Chapter 68: A Death Worth Taking
Chapter 68: A Death Worth Taking
Jin set the toxin limit that would trigger Glitch’s retreat and made peace with losing the avatar. Spending two hours in the respawn queue mattered, but he could afford it. Most Tamers had a single life to use when learning how a boss fought. Jin could trade one painless digital death for useful data.
Glitch took the word reconnaissance as a personal insult. In his view, there was only one reason to enter a boss arena, and it had nothing to do with studying the place before running away.
We’re here to watch it, Jin told him. We aren’t beating it. Not today.
Nothing came back through the bond. The silence had a stubborn edge to it, as though Glitch had already decided there was room to interpret the command.
The avatar entered through the Lower Drain checkpoint. Mist closed around him, and Corrosion Resistance activated at once. His toxin meter climbed more slowly, but it still climbed. The skill only extended the time he could remain inside. It did not make concentrated acid safe.
From the observation ledge, Jin saw the Rotmist Salamander resting in a pool of luminous waste, most of its body hidden beneath the surface.
[Rotmist Salamander — Area Boss]
[Bronze Quality]
[Rank 1 Novice, 4-Star]
[Traits: Toxic Aura, Acid Breath, Rapid Regeneration]
After one steadying breath, Jin sent Glitch forward.
The Salamander moved before Glitch even landed on the rim of the reservoir.
A wide cone of green Acid Breath flooded half the arena. Glitch scrambled onto a raised pipe with barely any space to spare. The metal below him began to smoke, while the floor kept bubbling beneath a layer of acid that blocked the entire route.
Its tail smashed through one rusted platform. When Glitch passed too close to the reservoir, the boss burst upward in a sudden lunge, snapping its jaws through the place he had occupied a heartbeat earlier. Toxic Aura never stopped working. The exposure meter continued rising through every exchange.
Jin directed Glitch along maintenance beams, pipes, and thin ledges. Harden went only into his claws and feet, giving him better purchase without draining more stamina than necessary.
The Salamander stretched too far during another lunge.
Glitch slipped inside its reach and slashed across its neck.
It was not a deep wound, but his claws had broken the skin.
Within moments, the cut vanished.
The frilled gills lining the Salamander’s neck spread wide. Toxic energy lifted from the reservoir, passed through the glowing gills, and flowed into the injury. As long as most of the creature remained in the liquid, its flesh repaired itself at an alarming rate.
Jin recorded the detail without treating it as a confirmed weakness. The reservoir clearly boosted its recovery, and the gills seemed to direct that energy. A single shallow cut could not prove whether destroying them would shut down Rapid Regeneration or only reduce its effect.
Another full Acid Breath filled the arena.
Jin ignored the attack and focused on the creature’s neck.
The gills lost their light the instant the breath ended. Several seconds passed before they began to glow again. Its strongest regeneration and its breath attack might be drawing from the same reserve.
That created an opening.
Force it to use the breath. Live through it. Hit the gills before they recovered.
But that window would be useless if the Salamander could drop back into the reservoir before Glitch reached its neck. The arena had to hold it in place long enough to matter. Even then, Glitch would need perfect timing to turn the setup into anything.
The boss followed Glitch as he crossed another ledge and released a second attack. Glitch veered left. Acid Breath struck a decayed support beneath an old filtration platform suspended over the edge of the reservoir.
Part of the support melted away. The huge platform creaked overhead.
Jin’s attention left the Salamander.
Several damaged braces were still keeping the structure up. Glitch did not have the strength to shift something that large, but he might not need to touch it. If the platform collapsed over the reservoir’s edge, it could trap part of the Salamander’s body and keep its gills out of the toxic water.
A falling platform would not kill a 4-Star Bronze-quality boss. At best, it would restrain the creature for a handful of seconds.
Those seconds could matter if they came immediately after a major breath.
Jin already carried materials that might make the plan work. Corrosive Glands could eat through specific supports. Rustjaw Scutes might block the worst of the acid splash for a moment. As for the final brace, the Salamander could destroy that with its own breath, provided Jin lured the attack into the correct angle.
The platform itself was not meant to deal the finishing blow. It would only put the boss where Jin needed it, at the exact moment he needed it there. Glitch would still have to provoke another full breath, dodge while the toxin level kept rising, reach the exposed gills, and strike with enough force to test whether Jin’s conclusion was right.
The retreat limit arrived.
Jin ordered Glitch to leave.
The Salamander immediately covered the safest route with acid. Jin sent Glitch toward the backup path instead, but the creature was far quicker on land than he had assumed. Its tail ripped apart the narrow walkway under Glitch.
He dropped into the polluted reservoir.
Corrosion Resistance bought him a few critical seconds. It could not save a 2-Star avatar from both the concentrated poison and the boss attacking again.
The Salamander’s jaws closed over him.
[Digital Avatar Defeated]
[Respawn Time: 02:00:00]
[Real Body Status: Safe]
[Combat Data Preserved]
On the blanket, Glitch’s real body jolted awake. He rolled onto his feet and stared at Jin as though he had just suffered the worst betrayal imaginable.
The death had still reached Jin through the contract. He knew the avatar would return. Glitch’s real body was unharmed and sitting right in front of him. None of that stopped the sensation of his beast dying from hitting him hard in the chest. For several breaths, he stayed where he was and let the wrongness settle.
Then he opened the combat recording. That death had cost them something, so the information it bought would not be wasted.
"You’re not hurt," Jin said to the furious lizard. "Come see what killed you. There’s something useful here."
Glitch was not interested in usefulness.
To him, this had become personal.
The two-hour countdown continued while Jin helped with the packing, stopping again and again to replay the same pieces of footage.
"That’s the ninth time you’ve watched that," Elsa said as she put yet another item he did not need into his bag. "You should be packing for school. Instead, you’re grinding a video-game boss."
Her description was technically accurate. Jin chose not to acknowledge that.
Reviewing the battle frame by frame gave more support to his theory. The gills lit up before the Salamander’s healing accelerated, and they went dark after each major breath. Remaining in contact with the reservoir strengthened its recovery. If the correct supports broke, the filtration platform could reach the boss.
He found two more details that had escaped him during the fight. After using a full breath, the Salamander turned more heavily toward its left side. The second detail mattered even more: its breath tracked Glitch’s location.
Jin could choose where the attack landed.
The plan settled into three steps. First, use Corrosive Glands to weaken the selected supports. Next, place Glitch where the Salamander would destroy the last brace with Acid Breath. Once the platform fell and forced part of the boss away from the reservoir, Glitch would provoke another full breath and strike the gills during the dim period afterward, when Rapid Regeneration seemed weakest.
Seemed weakest. It might not stop at all. That difference could determine whether Glitch came back alive.
Jin made no attempt to assign the plan a percentage. Data Appraisal could organize and interpret the evidence he had gathered. It could not account for every choice an intelligent boss might make. Once the Salamander recognized what Glitch was doing, it might abandon its usual behavior.
When the avatar’s respawn completed, Glitch appeared at the Lower Drain checkpoint. He turned toward the boss route at once.
Jin stopped him before he could move.
They did not have enough Corrosive Glands to prepare all the supports. The escape path was still unfinished, and Jin had yet to work out the exact positions for the Rustjaw Scutes. They would spend the remaining day farming materials, mapping routes, and testing placements. Running straight back into another loss would teach them nothing new.
[Rotmist Salamander Combat Data: Partial]
[Corrosive Glands Required: Insufficient]
[Arena Route: Partially Recorded]
[Estimated Plan Success: Unknown]
For once, Jin was glad the System had answered with Unknown.
Glitch remained pointed toward the Salamander’s arena. His tail lay flat behind him, and his entire body vibrated with the need to settle the score.
"We’ve figured out how to reduce its healing," Jin told him. "Now we need to stay alive through the rest of it."