King Locksley would remain behind to defend the fort. I waved as the caravan left the compound and took the road toward Windemere. Once they were outside my detection range, I ditched the armor and chimeric form of King Robin and dashed to the center of the crater to kill the stronger monsters in there, those that were too far away to be pulled.
The center of the crater had a small lake created from rainwater. It seeped into the cracks of the beaten rock and drew the lingering draconic essence to the center. The strongest monsters were there, drinking from the water and getting stronger. I scanned the area and found dire wolves, armored bears, some two-meter tall badgers, and mutated lizards that were growing vestigial wings. No centipedes, thankfully. Those things are hideous.
I tossed a miniature sun five hundred meters above the lake and waited for it to reach full luminosity. It was a Light spell but one that would weaken the defenses of shadow-aligned monsters, which meant everything in the Dungeon. The critters flinched away from the light and some even threw attacks at it. While they were distracted, I flung Force spears at them. They were the best to keep the materials less damaged with a decent killing speed. I could use water to drown them or cause blunt-force trauma, but that would reduce the kill speed too much. I had to kill them yesterday.
I saw my MP and SP plummet as I alternated between them to double-dip on the regeneration rate. Nenandil came from behind me and spread the mist around me to slow down and freeze the monsters that got too close. I cranked up the Manastorm to full range and watched as I drew the attention of a quarter of the crater's population at once.
But these monsters were at the end of the first or the second rank up. They had more Attributes and also more Magic. Their MP regeneration was stronger than the first mutated wolf I found a month ago. They started to take serious damage from the Manastorm which only made them rush in faster.
I sighed. If I had a way to funnel them, I could use my {Spike Furnace} spell as I did with the stampede back in Perenneth. Here, I would have to either burn more resources than I was comfortable doing or let some of them reach melee range.
"Nenandil, we need more mist," I said preparing for the second stage of the fight.
"Okay. I'm going to use all my regen, so no more MP sharing," the fairy answered and poured more MP into the {Freezing Mist} spell.
I assumed my {Snake Fortress} formation and braced for impact. The monsters came on me with a vengeance. I ducked bobbed around them, using my limited mobility to avoid getting clobbered. Once the first damage notifications came in, I checked the damage type and shifted it into {Water Elemental} form. I kept my form and the benefits of the fortress. The monsters' attacks now only splashed me around which I could quickly reform by reabsorbing the water around me, even from Nenandil's mist.
Once the area around me was crowded with monsters, I added the {Wail of the Banshee} from my rattle to the mix. That's when a giant monster came from the lake, pushing the others aside.
> Mutated Shadow-Death Armored Bear
>
> Level 137
>
> Strength 80
>
> Dexterity 60
>
> Endurance 100
>
> HP 12,000,000
>
> MP 1,100,000
Now that was a tough fucker. It should have a huge size multiplier for his HP. I was betting on times-four. The beast, the boss of the Dungeon, was huge.
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The bear was almost twenty meters tall standing up. It roared at me and tentacles made of shadow sprouted from its back. The other monsters quickly got out of the way, leaving me alone with that monstrosity. He was taking 2,000 HP and MP of damage each second from the Manastorm but with an HP pool that size, it would take almost one hour to kill it alone. But it would run out of MP to use in less than eight minutes, given that it was already taking damage for some time and hadn't a full pool.
I beckoned it in. "{Champion's Duel}!"
Its claws were coated with writhing shadows that somehow felt sharp. I had no doubt it could damage even my elemental body. I pooled ten thousand SP and used a Perk.
"{Banishing Bolt}!"
The bear roared in pain as the positive spiritual energy wrecked its Death-aligned form. The shadows were untouched, though. But if the bolt had an effect, I had another layer of protection to use. I activated {Soul Armor} and watched as my SP became a translucent armor that shed a faint glow. I drew my daggers and coated them with the same power as {Soul Weapons} took root.
I used {Shadow Warp} to dodge its inaugural swing and move to its back. From there I sunk my daggers on its neck. My elemental form was able to manipulate and wield objects normally.
> Mutated Shadow-Death Armored Bear lost 793 thousand HP (Base 65 x 3.58 Strength/Dexterity x 4.68 Skill x 3 Mana Strike x3 Soul Weapon x1.5 Sun Orb[Vulnerability] x 2.96 backstab x1.5 enchantment x4 Death Blow x3 Champion's Valor x3 Critical x0.6 Armored Hide x0.75 Steel Plates x0.75 Shadow Coating)
>
> Mutated Shadow-Death Armored Bear lost 540 thousand HP (Base 59 x 3.58 Strength/Dexterity x 4.68 Skill x 3 Mana Strike x3 Soul Weapon x1.5 Sun Orb[Vulnerability] x 2.96 backstab x1.5 enchantment x4 Death Blow x3 Champion's Valor x3 Critical x0.75 off-hand x0.6 Armored Hide x0.75 Steel Plates x0.75 Shadow Coating)
>
> Mutated Shadow-Death Armored Bear is afflicted with bleeding (...)
Still not a million damage unless you add the bleeding debuff, which was going to cause almost double the damage stabbing did. It also seemed that I got enough bonuses from {Favored Enemy} to bump my Skill to the grandmaster ranks. The bear fell into more than one category.
I kept carving the bear's back but it seemed that {Pinnacle of Endurance} made one immune to stun. The shadow tentacles came down with a vengeance. I dodged eight of them but the last two struck my tail.
> Shadow tentacle dealt 4,483 HP of damage. Mana shield burned 1,495 MP. (Base 129 x 4 size x2.6 Strength x4 Skill x2 Shadow Power x3 Mana Strike x 0,75 Steel Scales x0.6 Tough Scales x0.55 Water Elemental x0.75 Favored Defense)
>
> Shadow tentacle dealt 4,691 HP of damage. Mana shield burned 1,564 MP. (Base 135 x 4 size x2.6 Strength x4 Skill x2 Shadow Power x3 Mana Strike x 0,75 Steel Scales x0.6 Tough Scales x0.55 Water Elemental x0.75 Favored Defense)
The shadow tentacles ignored half of my physical defenses. But I was glad I now could fight without putting what I had to kill in my mouth. Even more these half-undead rotten shadow-death bears. When I said I've tasted the blood of my enemies, it wasn't an allegory.
But It was time to stop playing with the bear. I extended my jaw and bit down on his neck.
> Challenge Won.
>
> You killed level 137 Mutated Shadow-Death Armored Bear. You gained 2 trillion Exp (base 187,690 x 11,296,956 Modifiers [1])
I was about to level up but I canceled it. After the boss was dead, I quickly finished the rest of the monsters around the lake - if you can call three hours spamming {Force Javelin} quickly - and reached the lake in the middle of the crater. I felt the power of the blight emanating from the pool. I warded Nenandil against it.
The water was black. Pitch black as if it was half squid ink. Not that he ground around the crater was any lighter. The black dragon's blood tainted the whole place beyond recovery. Maybe I could avoid the creation of this natural Dungeon If I had scraped the crater clear, removing the soil layers soaked in blood. But now it's too late. The very nature of this place has changed and consolidated. This is a Dungeon, no more, no less.
I scooped a few barrels of the black water. It was infused with powerful spiritual and magical essences. I also took some soil samples and watched as some monsters respawned on the other side of the crater. There was a shimmer like a heatwave then a faint purplish glow and a large shadow grew to cover the shimmer. After the darkness receded, the new monsters were "alive". As alive as a monster in a Dungeon could be. That gave me an idea. I could separate the crater in eight sections with walls running along the radius of the crater.
But I'd do that later. Now I had to go back to Windemere. I had a bad feeling about these adventurers. It could be my paranoia speaking, but why did they insist on talking directly to the retired King and Queen?
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[1]: x 3.05 Exp Boost x3.05 Monster Exp x7.59 Favored Enemy x10,000 Exp boost x4 size x2 rank x2species rank