The entire room began to shift around them. The path they had eventually been forced to follow here, had already started to close behind them. After the area was fully enclosed, energy was gathering and rotating at incredible speeds. The chairs, golden floors, and the decorations seemed to be stripped into a fine energy, leaving the area they were standing in, now a colorless landscape. Looking outside of the dome, the rest of the room hadn't been untouched either.
The color had been stripped from everything, with the furniture and other decorations having been completely destroyed leaving the room entirely barren.
All of it seemed to be slowly collecting into a vaguely human shape several meters in front of the trio. As if tearing open a portal, A being seemed to crawl its way out of the spiraling energy, slowly forming faster and faster as it moved away from the source. Owen stared wide eyed, it looked surprisingly like a mannequin, but slightly off. Each of its limbs seemed to have too many joints.
One second it would look like its arms and legs were too long, the next too short. Everything about it rubbed him the wrong way. Trying one last time to see if there was any chance of escape, Owen looked at the boss fight countdown, right as it hit 0 seconds left.
Peggy and Myra both took defensive stances, while Owen moved in front of them and pointed his spear. Instead of the boss attacking it began to pace back and forth, before tearing off one of its arms without any fanfare. Before anyone had a chance to shout in surprise, the arm had grown back and the arm the boss had torn off begin to shift into the shape of a chair.
"What brings me back here after all this time?" The voice was a whisper, but everyone there heard it clearly. None of them said anything as they just stared, confused as to what they were supposed to do. None of them had had to fight an enemy with any level of intellect even close to a human before and having only been around the system for barely two days, none of them were ready to be the first to attack either.
Since none of them were talking the boss monster continued. "I am known as a herald of the Zodiac. Why have you entered this place and why does it appear so desolate?" "Um hi, I'm Owen and these two are some friends I've recently met. We are currently inside of a thing called a tutorial. We got a message saying that we found a hidden boss fight and then you showed up." Owen made sure that if any attacks were thrown that he should be able to intercept them before either Myra or Peggy were hit.
He felt a strong smack on the back of his head, no doubt from Myra since he had mentioned it was supposed to be a boss fight.
"Interesting!" The heralds voice boomed through the chamber. "I've been brought back for children's games? I and every other herald has reached the peak of power! How could we possibly be considered a mere boss by the system now." There was a brief pause and the room stopped shaking. "Oh," The herald seemed to deflate as it sat down hard into the chair made from its arm, the chamber floor cracking under the force.
Owen shot back a quick glance to Peggy and Myra both had all of the color drained out of there face. Owen didn't blame them either, he felt like he was looking down the barrel of a smoking gun. The sound of laughing caused Owen to dart his head back as the Boss had started slapping its knee while laughing hysterically.
"I see I am merely an echo of what I once was, which means I have a chance to start over, just so long as I win." It turned its blank face towards the three of them and Owen felt a shiver run down his spine.
Without giving himself a second to think, he tried using Polymath's Keen eye.
*The Herald of the Zodiac, Level 10. This enemy can shift into any animal under the zodiacs power, using that animals strength. If killed in one of the forms, the Herald will temporarily lose access to that form, if killed in each of the 12 forms, the Herald's connection is cut off from the Zodiac and it will die.*
Surprised at the amount of information this time, Owen couldn't help but smile they had a chance now, even if it was pretty much guaranteed they would die. He quickly shared the panel as he expected the boss to charge but it had paused right as Owen had scanned it. "Interesting, you have some relation to the Emperor's inheritance. I will save you for last then."
Owen was confused for a moment before jumping in front of his friends, but no attack had been sent, instead a barrier from the dome reached down and encapsulated Owen before he had a chance to move. The herald then turned his attention away from Owen and faced his friends. "Come," the herald spoke, as it shifted into a tiger.
Electricity raced up and down the length of the tiger's claws as it raced towards Myra. She activated her breastplate, causing an enormous snake to appear and strike. It was effortlessly dodge by the tiger as it continued its rush. Peggy came dashing in from the side and made a series of strikes that tore into the side of the tiger. Changing its focus, it turned but got struck from the other side, launching it into the barriered wall.
Myra was clutching her fist which had been destroyed from the force of her own punch. Instead of a tiger running at them now, a rat fell from the wall and began its chase, but as it drew closer it seemed to multiply in real time as one turned into a horde chasing down the two opponents. Myra took her other fist and slammed it down into the ground, causing it to splinter. Peggy's sword flashed and more than a dozen of the rats were sliced to ribbons.
Then the rats were on them, Myra was trying desperately to heal, while racing away from the swarm that had split off from chasing Peggy. Owen tried scanning all of them with his Polymath's keen eye. Finding the real one among the horde chasing Peggy, Owen shouted out that Myra was safe. One of the rats paused its chase and another barrier formed around Owen's mouth.
Knowing it was in her group, Peggy burned all of her mana at once, and her rapier moved as if made from light. Every single rat that had been chasing her was cut down in less than a second, giving both of them a breather. The Herald was immediately turned back into its original form and Owen grunted in surprise. It now looked like it was some weird cheese art, as the Herald had several holes missing from its main body. It transformed into a snake next, but that was its biggest mistake.
Peggy and Myra had been fighting in the desert area before this, and the only enemy they had had a chance to fight there had been snakes. It was quickly cut down, causing it to change forms into that of a dog, though that wasn't quite right. It was definitely a wolf, but following the zodiac, it had to technically be a dog.
"I'm completely out of mana," Peggy shouted, as they finished the fight against the wolf. "Yeah, I'm pretty much out of health, I'm not going to be able to burn through my normal abilities anymore." Knowing that their enemy could hear the state they were in was not a great move, and Owen immediately became worried. The herald hearing the bad state they were in changed into its dragon form next and charged at blinding speeds towards Peggy.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Right as it was about to slice her in two, Peggy turned her body slightly holding one of her hands weird. She turned into the attack the dragon launched and landed a heavy strike to the dragon's face. It crumpled like a sheet of paper. Peggy's wound almost immediately healed as it looked like she was channeling some ability, but the dragon had been done irreparable damage.
Owen was only able to stare in amazement as despite being low on resources, the two women fought perfectly together taking down the boss's each and every form.
A couple minutes later, both Peggy and Myra were bruised, beaten and smiling. All three of them knew that the Herald only had 2 forms left, the Monkey and the Rooster. They were confident, but still cautious. Each animal form so far had had some elemental form it could shift into and so far they had been able to dodge or block a majority of the attacks thrown their way.
Peggy was frustrated beyond belief, Owen had been the only one to have fought the monkey's before, so he could've given them a heads up but for whatever reason, it had chosen to set him aside for last. She knew he had already started to regret it, but it didn't look like he could back out now. The Herald began to approach as the rooster, but something was off.
She could see Owen writhing, but wasn't sharing his system message for some reason. Just as she turned her attention back to the rooster, she saw Myra charging in. She tried to yell to stop her, but couldn't before the most ear shattering scream echoed throughout the hall, "CRAW!" Stone ripped up from the ground and walls, with chips falling from the ceiling. Peggy watched Myra collapse almost instantly. She felt her own vision begin to blacken and despite trying to channel her health points it just seemed so much harder than usual.
Owen watched terrified, he had tried to share what his skill had said about the rooster, but the barrier seemed to be able to block it as well. He had tried to warn them and Peggy had seemed to get it at first, but then they had both collapsed. The rooster wasn't much better off as its own scream had cause its skin to tear from its body in many places. The Herald turned back into its main body and it was barely recognizable from its original form.
It was missing most of its main mass, and now its skin was stretched out across its body creating a horrible visage, trying to make it appear whole. It moved back to the chair it had created from its arm and merged it back into itself. "You have made strong companions, admirable. Despite them only being level 5, they were almost able to defeat me entirely."
Moving closer to where it had trapped Owen it sighed, "I don't have the power to hold you in place much longer, but if you are anything like the emperor, you wouldn't deign to speak with me after doing that to your friends."
Owen struggled in place trying to affirm the fact he didn't want to be speaking with the monster that had killed his friends. Tears were flowing down his face and his polymath skill wasn't working on them. "That skill you have inherited will only hold you back. It grants much knowledge, but it is not a skill the system is fond of. Your growth will be limited actively and knowledge will slowly become your only advantage, but with time even that will fall away."
"Avoid the fate of the your forefather and give it to me. I will disappear when you complete the challenge, but at least you will be free from fate." Owen stared in shock as a system window popped up.
*You have been offered a deal by the boss monster 'Herald of the Zodiac' Y/N?*
The barrier around his mouth disappeared first and Owen was dumbstruck. "I guess you aren't familiar with anything from my world, but I can tell that this is the most garbage reasoning and excuse to try and trick me into giving you my strongest skill. Which I hate to tell you, I have had for a little while now and have been able to level my stats at the same speed as before so yeah, no thanks."
The herald stared for a moment, its face just like a mannequin, but it twisted with Owen's worlds and rage filled its voice. "So be it!" It transformed into a monkey that Owen immediately identified.
*'Jeweled Monkey King Echo' Level 10. This enemy uses its tail as a weapon as much as it uses its staff. Has the ability to change location with any of its enemies at least 1 time every minute.*
He was thankful for the information, but something was definitely up with his skill. Despite his stats not getting higher it was giving him more and more information, despite the skill description not having changed. In the middle of his identify, the boss seemed to shake slightly, before swinging its staff with all the force it could muster.
Owen still wasn't able to move, the barrier held him in place, but right as the attack was about to hit, movement returned to him as the staff immediately broke his arm and sent him flying across the room. He channeled his HP as fast as possible, slowly feeling his arm begin to knit itself back together.
It spawned giant earthen spikes that were thrown and then batted with the back of the staff in Owen's direction. his agility and perception were high enough he was barely able to dodge through the barrage of attacks. He kept glancing to his fallen comrades, who were still out cold and groaned. Alright you got this, he tried to convince himself, but his couldn't get close without immediately getting clobbered to death.
He tried activation Polymath's keen eye again to see if it could make the Herald pause again, but it rushed at him instead. Expecting the same message as last time he went to close his menu, but saw an interesting change at the bottom of his menu.
*You have witnessed the Jeweled Monkey King echo fight and have been able to grasp some of the fighting style of the echo. Would you like to view the emperor defeating this type of enemy in battle? Y/N?*
The staff came swinging down towards Owen's head, but he selected yes right before it hit.
He saw a Monkey wearing what looked like royal garb fighting against the very enemy he had been locked in battle with moments before. As the echo swung its staff towards the head of the emperor, the emperor who was holding a spear just like Owen was, guided the swing away from his body using the the haft of the spear to help redirect the force. The echo then tried to make an earthen spike to force the emperor to make space between them.
Instead the emperor kicked his foot forwards into where the spike had been forming and swung his spear in a wide arc while taking one half step away. The echo was forced to stop its cast and stumbled to dodge the swing and as soon as it stumbled, the emperor moved forward with incredible speed, thrusting the spear through the neck of the echo. With the echo dead, the vision began to fade and Owen did his best to remember the pattern the emperor had moved through.
The swing that had been coming for his head was just barely redirected by Owen's spear as time sped back up to normal speed.
The staff crunched heavily into Owen's shoulder, as the attack wasn't quite deflected all the way. It sent him onto his knees, but channeling HP faster than he ever had before, he launched himself to his feet. He then saw the earthen spike begin to form in the hand of the boss as it prepared an uppercut, but Owen stamped down hard into the palm of the Herald causing the spike to form in his foot, but making it unable to be moved easily.
Despite the pain Owen just kept channeling his health hoping it would last and he made the swing with his spear. Like magic the boss stumbled back for half a second, but without even realizing he had done it, Owen channeled mana to his feet, arms and spear. Moving faster than he ever had before, his spear was met with no resistance and it cut like butter through the neck of the herald. His legs and arms looked like and over cooked hotdog, as the skin had split in several places, exposing muscle in some places and bone in others.
The Herald of the Zodiac fell back a couple steps, the spear still lodged in its neck. Collapsing into the floor, the ground cracked once more as it slowly changed back from its final zodiac animal, into its original form. There was barely any substance left to it, its body had gone from an almost pearl white to a dark gray. It tried to speak as Owen drew close, but he didn't have time for any closing monologues.
Dragging his spear out of the boss monster's neck at an angle, the monster died unceremoniously. He didn't bother to look at his notifications yet. He moved over to Peggy and Myra and checked their pulse. Both checked fine and he forced a smile to his lips, "I need to sleep." As soon as the thought crossed his mind he chose to look at one system page, choosing to skip past the notifications.
*You have 26 out of 500 health points. You have 0 out of 900 mana points.*
"Not even close at all." He said, then collapsed onto the floor completely asleep.