69

"Damn, Go should have taken bets," I murmur when we finally make it around the bend to find ourselves outside of a large dome-like chamber set with numerous cold gray granite arching supports that rose up the walls and bet in the center of the ceiling.

Directly below this meeting of supports where a dozen torches cast dark purple light down into the cavern stood a particularly large berserker wielding a giant sword in either hand and wearing armor that still had more of its pieces attached. Even the swords looked in better repair with edges that had half the rust of the rest of the sword from seeing use now and again. Above its head was already the name and level 'Berserker Officer LV 50'.

Level fifty seemed to be the cap for this mode, thank the heavens. To either side of the officer were pairs of Silk Sorcerers. In the last trio of enemies that contained one, I had let it hit me once to check its damage. I only took the same forty damage as when I was glanced by a berserker.

"Alright, this one is could be ugly," I inform the others sadly. "You guys need to pull the sorcerers away from the boss so I can take the boss alone. They should only do about fifty or sixty damage per hit to Go, so Oleander should only need to heal once if everybody can splash the group with their attacks. I should be fine until the boss uses his first skill, but if the sorcerers are not down yet and we can't trade the aggro then we might be in trouble. Go, pack them cheeks!" I add with a short, almost deranged laugh while taking five pieces of medical meat from my Player Inventory to stuff my own face with.

[Overeating Leveled]

[+12XP]

Waiting for Ivana, Go, Oleander, and Cweeper to pick their targets from the entryway, I let them all take a shot with a weapon or spell before running into the room. Go used his shouting skills to provoke and taunt and buff, securing the aggro pull as the boss simply turned around while the sorcerers literally flew over.

Ignoring the mobs that ignored me as I ran into and through the room, I hack and chop out a quick series of Spirit Slashes to test the health and defense values of the boss.

They had just started taking their first steps toward the entry way so I figured they were as slow as they were big, but each slash worth half of my true damage only dropped alternating one and two percent of health. My full true damage was only three or four percent without a skill or the compounding of Geist. This was nothing like fighting the Hobgoblin Chieftain.

One I had pulled its attention, though, it suddenly became a little faster by clearing the distance between us with a single stretching stride. Then it raised both swords up high and I received a combat alert. In a dungeon where I had yet to receive a combat alert, this meant I was about to get skilled.

Responding almost immediately by jumping up and back, I use 360 edge to keep myself at the top of my jump as the boss's swords smashed down onto the ground. Sparked showered up and out from his swords as the large slabs of granite blocks under them and him began fracturing outward with an expanding cloud of dust and gravel.

Had I been hit with that, I would have probably flown for real. As it was, I was safely in the air where I could use a falling Flying Guillotine to smash straight into the face of the Berserker Officer. Of course, this was a boss who started the fight by using one of its skills so how could I expect to just start abusing it?

After only removing a chunk of six percent from the boss's health with my enhanced Flying Guillotine, I tried to perform a 360 Geist to follow up with. However, even though I completed the compound skill with ease, the boss was not knocked back in the slightest despite the loss of ten percent of its health. Then, the berserker did something truly terrifying.

My vision flashed once again as I was preparing to fall into another Flying Guillotine lower down on its body. Then, the Berserker Officer lowered itself into a crouch while spinning and holding one sword aimed upward and the other aimed downward. It was a perfect spinning attack designed for dual weapons and I was nailed by it, taking the downward pointed sword half of the way through my torso with a massive chunk of my armor's durability and seventy-eight percent health.

I flew from the boss's sword, then, but even though I was now longer there the attack was not over. The boss stood back up while spinning the other way and reversing the angles of his swords. Even though the first three-sixty pass was perfect for making enemies duck or jump into the next oncoming blade, the second set of spins was pure overkill.

After the first spin, what could even still be standing there to get hit another time?!

[Learned Skill: Dual Spin Blade Storm]

[+100XP]

[Dual Spin Blade Storm Uninitiated: After witnessing and experiencing the awesome might of a master swordsman's spinning specialty as one of the Craftiest around, you have stolen their technique. Wielding two swords, questionable physics, and fluid agility, you can now unleash two wave of high burst damage with four strikes apiece each worth (150)% damage per hit with (3)in of knockback per Strength point exceeding an opponent's weight]

The Berserker Officer's stat must have far outweighed me because I was still flying through the air when I finished reading the information displayed in front of me. Then I smacked into a wall for eighteen of my remaining twenty-two percent of health. I quickly swallowed all of the meat I was eating for two hundred and fifty health as well as one hundred and twenty-five mana.

Once my body was healed up and mobile I was on my feet and running forward to meet the lumbering boss before it could get halfway across the room from the center. By now, though, the others were finishing roasting the 'Superior Silk Sorcerers' and now started to close in on or unleash ranged hell upon the boss. Wishing I had kept the useful speed buff of Lil's instead of Oleander's magic stat buff, I renter combat with a Flying Guillotine straight into the eight-and-a-half foot tall undead's crotch.

Sadly, this was an undead and thus critical hits worked differently on them.

After ten seconds of conflict, the boss's health was lowered from the seventy-eight percent I previously left them with before being struck for as much health all the way down to fifty-two percent. My vision flashed and I immediately threw out two waves of Kinetic Force. Either of them struck Go and Hermes who were up front and fighting with me, sending them flying into the air as the boss raised his sword.

"Don't come back in close until after the spins!" I call out, knowing the attack that I had stolen would come into play soon. Not even five seconds later, the boss berserker held its sword out and briefly angled them before dropping into a savage but perfectly dance-like spin of its blades. This time, though. I was ready.

Instead of being caught by the first downward aimed sword I simply dove in passed it and then crawled on my belly and elbows under the second upward aimed sword. After surviving the first spin, I calmly waited until the rising downward sword spins up and away from me before leaping into a Flying Guillotine fueled with Force Strike and Geist.

Caught at the very end of their strongest skill with what was probably my current strongest compounding of skills without being able to use actual magic, I finally managed to stagger the boss back a single step. It was not much, but coupled with the combined hits as well as the others once again attacking in every way possible the boss's health was soon down to thirty percent.

Then, after ten more seconds of concentrated attacks, its health bar flashed from black to dark purple once it reached ten percent health and the fire-like light wreathing its body suddenly grow. Even its once empty eye sockets now bore dark purple lights for eyes. The Chieftain had not gotten to display its rage mode from being outnumbered.

This boss, on the other hand, had no such restricting factors stopping them as their growth in energy shoved everybody back several yards from where they were previously. Then, as I was the first to recover and start start unleashing Spirit Slashes with electric attribute for solid two percents, the boss leaped up into the air and clear across the room.

However, all it took was for five arcing waves of cutting spiritual energy to land before the fight was over while they were still in the air before feeding my sword.

[Geist had grown stronger, all stats raised by 1]

[+1000XP]

[Leveled Up]

[All stats raised by 1]

[Tragedy's Traveler's have defeated the Easy Mode boss Berserker Officer for the first time ever. The member to land the killing blow, Life Hack, will receive pioneer looting rights of First-Kill-Drop-All. +1000 XP to all of Tragedy's Travelers, +500 again to Life Hack]

[Acquired Officer's Ancient Sword(L)]

[Acquired Officer's Ancient Sword(R)]

[Acquired Officer's Ivory x15]

[Acquired Officer's Ancient Steel Scrap x15]

[Acquired Officer's Burial Token]

[Acquired Superior Ancient Silk x8]

[Acquired Gold x1800]

"We'll hold on to the loot until we do the other modes," I reply after noticing the excited looks the others were wearing on their faces while waiting to hear about the loot we had acquired. "We got the swords, some crafting materials, and a necklace accessory. They description says the swords and accessory are graded based on the mode, so we'll just end up passing everything down the line as we get it. Plus, I want to see how we do in an over-leveled dungeon while under-leveled and using our level equips."

"The accessory's information…?" Go says, trailing off in a pointed question.

"Officer's Burial Token, +3 to all physical stats while equipped and +3% damage with swords," I say tiredly, knowing I was the only person here who could get the most use out of this token. "Critical hits with swords will also cause increased and extended bleeding damage. UNDEAD DON'T BLEED. Moving forward," I add while closing my menus and walking away.

Outside of the officer's chamber was a straight stretch of hallway that lead to another T with two groups of three berserker undead between us and the spider path. "These guys are pretty slow so I'll just turn them around and you guys try to splash them," I decide while starting ahead of the others. "If that doesn't work, Go or Hermes can pull one aside for everyone."

Leaving the others easily behind, I leap into the air while casting Air Cannon against the ground under my feet to send me flying higher and further faster than ever before. Then, as I was nearing the group, I twisted sideways in midair and stretched out to increase my reach before using Flying Guillotine. I flipped right through the trio, spinning each of them around with solid slashes about their torsos.

Pretty much as soon as I landed beyond the staggered undead the area between them suddenly exploded with a barrage of mixed magical attacks and all of their health bars dropped below fifty percent. Then I just turned around and started unleashing burning Spirit Slashes as swiftly as I could in a sustained flow of blurred crescents. Ten seconds later, the berserkers were gone.

Roughly a minute later after having worked out the most effective methods for dealing with the larger undead, my group and our familiars were all resting and letting our mana replenish naturally. Even though Spirit Slash only used about ten MP and imbuing my weapon with active fire element to empower them only cost five or so MP, but sustaining the fire cost more mana by the second and each Spirit Slash basically became worth fifteen mana a cast.

I used up a couple hundred just in the last two fights.

By the time everyone had cooled their skills and replenished their mana with no signs of the others, I decided to go ahead and start stealing kills from them. Did I really think that the larger team of both people and familiars would need our help? No, but I was getting bored waiting on them.

So, while Go, Ivana, Oleander, and I picked our way through the webs I had our familiars work on harvesting what turned out to be called 'Dense Web' when I chopped down a long swatch that dropped three 'webs'. It actually took several strokes to cut through one end and a forced Geist to easily clear the other. Sadly, it was listed as a construction material.

*