The black fog rapidly reformed behind Sofia, but she was focused on the monster inside the chest.
I can’t get enough distance. If I throw an explosive so close, with the corridor I’m in being the only place for all the force to go… I’ll just kill myself. Piercing it is, then.
But what if it’s not enough?
Hmm…
That could work…
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Half an hour later, Sofia was about ready to go. The bone slates she had been lugging around the dungeon until now were nowhere to be seen.
Such a stupid plan.
Pareth stood a good few steps behind Sofia with his shield ready. He could not stand in front of her or he would be in the path of the bolt, the corridor was just that narrow, basically just a bit larger than the wooden chest Sofia was about to blast to another dimension.
It would be nice if that could just kill whatever’s hiding in there.
Mana : 417 100 / 417 100
I have to keep at least twenty seconds of [Runeforged Overlord] third tier.
[Runeforged Overlord] ♢ :
Tier 3 (2 (1)% max mana per second; Requires the user to have wings) :
Successful attacks inflict a short lasting [Confusion]
Reduce all incoming damage by 20%
Omnidirectional free flight
Acceleration resistance
+124.5% Speed (Skill level /2)
+124.5% Strength (Skill level /2)
+124.5% Agility (Skill level /2)
It was such a pain to level up and I haven’t been using it except for the flight…
A quarter of my mana should do. Let’s just go for a 300000 piercing bolt.
It’s my first time doing a piercing this strong, I think.
With the plan all laid out in her head, and the chest at the edge of the black fog fifteen meters away, Sofia started channeling the bolt.
Blue lightning slowly formed in her hand. Unlike the explosive bolts, it was smooth and controlled from the start. Sofia’s mana fed the lightning more and more until it became bright like a miniature sun. The creature within the chest did not move.
Not showing yourself until the end. I don’t know if you’re dumb or overly confident.
As the Angel bolt was just about ready, Bookie’s one rat jumped off from Pareth’s shoulder and ran through the corridor, past Sofia, and jumping straight for the chest.
There was still no reaction, so the rat followed its orders, climbing the side of the chest and trying to open it.
The chest’s lid opened like it was powered by a springboard, it slid ever so slightly on the ground, destabilizing the rat, and it closed just as fast, crushing the small skeleton in a thousand pieces.
WHAT.
Long, sickly purple limb grew out of the ‘treasure’ chest, two arms from the sides and two legs from the bottom. It stood up.
There is no monster in the chest.
THE MONSTER IS THE CHEST!
Sofia released the lightning, which sent her reeling back, but she was caught by Pareth.
The chest ducked, but the bolt still struck. Instead of piercing the chest through the middle, it bore a semicylinder-shaped hole through the curved chest lid before crashing into the wall and releasing a burst of airborne electricity.
Not only did the chest monster survive, but it roared, its lid thrown back, revealing a gory inside full of teeth and blood.
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Sofia had no time to even be shocked at the monster’s ability to almost dodge the bolt, she simply followed her plan, cutting off Pareth’s main skull with her dagger, grabbing it and Bookie, activating the last tier of [Runeforged Overlord], and running back with all her might.
A monster who could survive a 300000 mana bolt upgraded with the charged ring of Zar was not something she could fight in her current condition. The monster charged at her, almost reaching the spot Sofia had just been standing on in a single step of its grossly elongated legs.
Cumulating all of her speed bonuses, Sofia was stupendously fast, and yet, the monster was right on her tracks. As she ran, the monster lunged out from the black fog, trying to hit Sofia with a flying kick.
Pareth’s [Flying shields of light] barely appeared in time to slow the kick just enough that Sofia could outrun it.
HOW FUCKING FAST IS THAT THING?!
If it could recover and do another kick like that first one again, it might just really lob off her head the next time.
Finally, Sofia made it to a section of the corridor with the walls covered in bone.
The right leg of the chest monster emerged from the fog again. Another kick.
Almost there!
As she reached the end of the bone-covered zone, Sofia jumped forward and controlled all of her remaining mana to eject it behind her.
An instant before the kick could reach her, a wall rose from the ground like a reverse guillotine, catching the leg. With a sickening crunch, the leg folded back onto the raised wall before sliding down it, amputated by the wall.
Sofia landed face-first on the ground, and she slid for tens of meters, her armor grinding against the ground as her momentum wore off.
Lying flat on the ground, Sofia tried to catch her breath. Running this fast was extremely hard on her stamina, but the monster was trapped, so she knew she was safe.
Finally managing to sit, she turned around. She was too far from the closed wall to see it because of the cursed black fog, but she could hear the mad roar of the chest creature.
“I can’t believe this worked.”
Bookie struggled, and Sofia let him go from under her arm. “Oh, sorry.”
Under her other arm was Pareth’s skull. Although he had been downsized by the dungeon, his weight was unchanged, so she could only carry the skull if she wanted to run at full speed while lifting him. Even just the skull was plenty heavy. Currently, he was not regenerating because Sofia had removed all the [Bone dominus] blessings, expressly to avoid him growing too heavy for her to carry while she ran.
She got to work applying Pareth’s blessing again before she even stood up, and his spine started to regrow at a visible pace.
“You’ll be back to business in just a minute. Let me carry you for a bit still.”
Sofia brought Pareth to the closed wall while Bookie followed. The bloodied monster’s cut leg was just lying there. The wall had closed so violently because the Engineer skeleton had adjusted it to. Under Sofia’s supervision, he had modified the trapped corridor in a few ways, firstly making the ‘doors’ close even faster than they already did, and also making the sensor ritual much harder to trigger. This was why she had needed to send all of her remaining mana out to activate it.
As Sofia approached closer to the wall, the corridor shook. The monster was hitting the wall. However, the wall was not budging, showing not even the smallest of cracks. The group had seen when fighting the sunless drones, the walls were truly impervious to all damage, even from the dungeon monsters’ attacks.
“You’re trapped in there buddy. No use trying to break the walls,” Sofia hailed.
There was no answer, the monster kept hitting the wall.
Not sentient, I guess?
Sofia bent over to grab the dismembered leg. It was shockingly hard and cold like ice. She could feel the broken bones inside.
Sir Scribe, any comments?
[Mimic leg]: The leg of a mimic chest, quite the unusual find. The mighty kick of the mimics have been the demise of a great many adventurers. Can be used as a decent makeshift weapon.
Mimic chest? The name does fit… Makeship weapon, huh?
Sofia glanced at the ugly yellow-nailed toes on the leg’s foot.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” she commented as she placed the leg against the wall.
The trapped corridor’s crushing walls were currently disabled, it was the last change Sofia had made the Engineer skeleton work on, it was meant to give Sofia time to negotiate with the monster in case it was capable of speech, which it was clearly not. Using [Bone Dominus] to move around the bones she had left inside of the trap’s mechanism, she released the crushing walls’ safety lock.
Sofia, Bookie, and Pareth could all hear the walls start closing.
The following fifteen seconds were filled with the monster’s screams, the cracking of wood, and the sound of crushed bones, and even despite knowing how horrendous the monster looked, Sofia couldn’t help but feel a bit shaken by the human-sounding screams.
Finally, they heard the low sound of the two walls meeting each other, then, silence.
‘You have defeated [Tall Mimic - Lv. 299 - Imprint Intact]’
Only 299?! It was as fast as the Destroyer!
And of course, just like all the Sunless drones, Imprint Intact. I guess in this dungeon they always come out intact. That’s a nice boon considering all the maluses we get…
Now to shift around the bones inside a bit more…
It was impossible to just reopen the doors, but to have them be locked a bit less tight by shifting some internal components with the bones she had left in the mechanism was possible, so Sofia did that. Using the newly formed gap between the wall and the ceiling, Bookie could summon the engineer back inside of the trap mechanism.
A minute later, the door wall opened, and the crushing walls behind also started to spread out, revealing the bloody mush stuck to them, remains of the Mimic.
“Think you can work these bones, bookie? They’re more than a bit broken but there should be no missing parts,” she asked as she threw the cut leg in with the rest. Since she had not used [Bone dominus] on them, unlike on the Destroyer, they might still be good to go.
Bookie seemed uncertain, but willing to try, which was not how he usually operated, but before he could do anything, Sofia noticed something buried in the bloodied remains.
“A glove?”
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