The 20th floor battle was easy. The boss didn't seem to have much in the way of any physical attack resistance so it seemed like my single hit annihilation streak had begun once again.

As I expected, the item drop from the boss didn't disappoint me.

Grimoire of Bushery

Bushery was one of the few mages to discover the deeper secrets of dark arts.

Spell:

Learn    MP 10

Learn the secrets of the spell contained within this Grimoire.

(Once this spell has been used, the item is destroyed).

I held the book in my hand and chanted.

"Learn." (Me)

New Skill Learned

Dark Blow   MP 2000

Shoot a Ball of Darkness at the target.

Side Effects:

If any incoming Dark Magic collides with the [Dark Blow], the Magic Damage is absobed. If two [Dark Blow]s collide, the one from the user with lesser damage gets abosorbed.

Any player hit by the [Dark Blow] has a chance to be inflicted with the abnormal status [Blind] which is inversely proportional to that player's affinity with dark magic.

Restrictions:

Effects reduced by 20% under sunlight.

"Now I get a magic attack!?" (Me)

I was almost tempted to go back to the [Aqua Octo] on the previous floor to try out this spell on it, but in the end I decided to move on.

Though, as I looked at the description of the spell, I was getting more and more excited. I finally had a magic spell and it was so awesome! I immediately wanted to try it out, but I decided to use it on enemies instead of just firing it at a random space due to its high MP consumption.

As I got out of the boss room to the 21st floor, the first enemy I encountered was sorta different.

[Greater Black Skeleton LVL 150]

Till the 10th floor, it was only [White Skeleton]s and then [Grey Skeleton]s started appearing from the 11th floor. Now there are these, the black ones from here on out. 

(So my theory was correct. There is, in fact, a new monster type every 10 floors.)

There were 2 of those skeletons, normal ones. No soldier, no archer, no mages, nothing. If the pattern follows, I'll meet those after the 25th floor.

These would be perfect targets to try out my new skill.

"Dark Blow." (Me)

This time, there was no shouting on top of my lungs. I simply faced my palm towards my opponents and had said the name of the skill.

In the next moment, a huge ass ball of darkness emerged from my palm and shot off at the two skeletons. The ball of darkness was big enough to engulf a grown up man. 

Surprisingly, when my attack hit its target, nothing happened. I was even more surprised when my attack actually passed though its target with nothing remaining behind. Complete annihilation. Even then, the ball of darkness kept moving forward.

I couldn't see ahead of it, so I couldn't tell how many opponents it defeated. I just kept following close behind in a jog. It was only after a curve in the path of the [Dark Blow], that it came in contact with the dungeon wall and dissipated.

Unlike the other magic attacks like [Fire Ball] or [Water Ball], the [Dark Blow](or [Dark Blow]) didn't make any impact on contact with the target and only did damage. The [Fire Ball], for example, would have burst like a small bomb on impact. I surmised this as the reason why it continued on and on and only dissipated at the wall of the dungeon. The wall was something you could 'destroy' but not 'damage'. Like, it didn't have an HP bar, so no concept of damage but you can destroy it to produce rocks and debris or whatever.

(Phew.)

The experiment went better than I expected. The [Dark Blow] certainly did come in contact with and pulverise monsters in its path. I was sure of this because I heard a *ding* in the middle of it, indicating a level up. On these higher floors, it was becoming much easier to level up. It was 1 or 2 levels each floor, and I expected it to grow as I climed up higher over the floors.

After that, I continued on till I reached the 25th safe room before quitting.

I tried the [Dark Blow] in the boss fights on my journey. The result was: most of my attacks didn't hit. The [Dark Blow], though incredibly powerful, was actually incredibly slow and thus easy to dodge. And when I say 'incredibly slow', I mean it in relative terms. The attack was fast enough to match a speeding vehicle but if you compare it to the speeds a Boss Monster can run at, 'incredibly slow' seems like the correct phrase. Thus, I mostly had to make use of my superior speed to confuse the enemy and launch the attack from a blind spot. Even though it was hard to make the attack hit, but when it did hit, the results were most glorious: Complete Annihilation. Even the bosses couldn't survive for another one.

But that wasn't the end of it. I tried mixing up my [Dark Blow] with [One Hit] and result was..... Its hard to say if it made any difference, since the monsters still died in a dingle hit. Even if the damage was 9 times, I couldn't really tell. Though the mana for both the skilla independently WAS consumed, I confirmed it. There's only one solution to the problem: find a monster that doesn't die in one hit. And the next day, on the 25th floor I found just the thing.

[Hydra   LVL 300]

It was the legendary beast, Hydra, known to be able to fight on par with the dragons(according to mangas and animes anyway).

The one in front of me had 5 heads, completely identical. Just like most of the floor bosses, this one was black too, except the black wasn't evenly distributed in intensity. Some parts of its body were darker while other were...not, that dark. For example, imagine a panda with a lightish black where it should be white. This makes up for its body. The heads where lizard like and the base of them had a thick line of the light black color running all the way down through its long neck to its body.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Lastly, it had a long tail, longer than its neck with the similar light black line running to its tip, except this one got thinner as it progressed as in proportion to the thickness of the tail itself.

Oh, and don't forget those eyes! The dull yellowish, evil looking, thin long eyes. The characteristic slit pupil of a lizard.

Phew, I think that's the longest description of a boss I've ever given. Well, the boss this time is very patient and is waiting for me to move first, so I had a lot of time.

Hmm, I'm almost tempted to set up camp here and start cooking just to see its reaction. Well, that may be going a little too far.

I attacked first with a [Dark Blow] as that is the only ranged attack I have.

The boss took the attack head on. The boss this time had 2 HP bars and my attack shaved off 1 completely.

"ROOOAAAAAARRRRR" (Boss)

Mr. Boss Monster let out a huge roar. It probably didn't expect that much damage.

Then the boss Hydra's body let out a weird light and the HP bar started filling up.

At the same time, the boss started moving.

The ground shook at the boss moved, but even then it moved quite fast. At a little distance away from me, it stopped its motion and while rotating its body.

*SWISH* 

I dodged an incredibly fast tail swipe by jumping up, a mistake. In the air, where I had nowhere to dodge, I was attacked by two of its heads from each side. Normally, I could only defend against one of them. But I had the [Massive Mace].

Since the center of mass of the mace was far towards its end, I swung a mighty swing towards one of the heads, thus also changing my direction of motion mid air. 

*BURST*

The head that collided with the mace burst and I got showered in some sort of black liquid that I assume is it's blood. 

I landed on the ground as the boss gave another roar at the loss of its head. I took a distance to analyse the situation but the boss came in attacking again with another tail swipe. This time I jumped backwards away from the range of its heads. One of the heads opened its mouth and in the next moment, I could see a [Dark Blow] coming towards me.

"Dark Blow" (Me)

I attacked with one of mine as well. According to the description, the weaker one would be consumed only to further strengthen the stronger one. As expected, mine was stronger and consumed the boss's. What? My stats are that close to that of a LVL 600 player! Don't call me overconfident!

As the boss's HP hadn't regenerated fully, the aftermath of the magic attack left the Boss with less than half of one of its HP bar.

The boss gave another roar and this time, [Black Skeletons] and [Grey Skeletons] started rising up from the ground. 

"Annoying." (Me)

These small fry were really annoying in that if I killed them first, my best item of the day would be wasted. 

Unfortunately, it didn't look like I had much of a choice since the boss retreated to the back, prabably to regenerate its health. I could have tried to bypass them to head for the boss, but the number of skeletons was too large. There was no way they wouldn't be caught in a stray attack and die first.

"Oh well.. One Hit." (Me)

I called out the name of my mightiest skill and after 2 seconds......

"Dark Blow." (Me)

This combination took off 6000 MP at once and I wasn't even sure if it works.

The dozens of skeletons in front of me were completely annihilated and my attack made its way to the boss. Though I couldn't see the skeletons in front of the [Dark Blow], I clearly saw the boss before the hit due to its humongous frame. And it was enough to witness its HP bar one of which was full and the other was about quarter. My normal [Dark Blow] wouldn't have been enough to completely wipe out that much HP so I would know if the combination worked it the boss died. Unexpectedly, the boss..

.

.

.

dodged it! 

(Okay, I completely denied the possibilty that it could dodge.)

I could see the 4 remaining heads of the boss in a circle with a large gap in between where my magic attack passed through.

Even though my attack took out alot of skeletons, there were even more remaining. Without wasting a moment, they started attacking.

"Tch." (Me)

There were just too many.

Each swing of my mace took out 4-5 skeletons. In a few seconds, just as the numbers seemed to have diminished to a large extent, the boss joined the fray again. This time though, its HP was not full. 

(I see.)

The second HP bar was a little more than half full and its head that I previously destroyed hadn't regenerated.

That made sense. For a party which couldn't deal large enough damage to take out the boss in one go would use this method: Destroy its heads one by one.

The destruction of one of its head shaved off a part of its HP permanently. Destroying all 5 should do the trick.

Ah, but I'm just too lazy.

"One Hit." (Me)

As the boss came running, I backed off enough to let my skill charge for 2 seconds.

Once the boss was close enough, I launched my attack. At point-blank range.

"Dark Blow." (Me)

This time my attack hit and the boss's HP disappeared completely.

(Looks like it was successful.)

After that, I made quick work of the remaining skeletons and collected any items I found useful and moved on.