WHOOSH!
The Dark Ghost Hellhound charged first.
Constantine had already moved.
He didn't consciously register the decision—the head dip was so deeply etched into muscle memory that his body responded before his mind finished processing it, diving right while the enormous mass barreled through the space he'd just vacated. The displaced air hit him like a physical shockwave and staggered his footing.
He swung at the Boss's flank as it passed.
The blade skittered harmlessly off the dense fur.
'Phase One. Direct strikes are worthless. I need the joints and pressure points.'
This was the fundamental problem with the Dark Ghost Hellhound's first phase—its physical resistance rendered nearly every conventional attack negligible. Enough to register, not enough to matter. The only productive strategy was to survive, stay mobile, and target the specific areas where the fur thinned around the joints.
Constantine knew this.
Executing it against something three meters tall, in real life, with real consequences, was another matter entirely.
The swipe came next—telegraphed by the shoulder dip he had been waiting for.
He dropped beneath it and drove his cracked sword upward into the joint of the Boss's wrist on the way down. The Dark Ghost Hellhound growled—the first indication it had registered him at all—and snapped its jaws toward the sound.
He was already retreating.
'Hit and run. Don't stop moving. Don't let it dictate the distance.'
The pattern held through the first several exchanges. He wasn't dealing significant damage, but he was landing hits and, more importantly, surviving. Against a Boss Monster of this caliber, survival was itself meaningful progress.
Then the Boss caught him.
The Dark Ghost Hellhound feinted a charge—lowered the head, shifted its weight forward—and followed it immediately with a lateral swipe that Constantine simply hadn't seen telegraphed.
'A new pattern. This wasn't in the game.'
The impact lifted him completely off his feet and drove him into the cavern wall hard enough to crack the stone behind him. He felt his Level drop three times before he even hit the ground.
—Level 7.
His Rare sword was gone, knocked somewhere into the half-dark. He couldn't see it from where he lay.
Constantine pushed himself upright and barely avoided the follow-up bite that would have ended everything. Both Basic Daggers came out.
'Alright. We do this up close.'
The Boss's blind spot in close quarters was the space directly beneath its neck—too low for the jaws to reach effectively, too far inside the arc of the paws to be targeted cleanly. It was a real weakness. Getting there cost him considerably.
He lost a Level dodging a swipe. Lost two more when the Dark Ghost Hellhound suddenly dropped its full body weight forward to flatten him, forcing a panicked sideways dive instead of the advance he needed. By the time he finally maneuvered into position beneath the neck, he was at Level 4.
He drove both daggers in.
The Boss howled with a sound that physically reverberated through the cavern walls and reared backward, carrying Constantine upward with it. He clung to both hilts as the enormous body thrashed violently, riding the momentum until the Boss slammed forward and drove him into the stone floor.
He released both hilts on impact and rolled clear.
—Level 3.
One dagger had snapped at the hilt.
'Three Levels from death. One dagger left. This isn't sustainable.'
It was at this moment that the Boss transitioned.
Constantine saw the signs with grim recognition—the deep, resonant inhale that seemed almost subterranean in pitch, the darkness gathering like a storm pressing against glass from inside the throat.
Phase Two.
He ran.
Not away from the Boss, but laterally along the curved cavern wall, using the geometry of the space to angle himself clear of the direct line of fire. The dark blast erupted and tore through the center of the cavern with devastating force, vaporizing the floor where he had stood a half-second prior.
The concussive shockwave still reached him and knocked him flat.
—Level 2.
Constantine lay on the ground, staring upward. His outfit was in ruins. His remaining dagger was somehow still in his hand. He had nothing else.
'Now. It has to be now.'
With fingers that were steadier than they had any right to be, he reached into the last surviving pouch on his belt and closed his hand around the Full Recovery Potion.
The amber liquid glowed quietly in the dark.
He drank it without hesitation.
The restoration was total—thorough in the way only a Full Recovery could be.
His body rebuilt itself completely, and as his full integrity returned.
Unfortunately, his Level couldn't climb with it.
He was still at Level 2.
Constantine rose to his feet and faced the Dark Ghost Hellhound. The Boss was already drawing breath again—that same deep, subterranean pull that preceded another blast.
He waited.
This was the detail the game had never explicitly taught, but that ten years of repetition had carved into the back of his mind: after two consecutive blasts, the Dark Ghost Hellhound always paused. The recovery window lasted approximately three seconds. During those three seconds, its neck extended, its guard dropped entirely, and it was vulnerable in a way it simply wasn't at any other point in the fight.
The second blast tore apart the far wall of the cavern.
Constantine was already pressed against the side of the room, braced, counting.
One.
He stepped forward.
Two.
He broke into a run, using a slab of broken stone as a platform to gain height.
Three.
He drove his last dagger into the base of the neck, just below the skull, with every ounce of force his body could produce.
The Dark Ghost Hellhound shuddered.
Its legs buckled slowly, the way something enormous and powerful always falls—gradually, then all at once.
Then it collapsed.
The crash of its body against the cavern floor was the single loudest thing Constantine had experienced in this world.
Then silence.
[You Have Leveled Up!] [You Have Leveled Up!] [You Have Leveled Up!] [You Have Leveled Up!] [You Have Leveled Up!] [You Have Leveled Up!] [You Have Leveled Up!] [You Have Leveled Up!] [You Have Leveled Up!] [You Have Leveled Up!] [You Have Leveled Up!] [You Have Leveled Up!] [You Have Leveled Up!] [You Have Leveled Up!] [You Have Leveled Up!] [You Have Leveled Up!] [You Have Leveled Up!] [You Have Leveled Up!] [You Have Leveled Up!]
He counted every single one.
Level 21.
The floor around the fallen Boss glittered with drops—a set of armor that gleamed with faint blue light, a weapon that pulsed softly with some energy he hadn't seen before, and several Gem pouches heavy enough to see from a distance.
Surrounding them were the smaller hauls from the Ghost Hellhounds and a scattering of drops from the Hellhounds themselves.
'Looks like my efforts weren't wasted…'
Constantine stood over all of it in silence. Although it was a little too early into the game, he had actually managed to clear the first Boss of the Dungeon of Greed.
The crooked grin that spread across his pale face was not the composed expression of someone who had done something efficiently. It was the half-delirious grin of someone still standing when they had absolutely no business being upright.
"Haha!" A crazy, loud burst of laughter echoed in the ruined cavern. "Hahahahahaha!!!"
He turned to the System's panel.
"I'm still alive…" he said quietly.
Then louder, with a sharp, unhinged laugh that bounced off every wall in the silent cavern.
"I'm still alive, you bastard!"
[System Notice]
{…}