"God damn it," I growled even as I threw the work hamr to the side, grabbed my spear, and moved aside. The last thing I expected was to be attacked by a gargantuan monster, tall enough to tower over in a suffocating manner.
A desperate dash was not exactly the ideal way of asuring, but roughly eyeballing it, I asured it to be sowhere around two hundred yards tall, and about forty yards wide. An absurd size, reminding of a battleship rather than a land animal.
A beast of that size shouldn't have been possible without being crushed under its own weight, particularly as an insect … but then, I was in a pocket dinsion, using magic to hunt giant corrupted monsters.
It was three years too late to talk about what was possible or reasonable.
I turned my attention to more practical concerns, trying to understand its physical capabilities. It was huge, yet, despite its size, it reacted to my escape with shocking speed, adjusting its charge. Without the Fleeting Step, I would have ended up between its mandibles. I was glad I didn't have to test the durability of my armor in such a way, not with the way the ordinary anti-corrosive iron from the hydroponic garden snapping under its weight.
I didn't optimize the tal I used on the garden for durability, but even without it, it would have tanked the attack of an ordinary giant insect with limited damage. Yet, against the gargantuan variant, it wasn't able to resist the slightest.
Worse, as it drifted closer, the air I breathed gained an acrid quality, like I had forgotten to replace my silver air filter after using it for an hour. And, since that bitter sll got more intense the closer the beast got, it was easy to assu that the beast radiated so kind of intense corrosive aura.
The speed at which the distant trees wilted confird my theory.
Dodging didn't an my problems were over. As I moved away, I was attacked by the other monsters. The burrower variants burst out of the ground, and the fliers fell down, trying to suffocate , while the giant ones charged. However, there was sothing unusual in their approach.
Up until now, during every single encounter I had, the beasts had been attacking recklessly, always picking the closest path possible with the exclusion of everything else. This ti, it was different. The fliers circled around in confusing patterns, the giant ones attacked in a way that forced to a certain direction, and the burrowers did their best to block my path as they burst out of the water.
They were showing tactical acun. It was elentary, but due to the numbers they attacked with, it was still effective. And, as if the situation wasn't complicated enough, their new tactical awareness ant that they could ignore the fear effect that was spread by the trees. Combined with the rapid destruction of the tal platforms under the mandibles of the gargantuan monster, the defenses I had created for myself were being destroyed with incredible ease.
In response, I drew my sword and released several ranged mana attacks, each attack cutting through several flying bugs before dispersing. As I did that, I jumped on the back of one of the giant monsters, using it as a platform, which prevented the borrowers from tangling with .
Five ranged attacks were all I could throw out before my Mana drained completely. There, I switched to my spear, one hand slashing with ease. At the sa ti, I used my feet to roughly crush the mana-dense shells of the slain beasts, using the opportunity to replenish my mana.
Luckily, their tactics were not only elentary, but also rigid. As I jumped between the giant monsters, the attacks of the swarm slowed down, and their movent shuffled in a manner that could be called confused.
The gargantuan one didn't appreciate it, doing its best to turn to face .
Luckily, for so reason, the mist around it was gone. It was similar to the effect of the trees in terms of the end result, but the process was clearly the opposite. In practical terms, the trees repulsed the mist, while the gargantuan beast was pulling it toward itself, devouring it, similar to using ditation in a Mana-dense location.
I circled around it, leveraging its most obvious weakness, which was its turn speed. However, calling it a weakness was a stretch. It rotated remarkably well for a monster that was the size of the warship. Even with my improved Fleeting Step, taking advantage of that required to stick close to it.
And, the closer I got, the more disgusting the sll started to get, warning that my filter was reaching its limit.
I couldn't help but shiver even as I split between circling around the beast and dealing with the swarm, afraid to imagine dealing with the gargantuan beast without my long list of advantages. I stayed away from its attacks even as I focused on thinning the swarm, focusing exclusively on the fliers.
Whenever I filled my reserves, I used Mana attacks to whittle their numbers, or I switched to spear. Reducing the tactical complexity of the situation before I tested the endurance of the titanic insect seed like a good idea.
However, despite my successful focus on fliers, the swarm showed no change of pattern, suggesting that their new tactical acun was not only elentary, but also quite rigid. Another welco change.
Only when the density of fliers reached a point where I could ignore them, I jumped on top of the gargantuan beast. The mont I stepped on its back, my lungs started to ache, its corrosive aura surpassing the limit of my filter.
[-6 Health]
It did not matter. I stabbed its back with the spear, first without covering it with mana. It sank well enough. Unfortunately, the beast was far too large for it to be effective. The sword reacted in a similar manner. Neither result surprised . I switched to my hamr.
It was ti to show it how a Blacksmith fought.
I brought down the hamr, using the mana attack I had designed based on my Quake attacks, depleting all of it in one attack.
[-210 Mana]
A large part of its shell shattered, and for the first ti, it let out a sharp sound, one that I recognized as pain. It was good, but the even better part was the burst of mana that spread as I shattered its shell, allowing to replenish my mana in quick order.
Its mana was far more dense in what I called tainted energy, but my Cleansing ditation skill allowed to separate the two efficiently, allowing to replenish my mana as I delivered another attack … and another.
I had a feeling that the battle against the gargantuan beast was supposed to be an incredibly difficult battle. And, without the gear I had created with my Epic Skill, which allowed to resist its corrosive aura almost completely, it would have been.
Even the iron I tagged as anti-corrosive proved to be only corrosion resistant, the broken remains of the platforms darkening and rusting at a shocking speed. Instead, it turned into a steady, almost tedious, process, not unlike another forging session. My hamr landed again and again, using its mana against itself.
Its shell recovered from the damage, but not at the sa speed I could damage it, slowly weakening under my attack.
Yet, even with all my advantages, an hour after I started, I was still attacking against it. If it wasn't for the weakening of its corrosive aura as its shell got more and more damaged, I would have to retreat back to the fourth floor to replenish my Health.
Instead, I stayed on top of it, steadily destroying its shell and the flesh underneath, my hamr landing on it again and again … until the beast stopped moving, and burst into a sudden blast of light.
The sudden disappearance of the beast ant I found myself falling down. My limbs clenched in fear as I found myself in free fall, barely able to pay attention to the movent of the light. It gathered into a point, almost like it was about to turn into a skill stone, but when I got near, it turned into light back again, and infused my body.
It was a weird, epheral sensation, like there was so kind of connection between and the land around . It didn't last long, but when it faded, it left with a nice surprise.
My range of vision had just doubled.
"So, it makes the gargantuan beast a dungeon boss," I said to myself even as I started dealing with the remaining swarm. It wasn't exactly a big surprise, as the length of the battle, along with all of its abilities, suggested that to be the case.
But, confirmation was always welco.
I went back to the fourth floor, as I was exhausted, both physically and ntally. Not to ntion, I needed to replenish my Health.
When I arrived on the fourth floor, I was greeted by a very welco surprise. My vision range wasn't increased by three more yards as I had feared but directly doubled. Excited, I returned to the earlier floors, and realized that the sa pattern held true.
I gulped, realizing its importance. An expanded range of vision would be useful while exploring the fourth and fifth floors, but it wasn't what excited the most.
No, that honor went to the tactical flexibility provided by the ability to see more than the other people in the dungeon. It would solve my biggest fear, which was to be ambushed.
Maybe I should see if I could tempt the attacks from more dungeon bosses before I went back.
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