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Repeated sounds of footsteps echoed through the empty and broken down hall. The hall lights flicked on-and-off, giving a sense of eeriness to the old building. The building itself resembled the modern ages of Earth, that of the early 21st century. A hospital to be exact. It was a crumbling remnant of the technology ages that had long since faded into nothing but a forgotten era.
A man with a long black duster sauntered down the hall, his duster fluttering slightly with each step he took. The handle of a sword could be seen with each flutter. A hood connected to the duster covered his face, with just a light smile peeking out from the darkness provided. He wore black, strapped boots which made a crisp tap sound each time they hit the floor. In an outstretched palm, he held a ball of light, which floated there seemingly of it’s own accord.
He neared the end of the hallway and gazed at the tall door which stood in front of him, like that of a royal palace. As the place resembled a hospital through and through, this was quite weird. The smile on the man’s face contorted and forced laughter erupted from him.
“If you’re going to make the ancient ruins outdated hospitals and offices, don’t put stupid stuff like this that screams: ‘I’m a boss room,’” The man spoke out in a calm voice. “Seriously designers, do your stuff correctly.”
The man reached out with his free hand and pushed open the large door. It swung easily despite the size of it. The man then raised the hand which held the floating ball of light. The ball sped out from his hand and quickly moved to an unseen corner of the room that had just been entered. The ball quickly replicated itself and sent copies to different locations evenly spaced along the wall. The balls then brightened considerably, revealing a long and wide pathway to what seemed to be a throne made out of miscellaneous hospital equipment. All along the way there lay mobile hospital beds and IV equipment.
On that weird throne sat a giant skeleton. It sat on the throne like a fallen king, sword plunged into the ground with both hands resting on the pommel. It’s entire body was slouched and the head faced downward, but as the lights rose in luminescence, the head slowly raised and two bright red dots slowly appeared. It seemed to be the eyes. It stood up and grasped the handle of the sword, massive quantities of dust and moss was shaken off as it rose. It roared and the doors the man stood close to immediately swung shut, propelled by an unseen force.
“Oh, this is a new one.” The man said, surprised. “I wasn’t expecting a secret boss after the main one. But then again, this is a high level area. Definitely needs to have some cool stuff or else it can’t be called high level.”
The man grasped the handle of his sword and yanked it out of its scabbard. The sword itself was a wooden arming sword with a black blade and white handle and cross guard. The fact that the sword was wood was already weird, but it seemed as though it was powerful enough to rival even mythos-class weapons. The black and white on the sword wiggled and started mixing together. It didn’t combine, but instead formed into mysterious swirl patterns, both trying to gain the territory of the other. Eventually it stopped and both colors had reached the entirety of the sword.
The man got into a battle stance and took the initiative, bursting at incredible speed towards the towering skeleton. The giant skeleton seemed surprised, but managed to react quick enough. The man’s sword met with the skeleton’s rusted claymore and sparks flew, as though the arming sword was not wooden, but instead metal. As the ringing sound of weapons clashing out, a bar appeared above both the skeleton and man’s head.
For the skeleton:
Grey the Life-Giver Lvl.160 Skeleton Ancient (Boss) 20,777 20,800
For the man:
Neo Apollos the Great Explorer Lvl. 164 21,540 21,540
This was the things you would find in video games. Health bars and the like. They both were unfazed by the health bars appearing on top of them. The skeleton, or Grey as the name says, quickly went on guard after receiving the blow from the man Neo. Grey swung his sword at Neo to try to land a blow after being knocked away. Neo dodged by tilting his body backwards. The sword swept by harmlessly, giving Neo time to land. The hood had fallen back, revealing a handsome young man in his mid teens. He had wild black hair that made it down to his shoulders, showing obvious signs of poor hair care. Two red eyes stared fiercely at Grey, the smile still present.
Grey quickly adjusted his sword, using the momentum of his swing and did a spin slice, forcing Neo to dodge once again. The many beds and IV pole were swept away with the one swing, clearing up the area for more battle. Neo landed on a bed further away from Grey and flames appeared in his hands. He quickly thrust his hand at Grey and the fire formed into a ball.
“Firebolt!” Neo shouted.
The fire immediately shot out at Grey, who managed to move his sword in the way of the firebolt. The firebolt slammed into the sword but did not explode or even damage the sword at all. Neo looked surprised at the result of his probing spell. The surprise quickly turned into an expression of joy as he realized what that meant.
“That sword is probably artifact-class, maybe even ancient-class,” He muttered to himself as his arm slowly retracted. “Guess there’s only one way to find out.”
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Grey honed in on Neo, not letting him have any time to put up a resistance. Neo reacted and swung his sword at Grey’s legs to break his charge. Grey avoided it and sent his own slash at Neo, who dodged as well. Grey, not wanting to let Neo get his footing repeatedly stuck at his landing spots, forcing him to avoid. Neo was forced into the air after one swing, when Grey’s sword abruptly changed direction, faster than ever before. A gray light covered it, and it spread the aura of death through the air as it swung upwards.
“Air jump!” Neo screamed. He adjusted himself horizontally mid-air and bent his legs. He immediately straightened his legs and jumped off of the air. That boosted him just out of the ranged of Grey’s attacks.
As he was falling to the ground, Neo executed another air jump right towards Grey. His sword plunged into Grey’s back and his health bar dropped from 20,777 to 19,648. Grey roared and whirled around, only to find that Neo had already leapt away. Grey’s aura became chaotic and he fell to a knee. His health was slowly dropping, and a symbol next to the health bar showed that he had been poisoned. Neo took his advantage and rained blows on Grey while he was down. However Grey had already recovered and thrust his sword at Neo. Neo backed off and held out his hand again, flames gathering in it already.
“Fireball!” Neo spoke. The flames launched themselves with more power and speed than the previous fire. As expected, Grey raised his sword to block and the flames. This time, they exploded on the sword and sent liquid fire in different directions, but Grey was unharmed. The sword was fine as well, which made Neo crack a smile.
“That thing is definitely an ancient-class,” Neo laughed. “I can make some money from that! Wind Blade!”
This time, instead of fire coming from his hand, it was invisible wind pressure in the shape of a curved blade. It flashed out with great speed, almost immediately arriving in front of Grey. He dodged it by shifting his body to the right. Neo laughed at the prospect of a challenge and his hand quickly turned into sword fingers as used wind blade repeatedly, this time with sword fingers to guide it’s path. Grey dodged each one of them, until Neo changed his spell a more advanced version of the Wind Blade.
Grey couldn’t dodge every blade and the majority of them hit their mark. Neo once again used a wind spell, but this time it was more of ball than a blade. Grey was sent flying into his throne, which then toppled over. His health dropped to half and the lights in the room changed to red. Grey let out a roar infused with magic, sending a shockwave throughout the room. A gray aura of death rose up from him and his display changed.
Grey the Life-Taker Lvl.160 Skeleton Ancient (Boss) 10,328 20,800
His title had changed. His aura had changed as well. Grey bolted from his destroyed throne with a speed many times greater than before. Neo was unable to react in time and Grey managed to land a blow. Neo was sent flying away across the room and crashed into the wall. Grey followed up with another charge. Neo pushed himself out of the human shaped crater and into the air moments before Grey destroyed the wall with his sword. Neo executed an air jump to gain distance but Grey had planned for that. His sword just barely missed Neo as he bent over backwards to avoid it.
Neo’s face distorted as he realized Grey had the upper hand. Neo’s boots glowed and emitted a mist that stayed next to the boots. His speed had greatly increased and he was now able to dodge all of Grey’s attacks. Cold sweat dripped down Neo’s face. He was being pressured and he couldn't retaliate without risking injury. Despite this, a smile spread across his face.
“So,” Neo deduced. “It’s actual specialty is agility instead of strength! I knew I should have put more points into agility. Heck, this will probably manage to level me up though!” Neo laughed as he dodged a vertical strike.
"[Sins]!” Neo shouted as blue flames started to burn in his eyes. His hands and feet erupted in flames as well.
Strangely enough, the flames didn’t seem to hurt him. He flicked his sword out to his side and the flames gathered on the sword and changed colors to white. The mist that coiled around his boots dissipated and the flames on the boots turned violent. Neo wiped away the blood that had started to drip from his mouth after being hit by Grey. His lips curled into a cold smile. Neo changed into a different stance and sped towards Grey with speed unseeable by the naked eye. An arc of white flame appeared on Grey’s shoulder and Neo reappeared at the other side of the room. Though all this took time to describe, it actually happened in an instant.
Grey roared and whirled around, but Neo had already jumped in for another strike. Another arc of white flame appeared on Grey, but this time it burned on the left side of his abdomen. Reappearing again, Neo once again turned around and vanished. This time, the right leg started to burn. Grey roared in pain, and plunged his sword into the ground. The gray aura on the sword spread into the ground and numerous cracks filled the area. Skeletons wearing hospital gowns rose from the cracks and protected Grey.
Neo’s eyes narrowed and a cloud of dust arose from where he once was. Skeletons in a straight path to Grey started bursting into white flames. Neo’s figure became visible once again as he raised his sword and stuck down vertically on Grey, who writhed in pain as white flame split him half. His body crumbled and dispersed into particles of light. His sword fell to the ground with a clank sound. The rest of the skeletons turned into particles of light as well. The light particles gathered into one mass and zipped to Neo, who then popped the ball into his mouth.
A swirl of light surrounded Neo and was slowly absorbed by him. A tinkling noise was heard and the display above his head changed. He returned the sword to its scabbard and looked up at his display. It was now:
Neo Apollos the Great Explorer Lvl. 165 18,537 21,540
Neo let out a light laugh and picked up the sword Grey had dropped. A window appeared in front of him, on it read:
Life Remnant Claymore (Incomplete) Class: Artifact (Ancient)(1/3) ATK: 873 PEN: 73 PRY: 84 Special Effect: Ancient Aura
“Oh,” Neo exclaimed. “This is pretty good stuff, I wasn’t expecting an incomplete weapon. It definitely didn’t look incomplete earlier. Well… it does now.”
When the sword was used by Grey, it had looked just a bit rusted and as the battle went on, the rust had been removed. Now, it had cracks and gaps in the sword that were taken out with time. Neo swung the sword in an arc and a gray aura slowly seeped out from the sword. He twirled the sword in a fancy movement and made random strikes at the air. He sighed and brought up another window. It had different images on it, many were ores and refined ingots. Neo pushed the sword in tip-first. And the image of that sword with a ‘1/3’ in the bottom right corner appeared on the window.
Neo closed the window and turned around, walking towards the throne. He hopped over the wreckage and spotted a classic video game last-boss-reward-chest. He kicked it open and took everything in it. He then turned left and walked down a path to a door. He opened it and was presented with a narrow hallway. He waved his hand and the balls of light that had been floating unnoticed until now combined and flew into his hand. Turning back to the door, he walked through and back out into the outside, where the ball of light turned into smoke and was carried away with the wind.
The scenery that greeted him was reminiscent of the The Day After Tomorrow. Broken and destroyed skyscrapers dotted the landscape. Vines hung from roofs and broken windows. Shattered glass had turned to dust and only the rusted frames of cars remained. Grass grew in the cracks between roads and craters were common. Nothing existed that resembled any previous glory. Neo breathed in the fresh air and stretched his arms. He exhaled and started jogging into the distance, following the barely existing highway.
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