; it grew larger with each attack and with each bite he took from his foe’s soul. The skeletons suffered, staggering, trembling, and crumbling.
“{Fireball}!”
This time, he decided to attack and move forward more. Fireballs bombarded the skeletons, and their bodies quickly crumbled, exploding into pieces.
Chris took down the ones trying to escape, firing his trident, imbued with lightning, into their skulls through the power of the spell imbued into it [Lightning Strike]!
BOOOM!
There was no special mini boss this time, though, and after their initial charge, the entire room was cleared. The Crystal Flame blessed these skeletons and made them strong, but Paul and Chris were just stronger.
“Done with the third room; that was awfully easy!” Chris said. “I’m loving this too!”
The trident quickly flew back to Chris' hand through the power of {Float}, a miraculous spell that allowed things to simply float above, and through Arcana, to be able to control the trajectory in which they floated around.
“Glad you like it? Let’s advance. To the fourth room and then the fifth.”
“Alright!”
However, strangely enough, the fourth and fifth rooms...
Were empty.
“Huh?”
“Why is there nothing here?”
The two were surprised and confused. The more they checked the dungeon information, the more it showed that there were roughly forty monsters left and yet to be slain.
The boss was also alive and on his throne. The two quickly realized this could only mean a single thing.
“Don’t tell me that forty skeletons are waiting for us in the boss room?” Chris sighed.
“I think that’s it… Yeah,” nodded Paul. “That’s insane. How are we going to handle so many at the same time, plus the boss?”
“Well, time to use your Heavenly Demon powerup.” Chris smiled, pointing his elbow at him.
“I mean… I guess I could do that, but I don’t want to rely on it too much- It is something I’ll only use in emergencies or speed runs for now,” said Vlad. “I need to learn how to fight without relying on that power.”
“Hmm~ Okay, sure, whatever… Then let’s go. If things get too hard, you’ll have to use it anyway.” Chris said.
“Don’t you have the power of the Heavenly Emperor or something?” asked Paul. “Can’t you use it?”
“It’s different, okay? Not the same as yours.” Chris said. “Hm, but okay, I guess I can try using it later... I’ll try, but no promises, alright?”
“Sure, as long as you try.” Paul smiled. “Are you ready? This might be the hardest challenge we’ll ever face together.”
“Yeah, let’s go; don’t be cringy about it,” Chris giggled. “Come on.”
The two opened the door at the same time, and what greeted them was...
A temple made of red crystal.
One throne of black bones and flames.
And the Obsidian Skeleton Lord is covered completely by red crystals.
“Welcome, little flames. I made sure to prepare a good challenge for the final battle. Are you looking forward to it?”
His voice was different from before.
And the two were certain.
This wasn’t scripted dialogue anymore.
This thing was sentient.
And then they saw it—a system message.
[The Instance Dungeon has become a focal point for a special World Event: {Invasion of the Outer Ones}!]
[The First of Many, {The Unending Crimson} has taken over this Instance Dungeon and mutated it according to his wishes.]
[Defeat the Boss to stop him before the entire village of Elderbridge is overrun by monsters.]
“Fuck…”
“Shit…”
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