Rank F Dungeon (5)

[Congratulations! You have discovered the Hidden Boss! ]

[Warning: You cannot leave the dungeon until after the Hidden Boss has been eliminated!]

[There is no time limit. Kill or be killed.]

Just as I received the warning, the ground in front of me – i.e. the grave of Uchiha Zakkufaru gave a brief rumble before the tombstone exploded upwards. I jumped back from the sudden eruption and witnessed what came out of it.

A figure, holding a comically large zanbato, flew out of the ground and landed on the ground near the metal box containing the severed head which I just opened.

In response, I brought out Jinchu-Maru, and thereafter channelling chakra into the chain-sickle to activate [Chakra Flow]. Now that the figure stopped moving, I could take a good look at it with my Sharingan enhanced vision.

The hidden boss was clad in some sort of a military uniform, with a sleeveless black top, black cargo pants, combat boots and two black shoulder pauldrons. But what struck me the most was its conspicuous lack of a head and the giant sword resting on its shoulder. The sword was reminiscent of Zabuza's Kubikiribocho, except it had a more angular tip which I now recognized was the tombstone of the grave, rather than kubikiribocho's curved blade.

Recognizing the entity in front of me as a threat, I used [Observe] to check its status.

[Rank F Dungeon Hidden Boss: Dullahan Lv20]

HP: 8,000

CP: 3,000

The headless undead of a powerful soldier long forgotten in the current era. He is furious at the one who has disturbed his eternal rest and seeks to kill them for it.

He wants to cut off your head.

This was the first monster I encountered that had CP. Furthermore, despite its higher level, it had a lower HP than the Kinniku-baka I just fought, which could only imply that its stats were more balanced than the tanky zombie.

The Dullahan reached for the metal box, seemingly keen on retrieving its head, but I was no fool. I refused to give it the chance to reunite with its head. So I took the opportunity to throw the sickle end of the kusari-gama at the hidden boss, intent on preventing the reunion, thinking that without its head the headless zombie would probably not be able to see the attack.

The sickle flew towards the zombie, empowered by [Chakra Flow] and [Power Strike], the blade was aimed towards the arm holding its sword. I wanted to either slice off its wrist such that the large weapon could not be used against me or at least get it to drop the sword.

However, I underestimated its senses without its head, as the Dullahan swung the large sword, faster than I thought it would with the overweight weapon and smacked the sickle away. I cursed but I wasn't about to give up the chance when it was still distracted without its head.

With renewed confidence in my close combat skills after I utterly trounced the Kinniku Baka, I drew Kotetsu no Ryu and used [Flash Step] to appear within striking distance of the Dullahan. I raised my blade and struck down, intending to bisect the hidden boss.

To my surprise, however, the Dullahan blocked my attack with its own blade held with just a single arm, quite handily at that. Even so, that was something I had considered a possibility, thus I immediately slipped underneath the blade to cut its side. The Dullahan, while not as towering as the Kinniku Baka, was still a good 6 feet tall. Thus, I was able to exploit my much smaller and nimbler frame to circle it's flank.

Or so I thought, before the Dullahan's fist crashed into my sternum and sent me flying away.

[-368 HP]

"KUAK!" I wailed in pain, the air knocked out of my body, as I rolled on the floor briefly before I caught myself in a crouched stance.

That bastard, I didn't even see his hand move. It was fast, faster than anything I had faced before.

The headless undead didn't even bother following up with its attack, as it only focused on retrieving its own head. It reached into the metal box and pulled up the head, before nestling it under his left arm.

I could finally take a good look at the severed head. It, or rather he, now that I could properly see what the Dullahan looked like, had spiky black hair characteristic of Uchihas. The skin, however, had the trademarked look of a withering corpse with shrivelled skin, sunken eyes and prominent cheek bones. His eyes, thankfully, lacked the red of a Sharingan.

"You… disturb… rest… I… take… your… head!" The creature had a raspy voice, which made sense considering the lack of a tether to any sort of vocal cords and diaphragm. Although speaking when it was just a head didn't make sense in the first place, but considering the situation I was in, it was the least of my worries.

After croaking out those words, the Dullahan sped towards me. But not in the obvious, one direction trajectory of the previous boss monster. It fucking zig-zagged. Yet, under my Sharingan eyes, I could track his movements easily enough.

I swiped the kusari-gama, extending the weighted end of the chain towards where it was going towards. The spiked weight whipped at its feet, and unlike my previous attempts, made contact. The chain wrapped around one of his feet. Seeing my success, I pulled at the chain to attempt to disrupt his balance.

It worked for only a brief moment, until the Dullahan stabbed its large sword at the chain, pinning it's links between the blade and the ground. The chain was reinforced with chakra, so it wouldn't break that easily, but my attempts at pulling the chain were granted no further allowance.

I expected the Dullahan to put down his head, reach down and pull the chain with its other arm, but it did not do so. The creature just ran towards me instead of taking advantage of the chain he had restrained. It seemed that the Dullahan was not willing to part with the head he had just recovered. That was something I could use to my advantage if the headless warrior was functionally fighting one handed.

My chains were still attached to the undead's feet, but I wouldn't be able to do anything with it since the Dullahan was running faster than I could pull back the chain. As such, I released the handle of my sickle, but wrapped my wrist around the chain in mid-air and flew through a certain set of handseals rapidly.

"Katon: Gokakyu no jutsu!"

I expelled the fireball out of my mouth and along the chain that was still attached to my wrist and the Dullahan's leg. With its speed, I wanted to make sure it couldn't avoid the fireball, and thus the chain would guide the flames to its intended target.

But it didn't need to avoid it. The Dullahan merely stopped in its tracks, drew his sword back and waved it at the fireball when it was about to reach him. The flat of the massive blade struck the fireball and the creature actually tried batting the fireball away.

However, that wasn't how the Grand Fireball technique worked. The flaming sphere wasn't a tangible ball that could be deflected. It was an amalgamation of flames that would explode once it made contact with something.

The deflection mitigated much of the damage, but the Grand Fireball still exploded and engulfed the creature in flames with a loud BOOOM!

Taking this time the undead was distracted, I leaped backwards as far as the chain that bound us allowed in order to survey the damage I had inflicted. Once most of the bright blaze scattered, I laid my eyes on a flaming Dullahan that stood undisturbed among the fire.

[Rank F Dungeon Hidden Boss: Dullahan Lv20]

HP: 7,752

CP: 2,531

I almost fell into despair at the sight of the measly damage I had done to him with a 600 CP Grand Fireball. But something interesting that drew my attention was his CP that was rapidly ticking down with every moment passing.

Some sort of chakra armour perhaps? One that absorbed the damage being taken in exchange of CP? But then why did his HP fall when such an armour was active? Was it the explosiveness of the fireball that dealt the damage? Something with enough momentum the chakra armour couldn't block?

I had many questions but not enough time to answer them as the Dullahan shook off the remnants of the fire and continued its run at me. Cursing, I formed a handseal, "Bunshin no jutsu!"

A dozen clones popped into existence amidst smoke around me. While I dearly wanted to stand from a distance and throw fireballs at the monster, I still had to keep in mind my CP reserves. Especially with [Sharingan] and [Chakra Flow] continuously consuming my chakra, I had to pay attention to how much chakra I was expending. The dozen clones I just created took 20CP each, and that was not counting the chakra I wasted with my subpar control.

My clones and I ran towards the Dullahan, meeting it in the middle. The first of the clones reached it first, with Kotetsu no Ryu in hand, from different directions to confuse the Dullahan.

But the superfluously large blade was a weapon that thrived when fighting against large numbers, the Dullahan proving so by eliminating four of the clones with just a single swipe. But the clones were merely a distraction anyways, I was the proverbial blade in the dark that took advantage of the brief lapse in its attention to deliver a killing blow.

Which was what I had planned, but turns out the saying, 'no plan survives first contact with the enemy' was true. The second swipe of the blade, which I had just realized I had yet to witness from the creature until now, came back harder and faster, forcing me to bend over backwards to narrowly avoid the sword.

Another three clones vanished into smoke, but the conspicuous action I took to preserve my life unlike my clones made it obvious I wasn't one. The severed head that was tucked under the Dullahan's arm turned its eyes toward me as it grinned, identifying me as the real target.

His leg snapped towards me in a kick, but this time I saw it coming with my Sharingan and managed to Kawarimi myself with a chunk of a shattered tombstone behind the creature. The stone shattered into even finer pieces upon impact, but it didn't matter as I was already in place to cut down the Dullahan.

I swung the katana forward, cutting into its flesh. However, the blade only sliced in skin deep. It was like there were steel plates underneath its skin that blocked my sword from going any deeper. I widened my eyes in surprise, before realizing that it had to be the chakra armour that was siphoning its chakra to prevent or reduce the damage going through.

The creature's zanbato flew towards me as the Dullahan swung around violently. It was fast, but since I was ready for the attack, I could see it coming from a mile away. I ducked under the wild swing and rolled forward to hit my next target – the severed head that was being carried around.

Traditional game mechanics dictated that every boss monster would have an obvious weakness. For the previous boss, it was its extremely slow speed. And for this finely balanced boss with all of its stats exceeding my own, the head was an obvious weak spot.

Seeing that I was targeting it, the severed head twisted into a murderous glare and the Dullahan actually used its own body to block my attack. My stab sunk an inch deep into the torso of the Dullahan, but no deeper.

I leaped backwards, satisfied with the brief exchange that netted me valuable info. The Dullahan was evidently extremely protective of its head, which confirmed my theory. All of my previous attacks after the fireball did zero damage to the Dullahan's HP, although his CP reduced every time I made contact.

It made almost no effort blocking attacks towards its body, but the moment I aimed at the severed head, the Dullahan was willing to throw his own body towards my attack to stop it. Which probably meant that the Dullahan's head was the only part of its body that was not covered by its chakra armour. So the Great Fireball's 'AOE' damage had actually hit the head and was the cause of the lost HP of the Dullahan.

Thus, I had to focus my attacks on the head.

The severed head in question glared at me, its face distorted in anger. The Dullahan, who had thus far been fighting without much forethought nor caution, now settled in to a rough stance, with the zanbato lifted from his shoulders and positioned in front of him.

Then, through the chakra sight my Sharingan eyes afforded me, I watched as an undulating blue glow spread from its sternum and quickly shrouded his body.

Was this… chakra enhancement!? This damned undead could use chakra enhancement but I couldn't? How emasculating.

Wait. My Sharingan eyes, shouldn't it able to copy-

[Through the effects of [Sharingan], you have acquired a new skill!]

[Chakra Enhancement] has been added to your skill page!

[Chakra Enhancement] (Active) LVL: 1

CP Cost: -

Your physical capabilities are enhanced with chakra.

Effects are improved proportionate to the amount of chakra used; however your physical stats and chakra control limits the extent of the reinforcement.