You gained 36 Exp!

Cobaltio gained 32 Exp from [shared experience]!

Cobaltio leveled up!

Stat up: Str: +0 Dex: +1 Con: +0 Wiz: +0 Int: +1 Cha: +1

In combat...

“YAHHHH!”

Rocks tumbled from the ceiling around the [boss], forcing everyone back. It ran straight for Symantha when it had the chance but Asher’s body slam and Reco’s simultaneous flail twirl collided into its body, sending the [boss] stumbling away, while the cloaked man deftly weaved through falling rocks to stab into its hind leg, giving Symantha plenty of room to retreat.

I leaped in when it was rendered prone, cutting at its neck just before I was forced back by a number of erupting spikes. It slowly got up, only for two crossbow bolts to assault its eye. It began to rampage through the room, as, after the countless attacks sent to blind it, one of the bolds had managed to lodge straight in the creature’s iris.

I ran by its side, watching out as it furiously snapped everywhere, trying to regain balance. When Asher body-slammed into the creature one more time, it was at the perfect moment to make it fall onto its back.

“Thraisly, tell Asher to hold it down. Saya needs to use her [decapitate] skill to kill it this instant!” Reco yelled.

“Asher, hold it down!”

Asher quickly moved to the boss’s other side and bit one of its front legs, keeping the [boss] from rolling back onto its feet, alongside Reco, who looped rope over the other side’s leg, the two keeping balance so it wouldn’t get back up.

As I ran to cut at the [boss]’s neck, a spike of earth magically appeared above the hippo and shot towards me, threatening to impale my side, but before I even tried to dodge, a [stone spike] from Ritta blocked its path, crushing the spike before it contacted. The creature tried to see me with its alive eye, only for a [fire bolt] from Thraisly to block its view.

I ran to its neck and chopped at it.

It thrashed about in pain, trying to get the two grapplers off its legs, but Reco and Asher kept it flat, no matter where it tried to roll to, and it wasn’t able to snap at me, upside down.

I cut down again, all my might tearing through barely a half-foot of its five-foot-long neck.

[ruthless striker tier 1], [swaordsmanship tier 2], [monster hunter tier 2], and [decapitation] activated.

I wasn’t sure why, but my menu decided to tell me what I was activating. To be climactic, I guess.

“YAAAHHhh...”

Suddenly, the creature launched into the air. I saw its spikes had all shot at the ground and propelled it upward. I was forced to dive away as the beast fell back down, landing on its feet with an ungodly crash that kicked up a smokescreen of black dust and rocks.

Then, it yelled, the sound unearthly.

“YAHHHHHHFFFASSSSSSSSH”

The [armahippo] [boss] activated [death rush].

Uhh, w-what is a [death rush]?

It charged at me with thundering steps, zipping past my allies too quick for anyone to act on, its eyes glowing a deathly red even through the dust.

The attack was way too fast, and I wouldn’t survive without being tricky. I was isolated and had basically nothing left to dodge with, the three charges on [planewalker] already used up.

Seeing the crossbow bolt still in its right eye, I ran to the right.

It thought I expected it to miss. As I ran to its blind spot, it tumbled at me, leaping high, then sliding where I would have gone. It was so big, that even had I leaped to the right at the perfect time, it would have crushed me into nothing more than a pile of gorey bones.

I leaped into its open mouth, towards its right since Reco had knocked out three of its right teeth, leaving that side of its mouth much less deadly. Then, from the inside, I stabbed up into its neck.

[ruthless striker tier 2], [swaordsmanship tier 2], [monster hunter tier 2] and [decapitation] activated.

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Its tongue tried to make me move into its molars, sliding me across its mucus-coated gums, but I gripped houndcleaver as tight as I could, using it to stand my ground.

Then, it stood and began to rampage around, flinging me about its mouth. The movement was so unpredictable and savage that all i could do was flail to keep out of danger. Despite my best efforts, however, my shoe got caught behind its molars, and it tried to snap down on me.

“Saya!” Reco yelled fearfully, before seeing what I’d done. “Nevermind, keep doing whatever you’re doing!”

A flail hit another tooth out, making its mouth spasm, giving me the chance to reposition.

“Asher, keep its mouth open!” Thraisly yelled.

I began hacking and carving its head off from the inside-out, but the thing kept thrashing and flailing, surviving despite the exceptional damage its brain had taken. Outside, I heard yells of determination, people attacking the creature from the outside.

“ROAAAHHH”

A golden drake entered the untoothed side of its mouth, then bit its tongue, and dragged it to the side, holding it as the beast thrashed in madness.

They gave me the time to hack and hack.

[ruthless striker tier 2], [swaordsmanship tier 2], [monster hunter tier 2] and [decapitation] activated.

I hacked again, light pouring into its mouth from the literal hole I’d carved out of its neck.

[death rush] ended.

But still, it didn’t stop trying to snap me dead, biting over and over at thin air, even though it was crushing its tongue, getting more of its blood all over my robes. Then, as I kept cutting into it, it slowly stopped and fell limp.

Congratulations, you killed a [boss] monster!

I quickly stepped out of the ‘[armahippo]’s mouth, dribbling blood, and took just a second to rest, watching as a wall of text appeared on my menu.

You gained 149 Exp!!

Cobaltio gained 178 Exp from [shared experience]!!

You leveled up twice!!

Stat up: Str: +0 Dex: +0 Con: +1 Wiz: +0 Int: +0 Cha: +1

Stat up: Str: +1 Dex: +1 Con: +0 Wiz: +0 Int: +0 Cha: +1

Cobaltio leveled up twice!!

Stat up: Str: +1 Dex: +0 Con: +0 Wiz: +1 Int: +1 Cha: +0

Stat up: Str: +1 Dex: +0 Con: +0 Wiz: +1 Int: +2 Cha: +1

New bonus: [boss killer]- +5% strength and constitution growth rates

You gained [aerial fighter]!

You gained [golaiath hunter]!

You gained [monster hunter tier 2]!

You have 300 Exp to contribute to class experience!

You may increase growth rates by 5% 4 times.

[aerial fighter]: you have a resistance to fall damage and have increased Str, Dex, and Con while in midair.

[boss nurturer]: when caring for a potential [boss] monster, the food you give it grants 20% more experience and is 20% more sustentative. It also gains an additional 5% in all stat growths when classing or classed up in your care.

[goliath hunter]: deal extra damage and take less damage from massive creatures.

Level 13.

Wow, those gains were incredible. I could feel a bit of excitement from Cobaltio’s end as well. Apparently, he had begun to understand how the system worked. His...now 30?! Int definitely helped him on that front.

Well, now wasn’t the time for leveling up or anything, now was the time to book it.

The ceiling was quaking under [earthquake]’s power, and we would soon be buried under a million tons of rock.

“ROAH!”

Asher roared to the skies triumphantly, prompting Thraisly to say, “Asher says he’ll let us ride on him, just this once! Everyone who isn’t Reco, that really fast dude in the cloak or Milo, get on him!”

Thraisly leaped onto him, followed by me, then Julius and Dota, who were helped onto the [drake] by Ritta, who helped them on, then Symantha and Keen, and finally Cobaltio, who waited his turn to leap onto my back, though he was now a bit too heavy for me to easily carry.

Reco and the cloaked man ran ahead of Asher, while Milo stayed behind him timidly. “Will he really be able to carry all of us?” Julus asked.

“Roahh!”

Asher blitzed towards the way we had come, as fast as Milo at her top speed He was evidently quite angered at the implication he couldn’t carry all eight of us.

We ran through the tunnel and quickly broke into the misty third floor. It wasn’t long before we made it to the room filled with ghosts.

Then, we scrambled up the stairs, Reco deigning to follow behind us since she didn’t know the way. Not long after we entered the stairs, we passed by a crushed, spherical monster with an ice tree on its back, smashed to bits further down the ice room. Presumably, Asher had killed it when he had passed through with the cloaked man. He struggled to make his way across the ice, being forced to dodge falling boulders while clawing his way across violently shaking ice but managed to brute-force his way through with the help of [fire manipulation] empowered [fire bolt]s that knocked the boulders aside.

We burst into the gravely room and were met with no obstacles besides rocks that kept falling, harder and harder. Then, instead of going the way my group had come, Asher ran to the left, where a different passage led to a different set of stairs leading upward.

On the first floor, the whole group worked together to deflect the rocks, constantly casting spells to knock aside new enemies that arose in a greenery-filled room filled with [killer mantis] monsters, who were oversized mantis’s that I had to quickly jump off to parry and knock prone, only to jump back on as Asher slowed for me. A lot of them ended up squashed by falling rocks before I could do anything, and even more were sliced by the cloaked man’s halberd and Reco’s flail as they ran.

We rushed through a last set of tunnels, a little more than ten minutes after the spell had been cast, and erupted from the main tunnel, into the sunlight as it all came to hell, the mine collapsing into nothing more than rubble.

Together, we slid off and watched it in awe, the rocks falling faster and faster, the dirt above the mine falling off in spades.

Slowly, it all crumbled away.