KABOOOOOM!
The dual-thrust proximity fuze detonated just as the missile breached Vaelgor’s swirling gale barrier. A blinding sphere of fire and jagged rod-fragment shrapnel exploded against the beast’s chest, ripping through its obsidian bio-chitin and scorching its black fur into ash.
SCREEEEECH!
The thirty-foot Chimera shrieked in agonizing fury, its flight path destabilizing as the three-pound high-explosive warhead shredded one of its upper left wings. The beast plummeted twenty meters, crashing heavily onto the stone platform in a flurry of dust, sparks, and severed membrane.
Behind the carved stone pillar, the silver-haired elf girl pressed herself flat against the ancient marble, her amethyst eyes wide in absolute shock.
What... what kind of magic was that? she thought, her heart hammering against her ribs. She couldn’t sense a single drop of mana from the iron tube he had held, yet the kinetic force and lightning speed of his "spell" had grounded a Class-S catastrophe—a beast that usually required an entire vanguard of High-Arcanists and Holy Knights to even suppress.
She desperately tried to channel her own internal mana, gritting her teeth as she reached deep into her core to conjure a barrier or a lightning lance to assist him. But the centuries spent inside the mana-draining crystal had left her pool completely bone-dry. A faint, pathetic blue spark flickered at her fingertips before sputtering out, leaving her head throbbing with severe magical exhaustion.
She was completely helpless. All she could do was watch in stunned awe as the solitary, heavily armored human moved across the battlefield with unnatural, lethal precision.
"Grounded," John muttered, dumping the spent Stinger tube with a metallic clatter.
Vaelgor thrashed furiously on the ground, its six yellow eyes blazing with primal hatred. With a violent whip of its neck, the Chimera opened its demonic jaw and unleashed a concentrated beam of pressurized, emerald plasma straight at John.
John’s maxed-out Combat Perception tracked the superheated trajectory instantly. He didn’t just dodge—he sprinted directly toward the beast at a forty-five-degree angle, the blinding green plasma beam melting the sandstone floor mere inches behind his heels in a trail of boiling slag.
"System! Deploy FGM-148 Javelin!" John commanded mid-sprint.
FLASH!
The heavy Command Launch Unit materialized in his hands. John dropped to his left knee, sliding across the grit, and brought the CLU sight up to his eye display.
BEEP-BEEP-BEEEEEEP!
"Top-attack locked. Eat copper jet, you bastard!"
FSHHHHHHH-BOOM!
The Javelin missile launched into the cavernous sky, pitching upward forty feet before executing a brutal, vertical dive straight onto Vaelgor’s skull.
KABOOOOOOOM!
The tandem-charge HEAT warhead detonated on impact. Thousands of degrees of molten copper jet pressure blasted straight through the beast’s forehead plates, shattering its horns and blowing out two of its six yellow eyes in a fountain of black blood.
ROAAAAAR!
Blind with rage and agony, Vaelgor thrashed its massive body, whipping its segmented scorpion tail around in a blinding, sixty-mile-an-hour horizontal strike aimed straight at John’s torso.
John’s maxed-out reflexes kicked into overdrive. He couldn’t deploy another heavy launcher in time. He unslung his FN SCAR-H with his left hand, drew his FN FNX-45 with his right, and leapt backward into a backflip, utilizing his maxed-out Physical Conditioning to clear the razor-sharp sting by a hairsbreadth.
The venomous tip sliced through the air beneath his boots, slamming into a nearby ten-ton stone pillar and dissolving the massive granite structure into a bubbling pool of acid within two seconds.
From her hiding spot, the elf girl gasped, covering her mouth with her trembling, pale hands. He dodged the Sovereign’s strike at point-blank range?! Without a haste buff or wind protection spell?!
She stared at his cold, white-phosphor illuminated night-vision goggles. To her, John looked like an unstoppable, relentless avatar of war—an unyielding warrior who wielded localized thunder and suns without casting a single incantation.
John landed heavily on his boots, his SCAR-H already coming up to his eye.
"Let’s see how much armor you’ve got left!"
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
John held the trigger down, dumping a full 20-round magazine of 7.62x51mm AP directly into the exposed, bleeding crater left by the Javelin strike. The tungsten penetrators chewed through raw muscle, making the giant Chimera stagger back toward the edge of the cliff.
"System!" John roared, throwing the empty SCAR-H to his back and opening his interface for the final blow. "Deploy M32A1 Multiple Grenade Launcher!"
FLASH!
A six-shot, rotary 40mm grenade launcher materialized in his hands, pre-loaded with high-explosive dual-purpose warheads.
John stepped straight into the monster’s kill zone, racking the heavy cylinder.
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!
Six 40mm HEDP grenades streaked through the air in rapid succession, embedding themselves straight into Vaelgor’s open chest and gaping jaw.
KABOOM! KABOOM! KABOOM! KABOOM! KABOOM! KABOOM!
A continuous, blinding chain explosion detonated across the Chimera’s torso. The internal blast pressure tore the beast’s remaining wings to shreds, shattered its ribcage, and severed its tail from its spine.
The massive thirty-foot titan froze, its remaining eyes dimming as it let out a final, wet, rattling wheeze. Its legs buckled, and the colossal carcass collapsed headfirst onto the stone platform, its massive head sliding to a halt just five feet from John’s boots.
Silence returned to the storm-swept canyon, broken only by the crackle of burning bio-chitin and the heavy, steady rhythm of John’s breathing.
[Target Eliminated: Sovereign Chimera - Vaelgor (Level ?? - Class-S Floor Boss)]
[Calculating Experience...]
[Massive Level Gap Bonus Applied!]
[Experience Awarded: 350,000 XP]
[LEVEL UP!]
[Level 53 -> Level 58]
[Cumulative XP: 1,570,000 / 1,700,000]
[System Points Awarded: +120,000 SP]
[Souls Received: 400]
[Hidden Floor Cleared!]
[Dimensional Anchor Restored — Surface Portal Active!]
Across the far abyss, a massive, brilliant golden gateway opened, revealing a panoramic view of open blue skies, green rolling hills, and real sunlight filtering through the clouds.
John lowered his grenade launcher, clicking the safety on. He wiped a streak of soot from his tactical mask, popped his NVGs up onto his helmet, and turned back toward the stone pillar.
The silver-haired high-elf girl was still sitting on the ground, staring up at him in utter, wide-eyed astonishment, her mouth slightly agape as she looked from the dead Class-S monster back to the solitary human standing in the smoke.
John offered her a gloved hand.
"Let’s go ma’am."