A rock didn’t seem like the best thing to hide behind, but there wasn’t all that much inside the trench. There were no trees, buildings, or much of anything but rocks and bones. Even while Owin tried to fit behind one of the bigger rocks, he had to deal with Shade trying to hide behind him.

“You can see better than I can. What is it?” Owin asked.

The krakens were easily spotted by their glowing eyes, but whatever massive mob moved about the trench was much harder to see. It was almost as if Owin could sense it more than see it.

“Am I supposed to just solve all your issues for you?”

“Shade.”

The skeleton leaned farther forward and squinted. His eye sockets narrowed as he nearly lost his balance, even while leaning on Owin. “It looks like . . . a lot of necks.”

Owin opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. He stared into the darkness, trying to make his own evaluation. “Is that all you can see?”

“Well, if we’re being realistic here, Owin, I can’t see anything. One needs eyes to see, after all, and I am left with pits, and not like the normal pits. Not the arms, but the eyes. I have eye pits, Owin.”

Owin sighed and opened his index.

“I thought you weren’t going to sigh anymore,” Shade whispered in his ear.

“You’re making it difficult not to.”

Whatever hid in the darkness roared.

Shade gently slapped Owin. “Close your index!”

Owin closed it immediately and ducked behind the rock. “What?”

Shade waved his hand in front of his face. “It creates light. You don’t use the index when you’re hiding!”

“You’re yelling,” Owin whispered.

“Ah!”

The ground rumbled.

“I’ll just charge in. It won’t be ready for that, right?”

Before Shade could answer, the mob was upon them. Five human-like faces, bigger than anything Owin had faced before, swung down and hovered just above Owin for a long, silent moment.

Ocean Mob

Deep Sea Behemoth

Level 70

“Oh, it’s this again.” Owin grabbed Shade and jumped backward as the behemoth swept a tentacle over the ground Owin had just been standing on. He dropped Shade, who helplessly dropped onto his face.

Myrsvai and Suta had already beaten the same boss a few floors before. There was no reason Owin wouldn’t be able to beat it even easier than they had. He grabbed the Incandescent Blade in both hands, planted his feet, and launched himself back toward the boss. As soon as he was close enough, he was able to see it. Whether that was because of how his eyes worked or some part of the floor was unknown to Owin, but all that mattered was that he could see the boss if he stayed close.

Its mass of tentacles spasmed, then exploded as mutated, twisted tentacles erupted and shot through the water. A quick swing of the sword pushed one tentacle aside while three others hit him, throwing Owin into the trench wall. He rolled away as more tentacles smashed into the wall where he had just been.

All five heads started to glow with different colors as they charged their different attacks. The trench shone with the rainbow brilliance of the deep sea behemoth’s attack.

Owin didn’t hesitate, diving back in. He swung with all his strength at a tentacle, but the edge of the Incandescent Blade did little more than bash it aside. He didn’t cut into the stark white flesh of the creature or even visibly damage it in any way.

The first blast was a thin beam of ice. All thoughts had left Owin’s brain, leaving him acting on instinct once again. A side step was enough to avoid the initial blast, but as an arcane blast came from another head, he was forced up. As the ice and arcane spells collided, an explosion sent a shockwave through the water. Owin spun, hit the wall, and rolled to the bottom.

“This was going to be easy,” Owin muttered as he stood and adjusted his grip on the sword.

“Did you hurt it?” Shade shouted. “It doesn’t look like it!”

Owin clenched his jaw and watched the behemoth’s moves. It was faster than the one Suta and Myrsvai fought even though it was bigger. The cluster of tentacles around its body were also more frantic.

It turned its other faces to Owin and launched a thin beam of fire, or something like fire. Owin moved aside, then jumped farther as the water boiled.

“What kind of fire can survive underwater?” he shouted.

Shade didn’t answer. He likely didn’t even hear because he was running away, screaming, as abyssal fire and a luminous beam chased him, shooting from the other heads.

“You’re immune to those damage types!” Owin shouted as loud as he could.

“Oh, yeah.” Shade turned and let both hit him at the same time. He vanished in a magical explosion as the abyssal and luminous energies combined and erupted.

“Was that bad advice?” Owin whispered.

All five heads of the deep sea behemoth turned and watched, just like Owin, as the magical smoke faded. Shade stood perfectly still in the same spot he had been before with a thin trail of smoke floating off the top of his skull.

“Are you okay?” Owin shouted.

Five colors of lights flared to life in the deep sea behemoth’s mouths. The fire, arcane, and ice ones stayed looking at Shade while the abyssal and luminous heads leaned toward Owin.

“Time to kill it!” Shade gestured wildly toward the mob.

“Okay.” A quick dash brought Owin underneath the heads. He pushed off and swung the Incandescent Blade with as much power as he could manage. Once again, the edge of the blade hit the behemoth’s white skin and instead of cutting, it forced the head aside like he had punched it.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

The head released a blast of luminous magic as it flailed, crashing into another head, which launched its fire attack early.

Owin landed at the base of the necks and looked over his shoulder at Shade. “I’m not doing any damage!”

“I can tell!” The skeleton collapsed into a pile of loose bones as the ice and arcane attacks launched from the behemoth’s heads. Shade quickly reassembled himself. “Invulnerability can be a thing, but . . . why?”

“I don’t know what that word means.” Owin dodged one tentacle, deflected another, and blocked a third, before a fourth hit him in the back. His shield minimized the damage, but the strike still sent him tumbling.

“It means you can’t hurt it unless certain conditions are met!” Shade squealed and ducked under a half formed blast. “It’s a cheap trick to make a boss fight harder!”

If he couldn’t hurt it, why fight? It wasn’t like Sloswen would give him loot for beating it anyway. Avoiding the fight and moving on would be the better option. At least, this time. He gained nothing from a long battle.

“I have an idea!”

“I can’t wait to see what it is!” Shade shouted.

Summon the Withered Shade

Owin immediately sprinted as fast as he could manage. He had to jump, slide, and dodge a flurry of tentacles, and he still didn’t manage to miss them all. A few solid smacks of tentacles sent him reeling back before regaining his feet and dashing deeper into the trench.

The deep sea behemoth roared loudly from all five heads and launched random beams of spells toward Owin, but also straight into the sky at no specific target. The pursuit didn’t end, as he had hoped. While the behemoth didn’t move as fast as it attacked, it still chased fast enough to make Owin shake with energy. Blasts flew past him, carving their way through the stone walls.

Simply running from the boss was manageable, if a little terrifying, until he ran into the first kraken, which blocked most of the width of the trench. Owin skidded to stop and flinched as a beam of ice hit the ground nearby.

The kraken rose up, tentacles nearly twitching in anticipation, then it sprang into action. Owin sliced the first tentacle off and blocked another. He jumped straight at the kraken’s head, going for the same tactic as before, right as the other four attacks from the behemoth all hit the kraken directly in the face. Owin hovered in the water above the chaos for a moment before dropping like a rock.

There was no way to avoid the onslaught of spells raging from the behemoth. He couldn’t swim away and the spells were too wide to simply dodge to the side.

Instead, he curled up the best he could and used the unbreakable shield on his back to block the attacks. All four spells hit the shield simultaneously, launching Owin straight through the kraken’s corpse like a cannon. He hit the ground on the opposite side, having been launched for hundreds of feet, and bounced hard before coming to a stop.

Summon the Withered Shade

“Oh, well done. We are much farther along.”

Owin wheezed, still lying on the ground.

“Oh, you look bad.” Shade grabbed a health potion and poured it directly on Owin’s face.

His health bar crawled back up, allowing Owin to sit upright. “That hurt.”

“Running?” The skeleton looked back and managed to spot the kraken with the massive hole in its head. “Oh.”

Lights from the deep sea behemoth’s heads shone through the kraken’s head.

“I do understand your pain, at least to some extent, but I think we should be on our way.” Shade yanked Owin off the ground. “If I explode, do not lament. Or maybe do, but do it safely. Summon me before the floor boss, at least.”

“Is this thing going to stop chasing me?” Owin had already started running. Shade was doing a surprisingly good job at keeping up, even while flailing his arms wildly as he ran.

“It doesn’t seem that way. If only you didn’t open your index.”

“I don’t think that was the only issue.”

A flurry of spells hit the ground where they had been before. It appeared that the deep sea behemoth had a limited range, but with how fast it moved, that range hardly mattered. He had to keep going or it was going to catch him again.

“Do we need to figure out how to make it killable?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it. We’re nearing the end of the floor. It turns out they aren’t that big when you run fast.”

Owin shook his head. “I was launched really far from that attack too. And you were gone for two minutes.”

“Running that far in two minutes is still quite the achievement. Once, I—” A beam of thin red fire burst right through Shade’s skull, causing the skeleton to poof into dust.

Owin turned, wide-eyed, to see the deep sea behemoth only a hundred feet behind him. It had moved so fast. He turned his back, using the shield to block a beam of luminous energy. Even with the shield, the spell was powerful enough to cause him to skid across the ground.

Fighting an enemy that can’t take damage was stupid. Artivan would have told him to run a long time. To go for the stairs. To flee for safety.

Shade was fine. He would sit in his box, probably quite uncomfortably, until his cooldown was done. That was fine. That was manageable.

Right now, all Owin needed to worry about was himself. Not how Myrsvai and Suta were going to manage this boss when they came across it. Not what the tenth floor held. Nothing. Just survival.

Shade had said he was near the end. On a lot of floors, one didn’t even need to fight the boss before advancing. Or the boss would be in a protected arena like at the end of the eighth floor. Either way, he needed to get away from the behemoth, even if that meant locking himself in a room with an unknown boss.

Getting cocky could get heroes killed. Owin knew it from experience, being that he had killed those heroes before. Void Nexus or not, stupid heroes died all the time. Stupid heroes who thought they were stronger than they really were.

Owin used the shield on his back to block another attack and jumped, allowing the beam to launch him forward. He landed on his feet, stumbled, and rolled, all too slow to avoid the next attack. A beam of ice hit his arm, only covered in the thin film that was usually beneath his chitin armor. His whole arm immediately turned blue, freezing from contact. He tried to flex his hand, to move, but everything was frozen, motionless.

“No, no, no,” he whispered, repeating constantly. Another spell hit his shield, sending him sprawling onto his face. Another spell hit his shield, causing Owin to smash his face directly into the ground.

Show the world how strong you are. How capable you are. How incredible.

He couldn’t die. Not now. Not before seeing Artivan again.

He was alive, or something close to it. He had to be. If Shade had once been a hero and was now a Cursed, so was Artivan. It had to be true. Owin used his one working hand to climb back to his feet. He wobbled unsteadily for a moment before clenching his jaw, widening his stance, and bracing himself for the next impact.

As another spell hit his unbreakable shield, the ground beneath Owin cracked. He still slid a few feet from the force of the boss’s attack, but he stayed standing.

“I can do this,” he said quietly.

Before the behemoth could attack again, Owin sprinted with all his might, launching himself over the uneven, rocky trench floor. He watched the rock walls for changes in color, in the slight illumination, and leapt to the side as the deep sea behemoth launched its multiple spells. Each head had its own attack and own color, letting him know what was coming if he focused. No more instincts. He had to think. He had to use his brain like Katalin and Ernie had always asked him to.

No more fucking around.

As he came upon what looked like the last kraken, Owin baited it into attacking and dodged. A behemoth attack ripped the tentacle off, distracting the kraken enough that Owin spotted an opening. A way to get past. With the kraken still alive, he hoped it would create a real obstacle to slow the boss down.

Owin’s vision was suddenly red. Too many tentacles. Too fast. He lifted both arms, trying to block with the Incandescent Blade, but his right hand was still completely covered in ice. Two kraken tentacles smashed against him at different speeds, one hitting his upper body, the other hitting his legs. He flipped and screamed, unable to see anything but his health bar, drifting down.

Summon the Withered Shade

Owin crashed into the ground directly beside Shade as the skeleton poofed back into existence. Owin sprawled out, unable to move. Pain lanced through his right arm, reminding him of the burning from the lich’s mist

“Oh, that’s a big boss. I—” Shade’s hands were immediately grabbing Owin. “Shit. No, Owin. Not happening now.” Shade rolled Owin over, unhooking the shield. A spell hit Shade, causing him to fall on top of Owin, but he immediately popped back up and started grabbing potions.

“I can tell you’re awake, so I just want to reassure you that I will not be using too many potions this time. I will save your life with the required amount.” Shade held two health potions and carefully poured one of them onto Owin’s face.

As soon as the red liquid touched his skin, feeling came back to most of Owin’s body as pain dulled. He tried sitting up, but before he could move, before Shade could pour the second potion, a tentacle from the deep sea behemoth hit the skeleton, causing him, the health potion, and the unbreakable shield to poof into gray dust.

“No,” Owin said breathlessly.