A red bar slowly started to spread out in the bottom of my vision. A title or name above it. "It's a boss," I whispered. The boss was called "Grafted Undead Amalgamation" A fitting title I thought. The thing was pretty much spherical, had 6 heads, one on each side you could say, and 50 arms and legs probably. Not pretty, I thought. It still seemed to be solidifying itself so I had some time before I had to fight it.
Thinking about what I could possibly do to defeat it, I remembered that along with having a lot of stat points, I also had a lot of skill points! After leveling up I had 11 to be exact. Currently my only skill (shapeshifting) was at level 5. I had no confidence in fighting that thing in front of me so I put all of my points into it. I didn't really know what I was saving them for anyway, and I was not looking to die right here so I wanted to give myself the best chance possible. After looking at the skill level I saw that it was now level 6. It only went up one level?! I thought, feeling scammed. But to my relief I saw that the skill had actually evolved. It was now called 'lesser shapeshifting' as opposed to 'nadir shapeshifting'.
But how do I use it? I thought in a panic, as the ball of zombies was now rolling/walking its way over to me. The system! I thought. It had been useless after that talk with Winter, but maybe it could help me here. "Hey System! How do I use skills???" I called out hurriedly. Much to my relief a familiar blue box popped up that read 'The simplest way to use a skill is to call out its name' then closed. "Lesser shapeshifting!" I yelled, feeling kind of stupid. Another box popped up. 'Select shapeshifting material for use' it read. Material? The only thing I could have would be those goblin claws. I thought as I ran away from the too close for comfort boss. I fumbled around for one of the claws in my pocket and pulled it out. A box popped up with a small amount of text over the claw. 'Goblin claw: Type: consumable' was all it said. "I want to use this," I said, not really sure what to do. The claw fell through my fingers as it turned to sand. I then watched as my fingernails turned into 8 inch long claws. I could suddenly see better too. All the spots that were in shadows before were now easy to peer into. And I could hear everything it seemed like, even the soft bending of the bosses toes. Reaching up to feel my ears, I was shocked to find that they were now pointy and twice their old size. My stats changed even when I just had the claws, what about now? I thought.
Pulling up my stats I was pleasantly surprised. Endurance got +5 while Strength and Instinct got +10 augmented to both. Intelligence and Mind both got -5 however. I wasn't worried because I was pretty sure that those didn't actually affect how smart I was, and I didn't really feel any dumber. Regardless, my feet felt light and I felt more alert than I had ever before. I looked at the boss. How do I even fight this? I thought, It has arms, legs, and faces everywhere! I guess I can slash at its arms and stuff, slowly make a weak spot. I was surprised at my own genius. I started to edge close to the boss, staying alert. And it was a good thing I did. I noticed that It stopped moving and started to push itself against its back arms and legs. Oh please don't jump, I thought. But there was not much I could do as I watched it propel itself through the air straight at me and land in front of me, now sprinting. Thanks to my new strength and instinct, I was able to leap out of the way just in time and watch it go barrelling into a wall. The walls shook, dust fell from the ceiling, and the flames went into a frenzy causing the shadows to run rampant. It was quite scary to know that this thing could go so fast but on the bright side, it seemed that It couldn't really slow itself down given the force of the impact. The reason I say on the bright side is because the things health had gone down a chunk, somewhere between 5-10%.
I looked back at the boss and saw that it was not moving. It took around 10 seconds for it to re-animate. Its arms moving about disgustingly once again. Let's hope it does that again, I thought. It was coming at me much quicker than last time now. It seemed like it wanted to throw some punches this time so I backed off. It however, did not. After 30 seconds of playing cat and mouse with it I started carefully slashing at it. Progress was being made, I was mainly just hitting anywhere I could, and it seemed to be working. I took a good chunk of its health before it backed up onto its rear limbs again. Not feeling like getting hit by the soon to be flying undead meatball, I bolted out of the way. The room shook once more as it threw itself into a wall. Remembering that it was knocked out for a while last time, I ran over to where it crashed and started hacking away at it. I was able to get at its faces and main body which did a lot of damage to it. I scrambled away as it stood up. It was at half now. It leapt at me once more and I jumped out of the way. Now that I knew somewhat how to fight it, it was not too hard to get down to a quarter of its health. And when I did get it down to that quarter mark it started to glow that nasty purple, its light becoming so intense that every corner of the room was filled with it. The light had an unsettling feeling to look at and that feeling only grew when engulfed in it. My health bar seemed to agree as it started to ever so slowly decrease.
Many new system windows appeared after this development, most of them were the same glitched ones that appeared when I was talking to Winter. 'Error' read one, 'failed recalculation' read another, a particularly worrying one said 'Curse it…' which was also heavily embroidered with fancy golden wings and stuff. The only one I understood was a notification as to why my health was decreasing. 'Debuf: Ruin: If the light of Ruin is not extinguished, your health will be quenched in 2 minutes or less.' 2 MINUTES!!!! Isn't this thing too crazy for something that is supposed to be a beginner dungeon!!?? I thought in horror. Going from goblins to this seems too much!! Maybe it would be easy for Winter… But there's nothing normal about that guy!! Luckily this 'Thing' was already down to a quarter of its health.
The amalgamation lowered itself to the ground, seemingly readying itself to leap at me once more. But this time, It jumped straight up into the air, managing to hit the ceiling and propel itself at me from there. Once again I jumped out of the way. However this time, it was too fast and too unexpected. It barely managed to graze me but even that light touch sent me flying away, almost slamming into a wall. My whole body ached and pain arced from where I had been hit. I glanced at my health bar and drank a potion in a hurry, as I was almost out of health. My health filled almost to the top but not quite, some of my health bar had already been encroached upon by a certain ruinous light. After recovering, which only took a second, I stood up in a hurry and looked around for the boss. Not seeing it immediately, I realized that its light was now coming from above and that I should get out of there FAST. Diving out of the way I felt the rumble of the ground beneath me. The bosses health bar only had a sliver left at this point. After almost being killed and witnessing all that I just had I was far from being in my right mind. In mild annoyance and anger I dropped my blade and leapt straight for this thing, Claws fully outstretched above my head. I knocked some limbs out of the way and started hacking at it until there was nothing left to hack at. It had disintegrated, and the fight was finally over.
Name: Kevin
Age: 17
Level : 16
EXP: 1500/4000
Lesser Shapeshifter
Stat Points: 3
Stats---------
Vitality : 15
Mind : 5
Endurance : 10
Strength : 20
Intelligence : 5
Soul : 5
Instinct : 30
Tinkering : 5
Luck : 0
Skill Points: 0
Skills---------
Language
Lesser Shapeshifting(level 6)