Coming into range of the group of three enemies, Sam focused on the Styrgers first. They were relatively close to each other, but not close enough that Static Charge would overlap. However, they were both within his area of influence, which was enough.

  Splitting his swarm into two, he sent them out for the duo. Not being able to react in time as the weapons manifested around them just before the attack, they both fell in a pulse of gore and lightning as Static Charge triggered. Bonus damage from Silent Killer helped mitigate the split slightly, but it was not needed at all.

  The Cloudhorn turned towards the sound but only saw the full swarm coming down on it. Like the others, it died before it got a chance to react.

  [ Experience gained: +15 Quadrillion. ]

  [ Levelup +1! ]

  [ Elara Levelup +1! ]

  [ Dia Levelup +1! ]

  [ Elara Level 50 reached. Fifth class skill granted: Ranged Venom. ]

  [ Ranged venom: Can shoot venom at range, when doing so, the venom reacts on touch. 1h cooldown. ]

  Putting the point in Spirit as normal for himself, he put both Dia’s and Elara’s in Vitality before he moved on. Turning around, he saw that, in the distance, Dia and Janik were starting to gather now. Now that he was this far away, it seemed they had waited to see where he was before doing anything.

  As he walked up towards the next group, he had an idea he wanted to test. Since the Sentinel’s Watch’s Premonition explained that it would work after dealing damage, how would that work if the weapon was just lodged in?

  Walking around invisible, it was not hard to set up a good test scenario. He wanted to get used to the different aspects of his kit before he started relying on them. Know your tools is an important saying for a reason.

  Getting in range of another Cloudhorn, he sent out only the Sentinel’s Watch, aiming from above to get it in a hard-to-reach spot. As expected, the creature had no idea this was happening as the blade manifested in the air around it. Stabbing it down, it lodged itself deep into its back, its organic-looking crossguard almost holding itself in place. The monster roared in pain and started thrashing, doing its best to get away from the attack.

  Sam’s eyes widened as he took in the sight, before he saw the ghostly image of his target’s next movements, but only for a second. No,w as the dagger was lodged into its back, he saw a continuous ghost of the Cloudhorn, moving and lurching around, but every movement matched up perfectly a second later by the actual creature. It was uncanny, his mind wanted to focus on the actual creature and not the ghostly precognition image. It was also only a second, a few times, a few seconds before the actual movement.

  Taking a moment to soak in the experience, he didn’t consider the torture he was inflicting on the Cloudhorn as he tried to get used to how this looked and felt. His comfort was that Dungeon monsters weren’t the same as non-Dungeon monsters. Sam wanted to spar with something that had the dagger lodged into it, something that wouldn’t deliver over 400 damage if it managed to land a hit... He needed to go to a lower floor, something with more than 260 HP but not doing as much damage. He hated to consider it, but the Third Floor’s crabs were not a bad test for this...

  A part of him halfway expected a Solo Dungeon to pop up with something that did low damage and had a million health or something, but he was glad to be wrong.

  The creature widened its stance and let out a powerful roar, Sam felt something come over him, he didn’t intend to kill it just yet but his body, hands and mind moved without him thinking about it. As if acing on auto-pilot he manifested his full swarm and attacked the Cloudhorn, brutally killing it.

  [ Effect; Cloud Bellow, fades. ]

  Sam’s eyes widened, and he didn’t feel good about this. Cloud Bellow was their taunt ability, and it was surprising how easy it was to be affected by it. Had he resisted it, it would have been fine, but being affected felt surprisingly natural. The movements, though it felt like it was done on autopilot it still felt like it was his choice.

  “Mind control effects are horrifying...” Thinking to himself, he chose not to bring up the vague memories when he was ‘rented’ a while ago. Though he didn’t remember anything during the control, he still despised the idea.

  Ironically, this also made him want some mind affecting powers, he understood that it would not come as part of his class skills, they were focused on objects and physical manipulation, but if he could mentally affect monsters, or better, bosses, that would be amazing.

  The other monsters near the now-dead Cloudhorn were confused and thrashing around, trying to find the unseen foe. Their end was just as swift, and Sam was moving up the mountain towards the next group.

  Sam considered this tactic, invisibility and remaining Energy into fuelling his swarm, as a powerful tactic, and the more he used it, the more stupidly powerful it was. Unless he found something that could see or sense invisible enemies, or had a large enough AOE to hit him, he was pretty safe. It had failed before with bosses and the Bats, but now that he was on the Fourth Floor, he assumed this to happen more. If nothing else, simply due to progression.

  The following group fell, as did the next. His damage output, even split up, was devastating and save the occasional lucky metaphorical shot in the dark, nothing came close to even hitting him. But even those were dodgeable, especially since he focused on the more nimble, ranged creatures first. As he was nearing the peak of the mountain, he felt almost bored, following a routine.

  Coming up to the highest point of the mountain, the path led down into a shallow caldera with a somewhat flat bottom, making a surprisingly nice arena.

  In the centre rested a large, grey dragon. Four clawed arms, horns and wings made of air caught in a vortex, pressurising the moving air into their shape. A powerful wind came from the creature, which was empowered in the bowl-shaped caldera, almost distorting the air as it did so.

  Sam chuckled. If nothing else, it looked dramatic.

  [ Typhoon Tyrant Aeralith

  Level: 65

  STR: 35

  DEX: 28

  VIT: 32

  SPT: 14

  HP: 4080 / 4080

  Damage: Cyclone Crash 472 / Skybrand Spiral 343 / Tempest Grasp 488 / Stormhowl Vortex 464

  Defence: 400

  Abilities: HP Boon, STR Boon, VIT Boon, Skyhoof Slam, Horn Toss, Quaking Gallop, Cloud Bellow. ]

  [ Cyclone Crash: Landing with a spin sends a powerful gust of air in an area around you, chance of knockback. ]

  [ Skybrand Spiral: Send a tornado towards a target, having a high chance of lifting the target off the ground and throwing them into the air. ]

  [ Tempest Grasp: Pull targets in a large area in towards you. ]

  [ Stormhowl Vortex: A powerful gust of air expands from you, chance of knockback. ]

  Thinking about this boss a little, it seemed like it was incredibly problematic to fight. All but one of its attacks were AOE, and all of the attacks displaced you somehow. He wondered how normal groups would fight this; a tank could probably hold its focus, but the AOE attacks wouldn’t distinguish the tank from the others. Assuming a party of five, four of them focusing on damage, using Janik as a baseline, they would do somewhere around 500-800 damage per attack. This would be lowered to 100-400 after the Defence. Assuming these numbers to be correct, they would need 6-9 hits to take it down. Mages could perhaps work around that, he didn’t know the specifics as he hadn’t read up on all the different spells out there.

  It wasn’t as bad as he expected, in a way, but due to the shallow shape of the caldera, he didn’t know if the pushback from the winds would be enough to send them up and off the edge. Especially if people kept at range and got hit anyway.

  Sam didn’t have that problem, or rather, it could be worse than normal. It all depended on whether the boss could see him or not. If the boss couldn’t see him, this would be a cakewalk. If it could, well... then he would have to do it differently, perhaps a longer-range power-launch. It should do enough real damage to perhaps take it out.

  His questions were answered before he got time to wonder much, the dragon woke up and got to its feet, looking Sam straight in the eyes. There was zero doubt that the invisibility didn’t matter. Something he wondered why happened, he understood that bosses could see invisibility or something, but they didn’t have a listed skill for it.

  The train of thought was halted as he had to dodge an incoming mini tornado. It looked solid, grey and powerful. Due to the distance between them, he was able to dodge relatively easily, but now came the moment where he had to get in closer.

  Not wanting to wanting to give the dragon more time to do anything, Sam started running towards it. It could see him, so there was no need to use invisibility, dismissing it and manifesting his full swarm.

  This only lasted a few seconds, as shortly after Sam started running in, there was a powerful outward pulse extending from the creature. It slammed into Sam, sending him flying.

  [ Aura Barrier: 0 / 165 ?????????? ]

  [ HP: 211 / 510 ████?????? ]

  The air followed the bowl-shape of the caldera, turning into an upwards push as it hit the rim, which lifted Sam up and sent him flying over the edge. The wind kept him off the ground so he never had a chance to hit anything before he entered freefall.

  Luck would have it that, with his Psyhands, he could carry much more than his bodyweight, so stabilising and stopping himself was hardly an issue. But once he had done so, a glance downwards showed him only the rocky slope; at best, it would have been a painful ordeal.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  He didn’t like his lack of damage mitigation, Defence only worked against physical attacks; this was elemental. The Barrier tanked a lot of that, but he couldn’t take another one of those.

  Taking a moment to drink two potions, perhaps overkill, but he wanted his health at full, especially now that the Aura barrier needed time to recharge.

  He needed to get in range; the dragon had a defence of 400, so the minimum he could do was two weapons. The Shardspike Glaive and Sentinel’s Watch, added together, those hit 540 damage, and if he put the rest of his Energy into Range increase it would increase it to be able to reach almost across the whole caldera. This was a considerable range increase. Doing it that way, not counting crits, he would need to land 30 hits. So though it was an option, it wasn’t entirely practical.

  However, there was another option. One he had already been testing.

  Landing himself outside of the caldera, he was safe from the winds, putting the points he needed to reach Aeralith in increasing his Area, he manifested the Sentinel’s Watch just above the boss. The remainder of his energy was used to manifest all the hands he could before group-launching the dagger into the dragon’s back.

  The dull pulse of energy from the launch could not be heard from this distance, and the winds around it would also make it a problem up close, but the effect worked as intended. The dagger was launched through the thick hide, through friction and its holding effect of the crossguard, the dagger remained solidly lodged in its back!

  [ HP: 3820 / 4080 ]

  Sam started seeing the premonition ghost, the dragon moved, tried to grab the dagger with its tail, reaching around and biting it. But it couldn’t reach the needle-like dagger, far too small to grasp with its comparatively larger size. Rolling around to rub it off on the ground also didn’t work; it was too small to catch. This could have given him another option, but he didn’t want to get into its range, in stead he had another idea.

  After the attempts to get the dagger out of its back ended, it locked eyes with Sam again. Focusing, it sent out another Skybrand Spiral, a tornado formed and was sent towards Sam. But he had a simple way to defend, he simply ducked behind the end of the caldera. Its bowl shape, rocky terrain, and loads of hiding spots gave him more than he needed to avoid the whole thing.

  He didn’t hear anything, and when he peeked back, it was waiting in the caldera for him, eyeing him as his head popped back over the ledge.

  “Hmm... not coming, are you...” Sam said to the monster, who had no chance of hearing him. “Well, I guess I need to piss you off some more.”

  Taking out one of his cheap daggers, he manifested his total collection of Psyhands and aimed. Being able to see the dragon’s moves before it moved was still interesting, but also meant that now that he could take a moment to focus, it increased his confidence in hitting considerably.

  Triggering the total collected pulse, the dagger shot forward with the snap of breaking the sound barrier, in the blink of an eye it had covered the distance, penetrated the dragon’s hide on the front of his body, and exited the side around its shoulder before disappearing in the distance. It pulled more than enough blood with it to point out where it disappeared to.

  [ HP: 3815 / 4080 ]

  This seemed to anger his opponent, the dragon roared out in pain and anger before it started rushing him. A grin grew on Sam’s lips as he made sure to hide behind the edge of the caldera.

  Another pulse of its AOE wind attack came flying his way, but Sam was ready, hiding over the ledge kept him safe from the wind. Though if the dragon caught him, he was dead, but his plan was simple enough.

  The dragon came running in, and Sam’s death would be almost secured had it not been for one specific thing: his absurd damage. As the dragon came into range, before it could hit Sam with anything melee, but after it entered Sam’s Area, the final step triggered.

  Manifesting his full swarm around the boss monster, Sam attacked before it could react. With the Sentinel’s Watch lodged in its body, any attempts to dodge or make it harder to hit also failed as the collection of blades landed.

  The 400 Defence didn’t matter, over 7500 damage after considering its Defence, had the life leave its eyes instantly. Failing to step forward, its body toppled over, and as it slammed into the ground, it remained still. The winds making up its horns and wings faded, removing a lot of its draconic feel, becoming an overgrown lizard.

  [ Experience gained: +50 Quadrillion. ]

  [ Dungeon clear conditions:

  Kill Typhoon Tyrant Aeralith: 1/1

  Optional: Kill all monsters

  Monsters: 20/20

  Rewards:

  20qa xp

  1x Random crafting material

  Chance (2%): B-tier weapon, armour or another item.

  Bonus rewards for optional step:

  20qa xp

  Random Box - X. ]

  [ Levelup +2! ]

  [ Elara Levelup +3! ]

  [ Dia Levelup +2! ]

  [ Dia Level 50 reached. Fifth class skill granted: Dodge. ]

  [ Dodge: Supernatural ability to dodge incoming damage, mitigates damage equal to Dex from any source. Must be aware of and perceive the attack. ]

  It was amusing to consider the scaling of XP, his share only gave him a single level since he started the climb, when a single kill gave him that many levels before. The math wasn’t hard to understand, it was just amusing and sad to see it in practice.

  The box and crafting material manifested in the air as before, grabbing them before they hit the ground was not an issue. Opening the Box gave him three more Aether crystals, giving him a total of four. He briefly wondered why he only got Aether crystals from these rewards, as the quest listed Random crafting materials... He had opened quite a few of them by now and always got Aether Crystals, it almost didn’t make sense.

  Putting the crystals in storage he walked towards the dead Boss. He could place the points for his two companions even here on the mountain, so he placed them at the same time as his own.

  As he got to the dragon his first goal was to get his dagger back, climbing onto its back took a few moments but getting the dagger was surprisingly easy, he just needed to grab it and pull it out, a solid yank freed it.

  “Hmm... suppose the core is the last step,” he mused to himself as he floated back down, feeling slightly dumb that he didn’t float up as well.

  Manifesting some large-bladed tool was not an issue. Thoughtform let him manifest whatever tool or blade he needed, and since he used it as a blade and not weapon, it worked wonders. It still took a while to dig through and find the core. His anatomical knowledge wasn’t amazing so it took a few attempts.

  By the time he was finally done, the others had made it up with him.

  “There you are, you took your time,” Janik joked with his trademark smile.

  “Well, fuck you as well!” Sam smiled back at the dumb joke. “You got all the cores on the way?”

  “Yeah, Dia’s pretty good at this by now, she’s also good at finding the cores, so I let her handle it.”

  Looking at Dia confirmed this, she was practically drenched in gore, Sam turned back to Janik with a smile of his own. “So, if she’s doing all the digging, what’s your job in this?”

  Janik puffed his chest and thumb-pointed at his backpack. “I’m the carrier, and moral support!”

  “I... suppose that’s something,” Sam’s joke lost all traction at Janik’s response. “Well... This boss was a pain to fight, if I couldn’t basically fly, I’d probably have died.”

  “Oh, it was that bad?” Janik asked as he took out his phone, flipping through a few things. “Ah... yeah... I can see what you mean. The recommended tactics say that it’s smartest to surround the caldera and use ranged attacks, or something that negates knockback.”

  “Would have been nice to know that beforehand, but I found something that worked. If I piss it off as I hide outside the caldera, it comes to me. Then I just swarm it.” Sam felt good about his tactic, even if it was simple.

  “Yeah... I suppose that’ll work,” Janik looked past Sam to the dead dragon for a second before back at Sam. “It’s still good experience, though, you feel like running this one a few times? 190 quadrillion XP after the split is pretty good.”

  Sam sighed. He agreed on the value of the grinds, and now that he knew the tactics of this dungeon it should’t be too problematic to handle, it was just tedious.

  “We have done a lot today, I think I want to rest, sell some stuff and relax today.” He wasn’t physically tired, he could go on for quite some time but he was mentally fatigued, he wanted some change of pace, as it were.

  [ Conditions met ]

  “No, how’s about fuck you?!” Sam shouted out into the air.

  [ Do you wish to enter the Solo Dungeon? ]

  Sam raised an eyebrow, remembering that he recently got the ability to affect the Solo Dungeons a bit. He was hesitant, he wanted to avoid it, but he also wondered what the factors of this one was.

  [ Do you wish to know more about the Solo Dungeon? ]