James was immediately assaulted by an enormous fist. He raised his shield, to block the blow. James was crushed against the sealed portal out of the dungeon.
James looked up and his eyes went wide. He had anticipated the puppet knights, what he got were the huge knight golems.
James thrust Longinus into the golems chest and dragged it upwards cutting the golem down the middle.
[You have slain the enemy]
“Fuck!” James had expected something different, this, this was bullshit. Though he could not complain, this was a test to see if he were worthy of game breaking power. Of course, it would be insanely hard.
The golem looked to be made of dozens of suits of armor assembled into a humanoid form. James took a moment to investigate the hallway.
The hall was tall with what appeared to be brown pillars of polished wood spaced out at regular intervals along the walls. High up upon both sides of each arch way were bowls holding brightly burning flames. At their tops, the pillars lead to rectangular supports that curved upward growing wider until they connected each side together. His fur boots clicking against the smooth stone floor.
James had hardly a moment to rest as two more of the golems rounded the corner of the hall and began to charge him. ‘She replaced the puppet knights with their beefier cousins, that’s just great. What the fuck comes after these guys? What did she turn the archers and the mages into?’
If the entrance were going to be this difficult, how impossible would Igris be? And what came after him? James shuddered at the thought as he dodged the punches of the golems and lashed out with Longinus.
They did not last long. They were strong but very slow. Those two seemed to have been trying to pin him against the wall. It seemed that they were smarter than the originals, at least somewhat.
James noticed each of the three golems had dropped bags. The bodies of the golems had not disappeared either. James picked up the bags and opened them. Each gave him 1 billion gold before the bag turned to dust. James was very happy at this discovery.
“At least there will be a lot of profit for all the hardship. I wonder?” James attempted to pull a helmet from the body of one of the golems. Much to his surprise it came out and further still it persisted. ‘They turned to dust in the manga, but it seems that this admin has other ideas. I’m going to put all of this in my inventory.’
James heard the loud echoing sound of many huge golems walking. ‘After I finish this quest.’ James rounded the corner to face the golems.
What meet James when he faced down the hall was an exceptionally large golem with a ballista on its back, manned by several of the other large golems. Then, the ballista golem fired.
James barely managed to block the massive ballista shot, angling the shield to his left. The tree trunk sized ballista shot shattered against his shield due to the force of the impact, but not before its force threw him backwards and a dozen feet back the way he had come.
“That hurt.” James held Longinus under one arm as he pulled his 10th tier warding rod from his inventory. James could hear the golems beginning to move. He moved up to the corner and leaned around pointing the rod at the golems, “Extend Widen magic [Nuclear Blast!]” James saw as his mana pool emptied itself.
James was greeted by several dozen notices declaring golems of varying kinds dead. He even saw that several mages had died due to the spell. The roar of the explosion was near deafening. James covered himself with his wings attempting to block out the current of fire flowing over him, which was still going on. It was like he had light a star in that room. It took 10 seconds for the initial effects of the spell to end.
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James had managed to avoid the worst of the spells effects due to Imperishable and being around the corner of the hallway. James still took a considerable amount of fire and some bludgeoning damage from his own spell.
“If I did not have Imperishable, I would not have tried that. Note to self, do not use extend magic with [Nuclear Blast] when in the vicinity.” James stored the rod back in his inventory and prepped Longinus before carefully peeking his head out to make sure that all the golems had been slain. There was not a single creature left standing save for himself and the boss. Everything else had been slain by his rather reckless spell casting.
There had been far more notifications for creature deaths that those he had seen in the hall. ‘Well that spell is supposed to have a large area of effect, I probably caught the whole dungeon in its area of effect. Even if the after-effects of the spell could not affect them, since they were golems, the initial fire and impact damage of the spell did still kill them.’
BLOOD RED COMMANDER IGRIS HAS RESISTED THE SPELL
James was surprised at the notice. ‘How strong will Igris be?’ James shuddered at the thought. ‘Hopefully Igris will not leave his room’ James checked his health only to see he had next to none. He promptly sat down and took a rest. It was 30 minutes before his health and mana were restored to full.
James was not surprised about his health, but his mana. ‘Maybe that is an effect of Imperishable. That means I can recover my mana faster than anyone else. This will be useful. All the after-effects of the spell should have cleared by now.’ James was even more surprised that the admin hadn't added some mechanism to force him forward. Since there was none, and all the "normal" monster were dead, he could rest in peace.
James flew through the scorched hallway past the dozens of blackened golem corpses. He was glad there was not too much physics in the game, otherwise the golems would have been melted. Though he made sure to collect the bag each dropped.
Next to a few of the golems where specified equipment drops. A pair of gauntlets, boots, and several other single pieces of equipment. Singular boots or gauntlets, he even found a chest plate or two. James equipped the best boots and gauntlets. Of the helms he found none were superior to the one he already wore, so he simply stored them.
When it came to the chest plates James could see they were for the most part completely superior to his hide armor. So, he said goodbye to it as he placed it into his inventory and equipped the best chest plate that had dropped. ‘It is probably because of my title, “Loot Hunter II” that I’m getting so much armor.’
A little depressed about not wearing his armor he thought to give it to Fenrir’s avatar when he resummoned him. In the meantime, James continued onward down the hallway.
It did not take James long to find the blackened corpses of the magic casters. Of them more than half had dropped staffs, necklaces, and rings. “The drop rates even with my titles should not be this high, it seems too good to be true. I don’t trust it.” But nothing apparent came of that statement.
Seeing no creatures up ahead, suspecting he had inadvertently cleared most creatures from the dungeon. James sat down and examined his bountiful loot. Few were worthy of mention unfortunately. The staves mostly just boosted fire type spells, not exactly useful for him, so he threw them in his inventory.
Upon inspection of the rings one was a mana storage ring, he immediately equipped it. Since the ring acted as an external mana reserve, even when his mana was maxed, so long as there was space in the ring the extra would go there.
The next boosted all spells by a small percentage, so he equipped that. The two remaining rings granted increased one’s durability while casting. He equipped both, while not entirely useful he did have healing spells he could cast. ‘Being more durable while healing is good thing in my book.’
There were three necklaces. The first, granted a mild Intelligence increase. The next boosted one’s mana pool by a percentage. The last was another defense boost while casting item. So, James equipped the necklace that boosted his mana pool, and stored the others. In the few minutes he had sat on the floor his health and mana had replenished themselves.
James stood decked out in his new equipment still rocking the same helm he had come in with. James tempered the joy that had swelled up in his heart. Joy would make him careless. Carelessness would get him killed. Death would erase him from this world. Robbing him of all that he had achieved, and all that he was aiming to achieve. He had more than a few brushes with death. He had even been erased from the game by the very spear he now wielded. He would not fail!
James continued to wander the halls collecting drops until he found where the boss doors should have been. Much to his surprise the doors of the boss room had been blown off their hinges and were currently imbedded into the wall on the other side of the room. ‘Maybe I went overboard?’