Wolf

My eyes immediately focus on the large chamber stationed over a dozen meters up on the wall. Or more specifically, on the enormous creature sitting on the throne within said chamber. The creature is sitting down right now, so it’s hard to tell how tall it is exactly, but it looks to be around four or so meters tall. Unlike with the other skeletons on this floor, the boss is fully covered in armor, with the only part of its body that isn’t covered by the gold and black armor being its face. It has no helmet on its body, and instead has some strange sort of black crown of horns made out of bone sticking out of its head.

Horns that are emitting miasma.

I frown at this before shaking my head in hunter form and turning to the system guardians at the exit to the tunnel. “I would like to challenge the ten-star ranked challenge.”

As the guardians begin to slam their staffs on the ground and walls, I turn back around to look at the champion of the desert again.

Based off of what I could find on the forums about this monster, it is a type of monster that only comes about from a very powerful creature with the power to manipulate both sand and miasma elements dying in a place soaked with both elements. The creature has the ability to manipulate both elements, even after death, and it has a sort of biological armor that was formed by the elements surrounding it in its place of death. The armor itself leaves a miasmic mud on everything it touches, which – unlike the miasmic sand – automatically releases miasma onto everything it touches.

My thoughts are interrupted as the menu about my challenge appears.

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Your ten-star star ranked challenge will begin in ten seconds.

The star ranked challenge consists of a single wave.

Good luck, and may the moon guide your way.

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Soon after, I hear creaking sounds begin to come from the direction of the boss. When I turn to look at it, I find the monster slowly climbing to its feet as a light spray of miasma and sand begins to leak from the gaps in its armor. Meanwhile, the monsters that were fighting in the pit break into particles of light to make room for my challenge.

This is going to be a tough fight… I think the only thing that will let me kill it is my eternal ice.

Unless I decide to use one of my trump-card skills that is. But I should save those for when I really need them, considering the large cooldown on the skills.

Right as I begin to float up into the air towards the arena pit, the boss crouches down slightly before jumping out of its chamber into the arena, causing a large cloud of miasma to release from both its feet and the sand of the arena pit at its point of impact. Soon after that, I land in the center of the arena myself, only about a dozen meters away from the boss itself.

The audience immediately breaks into a loud roar as the boss stands completely still while the black flames filling its eye sockets seemingly stare straight at me. I stare right back for a few seconds before breaking into a sprint towards the creature, letting out a large majority of my built up ice element in the process and rapidly dropping the temperature in the arena from its usual scorching heat to a much more tolerable level.

My actions seem to spur the boss into moving on its own as it begins to stretch out its limbs slightly – which is weird considering its status as an undead – before it raises its head upwards and lets out a loud roar that immediately silences all of the monsters within the bleachers.

The silence doesn’t last long, however, as the audience restarts its mad roar with even more fervor just seconds after the boss’s roar ends. Meanwhile, the boss itself lowers its head again and begins charging straight towards me with its red cape billowing in the wind behind it.

Right as we’re about to clash, I roll to the side, avoiding its hit while also using a skill I had purchased before this fight from the grand totem. The instant I use it, a large blizzard begins to kick up around us, rapidly cooling down the area and allowing me to use my ability more freely.

I quickly take advantage of the situation to create a large screen of eternal ice above us so that the rays of the sun can’t directly hit us. Meanwhile, as I’m doing this, the boss lets out another roar before expelling a large amount of sand and miasma that directly combats my blizzard, pushing it outwards towards the audience.

By the time my blizzard is cleared out, I have only finished about half of the screen. What’s more is that the blizzard is now replaced almost entirely by a large sandstorm mixed with bits of miasma, which seems to be killing off some of the audience.

My eyes narrow slightly at the sight of that before widening.

Shit! If it kills off the audience, then won’t it level up and become too strong for my eternal ice to fully affect it?!

After having this thought, I begin to open the floodgates even further on my ice element while also activating skill after skill towards the audience.

Arcadian Live

“Aaaannd it looks like the boss battle has turned into a slaughter!” Mikaela shouts with a surprised gleam in his eye. “It’s like the two are competing on who can kill more of the audience than the other!”

By now, all of the commentators currently inside of the viewing room have abandoned their own screens to focus on the forerunner screen. At the same time, the majority of the audience – with it being at its highest capacity yet for the run, spanning nearly fifteen million viewers at one time – all focus on the same screen to watch the two go at it.

“Is this even an arena battle anymore?” Katherine mutters with a bewildered frown on her face. “I mean, they’re just slaughtering everything in the arena at this point!”

One of the other commentators – a dark elf by the name of Felosial – shakes her head and says, “Who cares if it’s an arena battle or not? It’s the first sponsorship boss battle of the dungeon run!”

The audience all around the stadium roar their enthusiasm at the battle as Wolf and the boss continue to slaughter every monster within the arena until the system guardians within the arena finally seem to have enough and slam their staffs on the ground, causing everything within the arena to freeze in an instant.

“And there it is,” Niklai says with a frown, “it was a wonder that the guardians let this go on for that long.”

A few seconds pass in silence as Wolf looks around in confusion before a large, black wall extends out of the ground, sealing the Competitor and boss together in the pit. Meanwhile, all of the miasma, sand, and ice that had been running rampant through the bleachers vanishes in the blink of an eye.

“True, but let’s see Wolf’s level…” Mikaela mutters with a glance at Wolf’s description above the forerunner screen.

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Name: Wolf Adler

Title: The Winter Wolf

Species: Harbinger Lycanthrope

Level: 612

Floor: 50

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“He got eleven levels from that?!” “Eleven levels?!?” “Holy shit!” “Is that even fair?” “Why don’t more people do that if it gives so much EXP?!”

Mikaela raises his hand to stop the shouts reigning throughout the stadium but lowers it again slightly as a warning menu appears in the center of the arena, in between both Wolf and the guardian.

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Warning!

Any further attempts to kill members of the audience during a challenge will result in a drop in 50 levels for the perpetrator!

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The menu immediately stops the previously building chaos amongst the viewers as a strange silence fills the stadium.

However, the silence doesn’t last long before Wolf and the boss begin charging towards each other again.

‘That was certainly an interesting display,’ Mikaela thinks to himself with his eyebrows raised in pleasant surprise. ‘It’s also likely that other Competitors might try to recreate it, assuming the dungeon hasn’t added new measures against this.’