The monstrous hydra had left a path of utter destruction in its wake as it relentlessly pursued Arthur – its many maws all salivating viscous black phlegm at the thought of devouring its elusive prey.
Arthur had run for his life for hours on end before he had realised that the monster wouldn’t lose track of him, the world boss had Arthur firmly in its sights and thus it was always only a matter of time until it once again got close enough to unleash more and more devastating attacks on him.
After Arthur realised the ultimate futility of running, he resolved himself to the fact that he’d need to actually fight against the colossal mythical monster, or he’d only exhaust himself and end up as dead as could be.
However, his hopes of dealing any real damage to the monster were almost instantly shattered, quite literally, as when he managed to strike at the monster’s side with his dagger – the blade almost disintegrated in his hand, leaving nothing but a scratch on the monster’s skin.
He’d endured another blow from the monster after this as if it were the punishment for his arrogance in thinking sincerely that his puny attack would work. Regardless, the blow sent him flying backwards, breaking a bone or two as his body collided against a number of different trees, but luckily the monster was kept from delivering a second, likely killing, blow by the sudden appearance of a 15m long centipede monster that struck out at it.
Arthur had seen this kind of interaction almost a dozen times by now. The world boss seemed to not only send chills of fear down the spines of sentient users like Arthur, but also lit up the danger senses of lesser local bosses whose territory the adolescent hydra, in its pursuit of Arthur, fragrantly trespassed into. And, just as with the last 12 boss monsters who’d fought against the hydra, the giant centipede soon found its body being torn apart by the numerous jaws of the hydra.
Arthur used this moment of the hydra being distracted to open up the weapon shop once again, and in sheer desperation, he purchased the Spirit Weapon – not caring at the moment just how damn expensive the weapon was. For, this was a life or death scenario and he had more important things to worry about than whether or not he was being fiscally responsible.
After screaming at the follow-up prompt that he wanted the weapon to be a dagger, the system prompt disappeared, and a second later, Arthur caught the falling dagger with his battered right hand. It felt very comfortable in his grip.
Though, the dagger was oddly primitive in its design, with its blade almost looking as though it were made out of a monster’s tooth. Yet, Arthur did not have much time to marvel at its cave-man-esque design and construction as the monster quickly turned its attention away from the now very dead giant centipede, and towards Arthur once again.
Arthur did all that he could, and bolted.
The old butler quickly found himself falling into a pattern. He would run, find an advantageous place where he could get in an attack on the monster with his dagger, and then he’d unleash a single attack on it, causing only minor damage to the hydra, and then he would flee as fast as he could. Always praying to the heavens above that he didn't get hit more than twice, otherwise, he would certainly die. And so the cycle continued over and over again, for hours upon hours.
He was being kept alive thanks to a mix of his Battle State perk, as well as his abnormally high cultivation for his level. Yet, even so, after almost a full day of engaging in hit-and-run attacks against the hydra, the titanic monster showed absolutely no signs of being truly injured. Yet, Arthur kept the burning hope of success alive by studiously noting that the small cuts he had inflicted with his new weapon had yet to be healed – an oddity that Arthur believed was perhaps the only sign that indicated that he might even have a chance at making it out of this encounter alive.
As not only was it starting to dawn on him just how long he’d need to keep this up if he wanted to bring down the monster like this, but his body was also quickly reaching its limits and Arthur suspected that soon enough he’d be too tired to be able to make it out alive from one of his hit and run attacks.
Yet, there was no time for rest. No time for recovery. He had to keep up his attacks, or he feared that the monster would heal the damage he’d already done, making the last 24 hours of effort totally pointless, and wiping any hope Arthur had of success off the face of the Earth.
A part of him recalled his battle with the first elemental bear those many weeks ago. He remembered how it had been his sudden increase in cultivation that had saved his guts, and he had the stray thought that maybe here too his insane cultivation could save him. However, he doubted even if he got a big boost from reaching the next major realm, the [Lesser Spirit] realm, he would be able to deal any major damage to the hydra – it was just too powerful. Though, he thought to himself, only time would tell.
The hideous form of the hydra emerged into the clearing, and Arthur surged forward – his blade ready to slash at one of the hydra’s necks. The giant monster was powerful but was comparatively slow when compared to Arthur, so it didn’t react in time to the sneak attack and soon Arthur was clinging to the monster’s neck as tried to bury his dagger into the monster’s skin.
The monster did its best to try and shake him off, but for some reason, it didn’t try and bash its neck against a tree or attempt to bite at him with one of its other heads. This indicated to Arthur something that should have probably been obvious, the hydra’s weakness was also one of its greatest strengths, its 5 long snake-like heads.
Arthur soon discovered just how right he was, as his new blade found a slight gap in the monstrous creature’s scaley neck, and he plunged his dagger right into the chunk in the defences – his weapon soon burying into extremely soft interior flesh.
The hydra let out a blood-curdling screech of pain and the head Arthur was clinging to suddenly fell drastically limp, sending Arthur hurtling to the forest floor below. His instincts started screaming at him to run, as all 4 of the heads were looking at him with sheer fury and bloodlust in their eyes, and all of a sudden, their long serpentine necks began to glow and crackle with an untold quantity of magical power.
Arthur soon scrambled to his feet and bolted away as fast as he could – not even bothering to keep track of which direction he was heading, for if he knew anything, it was that he would not be able to survive being hit by whatever the hell kind of attack the monstrous hydra had just charged up. However, by the time he had started running, it was already too late.
Soon, a humungous beam of power shot out in his direction. The laser-like beam was dozens of metres wide, and almost a dozen metres tall, and it burrowed a path of unfathomable destruction as it shot forwards – instantly vaporising all that existed before it, a whole kilometre-long stretch of forest was rendered to ash. And, Arthur, well, he felt his back evaporate and the world began to swim in his vision before everything went black.
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Lucas had never been in so much pain. His body was covered in gashes, his bones were all horrifically broken, and his internal organs were damaged beyond what any normal human could survive. Yet he didn’t really care about the pain he was experiencing, nor did he care about the system prompts that had appeared in his vision upon killing yet another monster, for his mind was filled with only one emotion, dissatisfaction.
For, during the many hours he’d spent out in the forest hunting monsters, he’d barely thought about anything but fighting, and he’d longed for nothing except for the rush of ecstasy he had always received in the past when he’d finally defeated a monstrous opponent.
Yet even though the Magma-Elemental Bear he’d been fighting desperately with for him to get his wounds had now been dead for over half an hour, the rush he’d received after dealing the final blow had been… utterly pathetic. The rush was comparable to receiving the sugary intake from eating a slice of bread when you’d spent the last few hours eating nothing but decadently sugar-coated sweets and expected that kind of sugary intake.
Lucas just couldn’t think of an explanation as to why the rush had been so unbelievably lacklustre. The bear had been almost level 50, and the fight had been the most difficult one yet as Lucas’ spear had finally met its match – with the bear’s skin being so unbelievably tough that the spear barely penetrated if not enhanced with a skill. So, it therefore made no sense for him to get such a meagre rush when he’d put in his best performance and the monster had been so tough.
The implications still plagued him an hour or so later when he had finally healed enough to stand on his two feet again, even if not very stably. He’d learned from this experience that system healing varies wildly in its speed for someone like him who didn’t have the bodily healing perk. He wondered if he should try and get the perk but decided he’d do all the thinking about stuff like that later when he wasn’t in imminent danger of being attacked whilst he was so miserably weak.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
So, he stumbled back in the direction he’d come from at his current top speed, aiming to hopefully get back to the Imperium’s base before nightfall. And, if he got lucky, without needing to engage in any kind of fight. Yet his newly nurtured pessimism told him he shouldn’t expect to ever get so lucky.
He felt a slight tug at his heart when a stray hope that he’d return to the city and find his grandpa there waiting for him crossed his mind. Yet, Lucas suppressed the hope as best he could, semi-wishing that a monster would suddenly appear so that at least his mind would be distracted from thinking about his grandfather.
His wishes were granted an hour later when a pack of strange pitch-black wolves spotted his hobbling form and correctly identified him as easy prey for their numerous and quite strong group. He cursed, as though he was in slightly better shape than he had been an hour earlier, he definitely did not feel confident enough to take on the pack of wolves all by himself. So, he did the only thing he could think of and ran as fast as he could.
However, after he had fallen into an almost trench-deep ditch that he couldn’t easily get out of due to his injuries, the wolves very quickly formed a circle around him. They gnashed their teeth above him, all looking at him hungrily as they knew they had him trapped in a terrible position. Two wolves quickly jumped down and joined him in the ditch, both coming at him at once, one from his left, one on his right.
Lucas bashed the wolf coming at him from his left with the bottom of his spear’s shaft, breaking bones in its skull and stopping it in its place before he used the momentum to then thrust his spear rightwards – spearing the other wolf in the neck just before it could chomp down on Lucas’ shoulder. However, before he could move his spear to finish off the other wolf in the trench with him, another wolf jumped straight down at him – forcing Lucas to launch himself rightwards.
Yet, he landed horribly, and soon enough another wolf was jumping at him from above. Lucas managed to spear the animal, killing it, but, due to his poor position, he also sustained a new injury to his weapon-wielding arm – a large claw slash opening up close to his shoulder.
Lucas tried his best to fight off the pain, but his strength was quickly diminishing due to his experiencing excessive blood loss, with many of his old injuries opening up again. Then, it appeared. Its presence caused the wolves to halt their movements and look at it for its approval to continue, before slowly retreating as the monster approached Lucas alone.
The pitch-black mega wolf was almost 1.5 times the size of the monster that Lucas had helped his grandfather kill only a day earlier. Its body was covered in bulging muscle, and its cold predatory green eyes told Lucas everything he needed to know about what was to happen next. Its teeth were the size of his spearhead, but Lucas somehow suspected that the monster’s teeth were far sharper than his weapon was, and everything pointed to the fact that soon they would be used to tear Lucas' body apart.
Even if Lucas activated his Abyssal Spearman active Class-Skill, Decaying Thrust, he very much doubted the monster would take any real damage from it. Not only was Lucas weakened physically by his injuries, but the monster’s hide also was almost certainly going to prove to be far tougher than anything Lucas had faced so far – with it probably being far tougher than the bear’s. Plus, even if his first attack landed and miraculously killed the monster, which was beyond unlikely, the likelihood that he too died immediately after was near 100%.
However, before the monster got too close, a shrill war cry from above made the big wolf turn its attention away from Lucas for a moment. Then, 3 dead wolves were unceremoniously thrown into the ditch, their corpses indicating that whatever or whoever had killed them had done so with sheer physical force alone, with no slash or stab wounds in sight.
Upon seeing its pack dying above, the large monster scrambled anxiously to try and get out of the trench. Its humungous paws dug away at the trench walls. However, thinking that he may as well try and get in a hit on the monster, Lucas used this moment of it not looking at him to lunge forward with his spear, driving the weapon’s sharp head into the monster’s flank – Decaying Thrust active.
The monster howled out in pain but didn’t stop trying to get out of the trench – clearly, correctly, identifying whatever it was that was killing its pack above to be the greater long-term threat than its would-be attacker within the trench. However, as soon as it made it over the edge of the trench, it was somehow sent hurtling back into the trench – crashing into the ditch’s side, causing dirt to fly everywhere and cover its pristine black fur.
Then, the sound of a war cry was accompanied by the strangest sight Lucas had yet seen. A Japanese woman with enormous bulging muscles flew through the sky towards the wolf monster’s body, and as soon as she collided with its body – she clasped onto the monster’s thick fur as tightly as she could manage, her knuckles turning white. And, considering the monster’s subsequent inability to get her off of it no matter how hard it tried, the woman's grip was very tight.
The wolf behemoth let out hoarse howls of pain as a strange, yet ominously familiar black Qi flowed from the woman’s body into the wolf’s – clearly causing a lot of sustained damage to the humungous monster. Yet, even so, the monster did its best to try and resist death for as long as it could, which was about 10 minutes or so, until, finally, the damage proved to be too much, and it collapsed. Dead.
Lucas was about to speak when for the first time he caught a full glimpse of the warrior woman’s face and his body froze. His mind short-circuited. And he then passed out, his eyes rolling into the back of his head.
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Maximus was in somewhat of a sour mood. In the last few weeks, he’d officially out-levelled his favourite dungeon. Plus, his favourite sports team had lost a multi-versal tournament for the 5th time in a row in a humiliating defeat only hours earlier. He’d lost a lot of money to that damn cocky prick from the 9th Brigade.
Oracles are horseshit. He thought bitterly to himself, wondering why he had trusted that damn hag in the first place.
However, his mind was soon brought back to reality as his ship's interface flashed at him. Maximus sighed dramatically as his comm system continued to inform him that the Grand Emperor was trying to contact him. Feeling duty-bound to answer, especially after putting it off for weeks as he had, the over-mighty general accepted the emperor’s call.
“Your Grand Majesty. This servant is ready to hear and obey.” Maximus said, his voice serious and his words sincere.
“How are the Colonisation efforts? Any fortuitous or interesting developments?” A deep and commanding voice, full of the unchallengeable majesty and authority that only a [Saint] realm master cultivator and above could muster, replied.
“The Colonisation Efforts are progressing well, Your Majesty. As for any developments of interest to you, Your Majesty, this servant can happily report that nothing truly of note has happened since the downing of the [Vermin] grade mothership an Imperial month or so ago.”
“Excellent. I commend you for your due diligence and congratulate you on your success in the endeavour I assigned to you.” The emperor said, pausing briefly, before then speaking about the topic that he had almost certainly actually called to discuss, “Maximus, I ask that you hasten the integration of your assigned sector with all due haste, for you are hereby formally invited to attend my son’s 10th birthday celebration in 6 months’ time.”
“As you wish, your majesty. The sector shall be ours before the month’s end, and I shall be in the capital shortly after.” Maximus replied, the comms channel cutting off quickly after.
The emperor was a man who liked to keep all conversations on point and had never been one for any kind of small talk – only indulging in less than relevant conversations when the nature of his station demanded it, like when he talked to diplomats from foreign nations or used official communications links to communicate with important figures within his Empire.
“Boy!” Maximus suddenly shouted, gaining a striking amount of amusement as he saw that his booming voice startled his assistant into standing frightened at attention, where previously he had been hunched over, tapping away at his tablet.
“Tell the Majors to accelerate their onboarding processes, I want complete control of this sector to be indisputably ours by the end of the month. Is that understood?”
The boy nodded his understanding, before stuttering out, “Sir, I shall certainly do as you say but… but I think Major Theodora’s forces will be insufficient to deal with their charge without significant reinforcements.”
Maximus smirked, “Those natives are still putting up a good fight, eh? That is quite interesting.”
The boy shook his head frantically, before stopping, stroking his chin, and then coming out with, “Yes, that’s a part of it. But the bigger problem facing the Major’s forces are the… ei… 7 world-boss monsters that have appeared on the planet’s surface.”
Maximus’ smirk turned into a frown. Even he, a man who’d lived for centuries and who’d personally overseen the colonisation of millions of planets, had rarely ever heard of a planet generating 7 world bosses. Usually, the average planet only generated a single World-Boss monster upon initialisation – with the monster normally becoming the chief obstacle to most colonisation efforts – the natives not usually being all that impressive. It was considered the height of unluckiness for any single planet to generate 4 world-boss monsters, so just how unlucky was Theodora to be assigned to a planet where 7 of the Titans spawned?
In fact, Maximus was pretty sure that this was some kind of record-breaking unluckiness. The previous record holder for the largest number of world bosses he’d ever personally heard of spawning on any one given planet was 5. He was about to submit a quick report to the imperium about this new development when he suddenly froze. Maximus had finally absorbed the full implications of his assistant’s words, and he asked grimly, “On its surface?”
The boy gulped and nodded, “Yes. A team on the ground confirmed that a giant… world eater type monster is currently coiled around the planet’s core – though we suspect the monster is currently sleeping hence why there have been relatively few problems so far. The World-Boss is a named entity it seems, with our scans revealing it to be a snake-like monster called Jörmungandr, a near-godlike monster spoken of in some of the legends of the native people, and its level currently sits at around 310.”
Maximus could not muster the words to reply. 8 world bosses. One of which was a world-eater who already surpassed the vast majority of people in level, which meant it surpassed even more people in terms of raw power. Maximus knew for certain that if he faced off against this Jörmungandr, he would lose in an instant – as was the nature of things when dealing with a world boss, an individual user of the same level was pitifully insufficient to even come close to killing one.
“If we don’t deal with this titan soon, there will soon be a 100th Cataclysm-ranked monster in the multiverse.” Maximus muttered to himself before he turned to his assistant and said, “Send all of our reserve and vanguard units to assist Major Theodora’s forces, Have her prepare to evacuate her men as well as many natives as possible when I give the orders.”
The boy nodded before a flash appeared on both of their interfaces, and both looked at their screens in astonishment.
One of the 8 world bosses of Earth had just died.