Chapter 16: The Boss

"I think she's mad at us or something." Karl looked to Darren as he spoke.

"No. I think that she's just embarrassed because we finally saw how amazing of an ability she has." Darren replied as he wrapped his arm around Karl.

"You have to remember Darren..." Karl pulled Darren in closer and whispered in his ear, "It's a curse, not an ability." Karl and Darren burst into laughter while Lua walked ahead of them with her fist tightly clenched. "Can you two shut up and hurry along? We still have a dungeon to clear, idiots." Darren and Karl placed their hands on their mouths to stop their laughter and looked towards Lua with frightened eyes.

"We should hurry up."

"Exactly, we still have to pass this test to get into the academy." Karl and Darren nodded to each other and ran up next to Lua. It had been around an hour since they beat the ogres and continued to try to clear the dungeon. They ran into a few other monsters, like giant black scorpions, minotaurs, and even a few lamias but they handle all of those with relative ease as there weren't that many of them.

"We work really well together." Karl spoke up again grabbing both Lua and Darren's attention. "I mean sure we're missing Mill, but to be honest we don't even know everything that he could do, so for all we know he might've just held us back or helped us even more. One is for sure though, us three works great together." Karl gave a great big smile after thinking about all the battles that they had gone through. "I think we all have a really good chance of passing this thing."

Darren and Lua looked at each other than nodded back at Karl in a form of agreement. They also believed they that, though they just met each other, they had strong synergy and trusted one another enough at this point to not get in other's way. This brought a smile to all of their faces as they continued to walk in silence. The walk wasn't long however as they had made it to some sort of large archway that led into a big open room.

"If this isn't the boss then I don't know what is." Darren said looking up at the archway. "I mean they didn't even try to hide it. It's just a big open door that leads into a big open room with enough space for a really big boss."

"I hope that it's a big boss, but it could be a small one that's just really strong and that's honestly more terrifying than a really big one." Karl replied as he rubbed his wrists to get ready for whatever they were about to fight. Darren preemptively summoned a greatsword and held it in front of him. Lua drew her bow and walked toward the room, "Let's get ready to end this dungeon so that we can leave." They all walked into the room ready for whatever was going to happen.

The room was pretty basic in boss room design with its statues around the room, crystal lights lined along the room's walls, and even random carvings on the walls that no one in the party knew how to read. "The boss could show up at any time make sure you're ready." Lua said to the boys as she had an arrow prepped in her bow ready for the boss to show itself.

"Right, it might be one of these statues that come to life." Karl said as he was currently in front of one of those statues and gave them a sniff. He recoiled back to his group as the smell from the statues were pretty bad. "Man, do they not clean those things they reek like the smell of an old corpse." Karl stuck his tongue out in disgust.

"It could also fall from the ceiling of the room so we should be careful." Darren said as he looked up and noticed a small opening near the upper half of the walls in the room. Darren saw this as a place that the boss might drop in from.

"Or, and this one is just a thought, he may even have been behind us this entire time." A fourth voice said. Wait. Fourth voice? Lua, Karl, and Darren turned around and saw a man standing there. "Oh, it seems that you've finally noticed me." The man smiled at the three examinees before him. "Now, which one of you is the one that took out my little pet?" The boss had tanned skin with short black hair with red highlights on the tips. He had on an open black wizard robe and no undershirt just a necklace with a big red gem on it.

"Get him!" Lua shouted as she jumped back and drew her bow, releasing two arrows immediately. The man didn't even try to dodge the arrows as they hit his chest and bounce right off. "You didn't answer my question." Darren ran up and leaped into the air to slam his greatsword onto the boss. The boss jumped into the air with him and looked him in the eye before lifting his leg and slamming Darren down to the ground. As he the boss landed Karl was right in front of him with the Obsidian wolf claws out and tried to rip into the boss. The boss stepped to the side and lifted Karl off the ground by the hands and just stared at him. "Was it you? No, it couldn't be. While you are quite handsome you just don't seem strong enough." While Karl was held to more arrows were shot from Lua and which the boss let hit him again, but this time they were laced with Lua's lightning. Once the arrows made contact it sent an electrical charge through the boss causing him to drop Karl in literal shock.

Karl caught himself and turned his legs into those of a Milksilk rabbit and tried to get the boss with a low attack. The boss fell over and just as he hit the ground Darren came down from the sky and slammed his greatsword into the boss with all of his might. The boss tried to dodge just in time for only his arm to get chopped off. He got off of the ground and looked at the three people facing him. "It seems I might have underestimated you three. Maybe you're stronger than I thought. But..." The boss looked at his missing arm and slowly a new arm grew into place. "That just means that I don't have to hold back to have fun with this." A big smile appeared on his face as his eyes went completely black except for a small dot in each eye.

He raised his arms and a dark energy started to radiate off of him. Lua shot two more arrows laced with her lightning, but they bounced off a barrier that had suddenly appeared around the boss. The four statues around the room started to shake as stone started to fall off of them revealing rotten flesh. "That explains the smell." Karl said with a gulp as there were now four half-giant corpses standing around them.

"I guess now I should introduce myself seeing as this is going to take longer than I thought." The boss lowered him arms and cleared his throat. "My name is Cren and I am a Lich Prince." He said with a big smile on his face. "It's a pleasure to meet you, adventurers." The group all stood side by side and looked at each other. "We're not adventurers." They spoke simultaneously.

"We're examinees. And we're gonna kick your ass whether you let us or not!" The group readied themselves again and charged forward with that fierce battle cry.