Chapter 178: Taking down the Final Boss

The lycan ran into several dead trunks which broke on impact until it hit the ground and rolled over several times due to the force behind it. It struggled to get on its feet, but wobbled several times from the dent that had formed in its abdomen.

Its eyes turned even redder than before, and it let out another ear-piercing shriek. This time, the beasts that were feeding on the sandworms snapped, and their eyes turned bloodshot as well.

Without warning, they charged in their numbers at every one of the candidates.

The first to arrive was charging straight for Felix and Lucy, but just as it lunged forward, Felix spun around and drove his foot into the side of its head.

A sickening crunch echoed, and the beast dropped to the ground with a broken skull, dead on impact.

This stunned Kaelen, but not the mind-controlled beasts, who kept lunging forward without regard for their lives.

Kaelen didn’t have time to dwell on it and flashed his blades just as several beasts lunged at him. They were all incapacitated and dropped to the floor lifelessly. He didn’t have time to check the kill notifications before more lunged forward from all directions. At the same time, the trembling beneath the ground reawakened, but unlike earlier, there were too many beasts to risk going after the sandworms, and from the looks of it, that plan might no longer be useful when the lycan was fully in control of the battlefield now.

The best strategy was to predict and avoid the sandworms’ area of effect while reducing the number of the feral beasts.

The plan didn’t sound bad, and for the first few minutes, both Kaelen and the other candidates were all able to cope independently, including Elyndra, who claimed she was an alchemist but had it easier than the rest because every now and then, she downed an ominous potion out of her bag that gave her new abilities that completely defied the tower’s concept of surviving with one ability alone.

For some reason, she was marked as the lycan’s first target, who suddenly shot forward, charging straight at her.

Her eyes widened in surprise, and she shook her hand behind her back amidst creating ice spheres that struck the beasts and pulled out another potion, but as she flipped the cap, another beast appeared in her blind spot, making her dive down at the last minute to save her head. But this made the contents of the potion spill across the ground, and so did her glasses.

Kaelen watched in dumbfoundedment as she scrambled for her glasses, which were right in front, not too far away from her. But for some reason, she couldn’t clearly spot them.

He always thought the glasses were for aesthetic purposes and was only realizing now that she had bad eyesight, which was surprising because she was supposed to be an evolver.

His sprained ankle had healed itself after 25 evolution advancements. She was probably around the same evolution realm or even much higher than he was, depending on her world.

The lycan didn’t sympathize with her and closed the distance between them just as her hand landed on her glasses, but it was already too late to do anything as she could barely even see the danger.

The lycan spread its maw wide just as it arrived before her, when a pillar of earth rose from the ground before it and slammed into its chin, snapping its jaw shut. Then the debris slowly began levitating from the floor all around it as they took the form of daggers. Swords began charging towards the lycan just as it slapped the stone block away from its path.

The earth-element daggers weren’t nearly as effective as when he did it with the Formless Dragon Sword Art, but Kaelen’s aim wasn’t to cause damage but to buy Elyndra enough time to collect herself.

Except, immediately after she put on her glasses, her eyes didn’t go to the lycan before her, but to the damp spot where her potion had spilled, and she cried out dramatically.

"M-My precious hex potion..." She pressed her mouth against the spot and began trying to salvage anything that hadn’t been absorbed by the earth.

Kaelen could barely cringe at her unclean behavior when the lycan shot him a fierce look. But instead of charging straight at him, it knocked off the earth daggers flying at it and snapped its head back to the vulnerable Elyndra, who was too absorbed in making out with the earth.

It grabbed her head in its large palm and lifted her off the ground like a ragdoll as she kicked helplessly in the air and punched the lycan’s wrist with her small fist.

This quickly attracted the attention of the other candidates, who frowned, but before they could react, the helpless Elyndra suddenly smiled mischievously as she brought herself close up to the lycan’s face.

"Gotcha." Just as those words left her lips, she spat into the eyes of the lycan, whose reaction stunned Kaelen and the other candidates.

It immediately dropped her as it clutched its eyes and shrieked in agony as smoke began to rise from the gap between its fingers. At the same time, similar smoke began to rise from its wrist as the skin around the area began to visibly decay.

Before anyone could make sense of what was happening, Elyndra scrambled to her knees and crawled to hug the leg of the lycan, who panicked and kicked its leg fiercely until she was thrown off, but it was already too late as a similar effect to what happened to its eye and wrist began to take place across its legs.

"What’s happening?" Kaelen asked in confusion.

"That’s the work of one of my precious inventions. It places a curse on wherever I touch my target and continuously deals damage, which is converted to vitality in my body." Elyndra replied proudly.

Kaelen would be lying if he said he wasn’t impressed. That was probably also the same potion she was sucking off the ground, and it made much more sense now.

Maybe she wasn’t all nasty.

He quickly shifted his attention back to the lycan, and after observing the damage the curse dealt to the wrist and leg, Kaelen didn’t need to be told twice to know what to do.

He shot forward at once, arriving behind the distracted lycan before his twin blades descended one after the other, hitting the exact same mark at the core of the decaying leg.

The first blade went halfway before Kaelen pulled it out and brought down the second blade right on the mark, which cleanly sliced off the lycan’s leg and made it stumble.

It panicked and swiped its claw behind it just like last time, except this time the wrist was in a bad shape, and Kaelen didn’t hesitate to aim for it.

Just like the leg, the hand flew into the air, which made the lycan lose its balance as it shrieked in agony and dropped to the ground.

Its amputated leg was already starting to show signs of healing, but Kaelen didn’t panic as he focused on the other leg before bringing down his blades like a madman, hacking at the same spot over and over amidst the ear-piercing shrieks of the lycan until it came off as well. Then he moved to the other and repeated the same thing until all that was left of the lycan was simply its head and torso.

At this point, all the beasts in the field had been slain, and the sandworms had disappeared as well, leaving the other candidates to watch Kaelen mutilate the final boss of the first floor before driving his foot continuously into its head until the lycan couldn’t scream anymore.

It was only then that Kaelen finally looked up at the rest of the candidates watching in silence.

"Anyone want to do the honors?" He asked while poking the head of the lycan with his blade.

It didn’t matter whether he made the last hit or not now. He had done considerable damage that would put him in a position to receive the highest rewards for the kill.

Felix only smiled after a moment of silence and turned around to walk towards the exit with Lucy in tow.

"What difference does it make? All that matters is that we cleared Hell’s mode with a perfect score. So I’ll leave you to it." The burly guy said and turned to leave as well, leaving Elyndra with Kaelen.

Kaelen turned to face her, who stared at the lycan with sparkling eyes.

"Hey, do you want it?" He asked.

"That’s a silly question to ask. Of course I do. I’d love to spend some time with Mr. Final Boss over here before I leave, so if you don’t mind, let me compensate you with something worthwhile."

"I’m not interested." Kaelen replied almost immediately.

"What? You haven’t even seen what I want to offer you. It’s really good. Take a look," she said as she took out a vial from her backpack.

"I don’t care, because I’m not interested in whatever you have on you right now."

Elyndra was stunned for a moment. "W-What do you mean you’re not interested in whatever I have on me?" She asked as she slowly crossed her arm over her chest. "What more could you possibly want from me?"

Like hell I’d want to have anything to do with something as nasty as you. I’d rather die a virgin.

But instead of denying the allegations and debunking her train of thought going astray, Kaelen only smiled coldly and began moving towards her.