The Tower Guardian didn’t dash into battle. She obviously could; her body looked strong and fast, even with all the armor. But she didn’t. She simply walked toward me, staff glowing so brightly the rest of the empty room felt dark. It reminded me of the Eyes of Perfection, but with a less hypnotic pattern.

  Then the lasers started.

  The Eyes of Perfection’s massive barrage had been nothing compared to the tsunami of lasers crashing into us. I braced myself behind my hammer and pauldron, trying to soak as many hits with my armor as I could. It felt like the bombardment was endless, and my leg and hair both burned from the laser impacts; all I could do was shut my eyes and look away.

  When it finally stopped, Tori was already casting. Whatever she was trying to land, though, it didn’t seem to be working. “Resisted? What the hell!” she shouted from behind me.

  The moment it did, I pulled a bomb from my inventory—one of the acid ones—and slung it toward the boss. It activated mid-air, splashing battery acid across the ceramic-looking armor. I was already charging. The Trip-Hammer revved. I activated the Autoplate Pauldron. Then I swung.

  I expected to hear shattering porcelain.

  Instead, the massive blow stopped like I’d hit a forcefield. The Trip-Hammer tried to rev through the impact, and vibrations rippled down my arm. I cut the hammer off as it strained against the metal; too much torque, and I could snap the hammer—or my fingers—in half. Then the boss swung the staff in an arc that ended when it hit me. Something snapped in my chest, but I didn’t feel pain. Was it armor? A strap for the pauldron?

  There wasn’t time to find out. I backpedaled on one and hand my feet, crabwalking away while dragging the hammer. The staff slammed into the ground a moment later; I rolled to my feet and started running.

  Behind me, near the door, Tori cast another spell. This one slammed into the boss’s leg, but instead of slowing her, it seemed to have no impact.

  We needed to change tactics. “Ideas?” I yelled.

  “You’re the strategy guy!” she shouted back. I was too busy dodging and trying to get hits in against the Tower Guardian to answer. “It’s a kite fight, Hal. Gotta keep moving and let the ranged DPS do their job!”

  “You’re not hurting her either,” I muttered under my breath. She was right, though; I couldn’t square up with the Tower Guardian. She wasn’t Ursa Prime Round Two. If anything, this felt a lot closer to the first time we’d fought the Queen Tyrant.

  I swung the hammer one more time, just in case this was the hit that broke through. In return, I got nothing but shaking and pain up and down my arm.

  Then I ran.

  I easily outpaced the Tower Guardian, who seemed content to move slowly. Her staff glowed again, and I threw myself behind a pillar. Tori had put a bomb on this one; she joined me a second later.

  This time, the barrage didn’t stop. We were pinned, and the heat on the pillar’s far side was building; if it got too hot, my bomb would go off prematurely. “Gotta do something!” I shouted over the magical laser barrage and hissing, steaming concrete. “I’m gonna throw a bomb! Push it at the boss!”

  “Got it!” Tori said. She readied her spell.

  I braced myself, then tossed the bomb into the hall. Tori Pushed it perfectly, and a second later, the magical barrage stopped firing. The explosion wasn’t earthshaking, and I doubted we’d so much as scratched the boss’s armor.

  I stepped back into the hall.

  The boss looked fine. Her armor was singed, but not shattered. The staff wasn’t glowing anymore, though. I braced myself and dashed toward her, hammer revving. The staff flipped around and lashed toward me, but I’d already used the hammer’s haft to stop and turn. Concrete cracked and dust filled the air as her blow caught nothing but floor.

  By the time she recovered and stalked after me, I was already crossing the bomb line. Tori stood by the door, ready for her next spell. We just needed the boss a little closer…

  Three steps.

  Two.

  The Tower Guardian stopped.

  Her staff didn’t glow. There was no laser barrage. She just stopped—a single step from my ambush.

  “Come on. Come on,” I whispered, willing her to move. Nothing. Her staff began to glow again, and I got ready to dodge behind another pillar.

  Then Tori placed a pair of Gravity Wells under her feet.

  She staggered, then caught herself. It was just a couple of inches—not even a full step, but it was enough.

  I detonated the line of bombs all at once.

  The twin explosions sounded faint and muffled. For a second, I worried I’d built the bombs incorrectly—that these were duds. Then the pillars toppled, slowly at first, then building up speed. They slammed into the boss—or would have, but a barrier of pure wind appeared around the Tower Guardian, shoving both concrete beams aside. They crumpled to the ground as the Tower Guardian’s staff glowed.

  The first monster appeared a moment later.

  The Tower Guardian: Level Sixty-Five Elite Dungeon Boss (Rank One)

  Elite - This monster moves faster and hits harder than a similarly powerful monster.

  Myriad - This boss’s Elite state consists of innumerable members of a swarm, and will continue swarming until conditions change.

  The first monster gave me a half-second of pause.

  Rat Man: Level 3 Monster

  Then the Trip-Hammer smashed it into pulp.

  Individually, none of the Rat Men, Floor Mimics, or enraged monkeys and swarms of birds were a threat to either Tori or me. But the boss kept summoning more and more, and no matter how many I stopped with a Trip-Hammer swing or Tori Pushed across the hallway, some got by our line.

  Worse, the wind around the boss was so furious that my strongest blows only succeeded in nearly pulling my hammer from my grip—and that attempt to reach the boss only let a dozen Rat Men and a pair of Tigrillas rush Tori. She threw a pair of Gravity Wells to cover herself, and I doused the monsters in acid.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  But that wasn’t going to be enough. The Tower Guardian summoned a pair of skeletal pterodactyls next, and I didn’t have the firepower to stop them from reaching Tori.

  Neither of us did, and Tori knew it, too. She didn’t bother trying to Pull one of them, or to Crush them out of the sky. Instead, she raised her staff and gave me the Elite buff, pushing my level up by five and giving me the stats to match.

  I hit her with the Spellcode Scroll-Reader just as the first Pterodactyl dove toward her. It slammed into her and stopped like it had hit a brick wall. My Trip-Hammer crushed its bones, shattering splinters of stone across the room before it, too, bounced off Tori’s Stasis-protected body.

  Stasis - Two Minutes, Fifty-Six Seconds

  Elite - This Delver moves faster and hits harder than a similarly powerful Delver (Sixteen Seconds Remaining)

  I didn’t have time to waste; this was my second—and last—dose of the Elite buff. As the second Sky Hunter turned toward me, I pulled an acid bomb from my inventory and heaved it toward the stone-boned dinosaur. It started vaporizing, but even before it disappeared, two more dungeon monsters had taken its place.

  The Trip-Hammer tore through the swarm, but I needed to fight the Tower Guardian, and I couldn’t break its shield. I couldn’t even reach it. Even with the Elite buff, it was all I could do to keep my head above water. My extra Body points helped when a Knife Crab ripped into my calf, but after just a minute of fighting, I was covered in burns, bruises, and bleeding cuts.

  The boss. The boss was a factory, building brand-new, fresh-off-the-line monsters as fast as I could wreck them. I regretted locking Tori out of the fight, but between my armor and the damage I could put out, I could survive this.

  She couldn’t have. But I still needed her help.

  I really only had one option. I poured Charge into the next bomb and heaved it into a swarm of Macaques. Monkey parts and gore erupted as the shrapnel grenade went off, killing a half-dozen, and I watched the next wave emerge from the Tower Guardian’s shield.

  Tori would know what to do. She’d know how to beat this.

  But I didn’t. All I knew how to do was watch her timer tick down and set her up to survive when the Stasis fell off.

  My Elite buff faded, and I kept fighting.

  Bombs weren’t the answer.

  Neither was the Trip-Hammer.

  I’d been fighting the tide of monsters for two minutes and change, and hadn’t slowed the tide at all. The Tower Guardian still stood in her swirling wind shield, forming monster after monster out of nothing. It felt like she was toying with me.

  But I’d managed to move not only myself but all the dozens of half-dead and badly-wounded monsters on the battlefield as far away from Tori’s place at the door as I could.

  There was no way the Tower Guardian didn’t see what I was doing. She had to know the timer was expiring soon. What I couldn’t figure out was why she was falling for it, but I didn’t have time to care.

  I pulled a battery acid bomb from my inventory and doused a school of flying Bar Cutter fish in burning acid that ate through their scales and rained chunks of sushi on the assembled monsters. The Trip-Hammer smashed into the swarm, tearing skeletal limbs and crab armor apart. My chest burned as I sucked in a few acrid breaths. Smoke filled the air from burned-out enemies and explosives and even a half-dozen fires.

  The Trip-Hammer was starting to feel like dead weight in my hands. I’d been fighting for almost four minutes—counting the boss’s first phase—and I needed a breather.

  But this was going to work.

  Stasis - Three Seconds

  Tori hit the ground hard, leading with both knees. The impact sent a shockwave through her body and clacked her teeth together, but she kept her eyes open. Hal stood at the room’s far side, fighting an endless swarm of monsters; he didn’t have long before he lost.

  Part of her wanted to push him a little further, just to show him how stupid he’d been for locking her out of the fight. But the other part realized exactly what he’d done.

  By clearing the battlefield between the weird-looking Tower Guardian and her, Hal had opened the boss up to attack. She couldn’t hit the boss directly, of course; the wind shield was almost unbreakable, and if Hal hadn’t done it, it couldn’t be done. But she could direct her attacks against the shield itself and try to weaken or stop it.

  And so she did.

  She lined up one Crush, then another, and began squeezing the wind shield tighter and tighter, like a vise closing on a pipe. The boss turned toward her, and a single monster—this one a flaming bull the same as the ones they’d fought on the first floor—rushed her. It dropped a second later, a hole through its head, and began shimmering as it vanished.

  Tori didn’t wait to figure out what had killed it. She just kept squeezing. If she kept the Crush up, eventually, the balloon would pop.

  After just another second, it did, and the Tower Guardian stepped out.

  The Tower Guardian: Level Seventy Elite-Plus Dungeon Boss (Rank One)

  Elite-Plus - This monster moves faster and hits harder than a similarly powerful monster.

  Armored - This boss takes reduced damage from weapons designed to cut.

  Untouchable - This boss has increased speed and reflexes.

  Champion - This boss must be defeated, but not slain, in order to clear this dungeon.

  I readied the Trip-Hammer as the horde of monsters all vanished at once. The woman stepped away from the collapsing wind shield like Tori’s Crush spells weren’t even there, dropped the shattered remains of her staff, and drew her sword.

  We couldn’t kill her? That was ridiculous. How were we supposed to beat her if we couldn’t kill her?

  The boss moved. I raised the Trip-Hammer, but had no time to rev it before the single-edged sword-arm sliced across the axle I was still using as a handle. It didn’t leave a mark. The Trip-Hammer finally kicked on. The moment it did, the woman danced away from me. Her pauldrons’ vents scorched the pillar she ducked behind, and the Trip-Hammer tore a gash in the concrete, buit it was too late.

  She’d disappeared. “Tori, thoughts?”

  “I think—“ Before she could finish, the metal-armored woman barreled around the corner, straight at her. Tori dropped a Gravity Well at her own feet, then Pushed herself back, but not before a thin cut appeared on her cheek and shoulder. Blood seeped through her armor; I hadn’t even seen the sword lash out, only the wind and an afterimage.

  The Gravity Well grabbed the Tower Guardian for a split second, and I revved the Trip-Hammer and activated my own pauldron. It roared, twin hammers ripping the air, but when I swung it, the spikes only caught concrete and rippling air.

  This boss was fast.

  She didn’t hit hard. As three cuts opened across my arm, I at least had that. Tori Pushed her away from me before her blade could find something more vulnerable than my unarmored bicep, but we couldn’t get any hits in—not while she kept dodging and vanishing.

  “Bombs?” Tori asked.

  I shook my head. If I couldn’t catch her with the Trip-Hammer while she was on the attack, there was no way I could fast-ball an acid bomb into her. I whirled and swung my weapon, as much to create space as to get a hit in. The boss was already gone and over my head.

  Another cut opened up, this one across my back. Then Tori took a hit to her side, just below the ribcage. Considering the boss was Level Seventy, she sure didn’t hit hard at all. Maybe…maybe we could take advantage of that somehow.

  I lowered the Trip-Hammer. “Tori, we gotta try something different.”

  Then I waited. The Tower Guardian launched a furious attack on Tori, who survived, but not without a few more wounds. The one on her calf was most concerning, but I didn’t move a muscle, and Tori only Pushed herself away from the boss. She landed behind me.

  It felt a lot like Ursa Prime charging me, only instead of a Level Fifty boss, this one was Level Seventy and Rank One. I still didn’t move. I was way too busy. Every muscle was tightened like a spring, ready to fire. I just needed—

  The Tower Guardian appeared in front of me. Her sword flipped through the air, and just like when I’d fought Saul, I grabbed it with my gauntlet-covered hand. The upgraded Voltsmith’s Grasp held, and I squeezed down on the blade.

  Then I drained Charge with the gauntlet while at the same time pouring it right back into the boss. Orange lightning churned over the woman’s sword-arm while a thick black cloud that reeked of burning formed overhead. Both her pauldrons coughed and sputtered, then belched spurts of flame into the air.

  But I didn’t let up. I couldn’t let up. I only squeezed harder, even as I cycled Charge in and out of the Voltsmith’s Grasp. The blade cracked. Then it shattered into a thousand shards that glinted in the orange light.

  The boss jerked away, dancing even as her armor sputtered. Tori threw a double Gravity Well right in her path, and before she could avoid the trap, I aimed the railgun launcher and took two shots, burning through every ounce of Charge in my reserves.

  The Tower Guardian’s armor shattered at the knee. Orange charge poured out of the wound; I’d expected blood, and the sight threw me off, but I knew what I had to do. She was down. She couldn’t move or disappear. It was time to end this.

  Then her undamaged hand came up, and my vision went pure white. Pure white except for the words that appeared in front of me.

  Boss Defeated: The Tower Guardian

  Level Up! Fifty-Four to Fifty-Seven

  Dungeon Delvers who were not in the arena will receive fifty percent of your team’s experience.

  Patreon, if that's something you're craving! If you're not sure, you could also become a free member, and get access to one (1) chapter in advance!