Rin cracked her neck to the side and walked into the clearing. The clearing which was large enough to fit five football fields, was devoid of the howling winds and snowfall of the forest. It was deathly quiet as her footsteps were the only sounds that echoed throughout the air.
As she neared the boss, it slowly rose to its four feet. It towered over Rin at a height of 4 meters and stared down at her. Its silver fur rippled as the sleek muscles under its skin were activated as Rin craned her neck back to match its gaze. The creature seemed to be analyzing her, almost as if a trace of intelligence was hidden within its eyes.
“Let’s play,” Rin said with a grin.
Raising her hand, she opened the fight by creating three magic circles and sent three lances hurtling towards the giant wolf's eye in quick succession.
The monster avoided two of the lances and was even was able to block the third that Rin had hidden behind the first two. It struck into the boss’s horn creating a small crack but was unable to do much else.
Snarling, the boss’s claws glowed white with power as it jumped into the air and slammed into the ground just in front of Rin. The ground fractured upon its landing as it slashed horizontally with its claws.
Knowing that a direct hit was probably going to be fatal, Rin jumped backwards at a speed on a completely different level with her increased agility points and narrowly avoided the wolf’s attack. However the boss gave her no time to rest and leapt forward again, slashing downwards with its claws towards the girl.
"Shit," she cursed as the boss was far more aggressive than she had thought.
Immediately, she created a pillar beneath her feet that launched her backwards. As she was in the air, a white strand of her own hair fell to the ground while the stone floor instantly exploded in front of her. What replaced the ground was a large crater along with dust and debris that floated into the air and clouded the view of both combatants. She was able to escape safely, however the shockwave of the attack had managed to reach her and sent her tumbling across the hard floor of the arena.
Getting to her feet, she spat out a mouthful of blood and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. Bursting out of the cloud of dust, the wolf didn't relent on its pursuit as Rin quickly began to run across the stone in a zigzag pattern.
At this point she was running her aura of ice at full throttle. The efficiency of her regeneration was pushed to its max as she created spikes and traps with her ice on her trail. She used anything that she had that could hinder it's movements.
She also added projectile attacks, primarily aiming at the eyes, but they were barely able to create a dent in the wolf’s thick hide. Nevertheless, Rin could tell her efforts were quite effective in slowing the creature. While she led the wolf around the clearing, her aura of ice had been active the entire time. Coating the stone in a thin layer of ice causing the wolf to slow down even further, while giving her even more speed to escape the creature.
Growing frustrated, the boss paused its chase and its eyes gleamed a slight red. It opened its jaw as a bright white ball began to form between its teeth.
Rin felt her body tense up at the familiar feeling of danger and quickly dove to her right. She looked back to the position that she was in mere moments earlier that now had a crater large enough for Rin to fit inside of.
She shivered at the sight then drew her attention back to the boss. It formed another ball between its jaws before she felt the same sensation of danger and dove to the side once more.
“Ranged attacks, fuck,” Rin gritted her teeth.
She pushed herself off the ground and jumped out of the way just as another orb of ice came flying towards her. Looking closely at the wolf, there appeared to be a silver lining for her as it seemed to be unable to fire another spell. The creature was panting heavily while the heavy aura around its body had lessened in pressure.
Rin used her identify skill to check the health of the wolf and her own status.
[Aspect of Boreas – lvl 20 – Chieftain]
HP: 4900/6500
Seeing the current stats of the boss, she was quite surprised as she hadn't expected her spells to do that much damage.
[Ice Mage – lvl 20]
HP: 430/800
MP: 290/1000
Her own status was fine as she could consistently cast a certain number of skills without dipping below critical levels of mana. What allowed her to achieve that was the synergy between her aura of ice and her passive regeneration skill. The stats that Rin had put into endurance also helped her greatly with dodging and avoiding the wolf’s relentless attacks.
The boss, seemingly having recovered its strength, bent its hind legs, and dug its claws into the icy stone floor as if they were butter. The chieftain of the dungeon sprung off the floor and leapt over the clearing in one fell bound. It moved so quickly that she didn't think it was possible for a mere level twenty boss to be so quick.
Unable to move her body in time she widened her eyes. Rin spent two hundred of her remaining mana stacking as many walls as possible in front. The boss crashed into the first, then the second, and finally the third. It lost a good amount of its momentum before its shoulder crashed into her.
She felt the impact of the attack course through her entire being. Her body was sent flying high into the air while the breath in her lungs was completely knocked out of her. While the wolf was unable to control the inertia of its massive body and crashed into the ground several tens of meters away from her.
HP: 190/800
MP: 90/1000
She quickly checked her health and mana and deduced that it would be unsafe to continue fighting the wolf in a head on battle. Being at a dangerously low amount of mana, she made the intelligent choice and turned around, running as far as she could to recover her resources while the wolf had just begun to steady itself on its feet.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The impact had jarred her bones, and she even thought that her collarbone was broken, but otherwise she was fine. She did not mind the feeling of pain, but losing so much mana at once may prove to be fatal.
The boss once again began to charge its dash, but this time Rin was prepared. She had amassed a comfortable amount of mana and sent a lance of ice at the wolf’s front right leg. The projectile hit the knee at an angle while it was in mid stride and caused the enormous beast to crash into the floor.
She could continue to play the game of cat and mouse, but as time went on she would end up losing the fight. Deciding to fight the boss head on, she drew her twin blades, knowing that her melee attacks would be much more effective and a better way to close out the fight.
Her body swayed for a second before she lurched forward, sprinting over the ice with her one hundred and five agility. The wolf had just risen to its feet as Rin had nearly reached its position. It made the first move as it lunged forward with its head, snapping its jaws towards Rin’s neck in an attempt to snap her head off at its base.
She bent backwards, barely dodging the teeth of the wolf as she felt its saliva and hot breath on her face. Her momentum kept her going forward on the ice covered stone as she slid under the wolf, slicing deep into the underside of the beast as she kept sliding forward. She escaped from underneath the boss’ body right before its legs buckled and crashed into the ground.
The wolf howled in pain as blood began pooling beneath its massive body and onto the icy flooring. Its red eyes burned with hate and anger as it glared at Rin.
Rin coughed out a mouthful of blood before she smiled, revealing a set of pearly white teeth.
“Now, now, calm down little doggy. I thought you wanted to play,” Rin laughed, tilting her head to the side with mock confusion.
Rin checked the wolf’s status and was surprised to see how much damage she had inflicted on the beast.
[Aspect of Boreas – lvl 20 – Chieftain]
HP: 1700/6500
She herself was also not looking in the best shape, but Rin knew that she would be the one to leave this fight alive, no matter what.
[Ice Mage – lvl 20]
HP: 160/800
MP: 170/1000
Rin flicked her right hand, replacing her sword of ice with two daggers, held between her fingers as she threw them at the chieftain's eyes.
She wanted to blind the creature as when a boss class monster fell below twenty percent of their HP, most of them would usually enter a frenzied state of mind. Ignoring all feeling of pain and driven to madness, with the only goal to kill their enemy.
This was both a beneficial thing and an extremely dangerous one. On one hand, the monster would not care for lethal attacks to itself, on the other Rin had to be extremely careful as all attack patterns would be random and their strength would be increased greatly.
Her two daggers had the perfect trajectory to hit both eyes but at the very last second the boss turned its massive head to the side. With the last remaining trace of its consciousness, it chose to sacrifice its left eye to save its right.
Blood colored mist began to swarm around the creature. It lifted its body and stood up on its legs as if it were at its peak of its strength. The monster’s body radiated with bloodlust as its blood and entrails spilled out from underneath itself, caused by the wound that Rin had dealt to the wolf earlier.
[Aspect of Boreas – lvl 20 – Chieftain - (FRENZIED)]
HP: 1250/6500
Rin furrowed her brows, she felt he heavy pressure of its aura boring down on her. Its intent was clear, the giant wolf wanted her dead, and it would do anything to achieve that purpose.
Taking a deep breath inward, she stared down her enemy as the beast charged forward, disregarding any sense of rationale for its life.
As it rapidly approached her, she dove to its left and tried to attack its legs with her blade. However, due to its speed, it ran way past her causing her to miss.
The boss started its second attack by using its ranged attacks. This time, the speed of the projectiles were much quicker than before, forcing Rin to use a chunk of her mana to avoid getting her head blown off.
Rin felt her stamina decreasing by the second; thus she didn't have any choice but to go on the defensive. Trying to gain space, she ran away from the beast and set down spikes on the ground.
But the wolf wasn't just waiting for her, its claws glinted with a dark red sheen before a condensed crimson aura formed around the point. The red energy grew outwards and curved downwards, creating a much sharper and longer claw.
She looked at its new claws and gulped. Before, its claws were sharp enough to make the stone floor look like butter. Now, it was as if the stone did not exist at all.
It ran at her with a flurry of attacks, swiping at her with its claws and occasionally tried to bite her head off. While Rin could only desperately dodge its attacks. Running and rolling allowed her to keep some distance between the creature, but it was quickly catching up to her. She remembered when she held the edge over the beast in speed, but in its current state, the boss was faster than her.
Rin knew that she had to seize the next opening as she could not keep this up forever.
Nearly reaching the edge of the clearing, Rin created a pillar of ice from the ground, lifting herself up to around the height of the wolf’s head.
She waited for the wolf to near the pillar then lightly jumped off the top before the boss crashed into the pillar below her. She narrowly avoided the jaws of the beast by a hair's breadth as she landed on top of the creature.
Creating her swords of ice, she sank the twin blades deep into the beast’s back. Holding on to the blades with all her strength she infused ice within the blades, spreading the ice and freezing the wolf from within.
It seemed to be working as the wolf had begun to howl in pain. The creature thrashed around as it attempted to throw the girl off from its back.
'It's working,' Rin thought, her entire concentration focused on staying on top of the beast.
The boss' movements were starting to grow sluggish as Rin kept pumping her ice magic into the creature. But her arms started to feel heavy as if they were lead and and her grip on her swords faltered. Falling off the creature, she fell on her back with a light thud.
She was drenched with sweat, panting heavily as she struggled to get back on her feet. She looked over to the wolf who was also struggling to move its body, its inner organs were frozen with her ice magic. It lifted its front leg and took a step towards her, then another. Each step rocking the ground while Rin had just gotten to one knee.
Seeing the boss a couple feet away from her, she used the last remaining vestiges of her mana to create a thick coating of ice around the wolf armor on her left arm while creating a blade of ice in her right. The boss bit down towards Rin as she brought her left arm up to block the attack.
It bit down on her left arm, its teeth were serrated, shredding through the ice and armor on her arm as a sickening crunch resounded out. She bit back a scream of pain, gritting her teeth as she brought her right arm up and stabbing her sword into the beast's torso.
The pain in her arm only grew as she felt the creature's teeth grinding against her bone. Her consciousness was fading and her hand nearly slipped from her blade. She felt like her eyelids were heavy and were beginning to close. The light in the dungeon was slowly turning to darkness. 'Not yet,' the thought suddenly came up in her mind. Her eyes shot wide open and the grip on her sword tightened. .
“ARRGGH!!” Rin screamed, using the last of her strength to push the blade all the way into the wolf's heart. But just before she heard the system notification saying that she had slain the creature. The wolf clamped down on her arm and stripped her arm of all the flesh from her elbow to her hand, leaving her fractured white bone exposed.
Seconds later, she heard a ding, telling her that she had successfully killed the creature before falling to the ground on her back.
“It’s finally over...” Rin muttered, seeing a system screen flash in front of her eyes before her world faded to black.
[New Class Advancement Option Achieved]
Requirements:
Have the Ice Mage Class (+)
100 Agility (+)
Fifty E Ranked Mana Cores (+)
1 D Ranked Mana Core (+)
Defeat an elite ranked monster above your level while alone (+)
Defeat a chieftain ranked monster while alone (+)