Ultimate Level 1

“What kind of beast is that thing?” Fowl asked as they stared at the boss from the entrance of the gate they knew they would have to pass through.

“An undead, three-headed, fire-breathing, forty-foot-tall wolf?”

“So everything we don’t want to fight. And it’s in a room that’s what? A quarter of a mile around with a roof that’s a hundred or so yards high?”

“About that,” Cordellia said. “So we can’t escape once we’re inside.”

“Who said anything about escaping?” Batrire asked. “I mean, we got Max here. Surely he can take this out on his own.”

Feeling the gaze of everyone, all he could do was nod, spinning Fowl’s hammer in his hand.

This feels wrong and right. I mean… we took two days on that last floor because it was over forty miles long. The experience was good, and there were a lot of gem drops, but the few monsters I had them attack all required half a dozen shots or more from Cordellia to kill. Even Tanila had to use a couple spells to take one out unless she charged something far longer than usual.

Which means the difficulty of what you are facing is going up far faster than you imagined. And the fact we have faced undead on the last two floors made this run not as good for us. No skills, no abilities, no stats .

I’m just glad whatever happened on the 51st changed. I wouldn’t want to fight undead in the water.

“Give me a moment. Just talking things over with Bob.”

“Take your time,” Fowl replied, stretching his shoulders. “I know this all falls on you, so we’re going to wait as long as you say.”

Max watched as each breath from the undead beast sent small gusts of flames from its nose. Red eyes locked on the gate they were standing just outside of, all five of them seeming to be begging for them to venture into the soot covered space.

Beyond some simple rocks that looked charred and the stone walls that had giant gouges out of it which had to be claw marks, the place this boss lived in was barren of any other life.

Yet in the cave, at the top of the stone ceiling rested a purple object which cast a purple glow upon everything.

Even the black fur of the boss seemed to look off.

When we start, I can go all out. Better to try to end it, or would you prefer to see what I can do?

You should easily outpower it on stats and skills. Yet something in this place feels off.

So just smack it as much as I can and then see if I need to use a skill?

When has not simply bashing your way through something not worked?

He knew Bob was joking but also the truth of that statement.

“Okay. We’ll go in. I’ll charge it and attempt to simply brain it to death with the mace. You four stay back, and Fowl protects you.”

“Are you expecting something bad?” Cordellia asked. “I mean, why should we even worry about it reaching us?”

“It’s the first boss on floors that most never tread,” Tanila replied. “He’s being smart. Putting those points of intelligence to use.”

Nodding, Max cracked his neck.

“We’ll go as one. Let me know when you’re all ready.”

Cordellia pulled a special arrow from her quiver. Max smiled to himself, seeing how many she had hoarded, using it every chance the cooldown expired to summon another of her arrows that did extra damage.

“We’re ready,” Fowl said as everyone nodded.

“On three.”

“One, two, three.”

Each of their feet crossed the area they knew the gate would come down, and a step past it brought the sound of metal racing toward the ground.

With a loud boom, the heavy barrier fell into place, and the boss roared, immediately charging toward them.

Max didn’t hesitate, moving to meet it, seconds passing from that time and soon was midair, swinging the weapon he held at the closest head.

As if there wasn’t anything solid there, the weapon passed through the undead boss, and Max twisted using an air wall as fire from the other two mouths came rushing toward him.

It’s incorporeal! A ghost?

Bob didn’t reply, magic already having been summoned and flames erupted from where he was near the boss, a fire nova going off.

They went through nothing, causing no damage, and the boss turned, all three heads attempting to chew or bite the man who had presented himself as a treat.

Every spell Max threw at it missed, and none of his strikes hit, but when one of the heads managed to create a swath of fire that washed over a part of him, the pain from it was real.

[ Curse Acquired - Weakness ]

[ Consume is Attempting to Cleanse Curse - Weakness ]

Give me a moment, this is stronger than usual.

Max grunted, feeling a large chunk of his power and speed suddenly vanish.

Glancing at his team, he saw Tanila summoning a large ice spear.

“Don’t attack!” he shouted, using an air wall that Bob created to dodge another attack before grabbing onto a stone spear and moving slightly away.

As he darted around the boss, feeling like it was chasing him like a stick, he saw Tanila’s spell traveling upward, aimed at the center of the ceiling.

It didn’t reach the target falling short, but he knew what it was.

She’s right! We need to destroy that!

Pulling his bow out, Max began hopping upward, using the spears Bob created, climbing into the air, and let go of an arrow.

It struck the purple object and a chip fell.

A loud howl came from the boss below him, and it began to glow.

[ Consume has Cleansed Curse - Weakness ]

Faster!

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Max didn’t hesitate, jumping to the airwall Bob gave him, sending arrow after arrow as his skill created stone, ice, and air spears.

None did the damage that they needed to do, small pieces of purple falling from the ceiling.

It’s not strong enough. We need to hit it. Be ready.

Max almost wanted to laugh as they flew through the air, the wind ability he had never fully tested like he knew he should have from Riniya sent him moving upward like an arrow from a bow.

Gone was the bow, replaced with the hammer he was borrowing from Fowl.

Two large wind blades formed as he sped toward the crystal, preparing to race at the object he now realized was pulsing slightly. Its movement had been so little that he couldn’t notice it from the distance it had been.

It’s… alive?

Glancing down below, Max saw the undead boss had waves of fire rolling out from it, over fifty yards in every direction. The size and power of the fire that came from it was far stronger than any spell Tanila had ever produced, even with her fire elemental, and even worse was that it had turned toward his group, now prepared to go after a target it could reach.

The hammer connected, and a large crack appeared in whatever kind of material this thing was.

Part crystal, part rock, part gelatinous, he wasn’t sure, but Max knew this had a part in all this.

Use it all, I will help if need be.

Knowing that Bob didn’t have large stores of power saved up and yet the fact his skill sensed the change in everything taking place, Max went for it all.

[ Power Strike ]

[ Ghost Strike ]

[ Rampage ]

[ Magical Strike ]

[ Quick Attack ]

[ Berserker ]

The world slowed even more than it sometimes felt. With his stats it had taken a few days to figure out how to function in a world that seemed to move at a snail’s pace. Every day he would walk slower, move slower, react like most.

Now for a moment he had let it all go free.

And then like a rush of power with everything flowing through him, the truth of what he was and could be came again.

The sound rose from the initial strike and continued to thunder out, his strikes raining down so hard and fast it would be impossible for most to realize it was more than one single long sound.

Rage poured through him as he realized that even in a tower that wasn’t as strong as him, there were still dangers that could take those he cared about down.

Worse was the knowledge he had believed himself so strong he handicapped himself.

Feed it. Let the skill burn.

Berserker never felt so sweet than it did at this moment.

He wasn’t sure what fell around him as the purple mass, five times his height and at least thirty feet wide shattered in what seemed like an instant.

One moment it was solid, and the next he was through all the outer shell, finding a soft pulsing piece of organic flesh crushed beneath the hammer he had borrowed.

A slight chill ran through him at that moment.

Your friends!

Bob’s words broke him from the rage, and Max turned, angling himself as Bob used the new wind skill to propel him toward the undead boss like a rock falling from the sky.

He could see the waves of flames radiating from the beast. It was cascading around his friends.

A shield stood strong with the four inside, Fowl bravely standing ready with his shield out and Tanila summoning a giant ice spear.

Even Cordellia had one of her special arrows loaded and ready.

They all know what would happen the moment that barrier broke if he didn’t get there in time.

A smile formed on his lips.

They’re stronger and braver than I gave them credit for.

When you were gone, they remembered who they were. Tower climbers.

Laughing in that brief moment between thought and action, Max came at the boss.

His strike connected against the middle head, and a shower of gore came as he plunged into the hole he had created.

The force of his impact wrenched the beast off all four legs, slamming the three heads into the charred soil and soot.

Without wasting a heartbeat, Max rebounded off the ground, the hammer spinning around him as Bob sent waves of wind blades out from him in a cyclone, chopping the little remaining part of the middle head into chunks of flesh.

Max went after the right head, leaping off the ground as Bob continued the assault with the new ability, sending blade after blade at the exposed neck of the left head.

Both heads stretched in opposite directions as the concussive force of their attacks struck. A part of the boss started to split down the middle where the first head had been.

There wasn’t enough time though for that to happen as Max unleashed a torrent of swings, the hammer he had made for his friend doing the job it had been created to do.

Each strike rent flesh and bone from the skull until a large chunk of it was shattered and gone, exposing the tiny brain that lay inside. A small pulsing purple mass which matched what had been inside the part safely tucked inside the ceiling found the same fate as the first. Gone in a single strike.

Spinning to help with the third head, Max couldn’t help but smile, seeing that Bob had already cut it off at the neck, the final one bouncing off the black dirt.

Berserker refreshed, and he knew the boss was gone as the notification appeared.

Loot. Focus .

Like cold water dumped over one’s head, Bob’s words snapped him from the state he knew he was in.

All the pent-up emotions vanished, and without missing a second, he turned and began gathering pieces of the boss, darting around with a speed he knew his friends couldn’t follow.

Before the refresh ended, Max had stored the head Bob had removed, collected a few pieces of fur and bones that had survived their onslaught, as well as a single eye which he wasn’t sure where it had come from.

Multiple pieces of the shell that had encased the piece at the ceiling were also stored.

And then the world returned to a more normal pace.

Breathing heavily, Max moved to where his friends stood, none having moved from the place he had left them.

Their weapons were lowered, yet he could see their faces.

Fowl’s head bobbed slightly up and down, and he could see his friend was biting his lips, eyes telling him how bad that moment had almost been.

Batrire had a tear that was rolling down one cheek, almost lost in the beard she always kept so well cared for.

Cordellia’s eyes were the size of large coins, her ears even higher as her forehead and face seemed to stretch at what she had just witnessed.

Yet of all their faces, the one he cared the most about was Tanila’s.

She stood there, having dismissed the ice spear, her lips forming a soft smile and her green eyes locked on him.

Even from here, he could hear her almost in his mind.

“I love you,” he whispered, knowing she couldn’t hear him.

Yet she saw his lips and said the same thing.

As he moved toward the team, he saw Fowl’s face change, and Max started to laugh as the warrior pointed behind him, eyes widening and his mouth moving in the pattern he had seen hundreds of times.

One day he’ll learn some different curse words.

One day. But not today.

‎