CHAPTER 70: THE FINAL STAGE

[You have reached Dungeon Boss]

[Erikta greets you]

Lucien winced.

’Greet me? Greet me? I don’t want no monster greeting me!’

But again, it wasn’t far-fetched—he’d already encountered a monster capable, or should he say, almost capable, of speech.

He shoved the door open anyway. However, the moment Lucien stepped inside, his entire body crawled with cold, terrifying dread.

What he first saw was darkness. Then in the darkness, multiple eyes began to open, staring at him. For a moment, it seemed even the Watcher’s Eye couldn’t pierce the veil of what lurked beyond.

He felt the cold grip of fear—and never had he felt it so vividly.

This wasn’t something [Predator’s Instinct] perceived because the system didn’t even sense anything. Whatever happened here was as cold and real as it could have been outside a game.

And that, for a moment, worried Lucien.

However, he didn’t have much time to stay worried.

Because as the darkness vanished, a vast hall swarmed with red goblins he’d never seen coming welcomed him.

[Predator’s Instinct has detected a massive amount of killing intent]

[You are advised to flee]

A bitter laugh clawed from Lucien’s throat.

"Okay... no joke..."

He knew—every time he was advised to flee, it meant the situation was impossible for him.

And now, it was even worse than before. At least before, he’d been able to somehow lure the monster. This time, aside from being trapped in a room—albeit a massive one—he was also facing an army of goblins that ten players of his level would struggle against.

Still, Lucien gripped the Nightfang swords in both hands and crossed them over his face.

He was totally locked in.

And then he thought to himself.

’Shit... I really might fail this time...’

In front of him sprawled an ocean of goblins. Somewhere behind the horde, whatever was leading them—its name was Erikta—was sitting, waiting.

But that wasn’t even his concern. There was no green goblin here. All the goblins swarming the hall were red with strange black markings over their bodies, plus they weren’t short like the ones from the outer cave.

They were taller—almost as tall as he was—bulky, with thick, taut muscles. Some were even purple-skinned, but what all of them had in common were vicious red eyes and macabre primitive weapons: rusted swords, chipped axes, broken spears.

But their condition didn’t matter—Lucien had watched the red goblins wield those weapons better than any human would have.

And the worst of it all? Every single one of these monsters was in their level 50s.

By simple logic, they weren’t strong.

But the problem was:

Every single one of them was a Variant.

Simply put, Lucien’s eyes could see basic information like the monster type, the level, if they were a variant, a Deviant. And pretty much anybody could recognize a named monster, so that wasn’t anything special.

What had not yet panned out, however, was that his eyes were also supposed to be able to see monsters’ weaknesses. Yet he’d seen none of those.

The green goblins were pretty much easy to deal with, the red goblins to an extent, until their scarred leader started barking orders.

Lucien had suspected that what would be his greatest advantage in this final stage was breaking their coordination and abandoning his own repetitiveness.

Somehow, he had to learn not to stick to one pattern.

For a veteran combatant, that would have been easy. But Lucien was a complete novice combatant. All he was riding on was his knowledge of motion and his fused traits.

And wanting to pull off something such as erraticness in battle was a wild and reckless thing to dare.

He exhaled.

’If I don’t do it, I’ll be fucked anyway.’

Lucien clenched his blades tighter.

’Ah... right, I should record this moment.’

Lucien closed his eyes for a moment. Then naturally, the system HUD display came on.

[Would you like to do a video recording?]

[Choose video orientation:]

[360 view]

[Overhead view]

[Hindsight view]

’Overhead.’

Lucien made his choice and finally focused ahead. The goblins still weren’t charging at him with ferocious cries yet. And he was also motionless.

The air was taut with tension but as silent as a graveyard. So silent that a dropped pin would have been heard.

Lucien could imagine asking himself seriously:

"Do you really want to do this? You don’t have to do this."

But in that moment, he caught his resolve wavering. He shot forward.

He was like a blinding white light. He flashed across the distance, leaped into the air.

[You are using Rooted Wrath]

As he landed amidst the goblins, a cacophony of terrible screams unleashed, bodies shattered and blood painted the air in a macabre palette.

He swung the Nightfang blades with the slow twirl of a dancer. He was intentional, and yet not intentional.

One thing he made sure to do was think less. With the Watcher’s Eyes, Lucien could see 360 degrees—that meant there was no vision that escaped him and things like blindside attacks didn’t apply to him.

So when he rolled, his roll was devastating, gory and viciously effective, tearing through flesh in rapid and unhinged succession.

His speed was another terrifying attribute.

Nightfang gave him a 15% increase in speed in dark places. Lucien’s speed was currently at 125, plus a 15% increase made it 143. That speed belonged to a player in their level 100s, however, Lucien was still level 56.

His skills, one could probably say, were not special—which they were. But it wasn’t uncommon to have people who adapted to the gaming world at a shocking rate; in fact, many of those existed in Evolution Online and were broadly known.

The problem was... Lucien’s stats weren’t matching his growth rate, and there was also the problem of his fusion. It wasn’t a problem now.

However, Lucien hadn’t even reached level 100 yet.

The twin short swords blazed with flames as Lucien swung them through the air. He rushed in and slashed one monster across the chest.

[You have dealt 1,129 damage]

[You have dealt burn damage]

[Target will lose 10 health points every 3 seconds]

Lucien was already pulling back, driving toward another monster.