Chapter 19: First Dungeon, First Boss, First Existential Crisis!
Heavy footsteps.
Boom.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
Boom.
The whole cavern shuddered.
Boom.
Then two points of crimson light ignited in the darkness ahead — eyes, glowing like embers, fixed on all four of them at once.
The Goblin King stepped into the light.
Ten meters tall. Moss-crusted iron armor bolted straight into rotting green flesh.
A rusted crown fused permanently into its skull, one broken tusk jutting from a scarred jaw, chains wrapped around one massive forearm like trophies from something it had once dragged down here.
’That,’ Lucien thought, ’is not a normal goblin.’
Kael grinned, greatsword sliding off his back.
"Don’t die before I do," he said cheerfully, and charged.
---
The Goblin King’s fist met him mid-stride, a backhand swat that sent Kael crashing into the cavern wall hard enough to crack stone.
It advanced on him immediately, clearly intent on finishing what one hit had started.
Rika moved first.
"Guardian Wall!" she shouted, mana flaring blue-white across her shield as she planted herself between Kael and the incoming strike.
The impact boomed through the chamber. Rika’s boots carved twin trenches into the stone floor, but she held, shield groaning under the pressure before she was finally flung backward, skidding to a stop.
"Left shoulder’s mine to watch," Vex called out, already loosing an arrow, mana crackling along its shaft.
It struck the Goblin King’s back and shattered uselessly against thick hide.
"Skin’s too dense, going for distraction!"
Another arrow. Another. Each one drew the beast’s attention half a step, buying Kael precious seconds to disentangle himself from the wall.
Kael emerged at its flank, roaring back, and swung his greatsword in a full-bodied arc into its chest.
The blow staggered the giant backward, cracking part of its armor plating loose.
"Now!" Rika shouted, rushing in, axe rising toward its skull.
The Goblin King threw its head back and unleashed a roar that hit like a physical wave, sound alone rattling teeth and scattering thought.
Rika froze mid-swing.
Kael staggered.
Vex’s next arrow went wide.
The beast recovered first, fist already swinging toward Rika’s stunned form.
---
Lucien saw it before anyone else moved.
Not with his eyes.
With his senses for blood.
Blood pulsed visibly to his awareness now, a network of crimson rivers flowing beneath the Goblin King’s hide, and there, along its left shoulder, a darker current.
Slower, weaker and damaged, barely healed, buried under scar tissue.
’There.’
He moved.
Rika’s shield came up just in time, absorbing the blow with a grunt of effort, driven back but not broken.
Lucien was already behind the Goblin King, blade driving hard into that exact weak point on its shoulder blade.
The beast howled, blood spraying from the wound — and Lucien reached out with his talent, seizing that spray mid-air, compressing it, hardening it into a single crystalline spike.
He drove it toward the exposed heart.
The Goblin King twisted at the last instant, and the spike tore through its shoulder instead, blasting a chunk of meat and bone clean off.
It staggered, one arm hanging uselessly.
"Now, all together!" Rika bellowed, and the four of them converged, blades and axe and arrows all finding purchase in the same stretch of ruined shoulder.
The Goblin King threw its head back.
This time the roar didn’t sound like pain.
It sounded almost like laughter.
Its mana exploded outward, a shockwave of pressure that knocked all four of them back a step.
Its body grew along with its strengthincreasing to Beginner C-Rank.
Fifteen meters now, muscle bulging grotesquely beneath skin rapidly darkening to an angry red.
The ruined shoulder stitched itself shut before their eyes, not fully healed, but closed, wounds aging days in seconds.
"It has entered it’s second phase," Vex said, voice tight.
"It’s not done."
’Fantastic,’ Lucien thought.
"Absolutely wonderful, love this for us.’
Vex didn’t hesitate.
He drew back a fully-charged arrow, mana coiling tight around the tip, and loosed it straight into the beast’s face the instant its transformation completed.
The arrow detonated on impact.
The Goblin King roared — a normal roar this time, pained, furious — but remained standing.
Kael moved before the smoke cleared, sliding low beneath its guard, blade glowing faintly with some technique Lucien didn’t recognize.
He swung into both knees at once.
Bone shattered.
The giant’s balance broke.
As it toppled, one massive fist swung wildly, catching Kael before he could clear the impact zone, sending him tumbling.
’My turn.’
Lucien drew on every drop of stored blood in his reservoir, dozens of goblin corpses’ worth, condensing it into a dozen thin, wicked needles hovering at his command.
Then he activated Furnace Ignition, burning his own blood this time.
Heat surged through his veins, crimson light bleeding faintly beneath his skin.
His heartbeat kicked up hard, too fast, vision narrowing at the edges like the world had tunneled down to a single target.
’First time doing this shit, feels like I’m on something.’
’Definitely feels like it’s taking something out of me.’
But strength flooded his limbs regardless, faster, sharper, stronger, the bloodline’s regeneration working to keep pace with what he was spending.
He sent the needles flying, mid-fall, straight into the Goblin King’s eyes.
It shrieked, blinded, thrashing wildly as it crashed to the ground.
Lucien was already moving, stat-boosted body covering the distance in a blur.
He leapt.
His sword ignited with crimson light, drawn from his own mana instinctively responding to the moment.
One clean arc.
Silence.
Then, slowly, the massive head slid free of its shoulders, thudding to the stone floor with a sound that echoed through the entire chamber.
---
Nobody moved.
Weapons stayed raised, eyes locked on the twitching corpse, waiting.
’Sometimes they fake it,’ Lucien remembered Aurelia’s warning.
’Never assume that they are dead, always make sure.’
Ten seconds passed.
Then twenty.
The body stayed still.
Only then did everyone lower their guard, collapsing where they stood, chests heaving.
Kael was bleeding from multiple gashes, one arm hanging awkwardly.
Rika had a nasty bruise blooming along her jaw, shield arm trembling with strain.
Vex looked mostly unscathed, though thoroughly drained.
Rika fished out healing potions, tossing one to Kael, offering another toward Lucien.
"I’m fine, I got my own" Lucien said, waving it off.
’Not entirely true that I’m fine. But not risking an unknown potion’s side effects either, and I’ve got my own solution.’
He discreetly drew a small measure from his blood reservoir, letting Ashen Rebirth and his own vampire traits quietly knit closed the minor cuts he’d picked up along the way.
By the time the others had finished their potions, the Goblin King’s massive corpse shimmered, then dissolved entirely into motes of light.
Silence.
Nothing else happened.
Kael frowned, glancing around the empty chamber floor.
"...No loot?"
Then golden light bloomed from the exact spot where the body had vanished.
A chest rose slowly out of the stone floor, gilded and gleaming, ornate carvings shifting faintly across its surface.
Kael’s mouth fell open.
"...Gold," he whispered.
Rika’s eyes went wide. "...Impossible."
Vex lowered his bow entirely, staring.
"I’ve cleared this dungeon over forty times," he said slowly.
"I’ve never seen one drop. Not once."
Lucien blinked, glancing between the chest and their stunned faces.
"...They’re really that rare?"
All three of them turned to look at him, very slowly, expressions caught somewhere between disbelief and dawning suspicion.
"..."
Kael pointed at him, hand slightly unsteady.
"...You’re telling us," he said, "this is your first dungeon right?"
***************
[A/N: Loving the story so far? Comment and let me know.
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