Arthur Pendragon
Gorlak inspected the ancient runes etched on the gate, his sharp eyes carefully studying each stroke of the mysterious language.
-----
In the land of darkness, where shadows reign,
There stands a king of bones and bane.
With power to summon armies of the dead,
And a vampiric aura that fills foes with dread.
His magic draws the dead from their slumber,
Raising skeletons and zombies in numbers.
Their bones rattle and clack, a fearsome sight,
As they march to do their master's bidding in the night.
So beware, oh mortals, of the Wraith King's power,
For in his kingdom, death has no final hour.
The undead rise, and the living cower,
In the shadow of the Wraith King's tower.
-----
As Gorlak finished reading the poem, Augustus turned to William and posed a question that had been on his mind.
"Have you and your party cleared this dungeon before?" Augustus asked, hoping to gauge their experience.
"Yes, we have," William replied. "But we usually relied on Sir Arthur for previous dungeon raids. Unfortunately, he's busy helping another city this month, so we decided to take on this dungeon without him."
Augustus nodded, his gaze thoughtful. "And do you have a strategy to defeat the Wraith King?"
William's eyes gleamed with determination. "Previously, not really. But with you here, I think we can do it. Should I brief you on the plan?"
"Of course, you should've done it earlier without me asking." Augustus replied, lightly scolding William.
"My apologies." William proceeded to explain their formation, drawing a rough sketch of the boss chamber on the ground to make it easier to understand. "We have four tanks, each one followed by two knights, one mage, one hunter, and one priest. Myself, two tank, two mages and the other five rogues will be the flex role, meaning we'll help out whenever someone in the party needed to be replaced."
"The flex role is the most important and crucial role," William continued. "We need to prevent any mobs from getting past the front line. If there is any danger, the flex needs to step in and replace the injured party member until the priest can heal them. There's no backup party, so we need to work together and stay alive."
Augustus nodded, impressed by the party's planning. "And where do I come in?"
"We need you to take on the Wraith King by yourself," William said, his voice serious. "While we manage the smaller mobs, you'll have to defeat the boss alone."
"That's what Sir Arthur did?" Augustus asked, curious about the mentioned person.
"Unfortunately yes." William knew his request is absurd but decided to ask Augustus to do so anyway as there's no other choice.
"To be honest, Sir Arthur could easily clear this dungeon alone, without any help from us." William is embarrassed as he told the truth. "He just wanted to help us grow stronger that's why he asked us to enter with him."
"I would like to meet him. Since he's that powerful, is he an Irregular?" Augustus asked.
"No! Duke Arthur Pendragon is the noblest of the noblest, one of the strongest Exonians feared by many Irregulars. The Pendragons tamed dragons in the past," Williams exclaimed.
"They also possess one of the most treasured swords in the world, The Dragon Slayer, which is currently wielded by the only Successor of Pendragon, Arthur himself," he continued.
"The Dragon Slayer cannot be wielded by just any guy; it chooses its owner. This means that Sir Arthur is blessed by the Goddess," William praised the man continuously.
Augustus was relieved to hear that there was at least one Exonian who was as strong as the Irregulars.
"This means my speculation isn't wrong; the Goddess has not abandoned her people yet," he thought.
As Augustus listened to William's tales , his mind couldn't help but compare him to Sir Galen. The similarities were uncanny, and he wondered if they were related somehow. But instead of dwelling on that thought, he decided to focus on the task at hand.
'I'm not sure if I could fight the wraith king one on one, but in the first place, that's what I'm planning to do' Augustus thought to himself. "Clearing this dungeon alone, but since I found some reinforcement, might as well use them to clear the mobs."
However, he knew he needed to increase his firepower if he wanted to defeat the Wraith King. Augustus opened his system and sold all of the materials that he had gathered along the way to obtain points.
The only way he could increase his firepower at the moment was by upgrading Dawn Blade, which he had already upgraded to a Grade-2 Artifact during the fight with Nolan.
With weeks of dungeon experience and additional experience from killing skeletons, ghouls, and wraiths, Augustus had stocked up around 138k experience to upgrade Dawn Blade. He quickly spent all of the experience and to upgrade his sword.
Augustus was progressing well with upgrading Dawn Blade until he reached +3.
[The success rate is 80%, would you like to continue?]
He was surprised to see a warning message from the system displaying success rate.
He pressed the button anyway, but to his dismay, the upgrade failed.
[You have failed]
Augustus was taken aback, he didn't expect he would actually fail.
"It was 80% though? What?" he muttered.
The system increased the success rate to 83% for his next attempt, and thankfully, Augustus succeeded on his next try.
However, things took a turn for the worse as he reached +8, where the success rate plummeted to 40%.
[The success rate is 40%, would you like to continue?]
[You have failed]
[The success rate is 42%, would you like to continue?]
[You have failed]
[The success rate is 45%, would you like to continue?]
[You have failed]
[The success rate is 50%, would you like to continue?]
[You have failed]
He tried several times, only to be met with failure each time.
Augustus couldn't believe what was happening. He was wasting his experience and points, and to add insult to injury, each click also took away his points. At Grade-1, he only needed 1000 points per upgrade, but now at Grade-2, he had to spend 3000 points per try.
Augustus grew increasingly frustrated with the system, feeling like he was wasting his resources. He let out a frustrated sigh and took a moment to calm down.
[The success rate is 55%, would you like to continue?]
[You have failed]
[You have stocked up maximum energy, the next upgrade success rate is 100%]
Another failure but he finally, he hit the pity meter, reaching the maximum energy level and resulting in a 100% success rate for his next upgrade.
Obviously, Augustus wasn't happy about it. While the others were happily enjoying their rest and eating their meal, Augustus was experiencing some sort of gambling addiction with his system.
"Hey, Augustus, do you want to eat some food?" William noticed that Augustus was sitting in the corner, fiddling with what he thought was the Goddess Status.
"No, I'm not hungry," Augustus quickly dismissed William, as he was busy.
He still needed one more upgrade for Dawn Blade to reach Grade-3 and the success rate for the final upgrade was only 20%.
Augustus noticed that he was running low on experience points and had to succeed in this one or he will need gather up enough experience to try again the next time.
'Please! give to me this time!'
Augustus slowly clicked on the upgrade button and watched the system animation intensely.
[Dawn Blade was upgraded to Grade-3 Artifact]
[Dawnblade, Grade 3 Artifact (Growth-Type)]
[Stats Increases: All Stats + 15]
[Active Effects: Blinding Light Lvl 3]
[Passive Effects: Have 3% chance to trigger Blinding Light on attack]
[Requirement: Golden Core Realm]
[Blinding Light Lvl 3]
Blinds enemies within a 200-meter radius for two seconds. The user will not be affected by the blind and will be healed instead when exposed to the light.
[Cooldown: 5 Minutes]
'Thank you!' Augustus hugged the upgraded Dawn Blade on his hand.
"It changed its appearance slightly as it was upgraded. Its hilt now has a hole that can be filled with something" Augustus observed.
And obviously, the blade looks sharper than before. It's also resonating with Augustus' Qi and Aura, releasing them on its own.
After the plans were briefed and everyone had rested enough, we were ready to enter.
William and the other party members started to move.
As the gate creaked open, the party was met with a bone-chilling sight despite they have been here already before.
In fact, they are more scared than ever as it was the first time they entered this place without their savior, Sir Arthur.
They stepped into a giant chamber that resembled a graveyard with tombstones of various shapes and sizes littered all over the area.
In the distance, they could see the eerie silhouettes of death skeletons, blood ghouls, and death wraiths lurking around, waiting for prey to approach them.
The giant coffin, which was the size of a small house, stood in the center of the chamber, and it was clear that this was where the Wraith King was resting.
The entire chamber was shrouded in an aura of death and despair, and the air was thick with the stench of rotting flesh and decay.
Despite the ominous atmosphere, the party stood their ground, ready to face whatever lay ahead.
"This chamber is five times larger than the Goblin King's chamber," Augustus remarked, surprised at how big the boss chamber was.
"Why would someone build a giant graveyard under a castle?" Augustus wondered, trying to figure out the reason, but it didn't make sense.
In the first place, Augustus thought the boss chamber would be at the top of the castle, but since William guided him to the basement, he just followed him.
"Prepare, they will rise from the ground soon," William commanded the party to stay on guard.
As they stepped in, the Wraith King didn't instantly awaken and attack them especially since they were quite far away from him, and he was still in his slumber, yet woken up from his coffin.
The tombstones surrounding them started to spawn the undead as they sensed life force above the ground.
Nearby undead also started to charge at them, but the tank prevented them from passing through and attracted their attention.
The flex stood nearby, preparing to assist them.
Augustus commanded Squishy and Gorlak to kill all the undead that they saw. This went on as they slowly cleared the undead in this chamber and moved forward, step by step nearing the Wraith King.
While they were progressing slowly, Augustus didn't idle around either. He slowly set up multiple traps that could potentially assist him later when he battle the Wraith King.
"The giant skeleton is going to attack my side!" one of the tanks yelled, knowing he was going to be in trouble as the death skeleton looked his way.
"Squishy, get him," Augustus commanded Squishy to attack the giant skeleton. "Gorlak, focus on the wraiths, they're running out of mana already." Augustus noticed that the mages were wasting their spells on skeletons that were resistant to magic.
They should have just saved their mana for the wraiths instead and maintained their mana so they wouldn't run out.
"They're doing pretty good on their own, and we're getting closer to the main objective, but there are still many mini bosses in this chamber that are wandering around. They could potentially endanger the party if multiple of them suddenly came at them," Augustus thought to himself.
He decided to focus on killing the big ones so they wouldn't cause trouble when he fought the Wraith King.
Augustus decided to move alone, leaving Gorlak and Squishy to protect the main party.