Chapter 15: The Taurus Throwdown
After notification came within my view the body of the black knight still on my blade faded into ash and got carried away by the wind. Seeing this formidable foe who had taught me much to meet his end I closed my eyes and prayed to whatever god left that would hear me in this dying world.
For him to drop his sweet, sweet {Black Knight Sword}.
Slowly and cautiously opening my eyes I wearily glanced downward and then jumped for joy at the sight I saw.
Because before my eyes was a big and beautiful {Black Knight Sword}. Picking up the absurdly heavy for its size but manageable with my stats sword I used Inspect on it which I hadn't used for a long time for some reason.
---
[Black Knight Sword]
Greatsword of the black knights who wander Lordran. Used to face chaos demons.
Effect: Deals extra damage against chaos demons
---
Perfect, Although it was a bit rusty I could fix that with some maintenance. And the anti-devil attribute was the perfect weapon for my next challenge.
Taurus demon. Or as I call him, the Cowboy.
But before going to his place to mess his day up I still had my reward to claim. Walking up to the end of the corridor the Black knight was placed in I bent down and picked up the item on the ground.
< You have acquired 1x{Blue Tearstone Ring} >
---
[Blue Tearstone Ring]
The rare gem called tearstone has the uncanny ability to sense imminent death.
This blue tearstone from Catarina boosts the defence of its wearer when in danger.
---
I took out the ring and inspected it, it was truly a beautifully made ring that was probably made by a master craftsman. Pulling off the glove on my right hand, I placed the ring on one of my fingers then placed the glove back over it.
Now that I had claimed everything I set out to claim I walked back over to the bonfire and sat down to spend the spare souls I had. Due to all of the runbacks I had to do to get to the black knight I had accumulated a pretty sum of souls.
...Though I died once while going back to retrieve my remains which sent 5000+ souls into oblivion...
...That had hurt me in a way the black knight never could...
But I still had enough to level up 3 times so I put 1 point into vit, dex, and end and confirmed. Making me poor once again. No worries, I was going to replenish my supply very soon anyways. I also spent one humanity to reverse my hollowing and set out
I swiftly tore apart any hollow unfortunate enough to be on my way and made my way through the now familiar Upper Undead Burg(er). And finally, instead of going down the stairs to scuffle with the black knight, I walked up the stairs leading to the tower.
Just as I was making my way up the stairs, a cheeky little goblin(hollow) decided to play a prank on me by rolling down a flaming barrel down the stairs.
*BOOOOM!!!*
Unfortunately for him, I knew how to jump over the barrel. After jumping over said barrel I dashed up the stairs and disarmed the hollow. Then, just like how he pulled that prank on me, I pulled one on him by rolling him down the cliff next to the stairs.
I made my way up the tower picking up barrels on the way and killing then nabbing the crystal lizard thing under the barrel. And just as I was about to enter through the fog I received a notification.
< You have received a new challenge: [ Taurus Demon ]! >
---
[Taurus Demon]
-Condition: Defeat the {Taurus Demon} without dying.
-Reward: 5000 souls, {Demon's Greataxe}
[Accept? Y/N ]
---
Well now I have to do it first try, don't I?
''Yes!''
After accepting the quest I went through the fog. Stepping through the fog I was met with the sight of a concerningly narrow bridge. I could just tell already that this fight was going to be a big pain in my ass. The threat of falling down is too high.
I peeked over the side and yep, that's death. There is no way in the 9 hells am I surviving that fall. Keeping that in mind I climbed up the ladder to dispose of the archers. I say dispose of, because regular hollows just don't pose enough of a challenge to say fought.
Now that those nuisances are out of the way it was time to hunt that Cowboy.
I slowly walked forward as I applied gold resin to my black knight blade. I didn't wear my shield because realistically I wasn't blocking any of that man's attacks. Because even If I did I would be launched to kingdom come.
*Crasshhhhh!!!*
Landing in front of my eyes was a Menacing giant minotaur-like bull demon that had biceps on his biceps. This thing was completely ripped! And his axe head was the size of my whole body!
But that wasn't in my attention.
Because the moment he landed in front of me I caught a familiar, /hateful/ smell. A smell that I had experienced for far too long. The smell of brimstone and sulfur mixed with flesh.
The instant that had registered, the image of the demon in front of me overlapped with my /warden/. The thing that had tortured me for what felt like eternity's kin stood in front of me. I felt the crawling of the centipede crawl across my body.
/I saw red./
The voice in my head who usually spoke words of pessimism and discouragement and I could finally agree on something for once. /We both wanted that thing dead, quest rewards be dammed/.
As I stood there body tensed the demon had already started to move. He moved his crude hammer above his head. But I didn't let it as my body shot forward with such power and ferocity I didn't know I could muster. And before he could even unleash his first attack I had already stabbed the electrified black knight's blade into its stomach.
*RAAAAUUURRRGGHHHH!!!*
It released a pained scream that sounded like music to my ears as I violently ripped out the electrified blade out of his stomach. Unfortunately, due to the damn things muscle-bound physique, I could only jam half of the blade into him.
After dislodging the blade I jumped back with all my strength, barely managing to dodge his axe slam. His axe dug a solid meter and a half into the ground. With a blunt axe, into solid rock.
This thing is an absolute monster.
But I didn't care as I exploited his opening by rushing in and slashing his left wrist with my sword. he howled as he released his grip on his axe and did something unexpected. He swung his right fist at me. Which I barely managed to barely dodge by rolling under it.
Just the wind pressure from that punch alone made my hairs stand on end. Just one punch from him would be more than enough to mess me up.
So I made some distance and started throwing knives at him which proved to be useless as they weren't enough to puncture his thicc hide.
As I was about to switch my approach he suddenly started charging at me with his shoulder. I immediately turned tail and started running away as due to the narrow-ass bridge I had no way to dodge out of his way. Thankfully he was barely faster than me.
Faster.
Fu-
Sensing impending doom I made a sudden turn on my heel and summoned my biggest shield, the hollow warrior's shield, and held it in front of me and jumped slightly so that I wouldn't experience the full brunt force of the charge.
*Crash!!*
The moment the impact hit I felt like I was hit by a freight train instead of a very, /very/ pissed demon. Even though I was flung away I still felt my shield, along with my arms completely shatter. I hit the wall and lost consciousness for a split second as my back met the wall. I was launched so hard that the wall almost broke down.
Regaining my bearing I chugged 2 estus and got back up. And decided the wisest action was to run up the ladder to get a good platform to wrestle on. The Taurus Demon however seemed to disagree with that as he swung the axe he retrieved with one hand and destroyed the ladder I was climbing.
/Fine then! You wanna do this the hard way!? Then let's do this the hard way!/
Jumping down the broken ladder I threw a black firebomb at the ugly demon's face. As he staggered and reeled from the pain I took out my sword once again and launched myself at his left wrist and swung with all my body weight, severing it completely.
Not stopping with that I used the momentum of my first attack to chain to another one this time slashing his chest. Before I could unleash a third attack he swung his good fist down chasing me off.
I threw another firebomb but his time he shrugged it off and grabbed my arm.
uh oh.
He lifted me off the ground and slam threw me onto the ground with such ferocity that I bounced up 3 meters from the impact. I was stunned, mostly from the major brain damage I had just incurred but also from the fact that I hadn't died. But then I also saw the blue glow around me and understood. The ring had delayed my death.
Not for long though as the rebound from the impact launched me off the bridge. And I was about to plummet down to my demise. But unwilling to die at the hands of my /warden/ once again I regained a bit of mental clarity and chugged estus as fast as I could.
{Deadman's Blow!}
I summoned my most durable sword, the deranged hollow's blade, and stabbed it into the wall. The impact broke my arm but I drank some more orange juice to fix it and launched myself up while summoning the blade back into my hand.
Landing back on the tower I regained my bearing and drank my last estus as I turned toward him as he hadn't anticipated my return from the fall his back was turned against me as he prepared to jump back to his tower.
/Like I'd let you!/
I quickly applied thunder resin on my blade and ran toward him. Using his tail and the ridges along his back as footholds I ran up his back and hung my left arm and around his neck as I stabbed the lightning sword into his eye with my right hand.
*ROOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR!!!!!!*
He roared in pain as the lightning sword pierced his eye. But it wasn't enough to kill him yet so I started twisting the blade inside his eye socket.
He tried to grab me but his arms were too short and big compared to his back to properly grasp me so he ended up just tearing chunks of flesh off my back as I kept stabbing his eye.
*Bang!* *Slam!* *Bang!*
He started slamming his back against the tower as I hung on his neck for dear life. It had turned into a race as to who kills the other first. Each slam made my vision turn black for a second but I grit my teeth through the pain and kept attacking.
One of us was going to die and it wasn't going to be me.
''Just die already!!!''
*Spurrrttt!!!*
For the finisher, I flipped over his back and over his head as I removed the sword from his head. I barely landed on my feet when the head of the Taurus demon spurted blood like a pressurized fountain as he collapsed and succumbed to his injuries.
Covered in both my blood and his own I turned around to his corpse and pointed down
[VICTORY ACHIEVED]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question: What's your favorite boss in Dark Souls 1?