Chapter 404: Enemy not found

Chapter 404: Enemy not found

Sofia braced herself behind her large bone shield, with the mithril kite shield as a core and the [Bone dominus] blessing on top of it, she was confident that it would stop the drones attacks.

The hundreds of black orbs crashed straight into the shield as Sofia rammed into them on her way down. The sound of the impacts was deafening but the damage was minimal. The bone layer of the shield cracked but did not break, and Sofia was mostly safe. She did lose some life for the first time during the trial, as her arm still had to bear the impact of the black orbs on the shield, but it was minimal. In truth, it was her stamina which had taken a big hit.

Health :127 216 / 127 250

Stamina :23 161 / 31 150

Mana : 321 501 / 417 100

[Sanctified grounds] is saving my ass.

Sofia crashed shield-first into one of the drones, its globulous body exploding into a rain of sticky black goo.

You have defeated [Sunless Drone - Lv. 209]

As she touched ground, Sofia was enveloped by a radiant shield of light, which came just in time as another close-by drones body had extended into a spike, lunging right at her. The magic shield deflected the blow, and Sofia striked back with her sword-scepter, creating an explosion of solar light as she slammed into the creature.

The magic shield could take another two, maybe three similar hits, and Sofia was still surrounded by seven drones in close proximity while Pareth and the spiders were busy with the Amalgam.

Unwilling to take any more risk, Sofia boxed herself within thick walls of bones. It would not hold long, but she only needed a few seconds anyway. She grabbed her shield she was standing on, and kept summoning more and more bones around her to absorb the attacks of the drones furiously trying to pierce through.

You have defeated [Sunless Drone - Lv. 218]

A first drone died.

You have defeated [Sunless Drone - Lv. 204]

Then another one.

You have defeated [Sunless Drone - Lv. 227]

You have defeated [Sunless Drone - Lv. 225]

Then again. The drones started falling like flies. They had been hit by the shockwave of the explosive bolt, and the solar explosion, trimming their health down, and the constant damage from the rot and [THE GLORIOUS] title was enough to finish them off.

Not to mention Bookie striking them with ranged attacks from further away.

You have defeated [Sunless Drone - Lv. 232]

You have defeated [Sunless Drone - Lv. 247]

With only one drone left alive, Sofia pinpointed its position with her mana senses, stored all the bone walls at once, and struck with her [Spine of the Black Sun] again.New novel chapters are published on

You have defeated [Sunless Drone - Lv. 249]

Thanks for the shield, Bookie.

She turned to see how Pareth was doing, surprisingly enough, he had lost some life to the Amalgam even with [Sanctified grounds] active and while fighting defensively with a shield.

This weird standstill lasted twenty seconds, during which Pareth had to slowly backpedal under the monsters assault, giving away some terrain. Only, for each step back that he took, giving terrain to the amalgam, Sofia herself was flying backwards, getting further and further away from the monster, and readying her bolt.

With a hundred-thousand mana charged into the bolt, Sofia released the beast. The blue bolt of plasma left Sofias hand with a bang, and Pareth disappeared from the Monsters side, reappearing in front of Sofia, his shield up and ready.

Sofias vision turned mostly white. Even for her enhanced eye it was hard to see much of anything at all besides the blurry form of Pareth standing before her.

It was far from her largest bolt to date, but it was the largest she had ever thrown into such a closed space.

A system notification appeared as the shockwave of the bolt hit Pareth and the following heat wave washed over them.

You have defeated [Twin-Headed Sunless Amalgam - Lv. 299 - Imprint badly damaged]

Sofia let herself fall ass-first to the floor.

Fucking hell.

Grabbing Pareths mana heart from within her armor when the explosion had died down, she held it up for him to grab.

Go get the imprint, we dont want that shit to go to waste after all that effort.

Sofia watched as Pareth went and grabbed the imprint as well as the Sunless debris and her mithril shield from the heavily damaged dungeon corridor riddled with holes leading to a black void. She gave a side glance at her health now that the [Sanctified Grounds] ran out.

Health : 85 957 / 85 980

I lost 23 Health Not a lot, but that much Im not getting back I should have been more careful.

Nightmare difficulty, huh.

How likely is it that this was the boss and that the dungeon is over?

In the middle of a random corridor? Yeah, no chance. So this was just the appetizer. Great.

At least, we got two more skill shards out of it. Pareths mana heart blessing really shines in times like these. Two hundred imprint power collected at once when we would have gotten fuck-all otherwise because I ruined the monster with the rot and the bolt.

Still, I cant get over the fact that the Sunless amalgams skill costs the equivalent of 100 000 stat points in imprint power. It better be fucking worth the price and the hassle of hunting these things.

Seriously, myself aside, who in their right mind would see these things and think, Yeah lets kill ten to twenty of them to get some random skill! For most people they would just take a dark lance to the face and die.

Trials really are no joke, no matter how insane you may be for your level

Im still feeling confident, though Or maybe not. Actually. If this place really has a boss stronger than this amalgam This might not end well.

I cant leave but theres the option of waiting for the end of the timer. Supposing that it ejects me from the dungeon. It might also just kill me and Pareth, for all I know. Just dump us into the Magins void as the dungeon itself disappears or something. I cant really take the risk.

Unless theres zero chance to beat the boss, but the system wouldnt do that. Lets get ready first. I need to rebuild the shield, regenerate my mana and resummon Bookie.

The madness shield throw was a bit of an improvised move but it worked great. I should remember to do that again.

Well, maybe throwing my shield away isnt so smart But its a skeleton thats already always in my hand, so yeah.