What's better than one moron? Two.

"I know this seems obvious, but I'm gonna ask you anyway. This guy is immune to fire, right? You know, since he has blood, and, might I add, a lot of it. It's liquid, so he doesn't take fire damage, right?" I asked blood, just to make sure.

"Yea, why? It's not like we have any way to do any fire damage to him, but if we did, things would go a lot smoother." Blood replied.

"What!? So, you're telling me that we've been fighting him all sorts of ways for no apparent reason?" I was pretty mad at this point, but maybe there's just something I don't understand yet.

As far as my knowledge goes, it's pretty hard to burn fresh roots since they have juice and water in them, and this one has blood so pure that I, a human, can drink it instead of water.

"Hey, calm down. Why would you get angry anyway? As I've already said, we can't do any fire damage to him, and that's simply because we don't have any fire spells as such. In theory, even a torch could do a little bit of damage if we held it up to him for long enough, but that's not happening.." Oh, don't tell me this freaking goat head is this dumb.

"You, do you even have a brain in that head of yours? You just told me he has no fire resistance, and yet one fo your main spells - lightning - creates more heat than any fire spell which didn't come straight from the Cerberus ever could!" I'm losing it now, but let me hear his reasoning out, just in case.

Oh, and I should point out that this dialog is happening while I'm running around the boss and Blood is doing his leech thing.

"Oh, whoopsie. Looks like I forgot. Oh well, too bad, amirite?" He said with a dumb laugh.

"You moron. Haa, I knew the bosses wouldn't scale up in strength this fast, or we'd have no chance of progressing any higher up the floors. Well, at least one thing is good. You've got a ridiculous amount of mana now, so I doubt you'll have any problems with casting lightning a few hundred times." Having said that, I pulled my not-so-trusty companion out from the roots and told him to act up.

"Okay, okay. A few hundred times shouldn't be too difficult." He said with a sigh.

"Oh, did I say a few hundred? Sorry, my bad. I meant a few thousand. What, you thought I'd let you get away with this so easily? Boy, were you wrong. Don't forget that I'm the one who revived you, so, in a way, you owe your life to me. Unless, of course, you want me to farm you for experience?" Of course, he's become my friend in the few days we've been together, but that doesn't just magically make me accept his dumb mistake.

Yeah, and I'm not going to farm him for the experience now. I'd have to be a sadist to do that. No, I'm not one yet, and I'm planning to stay more-less clean for another while.

~~~

"Holding you out like that while you open your mouth and cast bolts of lightning, it just makes me feel like I'm holding a staff." Sure, this staff is, what, three times longer than my whole body's length stretched out, but when has that ever stopped a great magician?

Okay, I admit it - magicians don't usually have enough physical strength to hold up something like a gigantic goat head in their hands, but I'm no normal mage. I'm everything all at once, plus I have more strength than Hercules if I were to judge his strength but the size of craters he leaves when he punches the ground.

"So, you enjoy the sight?" I had a pleasant feeling, just watching all of the poor root monster's attempts at running away from the lightning strikes, which weren't going to stop for another while.

"I sure am, but I didn't think you'd be as well." River said with a calm tone, which looked rather odd considering the havoc he was wreaking on the forest right now.

"Some men just want to watch the world burn." I replied, still entranced by the scenery.

The sound of lightning bolts, followed by fire and crackling lead to this feeling of sitting right beside a campfire, while out on a long day outside. The only difference is how much louder this is - about 30 times louder.

We stood upon a piece of rubble that came from the shattered mountain and watched the scene play out for another hour.

I could have stood there for a day without even realizing how much time has passed, but a notification interrupted my break.

{experience gained + 100,000,000}

{experience gain multiplier due to level difference: X1}

(Experience X0.1 due to killing stage one.)

(Stages complete 1/3)

{total experience gained + 10,000,000

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

...

{total: [Level Up!] X1111}

"Oh, that's a new message. So this boss has three stages, and the first one gave 1/10 experience. That means the next one is bound to be a few times harder so that we could get the full amount of experience for ourselves." I stood there thinking until I noticed an orb, possibly the core of the monster, fly thought the roof and into the next floor. The seventh one.

The orb emerged from the ground, and that made me wonder why I didn't see it earlier, and honestly, the reason is quite dumb.

"I can't even call this place a forest anymore. It's become a wasteland of ashes, looking like a picture of the environment surrounding a volcano." I looked around, and there was no living spot left on the ground.

The whole place, previously a lush forest, was now just a field of charcoal and ash. Even the rocks had a black tint to them.

"Yep. We've burned what used to be a nice place under the night sky, and turned it into this hellhole of a place. I don't mind it though."