Chapter 12: BOSS

The BOSS stage, as the name implies, is the final BOSS encountered after passing the preliminary stages of the dungeon.
Generally, they have high health and high defense, are extremely difficult to defeat, and are also the stage where the most players are lost in any dungeon.

No one expected they would encounter the BOSS stage so quickly.
Based on the endless traps they had faced before, they had thought they would need to solve at least seven or eight more puzzles to reach the final part.

When Old Li opened the fourth door, they sensed something was wrong.
They entered, only to come face to face with a pair of bright yellow eyes as large as millstones.

The newly appeared room was even larger than the previous ones.
The overall architecture was like an ancient colosseum.
In the middle was a spacious and flat, huge arena, and on the very edge were high walls, separating the audience seats and the trapped beasts by a safe distance.

The edge of the wall used all sorts of statues instead of traditional railings, perfectly hiding the VIP stands behind the statues—those below couldn’t see the appearance of those on the stands, while those on the stands could see everything below at a glance.

And in the very center of the colosseum, a giant, pitch-black snake was coiled up, its pair of cold, golden vertical pupils staring fixedly at the intruders.

“Gah!”
Hua Yibing, who had been afraid of snakes since childhood, couldn’t help but retreat several steps, pressing his back against the wall.
His hands behind him frantically fumbled for the doorknob, trying to open the door and retreat to the third stage.

But how could the game possibly give players a chance to go back?

The large door leading back to the third stage seemed to have merged perfectly with the wall, without a single crack to be found.

The audience watching the live stream was also startled, frantically spamming things like [Bullet Comment Body Shield!!!], with occasional unknown words like [Ahhhhhhhh] mixed in.

Sykes was also watching this “dungeon first clear” live stream with the humans, except his position was somewhat special.
But compared to the audience, it was definitely a vvvvvvip seat.

The merman sat on the highest stand of the colosseum, looking down on everything happening below.
His keen senses allowed him to see any slight movement below, even from such a far distance.
Naturally, he also took in the sight of Hua Yibing being scared out of his wits.

“I didn’t expect him to be afraid of snakes.”
Sykes raised an eyebrow, feeling a sense of twisted pleasure as he watched Hua Yibing tremble and hide behind his roommate.

“Speaking of which, they shouldn’t have reached the final stage this quickly,” he glanced at the fiery red sprite sitting quietly beside him, her pair of wings folded.

[Yes, according to the program, they still need to go through three more stages to reach the place where the final Brilliant King Snake is,] Ella reported in a prim and proper manner, her eyes frantically flashing with large and small data.

“Hmm?” Sykes made a noncommittal sound of inquiry from his nose, continuing to wait for her analysis.

[There are unexpected influencing factors, just like a bug in a program.]

Ella came to a final conclusion.

Her lips pressed down as if in disgust, and the wings behind her trembled irritably.
This was the most emotionally volatile Sykes had seen her since her “birth.”

‘Right. All intelligent lifeforms probably hate uncontrollable bugs or viruses. With Ella’s personality of having everything under control, she would tolerate this even less.’

This was an obvious flaw, but Sykes didn’t plan to remind or correct her.

Even though Ella was his creation, he had no right to interfere with a life’s self-growth, and Ella had never disappointed him.

The “bug” mentioned by the red sprite soon appeared.

The pitch-black giant snake, which had been looking at the intruders with a cold gaze, suddenly seemed to see something, and its pair of golden pupils instantly softened—

It was a crimson big-headed fish, with a body about ten centimeters long, but a head more than twenty centimeters wide.
Even its way of swimming was by propelling itself backward with the jet from its mouth.

“This fish?”
Both Hua Yibing and Old Li noticed this slightly comical little fish, not understanding why this little thing would be mixed into the BOSS stage.

But Yan Shuangwen was startled.
“It’s it?”

This sentence made his two teammates look at him in unison.
“You’ve seen this fish before?”

Yan Shuangwen nodded.
“I have. I found the entrance to this dungeon because I was chasing it.”

He watched as the fish first rubbed against the giant snake, looking very familiar, a scene of friendship that transcended size and species.

Then the big-headed fish swam in front of him with a ‘pfft, pfft’, and flaunted its tail at him a few times, the whole fish looking like a villain who had achieved his goal.

“What is this? The little fish repays a kindness, or a revenge story?”
Hua Yibing tried to poke its head with his hand, but got a mouthful of saliva spat in his face.

Old Li hurriedly stopped him.
“Don’t poke it. From the looks of it, the simplification of the dungeon process has a lot to do with this fish.”

The merman, high on the platform, looked at this suddenly appearing creature with a faint gaze in his golden eyes.
Ella, beside him, also locked onto it, her gaze very unfriendly.

The current scene was very comical.

It was clearly the tense and exciting prelude to a human-snake battle, yet the gazes of all the people and non-human creatures present were focused on an unenlightened fish.

The scene inside the dungeon was as quiet as a chicken, while the forum outside the game was bustling with activity again—

[-Continuing from the previous post, I feel like the order of this dungeon isn’t right. Didn’t the roommate and Old Li just say there’s a stage with a super strong suction power later on? Didn’t they even prepare a few big leaves to block it for that?]

[-I think so too. Don’t tell me Huahua’s words came true. This big-headed fish is so abrupt. I heard it even had some history with Mr. Roommate?]

[-The wording of the person above, hahahaha. It seems this fish and the basilisk have a good relationship. Did it instigate the BOSS to appear early, causing the team to go straight to the BOSS stage?]

[-Same feeling +1. By the way, the word ‘basilisk’ is so vivid. Now that you mention it, I also have a sense of déjà vu of the basilisk from a certain lightning-scarred head novel.]

[-Same feeling +10086. Speaking of which, is this the sea creature version of the fox borrowing the tiger’s might?]

[-Holy cr*p, you guys, look! That fish screeched at the basilisk a few times, and the basilisk started attacking like crazy. It’s complaining, isn’t it! It must be complaining!]

[-Looks like I can answer the original poster’s question. Their team wants to get the first clear today? Difficult!]

After all, the netizens were only seeing all this through a screen.
Even if they were really watching the live stream in holographic mode, they couldn’t truly empathize with the people on the scene.

After the little fish’s few ‘ang ang’ sounds, the basilisk was clearly enraged.
Its triangular head was raised high, the sides of its neck expanded, opening up into the shape of a hood.
A long, scarlet forked tongue extended from its mouth, making a hissing threat.

Its gaze swept over the three members of the team, finally locking onto Yan Shuangwen, the black-tailed merman.

Although it was unknown why fish and snakes could communicate, it was obvious that the little fish’s actions just now were a complaint, and the target of the complaint was Yan Shuangwen, who had once chased it so miserably.

The basilisk suddenly launched an attack.

As a giant snake, its tail was undoubtedly the most agile weapon on its body.
The attack was swift and incredibly powerful.
When it struck towards Yan Shuangwen, it even brought up countless tiny bubbles, leaving a faint white trace in the water.

Yan Shuangwen was prepared, but he was still forced to roll almost miserably several times to dodge this tail.

On the spot where he had originally been, a deep mark was actually whipped out on the entire wall, and the bricks around the mark also cracked into the shape of a spiderweb.

‘This is going to be difficult.’
Yan Shuangwen’s face looked ugly, but the basilisk didn’t give him much time to think.
Seeing that one strike had missed, its tail changed direction and whipped fiercely towards him again.

“Be careful!”
Old Li had taken Huahua to hide in another direction to think of another way, but suddenly noticed something strange about the basilisk’s eyes.
He immediately felt something was wrong and shouted a reminder, “Be careful of its eyes!”

But it was already too late.

A ripple of light first flashed in the basilisk’s golden eyes, and then it actually shot out a beam of light like a laser, straight at Yan Shuangwen.

Yan Shuangwen was unprepared and was grazed on half of his arm by the beam.
That section of his arm instantly lost all feeling and couldn’t move at all—

Besides its swift attacks and incredibly powerful strength, this basilisk actually had the ability of petrification!

“Don’t confront it head-on!”
Old Li was experienced and shouted at him, “You swim in circles! Use the terrain to see if you can jam it!”

The black-tailed merman, having received the signal, nodded and began to circle the entire colosseum.

Being small had its advantages.
Although the basilisk was huge, it was not so easy to attack in some small gaps and corners, while Yan Shuangwen could easily dodge.

Taking advantage of the precious time while their teammate was attracting the BOSS’s attention, Old Li and Huahua both took out their weapons to prepare for battle—Old Li still had that golden machete, while Huahua had a gem-encrusted giant hammer, which was completely inconsistent with his thin frame.

Amidst the surprise of the bullet comments and Old Li, he gave a dry laugh and explained why he had exchanged for it.

“Ahahaha… um, I thought I would need a hammer to repair the house, and the exchange post only had this one…”

Old Li: “…”

Bullet comments: “That works too?”

However, even if this hammer looked gaudy, it could at least be used as a weapon.

Hua Yibing followed Old Li, trying his best to hypnotize himself that it was just a big worm and not some python, while quietly swimming to the BOSS’s abdomen.

Then, he swung the weapon in his hand and smashed it hard against its black scales.

Clang!

Clang!

It was clearly a weapon making contact with flesh, but it produced the sound of metal striking stone.

The system gave real-time damage values.

[You have dealt 1 point of damage to [Brilliant King Snake]]

[You have dealt 1 point of damage to [Brilliant King Snake], inflicting [Shock] effect. Congratulations, you have been noticed by the attacked target!]

The former was Old Li’s, the latter was Huahua’s.
Because they were in a team, the combat system prompts were shared in the team channel.

Old Li looked at Huahua in shock.

Huahua looked at the hammer in his hand in shock.

The basilisk, which had been frantically attacking Yan Shuangwen just now, paused.
Feeling the numbing shock from its abdomen, it shifted its attention from him to the pink-haired merman.

Hua Yibing looked up and met the basilisk’s golden eyes.
“Um… sorry?”

The next second,

“Ahhhhhhhhhh save me!!”
He turned and ran.
“Mom, there’s a snake chasing me, ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”