Draco and Eva walked into the cave that they had first dropped in, having to see a sight that was extremely gruesome. All the NPCs that were supposed to explore the dungeon with them had been slaughtered in horrifying ways, their blood and flesh turning into nourishment for the entity that had slaughtered them all.
Creo was now held in its hand, about to have his crustacean shell clawed open, when Mila screamed out in worry and fear. "Creo!!"
"Mila!!" Creo shouted back in a heartbroken tone. The scene was definitely touching, but its mood was ruined when Eva kicked Mila into a wall.
"You were told to remain silent." Eva said with disgust.
"This is why I hate plus-ones following you around when doing anything." Draco added with a grunt.
The quest line updated itself now that Draco and Eva had reached this cave.
｢The Underwater Rescue – Legendary Quest
Description: Assist Creo in saving his wife, Mila.
Stage 1: Enter the Underwater Wreckage. - Complete
Stage 2: Navigate to the prisons section of the Underwater Wreckage. - Complete
Stage 3: Escort Mila to the exit of the Underwater Wreckage. - Complete
Stage 4: Defeat the Captain of the Underwater Wreckage and save Creo.
Rewards: Epic item, 10,000 gold｣
The Evil Duo had already guessed as much, bringing out their weapons for the fight. Draco unsheathed the Dragorugio sword as well as Excalibur, and Eva took out her short swords.
The two were forced to become a little more serious, as they now understood why Kamisuo were so beaten up after they completed this Legendary Quest.
｢Name: Underwater Wreckage Captain – Captain Rank monster
Level: 33
HP: 900,000/900,000｣
With almost 900,000 HP and a few levels on them, this one would require a slight bit of effort. This was also why Draco stopped playing around by using Archery, although his equipment for that particular area of combat was much better at the moment.
However for Archery, he only knew one technique. For swordsmanship, well… he knew, at least, 360 of them.
The Captain Rank monster was a humanoid entity that was covered from head to toe in black armor with reddish lines that pulsed with malevolence. It had red eyes that gleamed from its helm, with the rest of its body mostly concealed by some blackish miasma that roiled with malice.
(Author's note: Something like this i.imgur.com/nlAR6WJ.jpg)
Draco made the first move by rushing up to the Captain Rank monster while swinging Excalibur in a low sweep, coming in at the 120° angle. While his right hand made that attack, his left used the Dragorugio sword to make an overhead sweep that came in from the 320° angle.
"Sword Skill 97: Forceps!"
The Dungeon Boss' eyes flashed as it roared in an eerie tone, making one's ears feel like they were being scratched by nails. The black miasma surrounding it suddenly roiled as the Boss Monster used its claw-like gauntlets to parry both swings from Draco's sword.
Instead of nullifying the attack, the Boss Monster was shocked to receive almost 600 damage. Just what was this Immortal Adventurer's stats like? How could they be so horrifying when taking into account his lower level and the Dungeon Boss' own strength?
However, the Dungeon Boss' shock was interrupted by a stabbing pain in its back as Eva pierced into a connecting segment of its armor with her short swords, sending the blade in as deeply as possible before pulling it out.
-2100!
It roared and spun around to cleave her into two, but she had long disappeared into the shadows as she activated stealth.
Having left its back open, Draco used that chance to make a sharp sword thrust, aiming for the monster's spinal area. The attack missed however, as the Dungeon Boss utilized its agility to leap into the air to avoid the strike.
It was in the middle of a backflip that would put it behind Draco, when it saw Eva appear above it and kick it back down to the ground. When it struck the earth with a 'whumpf', Draco was there to stab it deeply in another connecting segment of its armor.
-7000!
In the span of 2 seconds, the Dungeon Boss had lost slightly less than 10,000 HP. Granted, this was only 1% of its HP, but it only took 2 seconds to inflict this despite its own combat skill and absurd stats.
If these two shaved of 1% of its HP every two seconds, then they would only need slightly more than 3 minutes to send it into oblivion!
Realizing that, the Dungeon Boss roared and used one of its skills, Miasmic Cloud!
｢Miasmic Cloud – Active skill
Effect: Use your Miasmic Aura to smother an area of 50 yards, increasing your damage, defense and attack speed by 30%.
Duration: 1 minute
Cooldown: 15 minutes｣
This was a skill that was unique to it. Most Bosses had skills, but very few used them in battle because they hardly needed to. The Captain Rank Ursa from the Ursa's Cave dungeon also had a few, but wasn't able to use them because it had its donger chopped off.
The cloud of blackish miasma filed the cave and lowered visibility for all those within as a side effect. However, not even taking into account Draco's Divine Eyes and Eva's Abyssal Ring, their Control made it so that such skills were rendered useless.
However, the increased stats of the monster were a problem to deal with.
Draco and Eva had to become increasingly mobile and faster in order to avoid the retaliation of the Dungeon Boss. The Captain Rank monster had long lost itself to rage as it rushed Draco with its claws.
Draco had to move back as he parried every swing from the Dungeon Boss with precision. The speed of both the Dungeon Boss and Draco was something that left the realm of human comprehension.
One could only see two blurs moving around the cave as loud clanging sounds resounded in the area, allowing one to imagine the kind of hellish battle that was occurring.
Draco frowned as he continually defended these fast, accurate and powerful attacks. He was taking -5 damage with every swing, meaning that despite all his acc.u.mulations, this 30% boost the Dungeon Boss had applied to itself had made its stats surpass his.
Draco really began to wonder just how many losses Kamisuo had to suffer in order to clear this dungeon. Even though the payout was a unique Epic item, it would have to be something special to have such a strong Dungeon Boss.
However, Draco wasn't fighting this battle alone. He was fighting with his soulmate who was arguably just as powerful as he was.
As such, he smiled when he saw Eva suddenly appear from the shadows and cover her short swords with thick light energy, as she once again stabbed into the back of the Dungeon Boss.
This time, her damage was nothing like before as she both nailed a critical hit and had an elemental advantage over the monster.
-13000!
Now, the importance of critical hits and elemental bonuses were laid bare. Compared to her same attack that was targeted at a similar spot, this one dealt more than 600% extra damage!
The Captain Rank monster didn't suddenly turn around to deal with Eva like before. It had expected her to make such an attack, so it did something which surprised the Evil Duo.
The armor segment which Eva pierced suddenly solidified and sealed itself, trapping one of her short swords within. Eva frowned and tried to use her strength to twist it out, but she was rendered speechless when the sword was crushed to pieces by the armor that had constricted around it.
That was a Rare weapon for the love of God!
What Rank was this monster's armor that it could use it to snap a Rare sword into pieces?
However, doing so was not free for the Dungeon Boss. After all, it could not spawn more metal from nowhere. It had to re-distribute some of its armor from one place to another in order to achieve this effect.
It had deducted this from the area under its right armpit, thinking that it would go unnoticed in the miasma that surrounded it, but such a trick was futile. With the Void of Perfection, Draco could see the change that occurred.
As such, he feinted with Excalibur - which he had switched to his left hand - by attacking the monster's head with a powerful overhead sweep.
The monster was not careless enough to move both arms upwards, so it moved only its left arm up, but that was all Draco needed. He used his Body of Godliness to redistribute the applicable force in his muscles and swung the Dragorugio sword right into the armpit of the Dungeon Boss.
Before he did so, Draco simultaneously cast three skills!
Evil Curse!
Necrotic Hands!
Life Steal!
Evil Curse was activated, placing a random negative status effect on any enemy Draco chose for one minute and had a cooldown of 5 minutes.
The status effect the Boss got was <Burned>, which wasn't too helpful in the situation, but was still something in the end.
Necrotic Hands summoned undead arms from the earth that grabbed a target tightly, binding them in place for 30 seconds and dealt damage over time. This stacked with the <Burned> status effect, which made the Dungeon Boss lose all the more health.
Life Steal was an unblockable skill that placed the <Life Steal> status effect on a target, where 50% of the damage dealt on every hit was fed back to the attacker as HP. This only included beneficiaries who the caster wanted to be linked to the skill.
Draco then smiled toothily as he spoke with arrogance. "Since you took away some of my health, you wouldn't mind if I took it back right?"
The Dungeon Boss could not move since it was bound with the Necrotic Hands. It wasn't just its lower parts that were frozen, but its whole body. It was stuck in the very same posture it made to block Draco's attack, with its left arm held over its head and its face turned upwards as well.
As such, both Draco and Eva laid into the monster like butchers. Draco kept cutting into its exposed armpit while Eva kept stabbing into a segment of its back with her short swords.
-10000! -14500! -9870! -8900!
They dealt abhorrent amounts of damage on the Boss Monster for the two seconds it had been stunned by the plethora of skills and the feint Draco performed before.
However, it eventually broke through the Necrotic Hands skill with a roar, using its own dispelling skill to counter it. The Dungeon Boss dashed back as it stared at the Evil Duo warily, its courage long beaten out of it.
Even though it hadn't yet gone below 700,000 HP of 900,000, it felt fear.
One could not blame it, as these two were suppressing it throughly in every move. If it had been fighting just one of them, it could probably handle them, but definitely not both of them at the same time.
It had to separate them, then divide and conquer!
Thinking along those lines, a bright beam of light shot out of its eyes as it moved to grab either Creo or Mila and use them to conceptualize some form of counterattack.
Nobility?
Honor?
Were you senile? What would those two dogshit concepts mean to an undead?
Halfway through its sprint, the Captain Rank monster felt glee as it neared its targets. Once it had them, it would be able to try and turn the scales around somewhat, but…
It heard the voice of the devil sound out in the cave.
"I preferred to fight you head on, but we can skip the theatrics if you want."
Suddenly, a large, circular and black portal-like wormhole opened right beside the Dungeon Boss. It was not the active skill of the Abyssal Ring, neither was it Izanagi.
It was something far, far worse.
From within that portal, came something that would blow away the mind of any onlooker.
It was a giant Draconic claw that was three times bigger than the body of the Dungeon Boss, with its digits wide open as it grabbed out at the Boss Monster.
The Captain of the Underwater Wreckage screamed shrilly as it was captured by the claw in a tight grip, its body being pulled back to where Draco and Eva stood together idly.
The Draconic claw crushed the body of the boss monster horribly, tearing away almost 400,000 HP since the element of Destruction was present in the aura of the Draconic claw.
The Dungeon Boss could see Draco's hand stretched out in the same manner as the claw that held it, making it realize the the summoner of this huge Draconic appendage was right in front of it.
"Eva."
Draco said in a low and calm tone.
His soulmate smiled inside her everdark hood as her eyes flashed with a black glow. She raised her hands near her eyes and emitted so much light energy that it almost blinded the room, dispelling most of he black miasma.
This light energy was sucked from her hands and into her hood, disappearing into what seemed like an abyss. It did not light the inside of her hood, as the darkness inside her hood was not natural, but artificial.
When she eventually lowered her hands, she squatted down beside the Dungeon Boss and spoke softly.
"Susanoo."
That was the last thing the Undead Dungeon Boss heard as a scythe of Light Energy severed its head and cauterized the wounds. Its body turned into ash that dispersed with the wind, never to be seen again.
Eva stood up and stared at Draco. Draco stared right back at her with a bashful expression.
"I guess the new passive skill from the Dragon Soul that boosts Draconic techniques by a factor of five is really powerful haha."
Eva wanted to thwack the fellow on the head. If he could do something like that from the very beginning, why the hell did they waste so much effort in beating the boss about?
Then again, she sighed. How was Draco supposed to know he could do something like that since he had no training? Everything he did with his bloodline was instinctual or just guesswork. He didn't actually know any Bloodline techniques.
"How much Bloodline Energy do you have left?" Eva asked with her arms crossed.
Draco made a 'teehee' expression as he responded. "Not a single bit!"
Eva had to take in deep breaths to calm her urge to beat the fellow up.
"You…!!"
Draco just grabbed Eva and hugged her tightly with a wolfish grin. "Don't be angry babe, We can regain our energy in time."
Eva calmed down a lot when she was in his arms, but a bit of disgruntlement could be heard in her voice. "I know, and we regenerate it faster than most Lineage members, but it will still take a day for you to recharge it fully."
Draco seductively leaned into Eva and his voice became lower. "And? What is the problem my love?"
Eva's rebuttal became increasingly weaker. "It's so wasteful…"
Draco kissed her neck softly as he gently cooed her. "I know. I'll get better with it in time. Alternatively, you could train me to use it efficiently."
Eva lost any strength she had at this point as her obsession activated. "I will… after we return…"
Draco smiled as he felt his bloodline roil and strange memories entered his mind.
He saw himself standing high up in the atmosphere, overlooking the beautiful planet earth.
In his arms, much in the same position, was a woman who looked like an older version of Eva. Instead of a hood, she wore a Japanese Yukata that was pure white in color.
Her body glowed with a whitish aura that repelled evil and healed the soul. However, it was incredibly accepting and gentle towards the blackish aura that emitted from the body Draco's mind inhabited.
She was the epitome of beauty and Draco - as well as the mind he was viewing all this from - thought so too.
Draco heard a voice that was too similar to his own suddenly speak.
"We must leave our Lineages behind, my love. It is the only way to achieve revenge on that accursed race."
In response, the Celestial Beauty replied in a voice that was the same as Eva's. "I know but… our bloodline inheritors…"
Draco's fake body leaned into the Celestial Beauty as his voice became lower and more enthralling. "I have put some fail-safes in their line. Something extremely interesting will happen a few centuries from now. They will be fine."
The Celestial Beauty's eyes began to spin as she was intoxicated by the one holding her. "Okay… anything you want…"
Draco felt that very same satisfaction and joy roil in the mind of the person he was viewing this scene from, as he cradled the Celestial Beauty gently. "No matter the outcome of our fight in the Gerdo Galaxy, we'll still have another chance. You'll see…"
Draco was sent back to his true body as he awoke from whatever vision or dream he had, with Eva also looking slightly groggy as her mind traveled back.
The two stared at each other silently as they digested what they both saw simultaneously, but from different perspectives.
"It seems our birth wasn't due to luck, but more like an attempt by the scheming Lucifer to have a way out in case they lost." Draco remarked with amus.e.m.e.nt.
"It does make more sense. Even the oldest of our Lineages couldn't understand how we were born with such a high concentration when the bloodline was thinning out with each generation." Eva added with a sigh.
Draco nodded his head.
"Let's leave after claiming the item. I have plans to reforge your whole attire into something that can evolve like mine, but we'll need some exemplary luck and a certain item…"
Eva's breathing stilled. "You don't mean…"
"I do. We'll have to pay another visit to the Church of the Light." Draco said with a light tone.
The two remained connected in their embrace as they walked to Creo and Mila who were jumping all over each other with teary voices.
"My wife!!"
"My husband!!"
"My wife!!"
"My husband!!
"Enough! I take it you two are free to leave here as you please?" Draco asked them with a frown.
They immediately sobered up and did a very weird form of a bow. "Yes, My Lord. My wife and I humbly thank you for your efforts."
"Good. You can leave now." Eva replied with a dismissive tone.
As soon as the two enamored crustaceans jumped into the whirlpool, Draco and Eva saw their quest panel update itself.
｢The Underwater Rescue – Legendary Quest
Description: Assist Creo in saving his wife, Mila.
Stage 1: Enter the Underwater Wreckage. - Complete
Stage 2: Navigate to the prisons section of the Underwater Wreckage. - Complete
Stage 3: Escort Mila to the exit of the Underwater Wreckage. - Complete
Stage 4: Defeat the Captain of the Underwater Wreckage and save Creo. -Complete
Rewards: Epic item, 10,000 gold｣
｢Congratulations on completing: The Underwater Rescue Legendary Quest
Time elapsed: 2:43:18
Monsters killed: 657
Objectives complete: All
Assessment: S+
Reward:
20,000 gold
Epic Item x2｣
Getting an S+ was above the minimum rating to get the promised rewards, so it was doubled. Draco and Eva smiled as they blinked onto the Galleon, intending to return to Umbra.
After all, they had a battle with a Dragon awaiting them.