Cosmic Peak

[00:02]

Aren floated on his sword while observing his surroundings. He had already killed many monsters in the last four minutes.

At this time, when only two seconds were left, a giant sunflower conjured ten meters away from him. The flower looked dark yellow with hellish petals as they released beams towards Aren.

Aren focused as he tried his best to dodge, but the beams were too fast, and the distance between him and the sunflower was just ten meters, so he was still injured as one laser hit him on his arm above the elbow part.

"Arghhhhh...," A short scream left Aren's mouth as intense burning pain assaulted him but he endured it. His arm was cut off from the part where the laser hit him, but the blood didn't gush out that much because the laser beam's attack was burning the wound.

Aren had Aurora Flare activated already, so his body started to heal, and the pain also slowly subsided.

[Challenge 3 completed.]

[Enter into the misty gate to fight the last boss of this hidden dungeon, Mirage of Yakum.]

[If you don't enter in five minutes, you will be forcefully transported in the boss zone.]

[04:59]

[04:58]

Seeing the countdown, Aren frowned, 'It looks like I won't be able to use my hammer in the boss battle. However, My arm will be healed in three minutes, so that's a relief.'

From how slowly that hammer recovered, Aren expected that it would take one whole day to repair it fully.

After three minutes, his arm was recovered as he stretched and then started recovering his spirit energy from the spirit stone since he consumed a considerable amount in this challenge.

The speed of recovering spirit energy was very fast, so he recovered four thousand spirit energy in just one minute, making his spirit energy pool fully filled.

"One minute left...," Aren muttered as he hesitated on whether to open that Armalist box right now or not.

However, after thinking for a few moments, he became determined and decided not to open it right now.

He wanted to believe in himself that he could defeat the final boss. He will have to!

'I can...I must defeat the last boss, come out alive, and continue my journey to become stronger!' Aren thought with resolve.

Also, Aren didn't want to open the box right away because he wanted to maximize the value of that box. He figured that there should be an ability, magic, skill, or something like that to increase luck. He wanted to find such a thing, increase his luck and then open the Armalist box to get the most out of it.

Aren looked at the countdown as only five seconds were left and seeing that, he entered into the misty gate while changing his body buff to Nimbus Force and armament buff to Ivy Aura.

On the other side of the misty gate, The place was an endless sea of purple water with a shrine in the middle, and on top of that shrine was a vortex of dark orange and purple flame.

Aren frowned because there was no place to land here, and if he didn't have the flying ability, he wouldn't have been able to fight here at all.

*Gong...Gong...*

A giant bell inside the shrine automatically started to ring before it released white energy towards the vortex of purple and dark orange flames on top of the shrine.

Aren was in full focus mode, and his nerves stretched. He had decided to go all out in this last battle. His eyes gleamed with faint blue luster as he observed every single detail in front of him through his Astral-X eyes and was ready with his chakrams flying around him.

The vortex of flames slowly subsided as a five-meter tall humanoid entity started to manifest.

The monster had two long curving horns, four hands, ten heads, and a pair of wings that burned with purple and dark orange flames.

[Mirage of Yakum]

-Rank: special-entity, mirage form.

-Health: [30,000]x10. (Ten heads).

-Attack: Physical [2500], Fire [5000]

-Defense: Physical [1500], Soul [500], Energy [1800].

-Skills: ???

-Abilities: ???

Aren remained focused and decided to attack first, but before he could do that, he saw the mirage of Yakum speaking, "Hmm...So you are the challenger, human? Interesting."

The mirage of Yakum formed a smile before he continued, "The scroll is destroyed, and this dungeon has been weakened according to your level. No wonder my mirage's power decreased drastically. However, you alone..."

The mirage of Yakum shook his head in disappointment, "It's a surprise that you managed to get this far alone, but you won't be able to defeat my mirage alone. You need the support of at least two more people of the same level as you to defeat my mirage."

"Why are you saying all of this?" Aren asked with a frown.

The mirage of Yakun grinned as he showed burning teeth and said, "I am kind of impressed that you managed to get here alone, so I'll give you two options: 1st, you can give up right now, and I will open an exit to this hidden dungeon. Naturally, you will not get any rewards except for EXP."

Hearing that, Aren's face turned deadpan, "So you are telling me that my previous efforts of clearing those challenges will be for naught? No thanks."

"Hahaha, true. Well, then I assume you chose the second option," The mirage of Yakum said with a smile, "However, there is a 97% chance that you will die here if you fight my mirage and since you were supposed to enter this dungeon with your team but got this far alone, then if you manage to defeat me alone as well, you will get better rewards."

Right after that, Aren heard some voices and saw notifications.

[The rewards of the quest have been changed.]

<Reward>

-->50,000 exp.

-->Demon Yakum's Spinergy Method (Complete).

-->One SSS rank skill of Demon Yakum.

-->One SSS rank ability of Demon Yakum.

-->Three skill points.

-->Mark of Yakum.

Seeing the new rewards, Aren was not happy, but instead, his face turned grave because this means that what Yakum was saying was probably right.

"Human, from what I can see, you are in your worst and best condition right now. The 3% chance of winning is only valid if you manage to show me your peak battle senses and ability," The mirage of Yakum said with a grin before he laughed, "I will be leaving from this mirage and let it fight you. Good luck, human. Hahaha."

'97% chance of dying?' Aren thought while gritting teeth,' There is damn 3% chance to win, and I will fucking grasp it!'

*Shuaaaaaaaa....*

The two chakrams zoomed towards the demonic entity that had ten heads and Aren also started flying as he activated his skills <Icy enchant> and started releasing <Wind Slash> from his sword while flying on it.

On the other hand, the gleam in the eyes of the mirage of Yakum turned lifeless before the demonic entity waved his four hands towards Aren and released four fireballs, two dark orange and two purple.

However, that was just the start!