Shin Yun was a decently skilled player, neither a professional nor a noob, he had recently levelled-up and became a level 50, silver ranked hunter, and so his party members decided to hold a celebration for becoming halfway to level 100, however none of them planned the unfortunate event of Shin Yun drunkenly entering a Life-tier dungeon. The last noise that came out from Shin Yun was a burp, and a gurgle as blood rushed out of his severed neck.
This death left all his friends guilty the next day, even more so when they realised Shin Yun was one hell of an unlucky person. All dungeons from bronze to gold-tier had no chance of fully killing a player, they would only respawn at the nearest city whilst paying the cost of a whole level, losing all the extra exp in that level as well. Unless the player had an artifact, different grade artifacts saved differing amounts of experience. However, Life-tier dungeons had a 50% chance to fully die, and Hell-tier had an 80% chance. Shin Yun was of course part of the unlucky 50%.
"Wha- What happened?" countless memories and pieces of information instantly flooded Shin's mind, "Why am I remembering all the stats and skills of Kraton? It's been 49 levels since I walloped his arse," a recent and vague memory slotted into his mind "Did I seriously walk into a life-tier dungeon? F***, my life must be flashing before my eyes then, it definitely does not feel like the usual resurrection. God, I loved being level 1 and beating that joke of a boss. This is a goodbye I guess."
Countless minutes passed but Shin retained his consciousness, confusion and despair started buliding up inside him, he would rather die quickly than spend any longer in an empty and silent world that was bringing him closer to insanity.
What was more eerie was that he felt that someone, or something had noticed him, staring at him in the abyss. Time to time, Shin glimpsed something purple flashing in the darkness but he could never focus on what it was.
'I HATE MY LIFE!'
"Huh? was that me?"
'#@*! WHO'S THERE?!' "Who are you?"
'... I'm KRATON, get OUT OF MY HEAD!'
"S***, have I really reincarnated into the weakest boss? I've heard of other players neing reborn into better bodies, sometimes other races, but a monster, let alone Kraton. Screw my luck"
'I CAN HEAR YOU, WHO ARE YOU CALLING WEAK? I'M GONNA TEAR YOU APART NOW MF!'
"STOP shouting! My damn brain hurts (well, it's your brain I guess), besides, I've already killed you before, weakling!" It was at this moment when things went even quieter than the silence beforehand.
Shin felt the silent rage of Kraton build up, he even felt the deep breaths the Boss was inhaling, and right when Shin felt that the eerie atmosphere was over, and indescribable pain tore through his mind, he could feel each strand that conneccted his thoughts together tear apart and get swallowed by an endless abyss that screamed out 'HUNGRY' to quell it's thirst for power and knowledge. God really hated Shin at this point, allowing him to die.. again.
For Kraton, on the other hand, it was the time of his life as he had finally killed a player, what made it better was that it was revenge, which made it even more satisfying. As well as this, Kraton discovered 'knowledge'. It was a trait that every player was born with, as well as level 4 monsters and above, other monsters would mindlessly rampage when angered, but otherwise had a very straightforward line of thought, only capable of having one or two lines of dialogue with each interaction.
Knowledge also allowed adaption, for players, it was unlimited, but for monsters, they would adapt to the fighting styles of each player as the battle went on, and retaining a small portion of it even after the party died, or the monster themselves died. Of course, there was a limit and that was in ratio to the amount of 'Knowledge' the monster had.
Monsters could also gain more knowledge by killing of a party whilst retaining more than 15% of their health, this again was proportionate. Sweeping a level 1 party and retaining 100% health would increase knowledge by around 10 points, allowing a low-level monster who originally had 0 knowledge to be able to add together numbers up to 20. However, if it was a level 5 monster, the Knowledge gained would be minute.
Kraton was lucky, he had 'killed' off a high-level player without taking damage. The level difference of 47 levels amplified the knowledge Kraton gained. This allowed him to reach 81 knowledge in an instant, around the level of a british secondary-schooler (add in a violent, thug temperment and a large human body resembling a 'handsome' orc-runt merged with a sasquatch which just had a haircut, and voila! you get Kraton).
As well as this, Kraton's level got raised from level 3, to level 5, raising his attributes a bit and unlocking the passive skill 'Critical Attack'. Giving him a 5% chance to crit when attacking and cause double damage. (each target had different chances to crit, so attacking 100 players with one attack will only cause around 5 of them to recieve double damage, and only if they don't have crit-supression armour, skills or traits).
An ugly grin was plastered onto Kraton's face, making him look like a perverse old man about to claim his prize, his level up felt addictive, and he lusted for more power. His dreams to ravage and murder each and every player that made a fool of him came one step closer, and with the vast knowledge he gained, he knew he could start of growing inside his dungeon, act weak like a sheep until the right moment, and then massacre everone with his strength. Level 1 to 5 players flocked to his dungeon each day, he only had to bear countless more deaths until he can exact his revenge.
Why must he wait? If he showed the players his growing strength, the rank of his dungeon (which was dictated by the players) would rise, and so higher-level players would enter, making it harder to party-wipe them. By improving his strength, but not showing it, he can wait until the day in which he can easily wipe out everyone, of course, in order to build up strength he has to kill three or four players each day, knowing that over 100 players entered his dungeon daily, he could only bear with the shame of appearing so weak until he gains the strenth to party-wipe. But until that day, he will always have the title of being the weakest boss there is.