(11) Stepping stone

After snapping out of her daze, Celeste was determined not to fail her first raid. She kept her whole focus on Kraton's movements, not a single detail missed her eyes, every muscle retraction, eye movement and exhalation was carefully observed so that she could avoid any attacks completely.

As Kraton started attacking once again, Celeste dared not to rashly charge forward, but instead stayed back, dodging each strike and running around Kraton in irregular patterns. This started to become a battle of stamina, Celeste would eventually grow tired and slow from running, however, Kraton was attacking ferociously, with wasted power behind each stike. Sooner or later Kraton would start to become fatigued and would only be able to rely on the skill 'basic attack' to deal damage, however this skill did not help Kraton with his attack speed, only the damage behind the attacks.

Celeste had been dodging Kraton's attacks for over 5 minutes now, however Kraton showed no sign of becoming fatigued, instead it seemed like his attacks had become more frequent. Kraton had also become weary of his opponent, not a single of his attacks had collided within these five minutes, and his arm started to ache with each impact into the ground. He found it suprising that a little human could run for more than five minutes, normally they would be the ones to get impatient and attack head on, however the girl in front of him showed no signs attacking soon.

At this moment, Kraton paused his attacks and changed his stance, his knees bent down and his muscles tensed. However his movements were slow and gave enough time for Celeste to take advantage of his posture. She quickly dashed forward and dished out three attacks imbued with her flame mana, these attacks were a bit more powerful than her previous strikes because she had been condensing her mana since she had started running around. These three attacks scored directly across Kraton's back, cutting out a bald patch with each slash. Kraton's health had slipped to less than two tenths of his health. However Celeste had retreated backwards before Kraton could counter.

Sensing a change in atmosphere, Celeste once again became cautious, she became bewildered at Kraton's crouched posture, it looked very much like he was taking a dump.

Kraton glared at Celeste for a few seconds, however his brain was busy calculating countless variables and scenarios. And then he jumped.

Celeste stood frozen in stupor as she watched Kraton reach an incredible height before seemingly hovering for a brief moment. She hurriedly calculated his trajectory and velocity and determined that he would undoubtedly miss landing on her, however she still got ready to brace for the force after Kraton impacted the ground.

As Kraton descended, he altered his balance and tipped himself forward... He didn't intend to land on his feet, but instead crush Celeste with his weight in a way which she could not avoid; by belly flopping on her.

Celeste watched Kraton change his position in the air and began to panic uncontrollably. She never expected Kraton to execute such unorthodox attacks, it was completely different to a normal monster's monotonous attack style!

Just as Kraton was about to squash her, Celeste deperately crouched and held her sword up in front of her, maintaing a solid grip on it so that it did not fly out of her hands. She silently accumulated all of her mana int the blade and prayed to survive this ordeal. She couldn't handle the thought of failing this raid, making her a laughingstock and being portrayed as an arrogant, spoilt girl from a renowned family. She would rather suicide by walking into into a Hell-tier dungeon than be humiliated after her first boss encounter. Her death and failure was unacceptable! Yet here she could only pray to the heavens for a miracle.

Kraton fell at an unstoppable speed, he knew that this attack wouldn't kill unless he critted this attack, but he planned to make use of Celeste's dazed state and follow up with his ultimate follow-up plan: Rolling around!

When Kraton landed, he could feel his weight crushing down onto the weak human figure under him and smiled with glee, however a second later he felt something excruciatingly sharp and blistering hot pierce through his stomach. It felt like a volcano had erupted under his belly, sending waves of magma into him. Such pain caused him to howl out loudly and almost spill out tears.

"WAAAA-rgh"

For the unfortunate soul who was being crushed, this cry sounded like a victorious exclamation. Believing it to be over, Celeste clamped her eyes shut and resigned herself to the feeling of her first death.

*Thump*

Celeste felt the body of Kraton knock her head with unimaginable force, sending her figure sprawling to the ground. Then she felt the weight above her disappear, was this what it felt like to die?

However, Celeste could still feel her injuries and pain on her head, she was fortunate enough to not become concussed, but she was still left with a blaring headache. She questioned herself if everyone had lied to her about dying, because everyone had told her that she would wake up as good as new. Maybe they tricked her because they were jealous of her skills and background and wanted her to feel more pain at the shock of carrying over her injuries after death, however there was still something off about this feeling.

Still with her eyes closed, she waited a few moments before realising what was off about the situation. It was silent, no sound of chatter or movement could be heard. As well as this, she could still smell the stale air instead of the fresh air in the upper world, and also could still see darkness through her eyelids. If she had truly died, the natural light would be burning through her eyelids at this moment.

Tentatively opening he eyes, she found herself lying down on the mossy stone floor. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw a bit of light disperse away. Suddenly she felt a pulse of power and energy run through her body, she looked into the back of her mind and quickly sat up, causing her to grimace in pain again. Confusion still lingered in her eyes, however it was impossible for her status to lie unless she was in a deep dream. She had levelled up! After calming herself down from levelling up to level 5, she scanned her surroundings and saw her sword lying just a few steps from her, she must have released he grip after being sent sprawling to the ground.

A light of understanding passed through her as Celeste recalled the last moments of the impact when she forcibly released all the condensed mana out of her blade. This flama mana then burst out into Kraton's impaled body, releasing waves of energy through his stomach and blood streams. Her final effort managed to take away the tenth-and-a-bit of health that remained. Yet there was still one problem: Why didn't she die as well? She clearly felt the full impact of Kraton's belly slam, and recalling the previous damage she recieved, it would be more than enough to kill her as well.

Celeste glanced at her health and was shocked, yet extremely grateful for the health that remained. She had clung onto 20% of her remaining health, only losing a bit more than half of her remaining health before the exchange. Maybe the heavens really were watching over her, not only did it respond to her prayers, it also gave her a ton of experience from killing a Boss, helping her level up. Never in her right mind would she have thought that a level 3 Boss would give this much experience. However that didn't change the fact that she planned to never do this again until she was extremely prepared for it.

With a body wrapped in bandages, an aching head and a beaming smile, Celeste left the dungeon.