Chapter 320 - Skill Check

The Dragonling flashed its sword through the air, creating a blast of wind. The force of the wind pushed everyone in the Party back several steps, though nobody lost their balance. The Dragonling charged forward and was immediately met with Refix. He had made a split-second decision to take the lead in blocking the formidable creature.

“The System says it’s Tier 8, severely weakened to approximate Tier 5!” Reivyn yelled.

“It doesn’t feel like Tier 5!” Teilon quipped, as he slunk through the shadows to flank the monster.

“It probably has many Transcendent Skills,” Refix said, parrying an attack. “Probably considerably higher than any of ours, too.”

The Dragonling bared its fangs in an imitation of a grin.

“Yes, Haman. My lowest combat Skill is Level 300, at least according to your System.”

Reivyn’s eyes bugged out at the revelation. It confirmed monsters, at least sapient ones, had Skills quantified by the System, but it also revealed a hint to the System itself. The Dragonling spoke as if it disdained the System.

Coupled with its earlier statements, Reivyn guessed the Dragonling had memories of a time pre-System. The Dragonling had been willing to talk before. Maybe if they played their cards right, they could revisit this creature and learn some valuable information.

Kimberly danced forward, thrusting her spear at the side of the Dragonling. The monster bent its body like flowing water, a movement far superior to Kimberly’s combat dancing, to avoid the thrust without even seeming to pay attention.

Serilla flanked it front he other side, bringing her sword down in a hard overhead swing. The Dragonling’s tail flashed forward and parried the blow, hard enough that Serilla was knocked off balance slightly. The tail continued its trajectory, and Reivyn internally winced at the coming impact upon Serilla’s suddenly exposed ribs.

The expected smash didn’t happen, though.

Instead, the Dragonling almost gently pushed Serilla. It could have caused heavy damage to the swordswoman, but instead, it simply knocked her back. Serilla paused for a moment, staring at the monster with confusion.

Kefira launched her Space Blades at the Dragonling. The monster shifted its stance so the blades hit its scales at an angle. The scales obviously had some amazing anti-magical properties, as the Space Blades ricocheted off and sliced into the walls in the distance.

Reivyn summoned several different Affinity Beams and launched them at the oversized lizard. He didn’t get fancy with any of his pairings, but he did use several that had reached the first level of Transcendence, mixing the Abilities in with the Affinities. A multicolored Mana shield sprung up a few inches away from the Dragonling, perfectly matching the colors to the Affinity that attacked the monster, nullifying not only the Affinities, but their Abilities as well.

Refix summoned his Ethereal Arsenal, turning into a whirlwind of steel and phantom weapons. The Dragonling reached up with its off-hand and snatched three separate weapons in one hand. It wrested control of the weapons from Refix’s control and turned them on the other weapons, easily parrying each strike while still pressuring Refix with his Greatsword.

Teilon dashed forward, striking at the exposed hamstring of the Dragonling while it was easily fending off all the other Party members. The Dragonling spun in place without losing any of its other defensive momentum, causing Teion’s strike to miss. He was off-balance in his attempt ot deal a debilitating wound on the creature, so his weight carried him forward and through where the Dragonling had been standing. It almost looked like he phased through the creature, stumbling to regain his footing on the other side.

Refix began to sweat as he exchanged blows with the monster. Serilla continued to spar against the Dragonling’s spear. The monster swayed back and forth like a snake to avoid Kimberly’s thrusts. Its scales continued to shift the Space Blades away by always managing to catch them at just the right angle. It maintained a Mana Shield that consistently blocked every Affinity and combination of Affinities and Abilities Reivyn could throw at it, and it deftly avoided an sneak attacks performed by Teilon, often letting the young man stumble past it in his bid to land a hit.

The Dragonling wasn’t moving any faster than any of the Party members. In fact, Reivyn could tell it was moving exactly as fast as he would expect a Tier 5 Classer with an Epic Class’s Stats to move. It was slightly slower than Refix, actually.

It completely nullified any attack directed its way, and its body continuously dodged and evaded anything it didn’t parry, but despite that, it never moved from the spot it had planted itself after its initial charge to engage them. Even allowing Teilon to pass through it to the other side didn’t shift its positioning at all.

The Dragonling was perfectly countering anything and everything the Party could throw at it. Reivyn didn’t understand the physiology of Dragonlilngs, but he would bet that if it was human, it wouldn’t even be breaking a sweat. It seemed to know what each of the Party members were going to do before they did, and it knew exactly how to move to control the flow of the battle without having to use overwhelming Stats.

Yeah, I can definitely believe all of its combat Skills are over 300, Reivyn thought as he continued to pump more and more Mana into his Spells. The Dragonling just increased the Mana it used in its shield. 300+ Skill Levels is insane!

The Party continued to fight the monster for over ten minutes. Any tricks they tried to pull, the Dragonling seemed to have predicted ahead of time. Any variation was met with the perfect response. After ten minutes of fighting, the Party hadn’t caused a single point of damage to the monster’s Health.

That being said, the Dragonling hadn’t caused any damage to any of the Party members, either. It could have, multiple times, but it never did. Any time there was a flaw in a Party member’s attack, it simply gently knocked them aside.

After fifteen minutes, the first discrepancy appeared. Teilon once more lunged forward, doing much better to control his balance while still maintaining his speed and reach, and he managed to barely nick the edge of the Dragonling’s hamstring. It didn’t do any damage, but it left a small white line on the scales covering the lizard’s leg.

Reivyn spotted it perfectly with his Divine Sense. He could tell it didn’t do any damage, and he could even tell that it wasn’t done because Teilon suddenly got considerably better with his attacks. The Dragonling had simply not been able to sustain its movements while dealing with everyone else.

“It’s wearing down!” Reivyn shouted. “Teilon just nicked it. Don’t give up. Keep up the pressure!”

Reivyn noticed the Dragonling’s eyes shift to focus on him for a split second. He saw… respect?... in its eyes for a brief moment before it turned its focus back to Refix.

Everyone continued their frantic fight with the monster. It was the most trying fight Reivyn could remember. The sparring partner he had found in the Outpost in the Tier 5 Region that had helped him gain so many Levels in his Weapons Master Skill was like a toddler compared to this monster.

Teilon continued to score nicks on the back of the lizard’s legs. Teilon had to perform a strike just as good as or better than the first one that landed a hit to score another, but he was steadily improving in real time. Reivyn made note of this, and he focused his attention on each of the Party members.

Each one of them was performing leagues better than they had at the beginning of their short fight, even after less than twenty minutes. Refix’s attacks and parries were more focused and precise, his ethereal weapons harassing in a more efficient manner. Kimberly matched the fluid movements of the Dragonling’s dancing evasion and incorporated it into her own attacks. Serilla didn’t overextend and compromise her stance for a powerful strike, instead improving her own precision and footwork. Teilon managed to improve the speed of his lunges while keeping complete control of his body at all times.

Kefira began to modify her Space Blades to be more directionally potent. At first, her blades were only “sharp” on the very thin edge of the Spell. It had worked until now, so she had never really considered it an issue before, but being unable to employ that sharpness without a direct hit had shown her a weakness. She was improving her blades to be “sharp” in all directions at once, regardless of angle. They no longer ricocheted off the scales, but they still didn’t cause any damage when she landed a successful strike.

Reivyn hid each of his Affinities as best he could by weaving the Mist Concept into each of his Spells, and he maintained control of the direction of the attacks, shifting them at the last second to avoid striking the perfect nullification zone on the Dragonling’s Mana Shield. The Dragonling effortlessly shifted its own Affinities about to block Reivyn’s Magic at first, but Reivyn could tell he was making headway.

After the twenty minute mark, the Dragonling once more met a hitch in its perfect defense. Its tail was longer sparring evenly with Serilla. She was able to get an occasional attack through to graze its side, and some of her attacks were doing damage to the formidable tail itself.

There were no other changes, but more and more slight nicks were accumulating on the Dragonling’s body. It was nothing in the long-run, and Reivyn suspected its regeneration far outpaced any damage they might be causing it.

At the twenty-five minute mark, more mistakes assailed the Dragonling. Refix’s ethereal arsenal were finding chinks in the parries of the Dragonling, and Kimberly’s sinuous movements were able to match the Dragonling, nullifying its evasive maneuvers by syncing with its movements.

At the thirty minute mark, Kefira and Reivyn’s Spells began to bypass the magical defenses of the lizard. Their Spells began to chip away at the scales, slowly decreasing its overall defense.

The dragonling was slowly but surely losing its ability to keep up its frantic pace. It was slow going, but every increase in a Party member’s Skill began to show actual results in the fight. The Dragonling was also finally beginning to flag with the amount of Stamina and Mana it was burning through. Everyone else was growing tired, as well, but the insistence of training their Stamina and ability to fight while exhausted was really showing its worth.

Every five minutes, the Dragonling’s effectiveness would dip in its ability to keep up with the Party’s improvement. By the time an hour of fighting finally passed, it leaped back to its original position. The Party was caught off guard at first, and before they could respond, the monster held up its Greatsword in front of it in a salute with both hands.

“Excellent spar,” it said. “However, my essence has finally run out. I can no longer maintain my existence. I thank you for granting me release from this prison.”

The Draonling’s body began to fade away, greatsword included. Mana and some other type of energy Reivyn thought was the so-called “essence” dispersed from its body like a gas. Within just a few seconds, the Dragonling completely disintegrated into pure energy. The Mana and essence swirled about the Party members before infusing directly into their bodies.

Reivyn felt a surge of warmth flood his body. He was filled with energy, his Health, Stamina, and Mana pools almost instantly filling back up to 100%. He noticed all of the others react in a similar manner to the sudden rush of energy suffusing their bodies.

No treasure chest materialized for defeating the boss, but Reivyn could tell there were several Notifications waiting for his perusal upon leaving the Dungeon. The System would give Notifications about only a few exceptions while within a Dungeon, like when Reivyn had first unlocked his Fire Blade Skill that eventually evolved into Elemental Blade. Most of the time, though, one had to wait until they exited the Dungeon to receive their Notifications from what happened inside the Dungeon.

Reivyn could feel his Veridical Affinity whispering to him that the System was ready and waiting for him to leave to give him his reward.

The Party members stood about in confusion for several seconds, looking around at the empty room.

“Well, I guess that’s it,” Reivyn finally said. All the others looked at him as he broke the silence. “I don’t think there are any other bosses. There certainly aren’t any other passages leading deeper into the cave from here,”

The others took a quick glance at the nearby walls they could see within the range of the Dungeon’s visibility. They quickly traversed the large room around the edges to verify there was nowhere else to go. Once they were done, they converged back at the entrance to the cavern.

“Seems like Reivyn’s right,” Refix said. He shrugged. “I guess we should go ahead and call it a day and head out..”

The others all nodded their head in agreement and turned back to head toward the exit.

Teilon swiped sweat from his brow.

“Phew, that was some fight, huh?” He said. “It seemed like we were never going to get anywhere with that guy. Seems kind of lame that as soon as we start actually whittling him down, he goes and voluntarily dispersed on his own, though.”

“I’m not sure that’s what happened,” Reivyn chuckled. “We spent exactly one hour in combat with that thing. I’m guessing we just didn’t pass the Skill check to defeat it.”

“Skill check?” Teilon quirked an eyebrow.

“Yeah, like how some boss fights are checks on how much damage we can output, or how much we can defend or use Magic,” Reivyn explained. “I’m guessing the mechanism for actually beating this boss is to surpass the Skill Level threshold.

“If you think back to the fight, we all steadily adapted to it and grew our Skills. At the same time, it wasn’t able to keep up with our growth, which is what allowed us to finally start damaging it. My guess is once we exceed whatever the benchmark is, we’ll be able to do more damage to the point we’re able to defeat it before the timer runs out.”

“That sounds like a solid basis,” Refix nodded his head. “The System does setup many different types of scenarios to test and hone various aspects of Adventuring. It makes sense a Skill check would be among them. This is the first time I’ve encountered one, though.”

“That just means this opportunity is even more valuable than we imagined,” Reivynd said. “I saw visible improvements to everyone’s Skills. I’m sure we’ll get hard numbers to verify it once we leave the Dungeon. I’ll have to take advantage of this boss fight to improve my other Skills while I have the chance.”

“Good. We’ll make sure to come up with a training plan before the next reset of the Dungeon,” Refix said, nodding at Reivyn with a smile.

Teilon rolled his eyes.

“Hah! Leave it to you to make it all about training,” he snickered.

“Of course,” Refix nodded his head again. “That guy’s the best combat mentor we could ask for. He obviously wasn’t trying to kill us. I’m pretty sure he could have if he really wanted to, don’t you say, Serilla?”

Serilla bowed her head, red creeping up her neck to turn her face into a tomato. It was the most embarrassed Reivyn had ever seen the woman. Usually nothing could break her stoic facade.

“Yeah, I thought I was going to be seriously injured at the very least,” Serilla admitted. “We should all listen to Mr. Refix and grasp this chance to improve our Skills. We would be stupid not to.” She shot a withering glance at Teilon.

Teilon held his hands up to ward off her stare.

“Hey, hey! I was just joking, you know,” he said, his smile slipping from his face. “I obviously agree with ‘Mr.’ Refix,” he smirked. “I was just making the obvious joke.”

Serilla once more hung her head down. She didn’t go completely red like last time, but Reivyn could tell she was still contrite.

“I know. I was just embarrassed and lashed out at you. Forgive me, Teilon.”

Teilon sighed while throwing his arms up.

“Now you’re making me look even more inconsiderate,” he grumbled. “There’s nothing to forgive, Serilla.”

Serilla instantly straightened up, her stoic expression reappearing on her face.

“I knew you would see things my way,” she said.l

Teilon just stared at her for several seconds.

“What just happened?” He asked no one in particular. The rest of the Party just chuckled.