The Boss Fight and Going to Meet A Game Character

After resting for roughly 10 minutes, I was back to full in terms of stamina, my body and my rage meter was nearly filled to the brim.

So, after psyching myself up, I took steady steps toward the giant of a boss I'd be fighting, 'God, it gets worse when I think about how I'm gonna fight Yhorm...' but I quickly dispelled such thoughts before they settled in my mind and picked up my speed toward Gundyr.

And before long I was standing in front of the kneeling boss.

Without thinking anymore useless thoughts, I grabbed the Coiled Sword stuck in his abdomen and yanked it up with surprising ease.

Looking down at the sword, I threw it to the side - it was dull and looked like it could snap at any minute. If my subconscious made this whole Dark Souls scenario, I'd probably need the Coiled Sword. So, breaking it over the back of Gundyr's head wasn't really an option right now. Besides, I have much more faith in two other weapons.

Drawing back my fist while Gundyr was awakening, I imbued it with rage once more, the whole process being much quicker and smoother than when I used it on the evolved zombie. So much quicker that it charged almost instantly.

[Iudex Gundyr - Lv24]

Throwing out the fist, it shot toward Gundyr's head like a missile, the air around it sizzling and ripping away as if it were scared of the heat and the force of the blow.

Deciding to go all out for this one free blow, I let my [Rage] ability run wild and flood through my body.

The enhancement came almost instantly, followed by a primal excitement and bloodlust that flooded through my mind, begging for me to rip apart...something. And right now, that something, was the boss right in front of me.

The added strength and dexterity made the attack even more lethal and I felt my defense get buffed even further by the heightened constitution working in tandem with my [Unarmored Defense] ability. And, without fail, my fist slammed right into Gundyr's face. Oh boy, did it hit him, as well.

A sound like a thunderclap rocked through my ears as the boss' metal helmet crunched a little inward as his heavy armored body was lifted off the ground and threw backwards a few meters before the disgraced champion caught himself with his feet and came to a stop.

Looking at my fist for a moment, I saw that it was practically fine. It stung a little, from hitting metal armor so hard, but...it hurt much less than it should have. It felt more like I'd punched an unarmored human, than a giant boss covered in thick metal armor.

'Well, my defense is equal or even above steel plate armor right now,' I smiled as I grabbed Gundyr's halberd, 'Man, I love my heightened abilities right now!'

I felt intoxicated by the power but I kept a clear mind as I saw Gundyr prepping to charge at me.

Flipping the oversized halberd around, I held it like a javelin and flung it at Gundyr. The black halberd turned into a barely discernible blur as it shot across the short distance between the boss and I. Why hadn't I kept the weapon? 'Well, for one, I have no clue how to fight using a halberd. Two, it's oversized as hell. It'd only get in the way because of my relatively shorter size.'

Meanwhile, Gundyr saw the incoming bolt of metal and actually dodged, tilting his body to the side and letting the edge of the halberd scrape against his armor, creating a fountain of sparks, 'So he won't act like a Dark Souls boss and go purely offense? He'll actually evade attacks when he can?'

As the thought crossed my mind, I felt the energy in my veins increase vibrate with battle mania, 'Good,' I smilingly thought before throwing myself backward into a bridge motion.

Gundyr's weapon sliced through the space where my chest had just been and I felt my heartbeat quicken as I steadied myself with my hands before I kicked my feet upward and into the boss' torso. Another thunderclap echoed throughout the ashy fighting grounds as Gundyr's chest armor creaked and cracked a little where my feet had hit it. Putting some more force into my hands, I sprang up onto my feet and dashed at Gundyr.

Digging my bare toes into the ash below them, my acceleration was unbelievable as I made up the small distance between us in less than a second and without being able to think about how fast I actually was, I collided with Gundyr, my shoulder against his stomach.

Wrapping my arms around the back of his legs, I strained my legs and pulled as hard as I could with my arms. Gundyr wasn't taking this without doing anything in return however.

He slammed the halberd down on my back and for a second, I worried about getting pierced through by the giant weapon. Yet when the metal came into contact with my skin, it was similar to how it had been when the halberd went across Gundyr's armor when I threw it. Sparks flew off of my skin from the point of contact and while it was painful, my skin wasn't cut badly. All that was left was a long line of a cut that barely let any blood out.

Both Gundyr and I were surprised by this but instead of being taken by this surprise, I tried even harder in my endeavor to take him to the ground and Gundyr just lifted his halberd up one more, slamming it's sharp blade down on my back and sides while occasionally hitting my back with his armored hand.

In the end, however, I was successful and with one final push, Gundyr toppled over backwards.

Securing one of his arms with my leg, pressing down on the inside of his elbow to stop him was moving the arm in my direction, I began to slam fist after fist after fist into his face. The arm I was holding down was the one holding his halberd and while he was furiously struggling to lift that arm, I was equally as focused on keeping that arm down and against the ground. His other arm swung wildly, trying to knock me off or just to plain kill me, but this wasn't the real Gundyr. This was a shadow of what was once a mighty warrior - right now, he was basically a hollowed out version of what he was.

His armor was brittle. His strength waning. His skills rusty.

So, I dodged any of the scant blows he could send my way or just blocked them. All while I continued to slam my fist into his face.

Every hit caused a black sludge to seep from the spaces in his helmet, covering my knuckles in splatters of the stuff that soon began to become a film that covered my entire fist. As I was pulling back for another punch, I was thrown back by an explosion of the black sludge that poured out of Gundyr's face.

The sludge pooled around his free arm and weaved itself into tentacles of black muscle that soon became a giant arm that hardened in a white bone-like substance. The arm ended in four claws, three finger-like appendages and one thumb.

Meanwhile the rest of the black sludge began to gather around his head before more and more sludge began to worm it's way out of the cracks and openings on his upper body armor. The black pus was slowly becoming something - something I recognized all too well, 'The second phase of Gundyr,' I noted as I stood up from my down position, '...That explosion did more damage that his basic attacks,' I noted as I felt an aching that went deep throughout my body and all the bones in it.

Turning my focus back to Gundyr, I saw that the boss' upper body and head were now completely covered in a sort of black pseudo-muscle that had taken the form of a black beast's head. The black beast had glowing red eyes and looked at me with a hatred and anger that made me feel somewhat unnerved. It definitely looked more menacing than it did in the game.

The black beast opened it's abyssal maw before an ear piercing shriek came from it, the gigantic bone-like arm slapping the ground between us, gripping the ashy ground, and then picked itself up before throwing itself toward me.

Despite the gigantic beast head on top of his body, Gundyr seemed unperturbed as he slammed his halberd down at me.

I tilted my body out of the way, using my buffed stats to withstand the shockwave and the rippling of the ground beneath my feet, and sent a flurry of punches toward Gundyr's chest. Right now, I could only hope this still followed the game's rules - in that attacking Gundyr's main body can kill the pus of man creation that he has taking up his upper body.

It seemed to be working - but not for the reason I'd originally thought it to be.

It wasn't the game's rules for the boss. But rather the game's rules for the pus of man. This certain enemy...it was weak to fire and heat, wasn't it?

Charging another [Furious Blow] and sent it right into the lower parts of the black beast's neck. The parts I could safely reach. And my blow caused another eardrum bursting shockwave to come from the pus of man. Gundyr, connected and overrun with the creature, seemed to feel the pain of the fire and hastily retreated a few steps. Looking over at him, I saw his body twitching back and forth as the punch mark I'd left gave off some smoke that occasionally flared up and burned the pus of man even more.

'Like tick damage or DoT,' I smiled and quickly brought up my amount of rage.

[Rage: 34/98]

Wincing at the low amount, I dropped out of using my rage ability and lost the enhancement it gave me. Shrugging off the pseudo weakness that assaulted me, I focused back on Gundyr.

'Before the pus of man took over him, his physical stats were somewhere between 125 and 130,' I worked out based off of how strong he felt to me, 'Except for his dexterity. Which is around mine or maybe even lower. Right now I'd say he's the same, just with higher mobility because of that arm - but his attacks are too predictable and I can dodge 'em easily enough.'

Looking at Gundyr, or more specifically at the red eyes of the pus of man, I charged again. Crossing the distance within a second, my main goal now was to get it's health low enough to take it out with one last [Furious Blow].

And so the fight continued.

I ducked and weaved between blows - some more successfully than others. But I out as much as I took and before long, Gundyr was missing his massive bone-like arm that gave him his mobility boost. I'd slipped under him, grabbed it and threw him to the ground before snapping it off like a twig - it was pretty badass, honestly.

Right now, I was sitting around 40-something Rage but I was still waiting for the perfect moment. Ever since I took his arm, Gundyr had been in a sort of berserker state - but right now, he looked to be calming down.

'And what comes after a state of anger?' I joking asked myself, full well knowing the answer, 'Exhaustion. God knows I've felt the exhaustion [Rage] brings after I use it for too long.'

For the first time since I'd been here, I realized how cold this graveyard of ash actually was as I watched the black beast puffing out white steam from it's mouth - and I was the same. My breath showed up almost instantly, reacting to the cold air around it. But it also told me one other thing, 'Gundyr's pretty exhausted to be panting like that. Never knew the pus of man even needed air.'

Shrugging, I pushed through my own tiredness and activated [Rage] once more, knowing I had more than enough for a few minutes plus another [Furious Blow].

My stats, re-buffed, allowed me to take the boss by surprise. I slammed a low kick right into the inside of his right knee and he buckled under the attack and his own weight as he fell to one knee. Recovering quickly, I pivoted and sent a front kick with the opposite leg right at Gundyr's upper chest.

I didn't feel overjoyed by having to feel what the pus of man felt like but my attack was successful nonetheless and Gundyr feel onto his back, kicking up ash.

Putting some strength into my legs, I jumped up a few meters, traveling in an arc as I moved above Gundyr just before I began to fall back down to the ground and onto him. As I was falling, I did exactly what I did to the evolved zombie. As I was falling, I lifted my leg and as I was getting close enough, I pulled my leg back down like a descending blade and sent and axe kick right into Gundyr.

The force of my momentum and the force of my kick created another thunderclap-like sound and Gundyr was drove into the ground, a crater being formed around his body as the earth cracked and separated from the force of my kick.

But I didn't focus on that and grabbed onto a piece of armor that wasn't covered in the black pus.

Pulling back my fist, I began to charge a [Furious Blow] and when it reached it's usual charge...I pushed more rage in. Call it stupid, call it impatient - but I wanted this fight over now.

I filled my arm up with even more rage, the shimmering of heat turning into full-fledged fire as a red aura spread across my entire arm. The reddish-orange flames only began as small sparks but before long, they were pouring out of my skin, burning away the sleeve of my hoodie and making my arm look like it was made of fire instead of flesh.

The pus of man below began to struggle, feeling the heat, but I gave it no more chance to escape or fight as I drove my fist down like a hammer. I tensed my fist so hard I felt like I had a fist of pure steel being driven downward by muscles of titanium. It was like my entire arm had been converted to being a fiery hammer.

And when it hit the pus of man and Gundyr...the boss just melted. The fire burned and spread across the body of the boss, scorching it and melting it. The force of the enhanced punch crumbled any defenses he had, his armor being little more than brittle styrofoam as the fist smashed through it all. All of it - the heat, the force - culminated in an explosion that blew apart Gundyr's body and sent the black beast's head to the goddamn shadow realm. It just burnt away, till not even a morsel was left of the black material that made it up.

Gundyr's body was barely any better either. The upper half was missing it's head and the neck and shoulders were completely crushed, with parts of the armor missing and showing black and bloodied flesh underneath.

He was dead, that was easy to see, but if I had any doubts, the next textbox cleared them.

[Congratulations on clearing the boss! Iudex Gundyr is no more!]

[You've leveled up three times! Congratulations!]

And with those notifications, I felt a burst of power flooding through my body. Not before I cancelled [Rage] and felt a whole tonne of exhaustion, however.

Falling off of Gundry and onto my ass, I watched as Gundyr's body disappeared into a cloud of motes of white light. But curiously, on the ground where his body had been, there was a small flame-like object.

'Wait, isn't that...' I blinked my eyes a few times before shaking my head and standing up, '...Just because you don't get one in the game doesn't mean you won't get one in the dungeon your reality warping powers have made, I guess,' I shrugged, walked over and picked up the glowing soul Gundyr had dropped.

'In the game, you don't get one of these because of some timeline-fuckery,' I thought as I looked down at the pure white soul, 'But right now, it seems that doesn't apply to me. Guess I'm working outside the confines of time in this place,' I figured.

Walking over to it, I picked up the Coiled Sword and began walking to the exit to this boss.

I wanted to see if my subconscious had made the right decision. And if it had? I'm gonna talk to a hot woman about touching some darkness inside her and claiming some sovereignless souls.

With that in mind, I added my unallocated points to Dexterity and after feeling the rush of stats and the lightness that came with every allocation to Dexterity, I brought up my status to see my new stats and my progress.

[Name: William Hastings]

[Class: Barbarian Lv15]

[Rage: 005/122]

[EXP: 1400/7000 ]

[Race: N/A]

[Strength: 122 (146.4)]

[Dexterity: 80 (96)]

[Constitution: 122 (146.4)]

[Intelligence: 10]

[Wisdom: 10]

[Sense: 80]

[Class Abilities: Rage (Active), Unarmored Defense (Passive), Danger Sense (Passive) and Furious Blow (Active)]

[Skills: Intermediate Unarmed Combat Lv6*]

[Intermediate Unarmed Combat Level Up! Lv4 --> Lv6]

Happy with the progress, I opened the gate and saw a pathway leading up to some sort of ruined building, 'My subconscious made the right choice~' I chimed mentally as I picked up my speed to get there, my earlier exhaustion disappearing as I caught a second wind.