(10) Just a tenth

"Impossible" Celeste sighed quietly as she readied her sword, contrary to the first attack, her arm wasn't stable at all, in fact it was shaking quite a lot. Her palms were sweating as well, so much that she had to constantly wipe her hands and readjust her grip on the sword. Despite her trembling, her eyes were alert and focused on the humanoid mammoth in front of her. The reason behind these symptons was simple: She had only taken one-tenth of Kraton's health!

Normally, her exquisite technique and combination betwen swordsmanship and elemental magic left any monster instantly killed with a single attack, even level 5 golems got cleaved in half with ease, yet a mere level 3 boss took hardly any damage. Furthermore, the monsters hairy appearance should have made it more vulnerable to being lit on fire. How much more powerful was a boss than normal monsters?!

Kraton had showed his fast reaction speed by catching the sword strike, as well as the confidence that he would not take much damage by catching a flaming sword. Such monstrous intelligence! Yes, Kraton did block the attack, but still, only taking one-tenth of his health with a flaming sword deeply implanted within his hand was an indication on how much health he had.

If all monster bosses had this much health, then she dreaded to take on other higher levelled bosses. She believed that she had made the right choice to challenge Kraton instead of the other low-levelled bosses in her local area because they were labelled as being one more level higher than Kraton. If the enormous amount of health was the same with all bosses, then her attacks would be ineffective against them.

However, seeing that her attack took a tenth of Kraton's health, she deemed it possible to finish Kraton off, only nine more attacks were needed. If level 3 parties could clear this dungeon, then she, a level 4, coupled with her techniques, should be able to clear the dungeon as well. But then again, this might be the reason why hardly any parties challenged the boss, only staying outside to grind their levels!

If Kraton could hear her rapid thoughts, he would surely laugh out until he died.

Celeste started to wish that she never made a vow not to assemble a party anymore. Yes, Kraton was possible to beat, however if every boss took this much effort, it would be too slow of a progress and would both be physically and mentally tiring. No wonder there weren't that many people in the world that soloed a dungeon boss.

Celeste swung her sword six more times, none of these had a flaming arc trailing the tip this time, she knew that with Kraton's reaction speed, he could easily dissipate it with his mace again. Instead, she conserved her valuable mana and imbued it within the blade with each strike. Out of the six stikes, Kraton knocked two away entirely with his mace and blocked the rest of them with his arm and left hand.

With half of his health remaining, Kraton became irritated of being supressed without getting the chance to attack. His pent-up fury got released when Celeste slowed down her barrage of stikes. Kraton slammed down his mace in his right hand towards Celeste, however she nimbly jumped aside, causing his frustration to soar up again.

"STOP MOVING!"

Slamming his left hand down onto Celeste, who had just landed back onto her two feet, the sight resembled a human trying to swat a fly on a table. And just like flies normally do, Celeste evaded the slam once again, however the solid force from Kraton's palm stike caused her to lose balance and tumble over when landing, leaving her in a vulnerable position.

Taking this chance, Kraton swiped his hand sideways in desparation, yearning to land a solid hit against the evasive fly. As Celeste saw the approaching strike,with no way to dodge it from her current position, she crossed her arms to defend herself as much as possible.

*SLAP*

Kraton was lucky to to have crit this attack, as well as this, he had not used the skill 'basic attack', therefore his swipe in anger actually did more damage than the basic attack would have. With this stroke of luck, Kraton had sent Celeste tumbling backwards, her ears still ringing from the impact.

Glancing at sudden drop of health, Celeste nearly fainted in shock. 50%!! Half her health vanished just like that. Unable to see that Kraton's attack had crit, and that this was the first and only attack she had been hit by, she believed it to be the less than the normal amount of damage Kraton normally deals. This was because she had blocked the attack, significantly reducing the damage dealth to her body, and beacuse Kraton's attack looked so.. onorthodox, like a random swipe without even using a weapon! Celeste trembled in fear at the thought of being instantly killed if she had not blocked that attack.

'Why was this boss titled the weakest boss?' she wondered, after a brief moment, she recalled the infamous record that was on the news/notice boards recently. No wonder that party had so many casualties, it all made sense to her now!

Everything fit into place so perfectly that she, someone who was not a local, thought that she had figured it all out:

-- Why so little people challenge the Boss

-- How the recent party got decimated

-- Why no-one solos a boss

-- Why he was titled the 'weakest' Boss

The first three points was due to the overwhelming strength of Kraton; a level 3 Boss, or any other boss for that matter. Whilst the last point could be one of two reasons. The first being that it was a local nickname that attracted foreigners. A honey trap with the thought of economical and political incentives behind it. The second, and the more plausible reason was that Kraton was truly a weak Boss compared to others. This left Celeste drenched in sweat at the thought of her foolish vow. It was going to be impossible to solo all the dungeons at this prospect!