Chapter 175: Chapter 175: The True Final Boss
The heavy sealed doors that had been locked behind the boss were slowly grinding open and revealing a dark spiraling staircase leading upward.
"Wait," Lila said and looked around the empty golden chamber. "Where is the pet egg?"
"This was not the final boss," Nyx stated. She pushed her dark glasses up her nose and checked her datapad.
"The global event specifically stated this was a Pet Dungeon. The Heavenly Dragon Commander did not drop an egg. He dropped a weapon and a summoning token. This was a false summit."
"You mean we have to fight something worse than a fifty-foot lightning dragon?" Casanova groaned and rubbed his temples.
"Probably," Dante said and walked toward the open staircase.
Before they could step through the doors, the system interface in the corner of the vision of Dante flared with a massive influx of regional chat notifications.
[Regional Chat - VanguardGrunt44: The trap is clear! We lost the entire vanguard, but Silas pushed through the fire room!]
[Regional Chat - ApexHunter: Leonidas just sacrificed the B-team to break the crushing stone doors! We are in the golden chamber!]
[Regional Chat - BloodThrone_Rogue: The boss is already dead! The anomaly cleared it!]
Dante read the chat logs.
Silas, Leonidas, and Karley’s had survived the brutal [Rain of Iron] trap and the subsequent hazard rooms by treating their guild members like disposable meat shields.
They forced them to trigger the mechanics so the core teams could advance.
It was a brutal and incredibly inefficient strategy, but it worked if you had thousands of players to burn.
And they had just entered the empty golden chamber behind the squad of Dante.
"They are right behind us," Sera warned and stepped away from the entrance.
"Let them follow," Dante said and stepped onto the spiral staircase. "If they want to fight the true final boss, they can try to steal the aggro."
The squad climbed the dark stairs for ten minutes.
The air grew significantly thinner and colder and carried the distinct high-altitude Storm.
They reached the top of the stairs and stepped through a massive stone archway.
The environment completely bypassed any semblance of a traditional tomb or underground cavern.
They stepped out onto a massive perfectly circular platform of white jade suspended high in the air.
Surrounding the platform was an endless expanse of dark swirling storm clouds.
There were no walls or ceilings. They were functionally standing in the sky.
[Zone Alert: The Heavenly Apex]
[Hazard Detected: Extreme Altitude. Falling from the platform will result in True Death.]
"Do not look down," Dante instructed casually.
Casanova immediately looked over the edge of the jade platform, went incredibly pale, and scrambled backward to the absolute dead center of the room. "I hate heights. Why is there always a bottomless pit?"
At the far end of the jade platform waiting for them was the true final boss of Demon Spirit Land.
It wasn’t an undead knight or a corrupted monster.
It was a massive terrifying avian beast.
It possessed the sleek predatory body of an eagle, but it was forged entirely from swirling localized hurricane Storms and dark aggressive storm clouds.
Its eyes burned with a bright piercing cyan light.
[True Boss Spawn: Storm Demon King]
[Tier: Celestial]
[Level: 35]
[HP: 3,500,000 / 3,500,000]
"Level 35 Celestial," Nyx whispered and tapped furiously on her screen. "Three and a half million health. Dante, this thing is mathematically denser than the Void-Drake you executed in the Abyss."
The Storm Demon King didn’t wait for them to set up a formation.
It let out a deafening shriek that sounded like a tornado tearing through a city.
The massive bird launched itself into the sky.
Its wings forged from pure Storm beat aggressively and pushed it high above the jade platform to be completely out of melee range.
[Boss Mechanic Triggered: Eye of the Storm]
The Storm Demon King didn’t cast a targeted spell. It began to violently flap its wings to generate a massive localized weather event.
Dozens of towering dark purple tornadoes materialized across the jade platform.
They didn’t move randomly. They actively tracked the players and tore across the smooth stone with terrifying speed.
"Dodge!" Dante roared.
The squad scattered.
Lila triggered a quick [Astral Bridge] and launched herself into the air to avoid a sweeping tornado.
Sera deployed her automated turrets, but the sheer localized Storm speed instantly ripped the mechanical constructs apart and threw the debris off the edge of the platform.
Garrick raised his [Spiteful Bulwark], entirely terrified, and successfully tanked a direct hit from a tornado. His red dome glowed brightly under the kinetic stress.
Dante used [Blink Step] and teleported rapidly between the swirling tornadoes.
He looked up.
The Storm Demon King was hovering fifty feet in the air completely safe and raining down localized natural disasters.
"I really hate flying bosses," Dante muttered and gripped the [Dawn-Breaker Blade].
He prepared to activate [Meteor Stride] to launch himself into the air and engage the beast in its own element. But before he could trigger the Zenith-tier teleport, a flash of red caught his eye.
Mei wasn’t running from the tornadoes.
The Brawler was standing perfectly still near the edge of the jade platform and stared up at the massive bird.
"Hey, Boss!" Mei yelled over the roaring Storm. "Remember what you did to me in the Frostfire Steppes?!"
Dante paused. "I dropped a skyscraper on you."
"Yeah!" Mei cheered enthusiastically. "Watch this!"
Mei didn’t wait for permission. She gripped the handle of her massive indestructible cast-iron frying pan with both hands.
She activated her highest-tier localized offensive skill.
It wasn’t a standard Brawler punch or a grapple.
Mei had spent the entire First Cycle doing nothing but hitting things with her pan, and she had evolved her own localized skill tree to perfectly complement the Universal Anomaly.
[Skill Executed: Super Large Frying Pan]
The system interface didn’t just flash. It completely broke.
The [God-Slaying Skillet] didn’t just grow. It violently and aggressively exploded in size.
The skill of Mei applied a massive 200x size multiplier to the weapon combined with a flat 10x damage modifier.
In a fraction of a millisecond, the four-foot-wide frying pan transformed into a colossal eighty-foot-wide disc of indestructible black iron.
The handle was as thick as a watchtower.
Mei didn’t struggle with the localized weight. Her Brawler class specialized in managing blunt-force momentum.
She swung the eighty-foot frying pan in a massive vertical upward arc to aim directly at the sky.
"Batter up, you overgrown pigeon!" Mei shrieked happily.
The Storm Demon King was hovering fifty feet in the air and was completely confident in its localized aerial superiority.
It didn’t even try to dodge.
The Gold-tier AI couldn’t calculate a melee strike originating from the ground that possessed an eighty-foot vertical reach.
CLANG!
The impact was absolutely catastrophic.
The colossal indestructible frying pan slammed directly into the underbelly of the Level 35 Celestial beast.
The blunt-force trauma multiplied by 10x was completely devastating.
[-250,000! Critical Hit!]
The shriek of triumph of the Storm Demon King instantly turned into a digitized squawk of localized agony.
The sheer kinetic force of the swing didn’t just damage the boss. It completely shattered its aerial momentum.
The massive bird was violently batted out of the sky and tumbled helplessly through the air.
It crashed heavily onto the center of the jade platform. It slid across the smooth stone completely grounded and temporarily stunned.
The [Super Large Frying Pan] duration of Mei expired.
The colossal weapon instantly shrank back to its normal four-foot size.
Mei dropped to one knee and panted heavily. The skill had completely zeroed out her mana bar and a significant chunk of her stamina.
"It is down!" Mei yelled and pointed at the stunned bird. "Hit it!"
Dante didn’t hesitate.
He didn’t just walk over to the downed boss.
Mei had just provided the perfect localized opening, and Dante was going to make sure the boss didn’t get back up.
He sheathed the [Dawn-Breaker Blade]. He didn’t want standard localized damage. He wanted an execution.
Dante held out his right hand, and the black brand on his wrist flared violently.
[Voidsever] materialized, and the primordial greatsword let out a low predatory hum as it devoured the ambient light radiating from the storm clouds.
He activated his massive localized buffs.
[Skill Activated: Blood Sacrifice]
[Attack Power increased by 900%.]
[Skill Executed: Asura’s Heart]
[Critical Hit Damage increased to 300%.]
His base attack power skyrocketed to a terrifying mathematically absurd number.
He didn’t stop there.
"Aura!" Dante commanded.
The Mystic Sovereign chimed and pulsed her [Holy Moment] buff to grant an additional flat 50% boost to his base attack power.
The total localized attack power of Dante crossed the threshold of 36,000.
He triggered [Meteor Stride] and teleported directly above the grounded Storm Demon King.
"Nice swing, Mei," Dante said.
He brought [Voidsever] down in a brutal two-handed vertical strike and aimed perfectly for the center of the back of the Celestial beast.
He didn’t just swing the standard blade.
He activated the exact same skill Mei had just used.
[Skill Executed: Enlarge.]
[Talent Activated: 10,000x Multiplier.]
[Enlarge has evolved into: Colossal Manifestation.]
The jagged black blade of Voidsever violently expanded.
The primordial greatsword transformed into a one-hundred-meter-long monolith of pure light-absorbing black metal.
The colossal sword slammed into the Storm Demon King.
[Passive Activated: Absolute Severance. 100% Armor Ignored.]
[Passive Activated: Predator’s Eye (100% Critical Hit Chance).]
The combat engine of the Zenith Protocol completely froze.
The math resolved.
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