VIP Chapter 328: The Final Stage of Life
Based on the current intelligence and “bold assumptions,” Shuna and he had reached a conclusion: if he were to die in “this world,” it would have nothing to do with the “Slime” he originally learned about.
It might be an unexpected change in a Dungeon, an “accident” that resulted in a monster appearing where it shouldn’t have, with a Slime being the final cause of death.
Or, perhaps, someone had orchestrated the entire thing from behind the scenes, waiting for Will to fall into a trap, ultimately engineering a death that ended with a Slime.
But no matter which scenario it was…
Entering a Dungeon would definitely lead to encountering “monsters,” and encountering monsters would inevitably involve “fighting.”
As long as he could win, it would be a victory over death.
Shuna listed countless monsters she believed could appear on the first floor and possess the ability to kill him in one hit.
This included the elite monsters of the existing thirty floors of the “Dust Bone Corridor,” and even the Empress of the Dust Bone Corridor—a dark-skinned figure dressed as an Egyptian empress.
“So, Little Will, your logic doesn’t need to be overly complicated. You don’t need to consider the ‘fate’ you’ve witnessed. You’ve already avoided all ‘coincidences’ and ‘accidents’ to get here.”
Shuna lay on her side on the bed, speaking to him in the dim light of the inn.
“Think of this as a challenge—you know, what’s that word you often use?”
“Stage.”
“Yes, yes, stage—in your words, once you pass this stage, you’ll receive a reward and embark on a new story… right?”
“Mhm, that’s right, it is.”
“So—”
Gently nudging his forehead with hers, Shuna whispered a blessing in Will’s ear:
“Go and pass the final stage of your life.”
…
However, upon truly reaching the “final stage of life,” the “first floor of the Dust Bone Corridor” which defined his death in the original work, he discovered it was not that simple.
For instance, all the possibilities Shuna and he had listed were dismissed.
“The monster placed here is indeed not a Slime. But it’s also not among any of our guesses.”
Will’s thick boots landed on the sandy ground of the desert.
The texture was different from the sand by the sea. In the vast expanse of yellow sand, he couldn’t feel a “solid ground.” Below this layer of sand was more sand. As long as your weight was enough and you didn’t move, you would sink deeper and deeper.
Moreover, it was cold.
This was why he had done a full set of warm-up exercises before entering, to warm up his body and avoid an instant kill upon entering the Dungeon.
But even so, standing in the desert, he could still feel the wind blowing from the vast desert.
Within the Dust Bone Corridor Dungeon, it was also “winter.” And being a desert, the temperature difference between day and night was even greater. The morning without sunrise was the coldest time of the day in the desert.
“I even maxed out ‘Demon Alert,’ and I never expected that I wouldn’t need to be on guard… because the enemy is standing here without any concealment.”
He muttered, and the air he exhaled immediately formed a white mist in the air.
At the same time, he gripped his Staff tightly in his hand.
The moment he stepped in here, he found himself already “enveloped” by something.
Shuna had said that the first floor here had no “monsters,” only an endless expanse of yellow sand that one could pass by simply walking through.
But, as expected, Will was not greeted by a clean, empty desert.
He stood in a massive, sky-obscuring shadow and slowly looked up—only by looking up could he see the full extent of “that thing.”
On the soft, sandy ground, a giant…
Bug, emerged from the sand.
Its tail and half of its body were still submerged in the sand, yet it raised its upper half, “staring” at Will—
It possessed the disgusting, huge “compound eyes” characteristic of insects, and a segmented, wriggling body typical of insects, as well as fuzzy little legs.
However, unlike a tiny bug, the part standing upright was already about three stories high.
The larger the “monster,” the more it proved to be an “elite monster.” But this size surpassed even the elite monsters on a normal floor. Will thought it could be the BOSS of a BOSS floor.
“Although the appearance of the monster is a bit much to ask, could it be a little… more elegant?”
“Screeeech—”
The bug’s unique, strange cry echoed throughout the entire first floor of the Dust Bone Corridor Dungeon.
Then, the bug, which had been standing as if “frozen,” suddenly plummeted down, as if to crush Will with its force.
“Too slow for me right now!”
Will’s foot slipped, and a purple light began to flicker in his left eye. The bug’s movements appeared slowed by half in his vision.
This was the “Demon Power” from the half-contract he had with Treya, which allowed his eyes to capture more “details,” to see all the nuances of his opponent, allowing him to clearly see its landing point and the kicked-up sand.
And…
It allowed his sluggish body to react in ways it normally couldn’t.
It was through gaining this power that Will finally understood Treya’s “Entak Style” sword techniques, which sometimes appeared eerily strange.
The Entak Style didn’t exist, or rather, the Entak Style for “humans” didn’t exist. In reality, it involved yielding one’s body to a “demon” to perform extremely difficult maneuvers, even moving like a puppet using external forces.
—It was unsettling.
Will slid across the sand, moving to the bug’s side. The flying sand was almost nonexistent to his left eye.
Here, for the first time, he saw the details of the creature up close.
The body of this giant bug resembled an incomplete metamorphosed larva, but a visual inspection revealed that its body did not seem like that of a “living insect.”
Its body had numerous holes, and flowing from these holes was not “insect” blood, but vast amounts of viscous, “dark brown”…
Human blood.
This blood wasn’t fresh. Its color was like that of a corpse that had been dead for over ten days, coagulated on the ground, except… it could still “flow,” as if mixed with an anticoagulant and heated water.
Furthermore…
Will felt a strange sensation under his feet and looked down…
As the giant bug descended and writhed, out of its tattered body were flung…
Skulls. Leg bones. Ribs. Pelvic bones.
They all appeared to be “human” bones. Some were bleached white, while others still had un-decayed flesh attached.
The blood flowing from the holes in its body, upon touching the cold desert, even produced a puff of white mist.
“…”
Will forced himself to suppress the nausea and once again dodged a tail attack.
—This was a monster that had never appeared in the Adventurer’s Guild monster compendium!
—It couldn’t even be described as “ungraceful” anymore. It was simply a disgusting abomination pieced together from various… corpses, as if frozen at the moment before death.
“A monster that never appeared in the original work, and also never appeared in the game I was leading.”
Of course, there was something even stranger.
Not only was it so powerful that it absolutely shouldn’t appear on the first floor of a Dungeon, but it had never appeared in any description Will knew of.
The theme of the Dust Bone Corridor, besides being a “desert,” also contained the word “骸” (hai), referring to skeletal remains. But this “骸,” according to the cleared Dungeon data Will had collected, described skeletal remains bleached white and buried in the long river of history.
However…
The contents of the bug before him—let’s call it a “Death Eater Bug”—were far more disgusting. They directly evoked images of death, even of newly deceased “corpses.”
*Bang.*
“Fortunately… its attacks are very ordinary.”
Will dodged another wriggle, sidestepping its direct charge like a bullfighter. The clumsy bug charged straight past him into the desert.
His boots once again drew a long line in the sand as he watched its head sink into the desert.
“Next, the tail whip.”
Will swung his Staff, momentarily using a floatation move to dodge the tail whip. After a few mid-air spins, he landed softly.
“It should take about half a minute to find me before it tries another headbutt.”
Will used its head as a springboard, bouncing back a short distance.
Then, he landed hard, his feet creating a considerable crater in the sand.
“After just two or three rounds of attacks, I’ve completely figured out its movement patterns. And its movement speed isn’t fast, nor does it show any intelligence. It’s incredibly stupid.”
This was also what Will found subtly strange.
If that person—of course, this was just a hypothesis he had formed—had placed this bug, which clearly didn’t belong in a Dungeon, here.
They shouldn’t have chosen a monster that a mage, who excels at “kiting,” would find easiest to deal with.
“Could it be that the things it leaves behind, and the consequences of attacking them, have fatal damage?”
Will didn’t attack immediately but circled the bug a few times.
Monsters associated with “death” and “decay” could imply “deathrattles” and “poison” upon being hit.
“Three layers of Goddess’s Blessing, especially resistance to corrosion and death curses.”
As he moved, Will attempted to stack resistance BUFFs on himself with the judgment of his former role as a “Priest” in the party.
*Boom—*
Then, he unleashed a powerful Exploding Flame at what appeared to be the bug’s weakest point.
*Puff.*
Blood spurted out. The bug writhed and rolled on the ground as if a nerve had been struck, like an insect he had crushed and tortured as a child, bouncing and kicking up waves of sand as large chunks of “blood” and “corpses” scattered from its abdomen.
“Good, it caused no effective damage to me. The toxicity of these things couldn’t penetrate my resistances.”
He held his breath, ran through the corpses, and before the bug could recover its form, he found the optimal “snipe point.”
“Next…”
Will stopped and took out three vials of Blood Mint Essential Oil from his Ring.
“It’s time for the real…”
“Passing of the final stage of my life!”
