The next chamber was absolutely massive. Nearly a hundred yards across, it was a perfect hexagon with two rings of pillars. In the center of the room was a large portal glowing red. Oddly, there were no guards to be seen. Shrugging, I headed forward slowly, making sure I checked for traps. Finding none, I found my way down to the portal. Placing my hand on the doorway, I looked at the system popup.

Portal to final level

Warning, you have only activated a portion of the final portal. Accessing the final boss will result in a weaker boss and subsequently lesser rewards. Evolution options will not be affected.

“Well, I was going to clear out the bosses anyway. Let’s see what we have left.” I headed back to the fire door, and worked clockwise to see what the options were. Earth, shadow, water, air, then light before coming back to fire. “Let’s see what earth has in store for us.” I said as I entered the door. I figured this would be the one able to withstand the most punishment, and if I could take it down then I would likely be able to finish the others by myself as well.

I fully expected to find another arena awaiting me, but it seemed like the dungeon wasn’t going to be doing anything other than playing to the strengths of the bosses it was throwing at challengers. I found myself in a large cave with absolutely no cover, though the ceiling was covered in stalactites. Across the way was a golem that resembled a massive gorilla. Its forearms were as thick as two people, and the outer edges were sharpened to give any backhands added damage. I barely came up to this thing’s elbows, and it was covered in a heavy rock armor.

“Greetings challenger.” It rumbled as it stepped forward. “Are you here to challenge my might?”

“I am.” I said. “Unless you want to just hand over your mark?”

Instead of answering, the thing started to charge at me. “Featherlight.” I cast a spell at it, hoping to do the same thing as I did to the centaur, only to watch in disbelief as my spell simply bounced off. I took off to my left, hoping that I could move faster than the ape could corner as I tried to come up with a new plan. “Right, well if that won’t work, try this. Plasma blast!” I launched a concentrated blast of fire towards him, which he blocked with his forearms. Perfect. I kept it up, watching as my mana dropped by a third. His arm was glowing a bright red, almost white when I switched it up.

“Snowmelt tears down the mountain, deceptive in temperature. Frigid Deluge!” The flame switched to water that was just shy of freezing, and as soon as it came into contact with the heated stone, it shattered in an explosion of shards and steam. The golem roared in anger as one arm shattered, while the second was splintered with cracks.

“Abrasive water cutter.” I started closing the distance, trusting that it couldn’t move nearly as fast without one arm. While I did so, I targeted his remaining arm with a high powered blast of sand and water, hoping to wear away the cracks and further weaken the armor. It wasn’t the fastest at blasting away the armor, but it also wasn’t as mana intensive as my first attack.

I got about fifteen feet away before the guardian did something unexpected. I felt a bit of rumble in my chest, but had disregared it until I noticed that the golem was glowing with a greenish brown light. It raised its remaining arm over its head before slamming it down, roaring as it did so. The entire cave started rumbling, and I immediately created an antigravity well above me and a vortex shield above that. My instincts were right, as stalactites started falling from the ceiling. I did notice that the move cost the cracking on the remaining arm to increase, so the golem couldn’t do this move very often.

As the rumbling ceased, I kept one eye above me to make sure I wasn’t in danger while the other was on the boss. As the danger from above dropped, I noticed the boss was moving toward a fallen stalactite. “Hydro blast.” I used a lower powered spray to coat him and the ground with water, then followed it up with a blast of cold to freeze it. “Arctic blast.” I didn’t know what he wanted to do with the stone, but if it was going to be a ranged weapon for him or a way to heal himself, either way it was bad for me. The ice further weakened the cracks in his arms, and the slick floor caused it to slip around and fall on its side. A quick check of my mana showed I had about a quarter left. The guardian had stopped trying to regain its feet, and was instead using the arm to slowly pull itself forward.

“Damnit.” I muttered, taking stock of my options. I could close the range, but it still had a functioning arm that could easily damage me as well as other skills it could unleash. I couldn’t use the flame attack, as that would melt the ice preventing it from regaining its feet. I used telekinesis to grab the stalactite he was moving toward, bringing it closer to me. Two others were close enough to grab, and a bit of stone manipulation managed to form them into a rather large cone.

“Featherlight. Telekinesis. Gravity well.” Three spells combined to bring the bottom of the cone directly above the floundering ape. “Leadweight. Gravity well.” I cancelled the first three and switched to a gravity well below the ape. The makeshift hammer smashed into the golem with terrifying force, shattering the stalactites and sending razor sharp shards of rock everywhere.

“GAH!” I cried out in pain as one the size of a baseball slammed into my already sore shoulder, the one that had slammed into the wall in the floor above me. “Damnit, think Sean! You have to keep a shield up for things like that.” I chastised myself as I took in the results. The stalactites were shattered, but even more importantly there weren’t any really large pieces left. The best news was that the ape had tried to regain his footing, and the attack had shattered his remaining arm and cracked the plating on its back. It looked really pitiful as it could only push itself forward using its legs. I climbed onto its back, and used an overpowered stone lance to shatter the last of its armor and put it out of its misery. Unfortunately, this attack cracked the core and left me with a bit lower quality loot, but that was fine. I was more interested in the Mark of the Stone Guardian. Two down, four to go. I headed back to the main room to rest for a half hour and let my mana regenerate. While I did so, I noticed that the portal in the center was now a combination of red and brown swirling in the middle.

Mana full, I decided to keep going around the room like I had been and headed toward the shadow door. Pausing just outside it, I gave a thought to what I would find within. I didn’t get much information from the fire guardian, but looking back it was definitely the type to go for damage above all. The earth guardian would use its armor to tank damage while it got within range, then use its superior strength to deliver devastating blows. Using that logic, I needed to gear up for a battle where my enemy was hard to pin down. Sneak attacks would be the order of the day, so I was going to have to keep mana detection up at all times. I created a small sun, and set it to hovering above my head as I walked through the doorway. If nothing else, it would have to enter the light to attack me.

The room I entered was, unsurprisingly, pitch black. The floor gave no reflection, neither did any of the oddly shaped formations. They seemingly burst out of the floor at random locations, and no two had the same shape. Many tried to be a contradiction. While looking at small portions of the spindly parts, you could see that they would split in random directions. However, backing off revealed that the spindly parts seemed to swirl in one direction overall. This contradiction made it hurt to look at, and also made it seem like they were moving. Larger constructs would have parts in the middle that were clusters of incredibly thin bits, and the lack of a pattern to them made it seem like things were moving as you passed it. Shadows would combine to form strange shapes that tickled the mind.

“Ah, so brave to have come to my den all alone. Or maybe it is a fool? For it has declared where it is with such a vicious little light.” The breathy voice of the guardian seemed to come from multiple directions, sometimes even changing mid-word. I tried to dodge the flash of shadow out of the corner of my eye, but it still managed to draw a burning line along my cheek. Though from the shriek, the shadow had taken a bit of damage as well.

“Oh little mage, brimming with such wondrous power. We shall enjoy draining you again and again for our pleasure.” The shadows hissed.

“Others have tried. What makes you think you will succeed?” I asked, sending a surge of magic into the light to cause it to flash. The shadows shrieked, and I saw several small bits scurry out of the receding light, smoking the entire time. “Do you not think I can light up this entire cavern? Flamethrower.” I sent a streak of flame from my left hand, spinning slightly as I did so. Several creatures shied away from the light and flame, though it didn’t hurt them like pure light did. Something about some of the creatures seemed familiar though.

“Hehehe, yesssss.” The shadows hissed. “Faster than the others, but still slow. The prey catches on.”

“Trying to take things from my mind to make me afraid? I haven’t been afraid of the dark for a very long time.” I countered, sending another half-hearted burst of flame towards the clicking of claws on stone behind me.

“Not the dark, but shadowsssssss.” The voices hissed. “So many things to be afraid of, lurking in the shadows. Far more than most who come, and carrying such powerful horrors. Xenomorphs to hunt you in the night. Demons to claim your soul, bringing forth fell magics to claim your children. Ah, even those meant to bring joy can become horrors of the shadows! Isn’t that right Georgie?”

“gaaaaAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!” I shrieked when I saw a red balloon emerge, sending an overpowered jet of plasma to part the darkness. It melted a portion of a fixture, and I didn’t even bother trying to find out what it looked like. I was just glad it was gone.

“Oh my, such delicious terror!” The shadows cried, delighted. I kept turning, trying to get a fix on where the damned thing was, but my thundering heart was giving me issues. I froze when a small figure walked out of the shadows.

“Do you want to have a tea party?” It asked. Why a fucking porcelain doll? Stringy hair, an overly pale face that seemed to glow in the darkness. Black eyes that were just a bit too big, and all pupil surrounded by thin dark lines and a lipless mouth turned into a creepy facsimile of a smile. “Maybe we should play doctor. You don’t seem well.” It said, taking another step towards me. The multi-layered dress morphed into a pair of green scrubs. Suddenly it froze, it’s head the only thing that moved as it spun to look off to the side.

*click* *click* *click* *click* *click*

Each click was the head slowly turning back to look directly at me as it pulled a scalpel out of nowhere. “They’re right. We may have to operate.” I grabbed the creepy thing with telekinesis and slammed it into the ground several times. Panting, I watched in horror as the arm raised and slashed through my magic with the scalpel lined in darkness.

“Tee hee, your magic is delicious.” It tittered at me as it sat up, and it seemed to be just a bit bigger than it was before.

“Stone lance!” I shrieked, smashing the abomination with a spell. The body was flung out of the circle of light, but the laughter was repeated from several directions. “Let fire reign, and turn all to ash. FIRESTORM!” I spun in place, blasting out flamethrower type spells from both of my hands. Up, down, around. Flickering shadows of all shapes and sizes danced around the flames, taunting me. All except for one area. I almost missed it, but there! That shadow moved in front of the flames to block it! Weakness!

“Gravity well.” I stopped the flames and created a powerful gravity well near what the shadows were protecting. “Now that I have your attention, let’s have a bit of light. Solar orb.” I added a bit of light and heat magic, and revealed the golem core struggling to avoid being pulled into the gravity well. There was a shield of shadow between the core and the new light, but the rest of the core was covered in dark hands that shifted to best control the shadows flitting around the room. As the shadow shield slowly burned away, I got an idea on how to overwhelm them without them knowing what I was up to.

“Allow me to give you a bit of a lesson.” I said, increasing the size of my normal orb. “Most don’t know this, but stars start out fusing hydrogen into helium. This generates a lot of heat, pushing out against gravity.”

“Your point?” The shadows hissed in anger.

“Ah, ah ah.” I shook my finger at him. “Don’t interrupt the teacher. Now, helium collects in the core, and as the fusion drops, the core gets crushed, generating heat. Eventually, there is enough for helium to fuse into carbon.” As I spoke, the sun that had slowly been shrinking flared back to life, though just a bit smaller. “This keeps the star going, but each time a new core flares into fusion, a bit less energy is released.” I kept explaining, watching as the orb flared a little less each time. “Until iron. Much like the fey, iron is the death knell of stars. See, when you fuse iron, you lose energy. Do you know what that means?” I asked, and got no reply. The shadows were slowing down, as if they were enthralled with the explanation. “Gravity wins. Within a fraction of a second, the core is crushed. Crushed beyond most comprehension. Crushed so powerfully, the separate bits of atoms are forced into fusing, until gravity can no longer crush it further. Everything falling after the core bounces off it, and is propelled even faster by products of the core’s transformation being expelled. In the end, we have one of the brightest events ever. Supernova!” The orb exploded in fire and light, completely shredding the shadows. The entire time I had slowly been backing away, ensuring that I was out of range of the majority of the destruction.

When I turned back, still trying to blink away the afterimage of such a bright light, I noticed that the light I had conjured earlier was no longer being suppressed. Instead I could see the majority of the room, including the mangled pieces of shadow that were next to the core. Wincing at the continued mana drain, I headed over to loot the corpse. I stuffed it all into my inventory for now, before making a quick trip around the room looking for hidden spaces. Surely shadow, of all the bosses, would be the one hiding something good? Unfortunately, I either lacked the skill or they didn’t have any secrets. I headed outside and dropped the light, deciding that I was going to take an hour break before heading to the next boss. It was more than enough to recover my mana, but I was starting to get a bit fatigued.