111 Chapter 30: Gate

And just as I was thinking that, I hear sound coming from end of the road and see big gateway opening. I guess that was the last boss of this floor.

Well, then let's go.

I walk toward the gate. I don't see anything beyond the gate. Just blackness. Kind of ominous but whatever. I cross the gate.

And immediately sees where I came. Another cave but this one has a hole in its ceiling. Through that hole, I can see sky. Four giant pillars touching the ceiling of the cave. And between those pillars stands something that I didn't expect to see.

A wyvern. Front limbs connected to its wings. And that is all I need to know that this monster is a wyvern. About five meters tall. A giant creature. Just looking at it from distance tells me that I shouldn't approach that beast.

If I do, I will die for sure. Not even my primal urges are telling me to attack it. Every part of my being is screaming at me to turn around and run.

But then run to where? If I turn back now, what am I supposed to do. This beast is obviously much stronger than me. But still something else, something I didn't know that existed within me is telling me to approach the beast and kill it. Alex is screaming from within me.

Hehe, this is stupid. But just fighting something weaker or equal to myself is, well frankly getting old. Without fighting something stronger than myself, I will never surpass my limit. Sure, I can get plenty strong with time.

I know that I got what is needed for that. But that is not path I want to tread as my path for power. Alex's soul is screaming to me to fight this beast, surpass my limit and transcend who I am today. In this world if I surpass my limit and go beyond I can become much more stronger. Unlike Alex's world. In that world if you push yourself and break past your limit, your body simply breaks.

But this world is different. In this world pushing oneself beyond one's limit actually comes with result. It may be hard but if you manage to do it result will never betray you.

And that is exactly why Alex is screaming within me. Funny, all this time I thought both Alex and Alder were gone. But when the circumstances match, their remnant something rises up within me and pushes me forward.

And before I know it, I'm already walking toward the wyvern. Even as I walk toward the wyvern, every part of my body is begging me to turn back. Yet I just can't stop walking. Hehe. And before I know it, I'm already in front of the wyvern.

It turns around and looks at me. as I look at it, I feel certain suppression from within my very essence. But even with all that, that ugly grin once again crawls up my face.

"I was pretty sure you were gonna turn back."

Wyvern talks to me with its baritone voice.

"I thought, too."

"Hahaha."

Its laugh shakes the cave.

"Then why are you here, young human?"

"I would like to ask the same question from myself."

"HAHAHAHA."

It laughs even harder. And the cave shakes along its laughter.

"I don't know whether it was courage or a stupidity that brought here. But you are interesting one."

"Well, thanks for the compliment."

"HAHAHAHA."

It laughs again. I don't know whether to be flattered or insulted.

"I don't know if you are a brave boy or just a dumbass. But you are the very first soul to make it here since the creation of this dungeon."

"This was supposed to be a dungeon?"

"Well, I did make it with that in mind."

"Come on, dungeons give loot. I got nothing from this place. Not even a stinking coin."

"I suppose you do have a point. Well, when I made this dungeon I was in kind of a hurry, so I couldn't exactly put loot around the dungeon."

"So, you made this dungeon?"

"Indeed, I did."

"Why?"

"You really want to know?"

"Well, now that I got curious."

"Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt. It's been almost millennia since I last talked with someone.

I built this dungeon almost thousand years ago. When I decided to build this dungeon, I was dying. Not because someone wounded me or some kind of curse befell me. I was simply old and I knew I only had few months before dying.

But dragons are inherently greed creatures, so I didn't want to die. So, in order to live longer I decided to get myself a new and young body. I couldn't rob another dragon's body for that is a crime punishable by death and that would defeat the whole purpose of all this.

And I tried to possess some other race, but all of their body was too weak to contain my soul. So, I was desperate for a solution. Then I got an idea. If the vessel is not strong enough all I need to do is to make it strong enough. And I heard from somewhere that dungeon was the best place for other races to increase their strength.

Thus, I decided to make my own dungeon. No matter how old body of an ancient dragon was enough for me to make this dungeon. And I put my soul in a substitute vessel and waited for some sentient race to reach where I am.

But only later that I understood that I made this dungeon too hard for most races to complete and come before me. And you are actually the first to make it here."

Holy shit. This means this whole dungeon's purpose is to prepare a strong enough vessel for this dude. Ooh, this is kind scary.

"That means if I lose you will get my body?"

"Yes, that would happen."

"Okay, got it. Then, let's say hypothetically that I somehow managed to win, what do I get?"

"I never thought about that. But don't worry about that, for that is impossible."

"Come on, just humor me."

"Well, even if by some miracle, you manage to kill me, my soul will simply leave this vessel and possess your body."

What the hell. Winning and losing are almost exactly same. This is grade A bullshit.

"Now, I'm sure you must have been one heck of an evil dragon during your peak."

It smiles at me evilly.

"You can tell?"

"And I was just starting to like you."

"Now you hate me?"

"Not hate. Just dislike."

"Why? Because I'm evil?"

"I don't care for that."

My ugly grin crawls up to my face.

"I dislike you because when kill you I won't be getting anything."

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

He laughs as hard as he can. Cave starts to shake even harder.

"You are one funny human. Do you actually believe you can kill me? Even though the vessel I possess may be inadequate but it is more than capable of crushing a mere human."

"Whatever made you believe that I was a mere human?"

"Oh, believe me, I know."

Ooh, and I see familiar look in its eyes. Condensation. He looks at me as if he is looking at a bug. I'm gonna enjoy killing this lizard.

I reach into my fifth door and call out to the werewolf within. As I do that, I see the red energy coming out of my fifth door and saturating my body, transforming me into werewolf.

"Then shall we start trying to kill each other."

"You may try but you can't change the inevitability."

ROAR!

He roars at me and opens his mouth to breathe fire at me. I try to do the same but something tells me to dodge. I try to the right as soon as he starts spewing fire. His mouth spews blood red scalding fire at me.

I dash to my right to get out of its zone and barely get out unscathed. He swerves his head toward me after seeing me dodge. I run as fast as I can to avoid his fire.

As it nears me, I sense the difference between this fire and mine. There is inherent difference. If I breathed my fire against this one, I'm sure I would be a fried chicken by now.

I run around avoiding his fire until he stops spewing it.

"You run good."

It smirks at me. This lizard really knows how to push someone's buttons. After saying his piece, he takes to the air and glides toward me. I summon my katana and wait for him to reach me. He comes toward me with his mouth open to bite to pieces.

I roll to the right to dodge is bite and raise my katana to slash his underbelly. As I hit his scales with my katana, sparks spray from the collision. I guess I need more to cut him gut open.

And as I was trying to slice his belly, his barbed tail whips around to hit me on my back. I get thrown away after getting hit by his tail. I vomit out blood in my helmet. I can hear my spine crunching from the impact. I crush into nearby boulder.

My world tree does its best to pump more vitality to heal me. But before I manage to recover, fucking lizard circles around and lands in front of me.

"What is the matter? Don't tell me that was all it took?"

I can feel Fenrir and Noir trying to come out. But I don't let them. First of all, this is my fight. And second, if they come out and make a single mistake they will die. I can afford to make a few mistakes, they cannot.

Seeing that I'm not answering, he just takes another breath. And just as he starts to take a breath, my back heals and I jump forward to get beneath him and hit his belly with my second technique. As I push my mana rotation to its limits, I can feel my muscles in my arm ripping apart.

BOOM!

As I charged my second technique with fire elemental mana, it explodes as it hit the wyverns belly. All that explosion and impact only manages to lift him up a little bit.

"Hehe, that actually hurt a little."

I guess it at least affected him a little. That is good. After I hit, him he just drops on me and starts to roll over. Well, good thing is my armor is holding up. While he is rolling all over me, I channel my lava dragon. He is bound to get up at some point. And as soon as he gets up I will give him a nice surprise.

This fucking lizard rolls over for more than a minute. I think he knows that I'm fine under him.

He finally gets up after rolling over me for about five minutes. And as soon as he got up, I unleash my lava dragon at him.

I see shock in his eyes as my lava dragon rams into his chest. He tries to fly up but as he tries to flap his wing, I will my lava dragon to smash into his right wing and he falls to the ground as he loses his right's wing support. As soon as he falls on the ground I continue to pile lava on him.

He tries to get out of under the lava but as more and more lava piles on him, he starts to love. And like I did with the previous boss, after he got completely covered by a lava, I cool the lava to make it solid volcanic rock.

Let's hope this is enough, I hope while knowing it was far from enough. I wait for him to break through the rock while climbing up one of the nearby pillars.

As I was looking at the lava hill, he suddenly bursts out of the ground next to the lava hill and flies toward me. Shit, he actually dug down.

Still, as he flies toward me, I jump and fall toward him while charging my second technique with fire elemental mana. I push my mana vortices' rotation to their limit and beyond. As I do that, muscles in my feet starts to burn and rip. Ygg tries its best to supply me with vitality and heal my muscles.

BOOM!!!

And we collide mid-air with a huge explosion. I kick him right across his snout. His head whiplashes backward and falls to the ground. As for me, I get thrown upward by the explosion and hits the pillar I was climbing.

I barely manage to hold onto the pillar. Shit, I can't feel my feet. Still, I think they are healing. Lizard rolls around a bit on the ground. From up here he really looks like a lizard with wings. Hehe.

After struggling for a while, he finally manages to stand up straight and shake his head to orient himself. And he looks to me. I see his snout bleeding. I see anger in his eyes. Serves you right for looking down on me.

He opens his wings and takes to the air again. But while he was doing that, I was doing my stuff too. I was channeling my new spell again but instead of earth, I used water elemental mana. I release it just as he flies up.

As I do that, dragon made out of scalding hot steam comes out of the spell matrix and crashes into his snout again. Dragon explodes and covers everything around under a steamy fog. I close my eyes and start to use my sonar.

I see him turning around, panicking inside the smoke screen. That is exactly what I wanted. I knew that spell will have its uses.

I get off the pillar and activate my camouflage.

"You think your pathetic smoke screen will hide you from me!"

I hear unadulterated fury in his voice. But whenever he flaps his wings, surrounding steam disperses and that makes it hard for me to approach him. While he is doing that, I simply pump out more steam while watching him.

He is bound to stop flapping like a chicken at some point. Let's say he stops flapping like a chicken and I manage to approach him, then what do I do? I tried cutting him with my katana, it barely left a scratch on him.

That means I can only attack him somewhere vulnerable. Typically, I would like to choose his eyes. But I'm not sure if I can stab him in the eye. But on the off chance that I do that, I can finish him off.

But I need to be fast. Not let him have any chance of reacting. Wait a minute. I see him turn around and I see another vulnerable point. Hahahaha. No, that's too cruel. Aah, fuck him.

I wait while pumping more steam. He tries to find me but fails miserably. Flying around the cave searching for me. When I'm camouflaged, I don't even have a smell. Only those with special sensory can find me.

I still wonder how the monsters in the dungeon could see me. He finally lands after searching around for me for an hour. And as soon as he stops flapping his wings, steamy fog covers him.

I use that opportunity to approach him from behind. Hehehe. I'm so gonna enjoy it. I walk up to behind him and conjure up a big spear and shove it up his anus with all the strength I can muster.

ROAR!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hahahaha. He roars on top of his lungs. Even as he roars, I still continue to shove the spear even deeper into his anus. He turns around, I hold onto the spear and turn with it.

As he turns around and stops, I shove the spear even deeper.

ROAR!!!!!!!!

And just as I was about to shove the spear even deeper, his barbed tail whip me right across my back. I vomit blood and tumble forward. That cancels my camouflage. He looks at me and immediately spew fire upon me.

As he rains fire on me, I can feel my body burning. Though my armor is still holding up, the temperature is making my armor too hot, thus burning me inside my armor.

I can't move because of the pressure of his breathe. I think I'm gonna die now. Well, it was a pretty good run. And just as I was thinking that, he stops his breathe.

"You think you can just die like this after what you did to me?!"

"hehehe."

When thought about that, I couldn't help but laugh. As he hears me laughing, he punches me. petty lizard. That punch broke almost all my bones.

But as soon as he stopped raining fire on me, my body started to heal. Werewolf's regeneration and Yggdrasil's vitality is doing wonders to my broken body.

Now he is simply looking at me menacingly. And as he keeps staring at me, I start to feel something tug at my soul. This fucking lizard is trying to suck my soul out.

I feel the tug getting stronger, closer his eyes come. This idiot actually believes he can suck my soul out that easily. That will be his death.

Now, his snout is pressing on my chest and his eyes are only about a half meter away from me. That's it. I raise my both my hands and reach out to his eyes. As I do that my hidden blades extend and stabs into his eyes.

ROAR!!!!!

He roars and turns around. I get up and take some distance from the blind wyvern. But he starts to rampage around the cave.

RUMBLE.

While running around he knocks down one of the pillars. The whole cave starts to collapse as the pillar crumbles. And the ceiling of the cave starts dropping. Shit. I don't think I can survive all of that falling on me.

At first floor, I gambled that Frost dying will get me out of there. But this time I highly doubt something will get me out of here.

And this cave is much bigger than Frost's room. I'm not even sure that I can survive all the debris falling down on me.

While I was starting to lose hope, my left arm suddenly starts to grow surrounding me. I guess Ygg is my only hope. And just as the ceiling of the cave falls down on me, everything goes dark.

End of Volume 3