The battle against the Dungeon Boss, the junk-dragon, as I call it, was kicked off with Alf running up to it and started to bash at it with some Hammer Arts, I think. The halberd/Warhammer started to glow with a blue light, which wrapped itself around the hammer part of the weapon and made it visibly bigger. An Art to increase the hitbox?

The junk-dragon answered by activating some kinda magic circle, but that one got pierced with a grayish arrow fired from the fallen angel. Think that's some anti-magic spell from Illusionism. Something about confusing the magic formula.

And it worked. The magic circle turned flicking, like a hologram that's running empty of power before breaking. The broken pieces of mana were even scattered on the junk-dragon and inflicted damage.

Then came Alf's attack. And it made one nasty sound! There went junk-dragon's right arm. Too bad.

The pain kept on coming. The fallen angel kept on firing Holy-attribute spells at junk-dragon, steadily damaging the ectoplasmic connection it had with the parts that made up its body whenever she wasn't busy disrupting the junk-dragon's magic. Once they turned too weak, Alf took the chance and knocked off the weakened parts with a heavy smash, powered up even further with the fallen angel's support magic.

The junk-dragon turned pissed off and tried to flatten Alf with his paws, but it couldn't move. Its legs had been trapped with my webs! What, did you think I was just standing here and commenting? An Assassin has to work in the shadows after all.

Alf kept on breaking off parts unhindered thanks to my and the fallen angel's assists. Has he even noticed that we're helping him? He looks like he's solely focused on attacking the junk-dragon..., are those tears of blood? ...need to help him find a... oh, that's why he's so into fishing!

I packed away that newfound piece of knowledge into my brain storage and focused on the junk-dragon. Rather, his goons. The Geists had suddenly started to produce magic circles of their own. [Kin Enhancement] must have switched that bonus skill of theirs from [Daywalker] into magic skills. Various Ghost Bullet, Darkness Bullet, and Poison Bullet circles were aimed at Alf, but I and Noire used Turn Undead Field to wipe them all away. No need to go for the magic spell when the caster's the weakest thing around.

The junk-dragon kept on trying to break free from the webbing, but no luck there~. Your prized [Poison Attack] doesn't work against these threads~. Darkness attribute stuff? Even less of a chance.

Junk-dragon must have realized that it couldn't break free, so it focused solely on trying to get Alf out of the way with magic spells and that miasma-aura of its. The magic spells were shot down by the fallen angel, so no luck there. And Alf's seen my own Aura enough to understand how to keep a distance against that cheap counterfeit that can only inflict poison-type ailments.

I found it rather tedious to be walking around, so I made a Pale Horse with the template I had saved before and used it instead of running. The new [Pale Rider] skill made us even more unnoticeable than before, so I could keep on trolling the junk-dragon with webs, spells, and whatever else I could do.

The Geists? Eliminated. Even the junk-dragon didn't care about playing more of them. Tch~. I wanted to aim at Ghost Genocider~.

While we continued to bully the junk-dragon to death, a strange phenomenon happened. The dragon's stats were decreasing. 

Did I release a Zahhak without noticing? Nah, that can't be it. Then... now I see. The loss of the junk-dragon's bodyparts. I took a glance at the Kigal-Note while on the Pale Horse, and it seems the big-ass status values come from the constructed body. The junk-dragon, better said, the Specter Dragon MIMIC, didn't have that much power!

A-ha! Then things will just become easier and easier as Alf's breaking off parts..., I just got a bad feeling. What if this guy is the same gigantic dragon I saw before? The one who could look over those damn-high walls surrounding the island. Won't that mean its current "body" ain't at 100%?

I broke off from the fight and had the Pale Horse use its skill to climb up the castle walls. 

...I hate being right like this. The junk-dragon hadn't stopped producing Geists. It had made them outta our sight of view and ordered them to search for treasures spread throughout the city. If we waste too much time, that thing will just recover its lost strength, if not gaining more than what it had from the beginning.

While I'm damn impressed over pulling the wool over my eyes regarding the Geists, not to mention that it came up with this whole strategy at all, I'm not gonna let it snatch the victory that easy!

I had the Pale Horse jump down from the wall and aimed at the junk-dragon. With what? With a Chaotic Zahhak!

Several dragon-heads made of darkness hit the junk-dragon's head. Better said, at the rosary which is this thing's true body! All six dragons I had been lucky enough to roll from [Chaotic Concurrence] attacked the Mimic one at a time until all of the Mimic's stats had been reduced to double-digits. The Pale Horse sealed the deal with its [Stomp] skill, which made the junk-dragon collapse to the ground. Alf had barely enough time to back-step outta there.

BINGO!! I gotta do that later.

Still, I knew that Extra Skill was bad news, but scoring critical hits with it is even more so! It still wasn't enough to reduce its HP to zero. Guess the decrease will be stuck at 1 point when it reaches the bottom.

"Garami, what are you doing? ...Or even better, what was I doing all this time?" - Alf

He wasn't conscious back there!?

"Bashing at the Dungeon Boss." answered the fallen angel and pointed at the sorry remains of the junk-dragon. Alf turned pale seeing that... not. For some reason, he looked a little proud of himself. Thinking about it, he is in the right to be so. Those Zahhaks couldn't weaken the Mimic that much unless Alf hadn't given it a beating beforehand.

*Du-dunk*

What was that heartbeat-like sound? I'm only speaking of experience from cartoons and anime, but I know that sounds like that after beating a boss ain't ever good news.

I looked at the remains of the junk-dragon, and right I was. It was regenerating..., no, resurrecting right in front of my eyes. Only the rosary. The parts we had knocked off were still thrashed. 

I wanted to blast another Chaotic Zahhak at it, but the [Chaotic Concurrence] is still on a cool down. For ten hours! Damn, was six Zahhaks an overkill?

"And heave-ho!" - Alf

Alf stepped forward while I was lost in my thoughts and slammed the hammer on the rosary. Right before they connected, the tip of an icicle appeared on the hammer, and a large sound was heard when the hammer crashed into the rosary. Wait, did he use [Icicle Wall] in parallel with that Hammer Art? An improvised pile bunker!?

This time around, the rosary must have been pulverized to dust. Thinking so, Alf removed the halberd and peered down the long hole he had made. Whoa... that's faaaaaar dooooown...

"...It's not there." - Garami

"Sure?" - Alf

"There's no aether signature there. But I don't think it won't return. It's probably teleported somewhere else to be resurrected there." - Garami

"It was pretty stupid to do so right in front of us." - Noire

If the thing was a real dragon, then there wouldn't be any problems. But this is a gimmicky Mimic. Not giving it time to form a body's just foolish... oh? Now that's good news~.

"I've got something to do. Hold the fort." - Garami

"HAH!?" - Noire

"Got a plan?" - Alf

"Pretty much. And Geists are coming from all over the city with tons of materials for the Mimic to make a new body. Intercept them and trash whatever you can." - Garami

"R-roger." - Noire

"Leave it to us... what about Iron and the others?" - Alf

I listened in and heard the voice of the combatants in the hall. The possessing Geists must have died when the junk-dragon got killed the first time.

"...Release them, then I'll cast Possession Resist on them." - Garami

"Roger that!" said Alf while sprinting to the hall with frost visible on his halberd. Let's have these guys have some fun with those Geists. It's the final chance they'll have after all.

---

In the backyard of the castle, a garden that would be more right to call a park before it faded due to the tears of time, Regina was fighting for her life against what appears to be a large, undead slime, with a frail, black-haired, pale-skinned woman that looks like she came straight out of a horror movie.

Large amounts of what could be best described as fluid undead corpses came at her like a tidal wave. With her firepower, burning it away would be a breeze. A breeze that would drain her stamina and mana. Therefore, Regina had no other choice than to keep on running away from the ever-growing tidal wave of melted meat and bone.

"Ha-ha-ha-ha! You said you would burn me to ashes? Let us see you try then, you witch!" - ???

The undead woman kept on throwing provocations after Regina, despite her being the one who didn't dare to make a big move. Regina didn't buy those cheap insults and focused on dragging the fight until the undead woman would make a mistake somewhere. 

The reason for Regina taking this strategy is because only the human body takes any damage. Regina has burned off parts of the slime-body several times already, but it just regenerated with the additions of slime that spewed out from several pipelines located around the backyard. 

However, the undead woman did always prevent her main body from being seared by the flames. It could be a bluff, but Regina trusted her instincts and focused her attacks on the main body when the woman was distracted. Flames emerging from Regina's fists were thrown at the undead woman like grenades and exploded upon contact with the undead's body.

It was a long and tiresome battle, with both parties having an advantage over the other. Regina with her fire being able to burn away the undead's body, and the undead being able to recover thanks to the support from the Dungeon. The loser of this battle will be the one who loses her concentration first.

...I looked away from the battle between the female monsters and focused on the task before me. 

After the original went after the Black Baron and his two mechanical goons, she had released me from the Shadow World while those three didn't look along with a Skeleton Assassin for support.

While the original and the others were rising the roof of the castle, I and the Assassin were searching for the Dungeon Core. I first thought it would be underneath the castle since the Core was supposed to be sealed somewhere inside this place, but the aether flow visible through [Empyrean Eyes] led me to the backyard. Specifically, a large pavilion in the middle of the backyard. The Dungeon Core was in the center of it, surrounded by many glass-like barriers.

Worst of all, the Core's visible for that undead woman. And you can bet on there being tons of alarms in that building. [Trap Detection] is pinging nonstop as I look at the place.

I gave a signal through the "Parallel Mind Network", as we call it, to the original about the location of the Core, along with the current situation. The answer came after a few seconds.

Hmm? Make Regina weaken the pavilion? Just how're you expecting me to do..., the new item in the Storage? A piece of... cloth? ...Now I get it!

I and the Skeleton Assassin circled the pavilion, making sure not to get caught by the two female behemoths, and when we reached the back of it, we threw the cloth to the point where it reached the other side of the pavilion and the message on the cloth was visible for Regina that were fighting over there.

On the cloth was, in large letters, the words: "Dungeon Core here. Shoot me!".

After placing the clothing, I and the Skeleton Assassin left the area as fast as we could... only for the pavilion being devoured by an enormous dragon made of fire.

Ain't that too much of an overkill!? The whole area around the Dungeon Core had been reduced to a burned wasteland! 

I looked at Regina to send her a glare charged with anger and was met with the sight of the demon-woman being covered in a cloak of fire, shaped after a dragon of fire, the same as the one who turned the pavilion to ashes. Is that something similar to Zahhak?

Argh, that's not important right now! The Core's... still safe!? The barriers protected the Core, despite most of them being broken from that first strike.

Regina took up a stance with one of her fists drawn back, probably a preparation to fire that dragon-bomb again, but the undead woman turned completely hysterical and attacked Regina before she could release the attack.

"You wretched inferior lifeforms! You will pay dearly-!" - Undead woman

The undead woman was interrupted mid-sentence when a large explosion struck the area where the Dungeon Core was. A faint *crack* rings through the air, just a heartbeat after the explosion.

"Wha-?"  

Someone, or maybe everyone present, let out a stupid sound due to this event, and everyone, except for me and the silent Skeleton Assassin, did so again when they saw that the Dungeon Core was crushed into dust... She actually used that!? Scary, scary.

---

Garami's (original) PoV

I looked into the scope and confirmed the destruction of the Dungeon Core, its barriers, and everything else in the remains of the pavilion. 

Damn that Armveil. Who's crazy enough to make an anti-material rifle in a fantasy world!? Not to mention using something as scary as the remains of a Wild Hunt Lord to do so! Didn't stop me from using it.

Seriously, this thing is so damn bad news. I had plans of storing it for an indefinite amount of time, but to think that I would have to use it now...

The rifle looks no different from modern anti-material rifles, maybe with some changes to the design, but I'm no gun-geek, so I wouldn't know. The thing I definitely know is different with this thing is that it has red lines painted all over it, which glows and pulsates like the blood veins of some demonic monster.

Then, a cracking sound was heard from above. The dark barrier that envelopes the city started to break up-oi! That's bad! I dismissed Pale Horse, undead #2, so I wouldn't lose the materials I had used for it. The Skeleton Assassin should be equipped with the Dark Sneak Robes which prevents light from hitting it, so that should be safe.

Wow! Are you serious?

Huh? What's this? 

I took out the Dungeon Core and..., yup. There's a new effect added to it. One regarding the Death attribute. 

Wait, "conquered"? In that case, won't that mean... urgh, there's nothing I can do to confirm that theory. Better to just find somewhere to make the Dungeon and get the deed done.

Wonder what the others are doing? I used the scope to look at the situations in the other areas of the castle:

The clone and the Skeleton Assassin are moving to this position without problems. The Assassin seems okay... I did add HP recovery skills to it just in case this happened.

The firewoman's making a campfire with that undead Dungeon Master, who turned weaker than a goblin when the sun started to peek through the broken barrier, as kindling. Crueeeel...

Alf and Iron are chasing after the Dungeon Boss... which has shrunk considerably in size. Did it run outta treasures? Ah, the fallen angel stole their kill. Long-range weapons are such a cheat~.

And Mira and Revi's walking to the castle gates, accompanied by several combatants with large bags filled with cartoonishly large amounts of stolen goods. Mira's idea. Definitely. Revi looks like the sun's not hurting her, so the other members of the party must have gotten the same title as me.

I stored the rifle back into the Storage and decided to jump off the castle walls I had taken sniping position on-

*Rumble, rumble, rumble*

Gwah!? Another earthquake!? Didn't we have one just yesterday? 

...Let's just get outta this upside-down situation before anyone sees me. I didn't trip. I just decided it would be fun to bungee-jump down the wall, upside-down, and simply forgot the cord so I had to rely on some spider threads mid-way. I-I-I'm serious! Damn, this stuff's too sticky...