Chapter 205: Facing The Abandoned Subway Line Dungeon Final Boss

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Riven’s shadow form merely tilted its head, the ring of ghostly blades spinning lazily behind it like a silent halo of death. "I never said you were weak. I said you looked tired. There’s a difference." A faint smirk curved the featureless darkness that served as its face. "But good. Keep that fire. We’re going to need it. You’ve become much weaker after being revived, but that actually opens the way for you to become even stronger than you were before. I believe you’re growing well. If Mordred ever helped in anything, him probably unlocking your werewolf form without any requirements was his greatest gift to you. Use it well."

"Tsk," Vladimir glared down at his own claws in frustrated annoyance, flexing the sharp digits as crimson energy still faintly flickered around them. "I guess so. It really requires nothing at all. It’s... kind of amazing, if I’m being honest. But usually, everyone else who tried something similar ended up going completely batshit insane. I guess I wasn’t the same because of my unique existence."

"Maybe," Riven nodded calmly. "Now let’s press on."

They pressed forward and continued walking down the long corridors in silence. Their footsteps echoed quietly across the ever darker underground rails within the endless tunnel. The air grew colder and more stagnant with every step they took, carrying the faint metallic tang of rust mixed with something far fouler that neither of them could quite place yet.

As they dove deeper, the tunnel narrowed for a stretch before suddenly widening again into a vast subterranean platform that should not have existed this far underground. The scale of the space felt wrong, as if the dungeon itself had decided to expand beyond the original architecture of the abandoned subway.

"Oh? This place... it’s quite amazing," Riven said, his shadowy form glancing around with mild curiosity.

"Hmm..." Vladimir narrowed his golden eyes, his enhanced senses already picking up something unsettling.

Broken fluorescent lights flickered overhead in irregular patterns, casting sickly yellow strobes across cracked tiles, overturned benches, and faded advertising posters that had long since peeled away from the walls. The air grew thicker and heavier the farther they walked, carrying the coppery stink of old blood mixed with the wet, organic reek of something that had been rotting for decades while somehow still remaining alive.

For Vladimir’s sharpened werewolf senses, this was a disgusting smell that easily surpassed the green ichor of the Giant Cockroaches and the nasty, musky odor of the mutant rats they had fought earlier.

What could possibly be waiting for them here?

"Hm?"

Then... something shifted.

Brr...

A low, continuous vibration began running through the soles of their feet, subtle at first but growing stronger with each passing second.

Riven’s Shadow Self paused mid-step. Vladimir’s ears flattened against his head for a moment as both of them turned to look in the same direction.

BRRRR...!

From the thick darkness at the far end of the platform came a grinding sound like metal scraping against bone, slow and deliberate.

RUMBLE!

Then the lights died completely, plunging the entire platform into absolute blackness.

"!!!"

"?!"

Vladimir and Riven stood frozen in silence as they realized what was happening. They could both sense a massive silhouette forming within the darkness, accompanied by the incredibly loud and rhythmic sound of a massive machine steadily approaching them.

A moment later the emergency lights flared back to life in a harsh, stuttering glow... and the final boss was already there.

"T-That’s...!"

"Hah..."

It filled the entire mouth of the tunnel completely. A colossal subway train, easily three cars long and twice as tall as any ordinary locomotive, stood twisted beyond all recognition. Its outer shell was a nightmarish patchwork of rusted steel plates and living flesh that constantly pulsed with unnatural life.

Pale, veined skin stretched tightly over sections of the metal frame, bulging outward in places where something inside pushed against its confines. Thick, pulsating cables of raw muscle and tendon snaked between the cars, binding them together like the vertebrae of one single enormous organism.

Where passenger windows should have been, gaping maws lined with rows of translucent, needle-like teeth opened and closed in rhythmic hunger. The front of the train — its "head" — had split open into a massive vertical jaw of twisted rails and yellowed bone, dripping thick black saliva that sizzled and smoked whenever it hit the tracks below.

Mutated fleshy growths erupted from every seam and joint: clusters of milky eyes that blinked independently of one another, thick tentacles tipped with razor-sharp bone blades, and clusters of rat-like limbs that scrabbled uselessly against the concrete platform. The entire abomination pulsed with a sickly green-purple glow, the same toxic light that had filled the Rat King’s poison and the bodies of every other monster they had encountered in this dungeon.

"CHOOOOOOOOHHH! CHOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!"

A deep, multi-layered roar rolled out of the creature, part train horn, part animal scream, and part something that had never belonged to any living thing that should exist in this world.

CREAAAAK...!

RUMBLE!

The Flesh-Train lurched forward with a deafening screech of grinding metal and wet, tearing flesh. Its wheels — half polished steel, half exposed bone — crushed the edge of the platform as it accelerated, the enormous maw at its front yawning wide enough to swallow both of them whole in a single bite.

Vladimir’s werewolf form tensed immediately, every muscle coiling with instinctive readiness. "That’s... not what I remembered!" he screamed before leaping away from the oncoming threat.

"It’s evolved then?" Riven said quietly through the Shadow Self, his tone carrying a note of genuine fascination toward this intriguing and deeply aberrant lifeform. "Most monsters inside dungeons evolve when they eat enough of their own brethren. This one has been hiding down here, likely feeding on rats and cockroaches for a long time!"

[Mad Locomotive – D++ Rank: Level 1]

It had gone from "Mutant Locomotive," which was its original name, to Mad Locomotive, clear proof that it had evolved. Its Level had even reset back to 1 as a result of the transformation.

"We have to move, quickly!"

The gigantic train roared and chased after them the moment they turned away from its gaping maws. Vladimir exploded forward in a crimson blur of blood energy, claws fully extended and ready. At the exact same instant, Riven’s Shadow Self dissolved into pure darkness and reappeared atop the train’s pulsating roof.

CLAAASH!

BOOOOM!

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