Taking it like a champ

Finally taking a glance at a notification that had appeared caused John to freeze immediately in his tracks.

“Fuck that noise. There’s a boss incoming,” John explained to Faith, who was curious about his complete 180 in mood.

John’s mind launched into planning potential ways to handle this… difficult situation. But what made the situation much more eerie was the complete lack of sound. Something was stalking them.

Immediately equipping the Eyes of the Owl as the thought struck him, he clearly saw the outline of an incredibly large rat. Upon further inspection, it was horribly scarred, having many raised portions of pale skin where hair no longer bothered to grow, and housed rippling muscles that tensed with each careful step towards the pair.

John discretely fired off an Observe, acting as if he was looking through one of his many displays.

I know it’s the second time in like a minute, but fuck. At least it has some exploitable weaknesses.

John nudged Faith, “Incoming”, and they both rolled out of the way when the Champion finally dove for an attack. The claws smashed into the intricate stone masonry, utterly and irreparable destroying them. This was obviously meant to be a killing blow before the fight had even begun.

He noticed there was indeed a small group of rats that accompanied it as the description had hinted at. “Deal with the adds, I’ll focus on the big guy!” John shouted, getting only an affirmative in response before Faith turned to cast a spell on the small company that was closing in around her.

Turning to face the boss himself, John had some doubts that he would actually be able to handle this thing alone. However, that wouldn’t stop him from giving it his best shot.

The two stared each other down, daring one another to make the first move. John channeled a Mana Javelin in each hand and broke the relative peace. The Champion saw a chance to strike and took it. Rearing back on its legs, it swiped left then right towards John.

Clearly seeing this from a mile away, he rolled backwards as the spell was completed, taking relatively moderate damage as the razor sharp claws raked along his back.

-13 HP

Gritting his teeth against the pain, John immediately sprung up to release the javelins towards the beast that stood before him.

While at least some of the energy was dispersed by either the fur or natural armor, there was a definite effect of these as deep cuts sprouted where the javelins had struck.

Roaring with a bass so strong John could feel it throughout his entire being, the Champion retreated slightly, now aware of John’s capacity for damage. But it seemed to hesitate for a moment as if pondering something, and reared forward to strike at John once again, determined to not give him a chance to hurt it again.

I suppose this thing is strong but kinda slow phys-

This chain of thought was ended abruptly as a clawed hand thundered into his ribcage at an alarmingly fast speed.

-43 HP

This threw John back into the opposing wall, both his body and the wall making some uncomfortable sounding cracking noises.

Springing back immediately into the fight despite the near debilitating pain, John noticed that each time a rat was killed, the Champion seemed to grow in strength and anger.

“Don’t kill the adds! Killing them just makes it stronger!” John croaked, his lungs not yet being completely repaired yet.

Drawing the Mana Pistol from his inventory, John took aim and fired towards the large eye of the Champion.

With the unexpectedly fast projectile rocketing towards it, there was no chance in hell it could dodge it. The bolt of plasma seared the soft tissues of the eye, creating an unpleasant sizzling noise. The sheer pain from this seemed to rebound throughout the mental link of the rats, stunning the other rats in addition to the Champion.

Seizing the opportunity, John fired off a few more shots in quick succession with the remaining charge of its internal capacitors. Each burst of plasma seared the flesh of the Champion, leaving both fur and flesh alike blackened and ruined. The bursts of energy only served to illuminate the darkened labyrinth passage, casting shadows of the brutal scene taking place right in front of him.

The shots finally spurred the Champion into action once more. It leapt towards John, muscles rippling far in a far more noticeable fashion than they had previously.

John was ready for this, and quickly leapt out of the way without so much as a scratch.

*Shouldn’t this thing be dead by now?”

A quick glance at the hulking beast confirmed this: it seemed half dead, the eyes showed qualities of **** anger, determination, and was that… fear?

This was natural of course and was something that he himself could relate to, but it felt so… out of place compared to anything John had experienced before. But this wasn’t a game after all, was it?

The next minute mostly comprised of John, having now figured out the pattern of this thing, briefly dodging and attacking it in bursts as it paused between each exchange of blows.

Just as he was dodging yet another attack, he tripped. His face finding its new home on the tiled floor… leaving him open for a finishing move.

John struggled to recover and stand up again as the Champion lazily raised itself upwards, certain it would be getting the kill.

Up until the point a knife sprouted from its exposed stomach, that was. Faith, forgotten by both the Champion and John in the flurry of battle, had finally decided to join him in fighting this thing directly.

She grabbed yet another knife from the inside of her jacket; this one looked magnitudes heavier and thicker than the one she had previously thrown.

“You alright?” Faith asked, gesturing with her free hand towards John.

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine,” John said, forcing the last of his mana into the Mana Pistol.

And with that, Faith threw the knife towards the Champion, speeding it up via the spell she cast with her empty off hand.

The Champion weakly bellowed in pain with an almost human scream. Just in time for John to aim at its head and pull the trigger.

The bolt of plasma rocketed towards the now soon to be former Champion, arcing through the nearby air before it sank into the metallic coat of the rat. While it wasn’t a lot of damage or mana, it certainly did the job with the beast in its weakened state.

The gargantuan rat finally crashed down to the ground with a wet thump, and slowly faded away into nothingness, as did the smaller rats that accompanied it.

+325 XP
Mana Javelin has reached Level 4!
Mana Capacitance has reached Level 5!
Mana Conductance has reached Level 5!
Dualcast has reached Level 2!

John checked his interfaces once more to make sure nothing would get the jump on them again. Upon finding nothing, he turned his attention to the loot that lay on the floor.

He found a neatly folded leather jacket and a double-edged grey sword with what seemed like either runes or enchantments on its surface.

After searching for a while longer, John revealed some smaller objects that had initially evaded his gaze.

There was a button with the image of a brain on it, a leftover claw of the rat that he didn’t want to touch out of fear of cutting himself and getting a disease, a bone that seemed to have large amounts of some metal reinforcing the overall structure, and a nice stack of green bills exactly amounting to $1,500.

Overally, a pretty good loot haul, even if he didn’t have any use for the sword. John was sure he could sell that somewhere where Gaia wouldn’t smite him.

John collected the items into his inventory but inspected the jacket before putting it on just for the extra protection.

Upon finding that he had just run out of inventory space, he also took out the Pin, inspecting it before pinning it to the inside of his jacket, mentally selecting Intelligence.

“Alright, has your inspection of my powers finished?”

”Yes, it has, and let me just say that you got some pretty good results on the power side of things, even if you lack skill and finesse. You have some potential, John”