Ultimate Level 1

As the boss came close, its head flashed red, and then it roared.

Waves of fear came from it, and Max felt the slightest twinge of it touch his heart before melting away.

Fowl stood there, unable to move, transfixed by the boss and what it had done.

His sonar told him that Cordellia likewise wasn’t firing anymore, her body frozen as if by magic.

[ Intimidation ]

Another wave of pressure went out, this time from Max, and the boss stumbled just in the slightest. Its eyes were taken off of Fowl, and it turned to the human rushing at it, holding a flaming weapon.

“You are worthy!” it bellowed, facing the tiny man who barely came to its knees.

His mind raced as Max considered what was about to happen. Strength-wise, he probably had this boss beat with his items, but its size and weight would overcome that. One real hit might not kill him, but if the boss had an ability like a power strike, there wasn’t a way he would survive without his own skill.

Starting the casting of Fire Nova, Max continued to strafe, trying to turn the boss away from his allies and provide them any chance to attack without having to worry about that shield.

While not fast, the size allowed it to reach Max in two steps, and the club came down with tremendous force.

The blue, glowing club slammed into the ground, creating a shockwave like so many other bosses seemed to have, causing the ground to rise and fall for about twenty yards. Max managed to avoid the strike, using his sonar to give every advantage while relying on his ability to evade to guide his steps.

Fire Nova went off, sending out three waves of fire, melting the snow that surrounded him and the giant, rolling up its feet and shins.

Max moved with the ground's undulations as the boss tried to drag its weapon along the frozen soil toward the human, who was not only avoiding his strikes but had also singed its flesh slightly.

The flames had made running easier, removing some of the drift that made him have to work harder, giving Max the chance to move toward the boss.

An explosion rocked the boss’s back, causing it to grunt as it tried to pull its weapon up, preparing to kick Max who was now near its feet.

Max swung his club, focusing the rage and frustration of a boss that either had killed multiple adventurers in their pursuit of the tower or was designed just to piss him off with taunts.

The flames of the club grew brighter and when he connected his attack against the boss’s shin, it made a clanging sound, shifting the boss’s leg back slightly and leaving a slight dent in the metal. Flames rose up on the outer edge of the armor, yet Max didn’t wait to watch and see what it would do. Max let the energy provided by the impact with the armor help him use the collision, spinning and absorbing the momentum.

That gave him time to dodge to the left, avoiding the boss's attempt to step on him.

The ground shook, and Max jumped away to safety, rolled, stood up on the back side of the right leg, and attacked again.

Roaring, the boss sent its hammer down at Max, who saw it coming thanks to his sonar. Max dodged between the boss’s legs, and the blow hit the dirt again, sending another shockwave that rolled out, stopping when it reached the monster’s feet.

The game of elephant and mouse began as Max struck repeatedly, his club delivering blows to the back, front, and sides of the shins while the fire continued to burn, not getting a chance to go out.

Repeated steps and attempts at kicking while using its weapon failed to catch Max, who was too fast for it.

A third fireball struck its back, and dozens of arrows were scattered across its neck and arms.

Tired of getting hit by both sides, the boss ignored Max and turned toward Tanila, Cordellia, and Batrire.

“Freeze!”

A massive cloud formed above the women, and Max saw the first shards of ice plummet from it, each one at least six feet long and much thicker than the spell the smaller giants had used.

He cast his ice, stone, and air walls all over Tanila, trying to protect her while she helped the other two scramble toward her.

His air wall only blocked half a dozen direct hits before failing, while the stone wall blocked almost twice as many.

There wasn’t time for him to worry about protecting them anymore; Tanila and the others could take care of themselves, and Fowl had started to move, finally breaking free from the boss's intimidation.

“Coming!”

Max was done not going all out. Unsure if it would have been the best choice, he instead let the anger at seeing his friends be in danger flow through him.

The flames on the club doubled in size, and the heat they put off, and he focused his vision on the same spot he had hit a few times already.

[ Power Strike ]

[ Magical Strike ]

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[ Rampage ]

Like a knife through butter, his club tore off the shin of the boss on its right leg, causing the spell it was channeling to end as it dropped to the ground, landing on its knee and using both shield and weapon not to fall face first.

Fowl had just reached the point where he could attack, and with the boss down, he started banging his pointed mace against the left foot nearest to him.

Blue blood spilled out rapidly from the massive wound. A blue bone was jutting from the end as well.

With a howl, the boss flashed green, and the boss floor went silent.

Everyone had basically forgotten about the sound the snowstorm made. The howling wind was an afterthought when every moment required you to focus on the forty-foot-tall boss that cast ice storms, sent the ground vibrating with each attack, and appeared for a while unable to be damaged.

Yet when the sound of the storm vanished, and every noise, like the sound of Fowl’s weapon against a metal boot, stopped. Each of them froze, wondering what was going to happen next. Everyone except their dwarven warrior who continued to attack with a vengeance.

Ice and snow began to spin and rotate, all spiraling toward the giant that was still howling.

Max tried to push toward the boss, but he was unable to move closer to the leg he had wounded. Ice and snow flowed into the gaping injury, and tinier threads ran to where arrows were in its back.

“It’s healing!” Tanila shouted, her voice carrying over the noise only because of Max’s sonar skill.

Sure enough, the flesh of its leg was growing back, and so was the plate armor he had just destroyed. Fighting the forces that seemed to push him away, Max tried to get close, slamming his club into the swirling mist of snow and ice, only to get pushed away.

Don’t! Wait!

The voice stopped him from doing what he had planned to do. Max had planned on using his berserker ability to overcome the healing, but now he backed up, giving himself a little space as the area they were fighting in became nothing more than frozen dirt.

Weapons and armor that were bent and smashed into pieces fell to the ground, and the snow that had supported them was gone.

For over twenty seconds,, every bit of ice and snow within a hundred yards was gone, and now the boss was fully healed, his leg and its armor back.

“I’m going to crush you!”

Its head snapped toward Max. Those black eyes seemed soulless and desiring to consume him.

As it began to rise, Max knew the moment he had been waiting for had come.

“Hit it!” he shouted.

Max used everything he planned in that moment, ready to see if he could finally end this.

[ Spider Walk ]

[ Demonic Magic ]

[ Demonic Teleport ]

[ Evasion ]

[ Bulwark ]

[ Armored Warrior ]

[ Berserker ]

One moment, he was on the ground. The next, Max was on the boss’s right shoulder, standing on those plated pauldrons.

Max couldn’t really see it, but the club he was wielding was blazing like a star, the power of it so overwhelmed by the rage inside him at that moment that it cut like an inferno.

Blow after blow slammed into the boss’s head, sending the giant stumbling and breaking off the other horn.

Massive chunks of flesh flew from the skull, each strike tearing pieces like a stick against a pinata. Even when the giant tried to smack Max off, his skill's grip, combined with every other defensive ability, prevented it.

The hand that came toward him pulled back without any fingers, a torrent of blue blood flowing from their missing areas, a wooden club burning blue with the heat of a star churned against anything that got close.

Max gave in to that moment, choosing not to try and control the rage, instead letting it fuel his attacks.

This weapon was built for this moment, and like a pyre doused with the strongest burning liquid, it roared with a heat that would melt any that stood in its way.

Even as the boss fell, half of its head gone and more pieces being taken off each second, Max continued his assault. Ice and snow began to stream toward the massive giant, trying to regrow and heal the injured area again, but the amount of damage being done was too much and too rapid. The snow flooded past Max like a storm, and each bit of bone and flesh that was rejoined evaporated in a heartbeat.

Suddenly, the ice and snow swirling in the air vanished.

The cold sensation that had flooded through him was not noticed.

Only when he, the boss, hit the ground and his weapon struggled to swing for a moment, hitting the dirt, did Max finally notice that he had killed the boss.

Pulling back the anger inside, he waited for the rage to end and then found himself panting, both hands on fire.

[ Regeneration ]

Glancing at his weapon, Max saw only a thin piece of wood left—barely two inches thick and three feet long. In his hands, he held a charred twig.

“Seth!”

Fowl’s voice made him look for his friend as he stored the charred stick.

“Salvage something!”

Glancing at where he stood, all Max could see was blue blood covering everything. The brain was gone, destroyed, and there was no ear or scalp even to harvest. Barely a third of the head remained.

Drenched in blood at his feet, still standing sideways as his spider walk held him, Max immediately summoned his harvesting knife and cut the hair off the base of the skull still remaining.

A decent-sized braid was in his hand when the boss began to disappear, and Max’s spider walk ability failed, dropping him to the ground with nothing to hold onto.

“Seth!”

Turning to where the others were, he saw some blood on their clothes and realized they had suffered injuries under the storm of ice spears.

Batrire’s mana was at half, a rare thing for her. She was jogging toward him with the others, chatting with Cordellia about something.

Tanila was almost out of mana and looked tired from that fight.

“You ok?”

She nodded, coming to where he was, ignoring the gore that covered him, and let him give her a quick kiss on the cheek.

“I’m not sure we would have survived that ice storm without you tossing those shields at first,” she replied. “Batrire almost used her barrier, but we were fine once you broke its channeling of the storm. How hard was it?”

Realizing there were notifications for him to check, Max tapped his head and then pointed at the largest chest they had ever received, waiting for them.

A weird sound of someone crying caught his attention, and both of them spun and saw Fowl wiping tears from his face. His hairy chest was on display for everyone, seeming unaffected by the cold breeze.

“My chest! It just vanished!” he lamented, not caring that everyone but Batrire didn’t enjoy the view.

“I didn’t realize dwarves were that hairy,” Cordellia said louder than she had planned, sending Max and Tanila into a fit of laughter while Batrire just grinned before replying.

“You’ll never know how great a hairy chest is, getting a good grip and all.”

Max felt his mouth open and his tongue trying to escape as his stomach began rolling, visually imagining that taking place.

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