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"You're really planning to take it head-on?!"
Lili stared at the intense silver light gathered around Anos's hand and couldn't help twitching at the corner of her mouth.
At this point, she felt like maybe she should be thinking about how to run for her life.
A floor boss was usually about two levels stronger than the monsters on its floor. In the original course of events, Ais had essentially defeated a boss while fighting above her level.
But what Anos was about to face was a boss that had been strengthened even further.
High-level adventurers generally had skills like Hunter that gave them an advantage against monsters, so fighting monsters at their own level was usually manageable.
Elite enemies and bosses were a different story.
Those usually require teamwork.
As for Anos…
As long as he didn't use divine power inside the Dungeon and trigger a full-scale disaster, there was nothing here that would truly trouble him.
Unlike Lili, both Ais and Bell had already become something like half a fangirl and a full fangirl respectively. They trusted Anos almost unconditionally.
Compared to the previous floors, this one felt far more open.
In reality, it had been shaped that way to serve as a battlefield for the boss.
Very quickly, Anos and the others reached Udaeus's spawn point.
Sensing the arrival of adventurers, the ground split open, and a massive sword appeared, buried across the earth.
Udaeus's bone sword.
"Oh?"
Anos glanced at the enormous bone blade, then down at the silver magic sword in his own hand.
"GRAAAAAAH!"
A terrifying pressure swept through the entire floor, and the earth trembled beneath the awakening force.
Udaeus was about to emerge.
Anos gave the sword in his hand a light flick.
First Secret Sword: Rhino Strike.
The silver magic sword collided with the giant bone sword.
Among Anos's seven secret swords, Rhino Strike was the strongest in terms of single-point destructive force.
It was the ultimate anti-object technique, a blow focused entirely on shattering a single target.
Against a weapon reinforced by divine authority and empowered by Rhino Strike, the outcome was obvious.
Crack!
An ominous sound came from the bone sword.
In the next instant, the entire blade shattered into fragments and dust and right as that happened, Udaeus's boss intro had finally finished.
It was climbing up from the earth, ready to grasp its weapon.
Only to discover something very important.
Where the hell was its sword?
A floor boss might respawn without any memory of its previous death, but its combat instincts remained.
Udaeus knew, on some primal level, that it was supposed to have a massive sword suited to its body.
And yet now?
All that remained were broken fragments and powder.
"Pfft…"
At the sight of Udaeus's confused, slightly dumbfounded look, Lili couldn't help laughing.
For the first time, the monster didn't seem terrifying to her.
If anything, it looked almost a little pathetic.
"GRAAAAH!"
Realizing its weapon was gone, Udaeus let out a furious roar.
Though clearly thrown off, it still followed its instincts and launched an attack at the adventurer in front of it.
"Pointless."
Anos raised his sword slightly.
Third Secret Sword: Circle.
Udaeus swung its massive fist down with enough force to crush the little human in front of it.
Unfortunately, Anos was never some tiny insect.
He was a young dragon.
The moment Udaeus's giant fist collided with the silver blade, the flesh split apart and the arm twisted into an unnatural shape.
Third Secret Sword: Circle was designed for use against enemies whose raw power far exceeded one's own.
By receiving the enemy's strike on the blade and guiding the force through the body in a circular flow, the full impact could be redirected back at the attacker.
In simple terms, it was a parry technique.
Having taken the full brunt of its own monstrous strength, Udaeus's arm was effectively ruined for the moment. It hung at its side, limp and useless.
It was already beginning to regenerate, but for now, it had lost much of its threat.
"Anos… really is strong…"
Ais stared at his back.
For some reason, she felt like he looked slightly taller than he had yesterday.
And she wasn't imagining it.
Physically, Anos was only sixteen, and under the influence of the Ark's crimson sphere, his body was still rapidly developing.
Within two or three weeks, he would likely reach the eighteen-year-old body he originally should have had.
So a little visible growth each day wasn't strange.
"As expected of Anos."
Bell, already a full-fledged admirer, needed no explanation.
She admired him deeply. Sometimes the gap between them made her feel a little down, but whenever she saw him looking strong and brilliant like this, she became excited all over again.
For now, she hadn't developed the same inferiority complex she had in the original story.
As for Udaeus, after losing one arm, it froze for a moment, then gave in to raw beastly instinct and became even more violent.
"GRAAAAAAAH!"
Its roar shook the ground and sent waves of force crashing toward Anos.
"Doesn't matter, Time for you to go."
Anos smiled faintly.
Ittō Shura.
He tapped the ground and shot forward in an instant, circling around behind Udaeus as the roar swept past.
Duration of Ittō Shura activation: 0.1 seconds.
Anos didn't use Ittō Shura as a single burst mode.
He treated it like an instant activation technique that could be triggered repeatedly.
Sixty seconds were short if burned all at once.
But at 0.1 seconds per use, that meant six hundred activations.
That was a very different story.
Now standing behind Udaeus, Anos naturally had no intention of waiting for it to turn around.
Terrifying spiritual power gathered along the silver sword.
Spiritual power, cursed power, mana. In truth, these were all just different names for mystical energy across different worlds.
Aside from divine power, spiritual power remained the force Anos was most comfortable using. After all, it had been his primary power for years.
He exhaled slowly and raised the sword.
Ittō Shura.
Sixth Secret Sword: Poison Moth Blade.
A flash of sword light cut through the air.
Then Anos returned the weapon to its plain, unremarkable sheath.
Boom!
At the exact moment the sword slid home, Udaeus collapsed.
Its internal structure had been completely destroyed in an instant by Poison Moth Blade.
Armor meant nothing against it.
"All done."
Anos smiled as he walked back toward the three girls.
"If you still want to continue combat training, that's also possible."
Behind him, a massive formation appeared beneath Udaeus's body.
Six Paths: Extermination Formation!
A torrent of incomparably pure spiritual energy erupted.
Udaeus's flesh vanished instantly, and even its bones were consumed by the flood of power.
A real man never looks back at the explosion.
Because Anos only did things like this when he was absolutely certain of the result.
Six Paths Extermination Formation was the purest offensive formation he possessed.
Combined together, how could a boss at merely upper-devil level possibly survive?
Watching Anos return, Lili rubbed her eyes over and over.
That was it?
Was it over just like that?
She had been expecting some long, desperate boss battle, but it felt more like he had just stepped on a regular monster.
To Anos, it really was that insignificant. The monsters on earlier floors had been little more than cannon fodder. In his mind, only gods really qualified as boss-level opponents.
"Mhm."
Ais nodded, a little excited, and let out a relieved smile.
As expected, Anos was strong.
At the same time, her resolve to learn from him only deepened. If she could truly master those sword techniques, then she would have a far better chance of reaching her goal.
"I want to keep training a little longer."
Her voice was slightly louder than usual.
"No, You can't."
Thunk!
Anos immediately tapped her on the head with a hand chop, and Ais dropped into a crouch, clutching her head.
"Why?"
She looked up at him with a faintly aggrieved expression.
"You really don't pay attention to your own condition, do you? Training isn't about pushing your body until it breaks, It's about practicing in the best possible condition so the training itself can be as effective as possible."
That was Anos's answer.
"Mm… mm…"
A few seconds later, Ais nodded thoughtfully.
For some reason, she felt a warm current moving through her body.
People cared about her all the time. Her familia practically fussed over her like worried parents.
But she had never felt this kind of warmth from it before.
Why did it only feel this way when she was with Anos?
Ais was curious.
But out of a young girl's shyness, and perhaps because some part of her didn't want anyone else to know about this feeling yet, she had no intention of telling anyone.
"So… we're going back now?"
Hearing Anos refuse Ais's request, Lili brightened immediately.
She truly wanted to return to the safe upper world and stop living with her heart in her throat every second.
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~Support with 300 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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For early access to advanced chapters on P-atreon:
P-atreon/iamxeno
(Just remove the - hyphen to access normally)
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