Allen didn’t sleep at all after talking with Amelia. It wasn’t because he was upset or anything though. Allen was actually fairly confident that he had won that conversation, in a way.

No, he was just too tired to sleep.

There’s a point at which sleep deprivation peaks and it becomes impossible to get any rest. Contrary to what some might expect, Allen’s experience with sleep deprivation had been mostly self-inflicted. He would simply stay awake through the night for one reason or another, believing sleep to be a waste of time.

That was before being transported to Andy’s world though. If anything was appealing about the world, it was the fact that the endurance stat increased the length of time that one could remain awake.

Allen pushed that idea and refrained from sleeping for extended periods of time with not nearly enough endurance. His record was twenty-seven days without a wink of sleep and an endurance stat within normal human limits. The final week did not exist in his memory and the last thing he could remember was a sense of euphoria as he had come nearer to the source of all things.

The point being that Allen had absolutely no trouble staying awake for just a single night.

There was no trouble dealing with the seventh and final floor of the Well of Gloom dungeon either. The group progressed through it with the same steady pace as before, employing Christopher’s magic to keep the encounters down to a maximum two or three monsters.

Though all the monsters they faced were around ten levels higher on average, everyone in the group was around twenty levels higher. It still wasn’t as easy as the first floor, but the seventh floor felt easier than the sixth.

The only minor inconvenience was the Bulwarks that had blocked their path forward. However, breaking their cores and destroying their heads was made much easier with Christopher’s ability to push the poison gas away.

Overall, it took the group four hours to get to the end of the seventh floor. Unlike the previous floors though, the seventh didn’t have a floor boss at the end. It only had another rusty wrought iron door, twice the size and even more foreboding than the last. Behind it would the dungeon boss; likely a level one-hundred monster.

Level one hundred was a threshold that unlocked skills and jobs up to tier ten, both for people and monsters. The difference was like night and day. It would be a difficult fight regardless of how well they had prepared. Even with Kenneth sharing some of his gear, they could never truly be prepared enough.

Allen glanced over at Amelia with a blank look while Camila struggled to get the door open despite the boosts to her strength. He hadn’t talked to the Healer since the night before, or whatever time of day it had been, and with Dead Calm active again, Allen didn’t really see the need to say anything.

He glanced back over at Ty, Christopher, and Kenneth on his other side. The Defender was holding a level nine shade Crawler in his gauntleted hand. The spawn squirmed and struggled in Ty’s grasp, vainly trying to puncture his armor, but it was simply too weak to do anything. It wouldn’t even give anyone a single XP when it died.

What it could do, however, was keep the System from updating everyone’s status. Since it was a monster in their vicinity, the System still considered them to be in the fight and thus withheld their experience and levels.

It was a simple strategy that would allow them to gain more experience from the boss by maximizing the difference in levels. Everyone knew how to exploit that feature of the System… everyone but Kenneth apparently.

“W-why are you still holding that thing?” Kenneth asked, frowning in disgust as he motioned towards the Crawler.

Allen would have sighed if his emotive responses weren’t being dulled by his skill.

“So we get more experience from killing the boss,” Ty said, shaking the furiously screeching monster around in his hand. A smile accompanied his good-natured instructive tone. “The few levels we got from this floor wont help much against it anyway.”

Kenneth and Christopher flinched when the bolts on the heavy iron door slammed open. Camila grunted as her chest heaved. She moved on to pushing the door inwards, but the hinges were almost rusted solid. The painful sound of metal screeching filled the cavern for nearly a minute while the Berserker pushed the door open.

“Why aren’t any of you helping her?” Kenneth asked.

“Questions, questions, questions…” Allen thought.

“You kidding me bro? Look at her, she’s having so much fun!” Ty laughed and pointed at the Berserker.

Camila stood in the threshold of the door she had opened, looking into the dark corridor beyond it. Her face was scrunched into a snarl and her breathing seemed labored.

“Uh… okay.”

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

The rest of the group moved forward and entered the corridor. Other than the sound of footsteps and the Crawler’s screeching, nobody made a sound. They were either focused on the boss or under the effect of a skill.

After walking for nearly a minute, they emerged into a circular room about fifty meters across. Shadows danced between stalactites on the roof like a cloud of trapped smoke. It was thick as well; only faint rays of crimson light were allowed to shine into the room, barely enough to see the black stone that covered every surface.

Stalagmites and rock formations lined the outer perimeter of the room while most of the open space was in a lowered pit in the center. It was similar to a stadium, though there were no stands of course. In the middle of the pit there was a puddle of pitch-black ooze around ten meters wide. Though its surface was calm, it could still be seen churning slightly like thick soup.

Allen walked up to the edge of the upper terrace and looked down into the pit. It was easily four meters down and the walls were impossible to climb. However, he figured he could get out if he needed to. Camila wouldn’t have any trouble either, but Ty might. The other’s, by contrast, didn’t need to engage directly so there was no reason for them to go down.

“Nothing yet?” Ty asked.

“From there,” Christopher said, pointing at the puddle of corrupted blood.

As if on cue, the surface of the puddle began to bubble. A form took shape at the center and slowly rose upward. It was nothing more than a column of black ooze, but it soon reached a height of three meters.

The form swayed somewhat as the blood wrapped in on itself until the familiar pale, gaunt skin of the dungeon’s monsters revealed itself. Six arms rose up from the monster’s sides as its body emerged from the top of the column. It was far more regal looking than the Ghouls and taller than the Casters, even with the lower half of its body still embedded in the black ooze.

The boss monster stared back at the group through its five hollow eyes. It reared its horned head back as pinpricks of red light shone from the back of its empty eye sockets. It locked on to the intruders, a howl forming at the bottom of its throat.

Allen mentally reached out for its nametag since it was still too far away to see.

Name: Captor of Gloom

Undead – Monster – Level 100

“It’s a full undead,” Christopher said, likely having pulled up the boss’ name tag at the same time. “We don’t have a Priest, a Paladin, or even a Dawn Mage. Amelia’s healing is Arcane, not Life attuned. Killing it will be difficult.”

The Captor howled into the cave, magic forming at its fingertips. Kenneth and Amelia both flinched at the sound, the former taking a step back.

Ty chuckled. “That’s not actually true,” he said, pointing a thumb at his chest. “I’ve only got one skill, but its tier five.”

“You have the Paladin Job?” Christopher asked, looking surprised.

“Yeah, and the skill is Impure Siphon. You all know what it does at tier five, right?”

The professor nodded along with Allen and Amelia. It was a fairly basic Paladin skill that removed death energy from a target, pulling it into the caster instead. If used on Undead, it would weaken them while vitalizing any living being.

“W-what should I do?” Kenneth asked.

“Stay out of the way,” Allen said and glanced over at Camila. “Camila,” he said. The Berserker whipped her head to face Allen while the tip of her greatsword trembled uncontrollably. “Attack with me. Fast. Don’t touch black. Go for the head.”

The only indication that she had understood was a low growl.

“Provide fire support; focus on anything that isn’t the boss,” Christopher added behind Allen’s back.

“Oh, okay. I can do that.”

The boss howled again and the pool of blood below it writhed and bubbled. More shapes formed into Shade Ghouls that started hissing and shrieking as soon as their heads had taken form.

Firebolts and streaks of Christopher’s miasma flew at the Ghouls before they could even leave the pool of blood. Without hesitation, Allen activated Heavy Accelerate and shot forward. With a single step he flew into the pit, landing a third of the way to the center.

Spells continued to fly over his head as he used the skill again to close the distance in another two steps. The Captor looked down at him, Allen’s head coming up to its sternum. It swiped one clawed hand after another, horizontal blades of darkness flying out at him.

Killer Instinct informed him of the moderate damage they would do in the split second before they would slice into his body. With his focus being tripled, Allen noticed the blades swerving away from him thanks to Christopher. He was able to dodge them and move in closer with another use of Heavy Accelerate.

Allen could hear Camila roar behind him, and he even felt a wave of power wash over him. For just a second, the Captor’s attention shifted to the Berserker, but that second was enough for Allen.

He used his skill for the fifth time and jumped over the pool of black ooze. His foot landed on a still-forming Shade Ghoul’s back and inertia caried him straight at the Captor’s face. Allen covered his knife in miasma just before he landed on the monster’s chest.

Killer Instinct gave him a grim prediction, but he pressed the attack anyway.

“One hundred damage reflected,” he thought, just as his fully overcharged Heavy Strike connected with the Captor’s upper body.

A burst of miasma flashed out from where Allen’s knife had struck the monster. The magic from the skill tore apart its insides, causing ruptures all over its body and a blowing hole the width of a baseball through its chest.

A moment later, the two slammed into the stone floor on the other side of the pool of sludge. Allen immediately pushed off the monster and flipped forward before it could tear into him. He slid to a stop, gritting his teeth through the backlash of his skill.

Camila shouted again and smashed into the Captor from above with her morning star, pulverizing its head like a ripened grape. A fireball exploded in the puddle behind her, tearing into he Shade Ghouls as they formed from the ooze.

Allen clutched his chest as the magic settled. Using Heavy Strike with the full boost made his heart feel like it would explode. He turned his attention back to the Captor of Gloom. Despite the fact that its body seemed destroyed, it was far from finished. According to Killer Instinct, his attack had taken less than a third of the boss’ HP, and it could regenerate.

Camila brought her weapon above her head again, but a burst of black miasma suddenly shot out from the Captor’s flattened body. The magic struck the Berserker like a truck, flinging her into the wall surrounding the pit.

Then the Captor started to shake. Its body spasmed as the black blood and gore reformed.

Allen stood up slowly, already down to a quarter of his mana. “Alright then.”