Chen Nian’s POV

I breathed a sigh of relief as I re-sheathed my sword. I completely forgot that Elise was there. Just as I re-sheathed the blade, another system message popped up.

[System message

Player has encountered hidden boss: ‘Goblin lord’. All exits have been sealed. Preparation time: 60 seconds]

F*ck. How could I have forgotten about the hidden spawn condition for the hidden boss. Summon conditions for boss ‘Goblin lord’: 1. If all goblins have been killed at a rate that exceeds 35 goblins per minute, ‘Goblin lord’ is a guaranteed spawn. 2. If above conditions have not been fulfilled, ‘Goblin lord’ has a 0.0000075% possibility to spawn.

There are a total of 568 goblins in this dungeon. I only took ten minutes to complete this dungeon. I killed the goblins at an average speed of 56.8 goblins per minute, without any rest or purposely waiting. I had way passed the threshold of 35 goblins per minute.

Luckily, there was a minute to rest before taking on the hidden boss.

‘Oi! Elise! Help me kill this hidden boss.’

She was panicking and trying to figure out a way to avoid this boss fight. Upon hearing my words, she turned her head to look at me, a shocked look on her face.

‘What!? Are you sure that you’re going to fight the hidden boss? I heard that the boss had once killed an elite company sent here from the capital!’

‘Well, it did. But there is no problem if you just follow my directions.’

‘B-but—’

‘The preparation time is ending. Just do it.’

Grabbing the blade, I got ready for it to spawn.

Nothing…

Nothing…

Then something. A huge goblin spawned out of thin air. It was about three metres tall, with an athletic body. It held a huge greatsword that had an attack damage of 1650. I was the developer— I would know. The sword would be able to one-shot players of my level with a graze, not to mention a direct hit.

However, the goblin lord has a fatal flaw. The attack’s damage comes from its weight, so it is almost impossible to swing quickly. The attacks are somewhat delayed, and it is difficult to stop once it has started swinging.

It swung its greatsword hard towards my direction. Blocking the attack was almost impossible, so I dodged to the side, and swung the katana. The blade dug into the goblin’s stomach, causing blood to spurt out. I estimate around 1.5% damage was dealt. It swung again in a 180 degrees half-moon slice. The attack was terribly inefficient, with a relatively slow swing, and a horizontal angle of attack. Making use of the disadvantages of using greatswords, I jumped backwards, avoiding the slash, and threw the triangular sword at its chest. Aiming for the head would expose an opening, so the chest will do. The triangular sword impaled him in the chest,

Another 2%.

It swung, and exposed an opening. I swung, and dealt between 2 and 1.5%.

After about thirty repetitions, I jumped back a full ten metres. The boss was at around 25% health, and therefore in a state called ‘red blood’, after how health bars tend to turn red when monsters were at a low health.

There was normally a change in attack pattern whenever a boss or hidden boss reaches red blood. In the case of this boss, red blood was at 25%, with another change in attack pattern at 5% hp. I prepared for its special attack.

It reeled up, and started spinning like a top, digging its heels into the floor, and swinging the sword around in a circular pattern.

‘Elise! Use a long ranged attack!’ The goblin started moving towards me. Since the sword Elise was using should be able to deal 20% damage should it hit the enemy, it should switch to the final attack pattern before it hit me.

Unexpectedly, the sword that Elise used hit the flat of the goblin’s greatsword, bouncing off of it weirdly. Its speed slowed down a lot, resulting in the sword shallowly stabbing into the goblin’s left shoulder.

‘The f*ck was that throw? F*ck, I’m dead now thanks to you.’ The attack probably barely did 5%, not to mention 20%!

The goblin stopped swinging just ten centimetres in front of me. I looked up and saw the goblin turn its head towards Elise.

‘Elise! OT! OT! Get the f*ck out of there!’ I shouted out, using the gaming terms that I always used when playing games. OT is the state after a player’s action or inaction resulted in a monster’s aggro being taken away from the intended target. If her attack had dealt 20% damage, I could just finish it with the final attack, so there is no problem. However, since she did more damage than me per attack, the monster’s aggro just switched onto her. Without any aggro drawing skills, there was almost no way that I could take the aggro back.

The goblin’s attack was interrupted, so it switched to the final attack pattern prematurely. It dashed forward at a speed that could be called teleportation. F*ck, I have no choice here.

I enhanced my AGI stat by 1000 times, while shortening the time to 1 second.

I moved in front of Elise in a time shorter than a blink of an eye. The attack that the goblin made was a vertical smash. The attack could not be blocked, and would one-shot everyone who got struck by it, regardless of VIT or DEF. I closed my eyes just before the blade hit me.