[Field Boss Encounter Triggered: Undead Dragon Bone] [Description: A dragon bone corrupted by dark energy and profane sacrificial magic.
After merging with the dead, it has become a creature of darkness.] [Objective: Destroy the Undead Dragon Bone.] [Rewards: EXP +10,000, Random Items ×2, Random Ability ×1, Lottery Chance +1.] “A field boss?” Calvin’s heart started pounding when the system notification sounded in his head.
He had already given up on anything special appearing tonight.
Instead, the system had suddenly dropped an actual field boss into his lap.
And the rewards were on an entirely different level from anything he had seen before.
Not only was there a random ability, but the mission also awarded an additional lottery draw.
The ten thousand EXP should be enough to level him up as well, which meant yet another draw on top of that.
The only question was how difficult this thing would be to kill.
It had been born from dragon bones, after all.
Dragon bones were the source of immortality the Hand had been searching for over the years—the remains of extraordinary creatures that could be refined to enhance the body, extend lifespan, and heal even severe injuries.
Finding one beneath a vampire hideout made it painfully obvious that the two groups were working together.
That also explained why Hand ninjas had been stationed nearby.
They had been guarding the dragon bone.
More concerning was the system’s description.
The bone had apparently been corrupted by dark energy and sacrificial magic, which immediately reminded Calvin of the disturbing symbols he had seen in the Hand’s underground laboratory.
Whether the two incidents were connected, he had no idea.
Unfortunately, he did not have time to think about it.
Another wave of bone spikes erupted from below.
Calvin still had Matt in one hand and Frank in the other.
The moment he landed after avoiding the first attack, another violent rumble rolled through the floor beneath them.
He tossed both men into the air.
At the same time, the Adaptive Halberd transformed in his hand, reshaping itself into a broad metal shield.
While Matt and Frank were still airborne, Calvin bent his knees and jumped, landing in a crouch on top of the shield.
BANG!
A bone spike slammed into it from below.
The collision produced a heavy impact, followed immediately by the unmistakable crack of bone breaking.
Calvin’s eyes lit up.
“Oh, good.
The dragon has osteoporosis.” That meant he could work with this.
Using the upward force of the spike as a launch, Calvin shot toward the ceiling of the passage ahead of Matt and Frank.
He caught Matt by the front of his suit with one hand and planted the other firmly against Frank’s shoulder.
Then the shield disappeared.
A three-meter-square red carpet materialized beneath all three of them.
The Floating Carpet.
From the first eruption of bone spikes to their escape from the second wave, only a fraction of a second had actually passed.
Matt and Frank barely had time to process what was happening.
All they experienced was a sudden blur of violent movement as Calvin threw them around like luggage.
By the time the world stopped spinning, they were sitting on an ornate carpet suspended in midair.
Frank stared around in disbelief.
“This carpet flies?” Apparently, Calvin had found yet another way to assault his understanding of reality.
“Don’t worry about the details.” Calvin looked toward the exit.
“There’s no room to fight down here.
We’re getting outside first.” He raised his voice.
“Hold on.” A strong gust of wind suddenly swept through the tunnel from nowhere.
The carpet shot toward the exit.
On its own, the Floating Carpet was not particularly fast.
That problem disappeared when the rider happened to possess Wind Technique.
All Calvin had to do was give it a sufficiently strong tailwind.
The bone spikes appeared to have a limited range and could only extend so far from the corrupted dragon bone.
They repeatedly erupted after the trio, but none came close enough to stop their retreat.
As they were about to clear the tunnel, Calvin casually threw two High-Explosive Grenades behind them without looking back.
BOOM!
The explosion tore through the underground passages.
The tunnels the vampires had excavated collapsed almost instantly, and the initial cave-in triggered a chain reaction throughout the entire underground complex.
The nightclub shook violently as if an earthquake had struck beneath it.
Walls split apart.
The ceiling came crashing down.
Support columns vanished into the collapsing earth.
Within seconds, the entire underground club had become a buried ruin, leaving a massive crater in the street above.
Calvin pushed the carpet as fast as it would go and managed to clear the entrance just before the collapse reached them.
The three landed safely.
Calvin stood at the edge of the enormous crater and watched smoke and dust billow upward.
He did not believe for a second that two grenades had killed a field boss.
So naturally, he chose the most reasonable solution.
He threw more.
A lot more.
Both of Calvin’s arms blurred.
Dozens of High-Explosive Grenades sailed into the crater with perfect accuracy.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Explosion after explosion ripped through the pit.
Stone fragments blasted into the air.
The surrounding pavement cracked apart, and the crater deepened by several more meters under the relentless bombardment.
The fractures eventually spread close enough to where the three men were standing that even Calvin decided they should move back.
They retreated several dozen meters.
Matt stopped, tilted his head, and listened carefully through the settling smoke.
“That thing has to be dead now.” Calvin shook his head.
“Nope.” The system had not announced the kill.
Therefore, it was not dead.
ROOOOAR!
As if responding directly to him, a deep draconic roar erupted from the crater.
The sound itself seemed to make the air vibrate.
The smoke gradually cleared.
Something enormous emerged from within.
Calvin stared.
Frank stared.
Matt tilted his head.
It was…
A dragon leg bone.
Not an entire dragon skeleton.
Just one colossal leg bone standing roughly as tall as a one-story building.
At first glance, it resembled the stripped-clean bone from a gigantic drumstick, except considerably more complicated and infinitely more disturbing.
At the top of the bone, black and blood-red mist twisted together into a writhing mass.
Agonized wails continually escaped from within it.
That had to be the undead presence controlling the dragon bone.
Frank stared at the thing in disbelief.
“What the fuck am I looking at?” He pointed at the enormous bone.
“Did somebody bring a giant chicken leg back from the dead?” Sometimes, he genuinely wondered whether this was still Earth.
He was rapidly reaching the point where he no longer understood what counted as normal.
“It’s not a chicken bone.” Calvin tightened his grip on the Sunstone Chainsaw.
“You two get farther back and protect yourselves.
I’m going in.” For once, Matt and Frank did exactly as they were told.
They retreated another few dozen meters without argument.
Both understood that trying to prove themselves right now would accomplish nothing except give Calvin two more things to protect.
Calvin, meanwhile, freely admitted that he was greedy.
He wanted the system rewards.
But he also wanted the dragon bone.
The material itself was not especially useful to him, but as bait for the Hand?
It was priceless.
Whatever arrangement the Hand had made with the vampires, there was no chance they would casually abandon something this valuable.
Possessing the dragon bone was basically the equivalent of owning a Hand-shaped fishing lure.
With Wind Technique supporting his movement, Calvin accelerated rapidly.
A few leaps carried him across the ruined ground and directly toward the enormous bone.
The Sunstone Chainsaw roared in his hands.
He aimed straight for the black-and-red spirit mass at the top.
The undead presence apparently sensed how dangerous the chainsaw was.
The mist scattered immediately, most of it sinking into the ground.
The dragon bone did not stop moving.
Several smaller bones lashed toward Calvin instead.
His eyes brightened.
‘Perfect.’ This was exactly what he had been waiting for.
Calvin swung the Sunstone Chainsaw upward.
The chain screamed through several sections of dragon bone, severing them cleanly.
He immediately reached out, intending to catch the pieces before they fell.
Then something unexpected happened.
Blood-red strands suddenly grew from the broken ends.
The thin cords stretched outward, caught the severed pieces, and pulled them back into place.
A flash of crimson light passed across the fractures.
The damage disappeared.
The bones had healed.
Calvin frowned.
“It’s growing flesh now?” These dragon bones had presumably been buried for who knew how long, and somehow they were beginning to regenerate biological tissue.
What exactly were the Hand and the vampires trying to accomplish?
Build their own Jurassic Park?
Before he could think further, the ground began shaking violently.
Something beneath the ruins was trying to emerge.
Calvin immediately summoned the Floating Carpet and shot into the air.
Then he pulled out his phone and started recording.
Fury was absolutely going to see this.
More importantly, Calvin wanted documented evidence when he demanded a larger mission bonus.
Down among the ruins, human bones began rising from beneath the ground.
Hundreds of them.
Many still had strips of flesh clinging to them.
The bones floated toward the enormous dragon leg and began assembling themselves around it.
Spine.
Ribs.
Skull.
Limbs.
A massive skeletal form gradually took shape.
Within moments, a three-story Tyrannosaurus-like skeleton stood amid the ruins.
Calvin stared at it.
At this point, calling the creature an Undead Dragon Bone was no longer particularly accurate.
It had become an undead bone dragon.
The skeletal monster raised its skull toward Calvin and roared.
It had no lungs, no throat, and barely anything that should have been capable of making sound at all.
That did not stop the roar from shaking the night.
While the bone dragon was still roaring, something small and golden sailed neatly into one of its empty eye sockets.
A cross decorated its casing.
The black mist controlling the creature flickered.
For one remarkably human moment, it almost seemed to blink in confusion.
“Hallelujah!” Sacred voices rang through the silent night.
Brilliant golden light erupted outward.
The power of the Holy Hand Grenade washed over everything within range.
By this point, Matt and Frank were standing safely on the Floating Carpet far above the blast zone.
Both men had become almost numb to being shocked.
When Calvin had suddenly flown over and hauled them into the air, neither had thought retreating that far was necessary.
Now, looking down at the enormous radius of the holy blast, they understood just how wrong they had been.
If they had remained on the ground, there probably would not have been enough ash left to identify them.
Tonight had already shown them more impossible things than most people could expect to see in an entire lifetime.
A dragon skeleton controlled by the dead.
A flying carpet.
And a grenade that detonated to a heavenly chorus of Hallelujah.
Apparently, Earth was a much stranger place than either of them had realized.
Matt instinctively crossed himself.
He could hardly help it.
The grenade sounded too sacred not to.
At this point, a small part of him was beginning to wonder whether Calvin had some connection to God.
What normal person carried divine explosives?
Calvin, however, was far less impressed.
His expression changed repeatedly as he stared down at the golden light.
The system notification still had not appeared.
Which meant the Holy Hand Grenade had failed to kill the boss.
And this was currently one of the strongest attacks Calvin possessed.
Sure enough, when the light finally faded, the enormous skeletal dragon was gone.
Almost all of it had been completely purified.
Almost.
On the unnaturally smooth ground below, one tiny dragon bone remained.
It was completely black.
The fragment trembled weakly, looking as though it might collapse into dust at any moment.
Even from more than a hundred meters away, Calvin could feel the deeply unsettling evil radiating from it.
A tiny strand of black mist still clung stubbornly to the bone.
Weak.
But alive.
Calvin valued his life far too much to go down there merely because the enemy looked vulnerable.
Unless he had absolute confidence that something was dead, he preferred not to get close enough for it to surprise him.
His combat philosophy had always been extremely conservative.
Stay at range.
Apply overwhelming firepower.
And never politely wait through the enemy’s invincibility phase.
One grenade had not worked.
Fine.
Use two.
Calvin immediately threw another Holy Hand Grenade.
The divine chorus rang through the night once more.
“Hallelujah!” Golden light swallowed the last black fragment.
This time, the notification Calvin had been waiting for finally sounded.
[Field Boss “Undead Dragon Bone” Eliminated!]