Oddly enough, after Kaizen and Linus entered the dark room guarded by the rune door and saw the hooded old man, no boss health bar or notification appeared.
Kaizen was confused and a little disappointed because he could have sworn this was a boss room. So he used his <Analyzing Eye> to find out what he was up against.
[Creature: Mysterious Old Man
Level: 1 | Attribute: Human | Nature: Primal
HP: 100 | MP: 1
Attack: 1 | Defense: 1 | Speed: 1
Strength: 1 | Wisdom: 100 | Resistance: 1
Resistance to spells of: None]
"Who are you?" asked Linus in a firm voice, already suspicious as usual. "And what do you want?"
The old man smiled slowly. "I am the guardian of this labyrinth, and I am here to test your courage and skill," he replied in a gruff, dark voice. "If you wish to continue, you will have to face a challenge."
"What kind of challenge?" asked Kaizen, lowering a sword and putting an arm in front of Linus to prevent him from attacking.
"A challenge that will test your cunning and your courage. There are three doors ahead of you. Behind each is a challenge that you must overcome to get to the other side. If you can overcome the challenges, you will find the path you seek. If you cannot, you will be stuck in this maze forever," the old man explained with a sinister smile.
Kaizen and Linus exchanged glances, knowing they had no choice but to accept the challenge. They approached the three doors that appeared in the hall, each with a different symbol engraved on its surface. The first door had a rune that said "One", the second door had "Two" written on it, and the third door followed the same pattern. Without much thought, Kaizen chose the middle door, while Linus chose the door to his right, the third.
"Are you sure of your choice?" The old man asked.
The two intruders did not look at each other this time, but kept their eyes on the doors and nodded almost simultaneously.
The old man smiled again. "Well, there is no way to change your fate. Proceed, kindly."
When they both opened their respective doors, they looked into an endless darkness, and out of that darkness, tentacles appeared, grabbing them and pulling them into the void. However, neither of them reacted to this, for in some way they knew that this was something normal, something natural.
Inside the chosen doors, Kaizen and Linus plunged into a dense and disturbing darkness. The air seemed colder and heavier than before, and a sepulchral silence filled the room.
Suddenly, the darkness lifted and Kaizen immediately drew his sword as he looked around. He was in some kind of dark cave, with a greenish light emanating from glowing crystals on the walls. And then he saw it: a huge monster with green scales and sharp claws was coming towards him. This thing resembled a lizard, except that its limbs were much longer and it walked on its back like a gorilla.
"At least the challenge the old man mentioned is not a riddle, otherwise it would take me hours to solve it. However, if it's just a macaque monkey, it will be quick." Kaizen said.
The monster growled, revealing sharp teeth, and Kaizen prepared for battle. Surprisingly, instead of the monster running as it advanced as expected, the monster dug its claws into the stone floor and then launched itself forward. In doing so, it was projected like a bullet in Kaizen's direction, reaching a speed above normal for something the size of a gorilla.
However, this creature was not facing any of its usual prey, but rather a Psyker.
Kaizen activated the <Psychokinesis> ability, and without much effort, deflected the monster toward one of the stone walls where the crystals were. And when the monster hit the wall, the entire cave shook with the shock. A little dust fell from the ceiling with the shaking, and Kaizen wiped it from his shoulders and hair. Meanwhile, the monster had time to recover from the stunned impact, and even a little confused, it looked at Kaizen angrily and tried to attack him, taking advantage of its long arms and sharp claws.
Despite his best efforts, Kaizen was on another level. With skill and agility, he dodged the monster's attacks with extreme ease, quickly finding an opening through which he slid his sword smoothly into the enemy's chest. The monster screamed in pain as Kaizen struck it, but it continued to try to fight back, only to find that Kaizen was much stronger, and with a series of sharp blows, Kaizen severed its head. The monster fell to the ground with a thud, and Kaizen took a deep breath, feeling the adrenaline still coursing through his veins.
But as soon as the head of the strange creature touched the ground, Kaizen was swallowed by the strange darkness again, and just like before, when he came out of the darkness, he was in the cave with the greenish crystals on the walls. And just like a few moments ago, as soon as the monster realized his presence, it sunk its claws into the ground and threw itself in his direction.
Kaizen had a sense of déjà vu, and not surprisingly, the same thing had happened just a minute ago.
"What the hell is going on?" Kaizen wondered. "Am I lagging?"
To make sure he had defeated the monster the other time, he repeated exactly what he had done before. In fact, this time he defeated the scaled creature even faster than before, only the same thing happened again. He returned to the exact same place as before.
A time loop?! That was Kaizen's first thought, but thinking he was crazy, he defeated the monster a third time.
In the end, he was back to square one in the challenge, and this made him realize that this was not a lag or a bug, but something that was part of the challenge. It was now clear that the real challenge was not defeating the creature, but something else.
"Still, it's a pain in the ass trying to think of something while this thing is trying to kill me." Kaizen said as he dodged a series of blows from the monster.
Psyker's opponent was not a high level monster, nor was it a low level one. It was the kind of creature he could easily handle without the help of the attribute boost provided by <Giant's Lungs> or any other ability.
Soon, while dodging the monster's attacks and trying to notice something he had missed in his first three attempts, Kaizen noticed that the monster had some sort of weakness: a wound on its left flank that looked like the bite of another creature.
Kaizen looked around the dark cave, trying to find another creature, because maybe the real challenge was to defeat a secondary monster, only there was no one else. It was just him and this strange looking monster.
That being the case, as Kaizen looked at the deep wound in the creature's chest and its angry physiognomy, he thought:
Is it really serious that I have to help this thing?
That was the only solution he could think of to the riddle that was this challenge.
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