Too Stubborn to Die

Book 4: Chapter 33

A destructive aura poured out from the Cavarian Lord, corroding his flesh, but Aaron just ignored it, gritting his teeth as he shouted profanities and continued to pummel his exploding fists into the giant locust.

Those around him kept their distance, attacking the powerful boss from afar to avoid suffering the passive damage of his aura. But Aaron couldn’t care less. This was right where he wanted to be. And he was going to use his fists to draw the beast’s attention to the best of his ability.

Unfortunately, the giant alien locust realized his plan as it leveled several earth-shattering attacks against him in a row. And he just phased through all of the attacks and continued swinging as he drew down on his adipose reserves.

The beast turned to the other rankers, looking for a squisher target.

“I’m down here!” Aaron shouted as he increased the power he was throwing into his punches in an attempt to draw back its attention.

It wasn’t as if he was doing no damage to the boss. Especially when he phased his fists through its thick and hardy carapace, and made them explode within. But ultimately, this was a serious boss, and its healing was impressive.

It wasn’t just insane healing. The Cavarian Lord was absolutely gigantic. It was like an ant throwing punches against a whale, and so even when his fists exploded, ripping chunks of the giant locust apart, the real damage caused was insignificant.

If they were going to kill this thing without hitting it more time than he could count, they were going to need Soohyun to land a few more strikes. And that meant keeping the damn thing from targeting her.

Moments earlier, she had just leveled another powerful, slicing strike, tearing open a new wound across the locust. And now it was looking for revenge as it glared up toward her, where she flew on her sword through the air.

The Cavarian Lord sent a vibrating shockwave bursting outward that rattled everyone around, staggering and even stunning some of them. Then, it turned to Soohyun. The beast twitched the antennae poking out atop its human face, and then its eyes spun around like balls within their sockets until coming to a sudden halt to glare directly up toward her. Then, it suddenly lunged up into the air at incredible speed that seems far too fast for its massive size.

“Soohyun!”

Aaron’s body acted on instinct, and he was drawing incredible amounts of energy from every corner of his body without even realizing it. In an instant, all of the energy was propelled out through his mana anchors, and Aaron shot out like a bullet.

He made it just in time to intercept the attack, shooting himself straight into the beast’s human mouth as it was about to clamp down on Soohyun. Its teeth cut into his forearm and legs as he pushed back against it, the crushing sound of flesh and bones breaking beneath its powerful jaw.

“Hit the damn thing!” Aaron huffed as he pulled on more energy to keep the jaw from crushing him, whittling himself down to an emaciated form.

Soohyun didn’t need to be told twice, and immediately swung her massive sword, carving a line straight through the beast that gushed blood and sent the behemoth hurtling back down toward the ground, and hitting it hard enough to cause earthquakes and tremors through the dungeon floor.

Aaron had lost an arm and had a deep wound on his thigh, thanks to the beast’s teeth. But he just smiled and grabbed some food as he activated his mana anchors and shot back down toward it.

He ate with incredible speed as he dived down, slamming into the side of the prone beast, his wounds already healed as he sucked the meat off a massive bone, and discarded it.

“Thought I was done?” He mocked.

Aaron’s eyes quickly widened as he felt an incredible heat against his back and bounded off the beast. But it wasn’t an attack coming from the locust. Giant fireballs crashed into the newly opened wound Soohyun had created and exploded with magnificent power, blasting away massive chunks of cooked locust flesh.

“Fuck. You almost got me,” Aaron said, admiring Erdek’s handiwork.

The locust shook violently and screeched in agony as its massive wings fluttered, and it swung back around.

With every flap of its wings, waves of wind pressed out like tsunamis through the air, accompanied by hundreds of wind blades cutting through anything they hit.

The impressive wind attacks pushed the other ranks dealing with the swarm back, and cut down hundreds of the locust's own minions, not to mention a few of the weaker fighters who had joined the battle.

“Not good.”

Aaron flung himself straight back into the beast’s face, crashing straight into it, and swinging punches before he even found his feet. He couldn’t let it get off attacks. The wind blast proved that even random, unaimed attacks could take out their allies, and even though none of the top rankers had died, those were people who might prove valuable on later floors.

He wasn't too bothered about doing damage. He just wanted to be a pest. To get it, the damn things face and swing punches every second he could. The more he distracted it, the more chances Soohyun and Erdek would get to land attacks.

All he had to do was keep in the beast’s face. Do whatever he could to keep it on him and draw as many attacks to himself as he could.

“Got a problem, you ugly cunt?” Aaron roared as he continued relentlessly punching.

Despite his best efforts, the Cavarian Lord realized his plan and did its best to turn and attack others, fully aware that Aaron wasn’t so easy to kill. But the moment it tried to move and redirect its attacks elsewhere, Terry Cadillac came racing by, slamming into one of its legs and knocking it over.

He didn’t stop there, either. Terry was always moving, bashing back and forth as he careened into anything in his way, taking out the beast’s massive legs one by one, and then crashing into its wings the moment they started to flutter again.

“HAHA! Thought you were getting away?” Aaron shouted as he kept pummeling.

But even as he was firing more and more power into his strikes, the locust took less and less interest in him. Aaron had phased through too many of its attacks, and no matter what he tried, it was getting harder and harder to keep its attention on him.

It was obvious that if he wanted to employ such tactics further, he was going to need a Skill that helped him do it.

Luckily, Terry came whizzing through again the moment the locust was about to spring away, and Erdek’s attacks followed him by seconds, exploding across the beast, and before the smoke could settle, Soohyun’s blade ripped open another deep gash.

Meanwhile, the impressively large swarm of locusts was quickly and decisively being whittled down above them. The likes of Vikran Takeshi Udon, Joseph Lefiti, and Talia were hunting them down with deadly efficiency. All the while, Emmy Sharp and a few others were managing the enemy numbers perfectly with a series of crowd control Skills.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting NovelBin for this novel and more.

It was quite impressive how they had all come together. The swarm minions were not that strong by themselves. But in the opening salvo, they had proven their worth. The sheer number of them swooping at Aaron had forced his attention toward them, and he was unable to focus on the boss. But with the combination of deadly hunters and crowd control Skills keeping the swarm away from the main squad—who had taken to focusing on the boss—the entire atmosphere of the battle had swung in their favor.

After another barrage of deadly attacks slammed down against the boss, and its legs were knocked apart by Terry, the beast seemed to give out and collapsed to the ground.

Aaron was on it again, pounding away. But with tides turning, he took a chance to glance around and get a feel for how the battlefield had changed.

The way they had handled things was nothing short of inspiring. And he realized that perhaps he had been wrong about his initial thoughts. This group was working together better than he had expected. Although it was obvious that they had a long way to go, and many bridges to build if they wanted to work together seriously.

The giant locust lurched up once more in defiance, and Aaron discarded his musings as he empowered his fists with more and more energy, drawing on whatever reserves he had left.

As the Cavarian Lord’s shell was broken apart, and flesh dangled all over the place, Aaron’s punches were dealing more damage. The creature was on its last legs and barely got off an attack before eating several more.

Its carapace was gone, gore left in its place. And while it still attempted to regrow the carapace, the tide of battle had shifted too far against it, and more damage rained down against its crushed and torn body before repairs could be made.

Chunks of meat and mutated aliens flew all over the place, and holes lined the gigantic alien monstrosity as it neared death.

But no mercy was shown. In fact, the relentless nature of the attacks only grew more fierce as the rankers no longer worried about counter strikes, and threw everything they had against the waning locust.

In truth, Aaron was a little surprised by how fast they managed to kill the boss. System warnings were not particularly common. But when he thought about it, he realized that it was quite a mountain they had climbed.

If their world’s top rankers hadn’t managed to work together as well as they had on the fly, utilized each of their strengths, then it likely would have been a losing battle.

Heck, between its durability and healing, he had a feeling that it would have easily outlasted him. Not even resurrecting himself would have been able to overcome that hurdle.

Eventually, he would have been drained of energy, and his Skills barely left a dent in the massive creature.

It was all thanks to the metric fuck ton of powerful strikes coming from the likes of Soohyun and Erdek that they’d caused enough damage to break through the carapace and stop it from endlessly regrowing.

If anything, perhaps I could have done more…

Aaron looked down at his worn hands. He was hardy enough, that was for sure. With his phasing atop all his other Skills, it was incredibly hard to put him down. But that meant little if he couldn’t keep hold of his enemy’s attention.

He looked up. He had been so focused on taking the multiverse by himself that he hadn’t considered such things. And while that hadn’t changed, some alterations might be necessary, he realized.

Just because he wanted to see the entire multiverse and not rely on a single soul but his own, didn’t mean he shouldn’t have tools in his arsenal that allowed him to work with others more productively.

And there’s the prize at the end of all this.

A prize of divine proportions. Such a thing couldn’t be forgotten. Regardless of what happened in the dungeon, it was wise to spend the next year making sure that he was properly prepared for the next step.

With that thought, Aaron immediately wondered how the other worlds might have fared on their equivalent floors. Were they working together as well as their world had? Or perhaps the other worlds would be at each other’s throats?

It was possible, but he doubted worlds like Mo’han’s wouldn’t be united. That man had a way of drawing everyone to him. And Aaron wasn’t about to accept second place to his friendly rival.

He smiled. He was looking forward to seeing what the others had achieved.

But looking around as the dust settled and the Cavarian Lord cooked its last croak, he realized that Ernest and Johan were nowhere to be seen. And a second later sensed a blast of energy in the distance.

HIDDEN ROUND: Defeat The Great Cavarian Lord: COMPLETED!

Calculating participation!

Additional reward: 23 auction points!

Experience rewarded for completing a quest!

Passage to the next floor, opening…

Appearing from her shadows and cutting down the last few locust minions nearby, Talia dropped to the ground beside Aaron.

“You did all right,” she said. “But Soohyun.”

“Huh?” Soohyun said, appearing beside them a second later. “Oh, right. The boss. It was nothing.”

“Nothing? Your sword sliced him up! I’m super impressed!”

Aaron was barely listening, turned toward the flashes of energy he could sense in the distance. “Hold that thought. I’m going to go find Ernest.”

“Ernest?” Talia said. “Wait, I’m coming!”

Soohyun just followed, and Zero zipped around them as they rushed off.

Not far from the boss fight, powerful bullets filled with energy whizzed through the air, and a massive black chain whipped past a moment later, drawing in ambient energy from the atmosphere as it chased after Johan.

The undead mental mage fired back with blasts of mental energy, and a shield of mental power shimmered around him as it absorbed dozens of bullets.

Both combatants were drained as Aaron approached the battle, flashing toward them. But as he did, a rain of bullets struck Johan’s mental shield, and it flickered for barely a second. A second too long, and Ernest’s black chain whipped through the shield, lassoing Johan.

The chain lit up with a bright glow, and Aaron could feel the energy being sapped out of Johan and consumed by Ernest.

“Looks like it’s the end of the line for you, deadman,” Ernest said, puffing on a cigar as he aimed his revolver.

Johan was drained scarily fast, and only seconds later, the mental shield was completely shattered.

“You won’t be coming back from this one,” Ernest said as he aimed for the zombie’s head.

Before he could fire, Raksha descended upon them with countless purple tendrils lashing out. Aaron didn’t want to make enemies with her, but she was being foolish. Darius was beyond alliances, and he had no choice, flying out to intercept the thal’kesh matron, hitting her with a [ Soul Shattering Strike ] as he phased through several of her poisonous tendrils.

Raksha looked furious as she missed a step, falling back a bit as she gathered herself after the energy-sapping strike disoriented her. Flashing her gunky fangs, she glared at Aaron. “What is the meaning of this? Don’t you understand what’s at stake? Stay out of my way, Aaron Dober!”

“No, I do,” Aaron said. “It’s a bloody shame. I get it. But I’m with Ernest on this. We can’t let that thing live.”

“Wise choice,” Ernest said and fired.

The gun blasted, and Raksha gasped as Johan’s head was obliterated into little bits of gore. And as the animated corpse fell to the ground, a deathly cold smoke filled with aether poured out from its headless body, seeping into the air around them.

Aaron’s spiritual senses went haywire. He could feel the aether, but it was different from his.

It was wrong.

Darius

Sighing and lounging in his chair before his viewing room screen, Darius laced his fingers. The necromancer had just watched as his number one fell in battle.

The outcome wasn’t ideal, but it was a risk he had prepared for. Johan had been a promising servant, but he was just that. A servant. Something replaceable.

He couldn’t just ignore the Dungeon, but he wasn’t yet ready to risk himself against his foes. Not when he couldn’t take his full army, and not when he had so many important things to do back on their world.

He had hoped that Johan would make it further in the dungeon. His early death meant that his eyes on it had been severed. And he had been looking forward to seeing what competition he had on other worlds.

But his loss wasn’t without gain. Darius had seen their Skills firsthand. He had even had a chance to gain data on them. Watched them in both a boss fight, and see Ernest’s Skill up close against Johan.

Darius grinned widely. Sure, an asset had been lost. But his enemies didn’t even know the start of what he was capable of. And he had so much information on them now.

“Now, who would make a good replacement for Johan?”

Darius rubbed his chin as he considered the thought. Whoever it was, he could take careful consideration of his rival’s Skills and plan accordingly.