ㅡKuwoong!
The Rock Centipede, having rammed its head into the wall, started rampaging again. It thrashed its hundreds of legs, twisting its body in agony.
‘Finally.’
I commended my own patience for having dealt with this dirty and pathetic gimmick a whopping 20 times. Just now marked the 20th, so I only had to do it 40 more times to reach the 4th Phase.
The surrounding terrain had practically been annihilated long ago. Thanks to that thing banging into the wall, the entire floor had been overturned, and there were cracks all over the walls, some of which had completely collapsed.
After a while of thrashing, it forced its massive body through a rocky crevice and awkwardly fled. Being so huge, it took quite a while to disappear.
Ddudududud, the tremor gradually faded away. With that, I could consider the 1st Phase cleared.
I dusted myself off and moved through the path revealed between the collapsed walls. Having finished one phase, it was now time to slice through some mobs and carry out the gimmick for the 2nd Phase.
The gimmicks for the upcoming 2nd and 3rd Phases weren’t much different either. The plan was to lure the sluggish Rock Centipede, which was so boring it could make you yawn, into banging its head somewhere.
The only difference was that the target would switch between the wall and the pillar, but it was a structure with low entertainment value and a high risk of dying from blind fragments.
How could I possibly like this?
‘Since there’s no mid-save in the game, dying means starting all over without any mercy.’
The more dreadful part was the fact that every second of this seemingly eternal 1st to 4th Phase was treated as one boss fight, meaning there were no mid-saves.
If I performed the gimmick 59 times and made a control error on the 60th and died, I’d have to go back to the 1st Phase. I had seen quite a few people rage-quitting over that.
I had fallen victim to it once, and I could not help but quit the game.
‘Ah, looks like it’s about time to charge in.’
Even though not much had happened, centipedes similar in size to me started to crawl out from the rocky gaps. They were the ones flattened under the rocks when I came down underground.
Since these were just mobs that couldn’t evade or do anything, I merely parried the first attack and then promptly decapitated them. The centipedes were sliced apart in chunks as the Blood-Stained Sword dug in.
Even though it looked impossible to parry their attack when they tried to bite with their lower jaws, it was strangely effective; merely swinging the weapon caused them to bounce off, getting stunned.
After slicing through about ten centipedes, Kururung, I heard the sound of the ground trembling from a distance. This meant the start of the 2nd Phase was near. I quickened my steps.
As I emerged from the narrow alley, I found an area that was similar in size to where I just came from. The difference was a massive pillar rising straight up, almost touching the ceiling.
That pillar was the key element for executing the 2nd Phase gimmick. Everything else was the same, but this time the Rock Centipede had to bang its head against the pillar instead of the wall, twenty times.
‘It’s just as boring either way.’
Five times might have been justifiable, but this was ridiculous!
Kwaaaang! With an explosion, the Rock Centipede burst forth from the opposite rock. I swiftly dodged the flying rubble. Compared to the 1st Phase, it looked pretty beat up.
The part of its head that had banged against the wall twenty times had minute cracks, and it looked angrier, grinding its lower jaw as soon as it spotted me.
Its upper half immediately slammed down. It seemed intent on squashing me underfoot. I rolled to the side to evade, and a shockwave slammed behind me, sending debris flying everywhere.
‘Parrying is sealed again.’
It was similar to a specific pattern of the Headless Armored Cavalier.
If I successfully parried a charge jump where it thrusts its spear, I would end up getting grabbed while my body was pushed back. This resulted in guaranteed follow-up hits, and the same went for the Rock Centipede.
Every attack had an immense parrying delay, making it impossible to dodge the next attack. Thanks to this, I was forced to solely rely on rolling, inadvertently making what was already a dull boss fight even more tedious.
The Rock Centipede picked up a nearby rock with its lower jaw and raised it high. Not just raising, but it nearly bent its whole upper body backward as if to do a dramatic flourish.
‘The pre-delay is disgustingly long.’
The rock flew toward me almost five seconds after I had hidden behind the wall. I heard a crash from the opposite side, followed by rocks scattered everywhere.
Realizing that the human it had mocked was still alive, the Rock Centipede twisted its body in irritation. Its body then dropped back down again. It was a signal that it was preparing its charge attack.
The Rock Centipede slowly began to move its body. I quietly observed and gradually moved my feet to match its speed. I didn’t even need to run.
This time was even more bothersome than the 1st Phase. I had to keep a certain distance while luring it toward the pillar. If the distance became too great, it would cancel its charge attack.
Naturally, I’d have to start luring it again.
‘This is insane, seriously.’
If it charged faster than the player character’s running speed, people would complain about it being too difficult, but under the current circumstances, people were definitely going to hurl all sorts of curses at it.
I circled around to lure the creature in front of the pillar. The Rock Centipede was giving its all to charge; regardless, it was slow enough to make me yawn.
I just watched it, then when the distance had narrowed, I rolled to the side. Right next to me, Kuwoong! resonated.
ㅡKuwoong!
“Again?!”
A mysterious noise echoed, and the cave began to tremble, causing Lize to frown.
I had lost count of how many times this had happened. I thought it had finally ended after a while of silence, but it had started again.
“Don’t tell me the place is about to collapse.”
“I’m not sure. It’s too intermittent to suggest a ground collapse, and the magnitude is absurdly large for anything else. Both possibilities seem ambiguous.”
“Could it be a monster?”
“A monster…?”
Erica was momentarily at a loss for words at Iris’s question. If it was a gigantic monster capable of shaking the ground like this, that would be a problem of its own.
“I’d rather it be a monster. At least that means we’d have a chance to try to kill it. If it’s that gigantic to cause such tremors, fighting it inside a collapsing cave would be far more worth a shot than being buried alive.”
“That’s definitely true. It’s way better to die fighting a monster than to get buried here.”
“Hey, why is dying the assumption? Do you want to keep saying those ominous things?”
Lize, who was leading the group, suddenly turned her head and grumbled. There was a bit of sting in her words. She had been like this ever since the newbie suddenly started acting independently.
“I’m just saying it’s a possibility, sis. And I don’t think we’re going to die here. You heard what the newbie said, right?”
True to those words, none of the three showed any signs of anxiety. Even with the potential to get trapped in this collapsing cave and starve or die from dehydration, they remained calm.
“I know. He said he’d wait below.”
It was because of the words the newbie had shouted after falling quite far down. All he had to do was descend straight down, so he claimed he would wait below.
Within that lay the assurance that nothing to worry about would happen to the commanders.
“Yes. As long as the newbie said that, our only task is to hurry down here. We can’t leave him waiting down there alone. Plus, we have things we need to say to him.”
“Right. This time, I’ve definitely got to say something.”
Lize, Erica, and Iris all felt the same way. This time, they had every intention of scolding him for not sharing any valuable knowledge he might have.
No one thought the newbie was dead. He always looked like he knew something, and whenever he did, he surprised them.
Surely, this time would be the same.
ㅡKuwoong!
“Ugh, seriously! What is going on since earlier?”
“……Hurry up a little. We need to join him as quickly as possible.”
“Yeah, good point. Whatever it is, staying here will solve nothing.”
The three took off downhill without paying attention to their surroundings. They had been told there was nothing, so it was fine to just move ahead.
And indeed, that turned out to be true. The trio faced nothing at all. They hadn’t encountered the origin of the tremors or even a normal monster since a while back.
The path continued smoothly downward, and they descended deeper into the underground.
“What the heck…?”
Then, deep underground, they discovered a massive chunk of a rock resembling a centipede.
It was crushed beneath a thick pillar and looked utterly shattered.
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