Boss?

...

The five young knights were sprawled around laying on the floor, the two senior knights sat against the wall with Captain Saric, everyone was covered in black and red blood. Atlas stood still and silent while mending several large gashes and a large hole going completely through its body.

Twenty-five lanterns floated in the air, giving off a clean red light.

"That was... much different than last time," Vale gave a dry laugh, "I'm surprised nobody died."

A few of the young knights shakily raised their fists while letting out a weak 'woo!' while Saric and Lager had bitter smiles. Vale watched the golem's injuries slowly disappear with a tired interest. After a few minutes, Saric got up and started setting up a basic camp before distributing rations to the group. He was about to offer Atlas some but remembered it wasn't something that needed to eat after looking at the shrinking hole in its chest.

"We'll take a thirty-minute break, is that okay Atlas?" He asked.

Atlas nodded, "You fought well, you earned a break."

The young knights eventually recovered enough stamina to get up and sit down in a circle by the campfire, chatting amongst themselves about the battle, things that could be done better, and about the unusually strong golem fighting alongside them. When they saw the last round's basilisk chimera pierce Atlas clean through they thought it was the end, only for the golem to chuck several glowing cores into its gaping maw. A couple of them found a new adoration for explosions.

Vale did some basic stretches before sitting down with the young knights, actively engaging in the discussion. Lager and Saric sat against the wall eating their rations while quietly talking about something.

'𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯'𝘵 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘣𝘢𝘥,' Atlas thought while organizing what it learned from the nearly two-hour-long fight. It expected the young knights to drop at some point near the end but they covered each other and made use of potions to restore their expended stamina and energy, though it was clear that the stamina potions weren't omnipotent while the energy potions maintained their efficacy even with repeated use.

Looking at itself it had certainly improved in fighting and even took the risk to protect the young knights to a degree. It realized that it's been using the overloading cores as a bit of a trump card but that wasn't really a bad thing, though it was harder to use them with allies around.

While the golem suffered extensive damage to the outer shell it managed to avoid anything hitting the core, and the fight had increased its status once again, energy and vitality rising by a whole fifteen and core durability going up by a surprising sixteen. Atlas was unsure what the judging factor behind the rates was but the more core durability the better. As far as it knew it just had to raise the core durability to a certain threshold and it would undergo evolution, becoming much stronger.

What surprised it the most was that its max outer durability had risen from twenty-four hundred to twenty-six hundred. It couldn't think of a reason why, though it supposed it followed the same strange criteria of the other stats. Atlas could only shrug and put it off to look into later when it could relax.

The half-hour went by without incident despite the amount of noise that was made before, proving its status as a safe room. With food in their bellies, the young knights looked full of vim and vigor. Vale had tried a few times to ask Atlas about its abilities but only got one-word answers in return.

Lager approached but didn't seem as on edge as before, "Thank you for your timely assistance, if you didn't step in some of the trainees might have perished," so he said, seeming genuine.

'𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘨 𝘬𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘧𝘵 𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘵.'

Atlas nodded and kept silent, still focused on closing the remaining smaller wounds. Atlas was prepared to offer them weapons but surprisingly they held up with minimal damage, leaving the golem the desire to figure out how to manipulate metal to make its own weaponry better. While the compressed stone weapons were sharp and somewhat sturdy they just weren't the same.

With the outer durability restored Atlas did a once-over of the few weapons it used during the Rush, a few were destroyed after using them as throwing weapons, but at least they were quite effective. It decided to replace them later as its longsword and tower shield were still in one piece. The golem turned to Saric, "What info do you have for the boss?"

"Hmm, he's a zombie but unlike any other on the floor, he's a commander-type with his own swarm of zombies that fight with strange moves. Fighting him can be overwhelming but it's good training for the trainees to learn how to deal with odd situations," Saric explained while looking towards the tall bronze doors.

"Strange moves?" Atlas asked.

"Yes, it's a bit hard to explain so it's better to see for yourself. The fight shouldn't be nearly as hard as the Rush, but things might change so just be wary."

Everyone was ready so they approached the bronze doors with Saric and Atlas leading again. With a light push, the doors began opening on their own revealing the familiar dim room with a raised platform that was a boss room. Standing on the platform were several zombies with the one in the centre as the most eye-catching.

A zombie with a calm aura with gaunt dark skin, clear eyes, and dark pupils. The zombie stood in a strange pose wearing a gaudy red outfit while the surrounding zombies tried to imitate his pose. Atlas sighed seeing the group.

'𝘞𝘩𝘰 𝘱𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦? 𝘚𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘐 𝘭𝘰𝘥𝘨𝘦 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵?'

The golem shook its head, marched to the platform, and hopped up with Saric and the other knights following shortly after. Saric was right, their movements were odd but Atlas just wanted to get it over with. By expending most of its energy it was able to forcibly push its Domain over the entire raised platform.

After that it was very simple, Atlas stomped lightly twice and the surrounding zombies were skewered without much resistance. The boss was restrained with several strands of stone while the golem approached, swinging the compressed longsword straight at his neck.

The boss gave out a strange cry as it was decapitated, only solidifying the feeling Atlas was having.

A feeling Atlas did not like, the disgust of being reminded of its past life.