The giant ground bat reached the entrance to the room that its echolocation and sense of smell told it that the multi-legged metal enemy was hiding in. At first, it wandered into the massive room without a care in the world, actively ignoring anything that was not its target, but as it got deeper in, it felt… weird.

And not weird in a good way, but weird in a very, very, bad way. It could not read the faded writing on the objects around itself, though that was both due to its own poor eyesight as well as its lack of understanding of any language other than generic bat noises, and it could not understand the many varied symbols that still remained around the place either.

What it did understand was that the area it was in was obscenely dangerous, though it still could not understand why it knew that nor why it felt that its life was in mortal danger simply being staying in this massive room. Regardless, it had a mission to accomplish, though it for the life of itself could not and would not understand why it was so dead set on killing its target.

Of course, its primitive animal mind didn’t exactly help with the higher reasoning needed to understand that it was doing all of this despite not needing to, but then again, it was a virtual entity created to give Players a decent challenge, so maybe expecting it to be able to reason properly was a bit of a stretch. After all, real people already had issues regarding philosophy and its effects on the minds of people who “knew too much”, so giving a virtual being the ability to realize that it was just a cog in a machine was a recipe for disaster.

Despite all of this and despite the clear danger it knew it was in, the creature pressed onwards, clambering over random junk that was in its way as it tried to reach the object of its pre-programmed hatred. However, it should have instead tried to take the long way around, as when its forelimb pressed down on an unassuming pile of materials…

BOOM!

…

Thomas smirked as he heard the blast from inside his War Suit. He didn’t have visual sight on the explosion nor the creature that had caused it, but he could imagine the event and its aftermath.

Having placed an anti-vehicle landmine on top of a few extra pounds of generic high explosives would have been nasty enough, as the blast from the mine would have set the extra explosives off as well, but he had gone a little bit further than that. No, he had placed the mine and the extra explosives underneath a few bits and bobs, and then tipped a barrel of highly radioactive fluid onto his trap.

If the shrapnel from the numerous metal pieces and the pressure from the blast didn’t do enough lasting damage, the fact that radioactive material now likely covered the open wound of the Dungeon Boss would certainly cause a nasty bit of trauma. And, if his hunch was correct, when the creature inevitably regenerated from that, the goo and metal pieces would be left behind inside the creature’s body, which would only make the next set of traps all the more devastating.

As he didn’t have a line of sight on the creature and it was too far away for his sensors to give him much, if any, data, he had no idea if his tactics had begun to pay off already. He just had to wait and see if the beast made it any further in, or if it wisely decided to cut its losses and bail.

Although, based on the actions of all the other animal mobs he had faced up till this point, he would hazard a guess that the creature would just keep coming after him until either he or it was dead.

“It’s like dealing with a dumb-as-fuck Slasher Villain…” Thomas said jovially but with a bit of amazement, “One that can be killed by anyone with a lick of common sense and time to prepare.”

…

If it could even make a thought that would be understandable to a human, the one thing that would be going through the creature’s mind right now would be the words, “Huh… well, that happened, I guess…”

Perhaps out of the instinctual knowledge that it could regenerate from nearly any wound, no matter how grievous, or perhaps due to its simple mind, or perhaps due to its complete lack of pain or maybe its utter lack of understanding that it was now sans most of one of its limbs, the creature merely waddled onwards as if all it had lost was a slightly faster way to travel.

Its regenerative factor kicked into action the moment the first bit of damage was dealt, but it still would need a few tens of seconds before it fully repaired itself from the damage it had taken. The bone grew back quickly enough, with the rest of the flesh and other bits following along at a remarkable pace, but something was different about its regeneration this time.

As its limb regrew along with a decent portion of its underside and face, the creature stopped its movement and cocked its head to the side as if it was pondering something. Of course, it had a brain just barely big and complex enough to get it to move around and attack things, but not truly big or complex enough for it to realize that the regrowth was most definitely not the way it should have been.

Doting the interior and exterior of its flesh were numerous small (by its standards) tumors, and the bone that had regrown had bits and pieces jutting out at odd angles as though what had grown was a calcified version of a tree root. In fact, the bone regrowth was so odd that there were some places where there was no flesh coving it, leaving it exposed to the elements.

Though it could barely string together more than a few simple animalistic thoughts of its own, the creature did at least partially realize that something was off, though it could not figure out what was off. Either way, it resumed its journey across a trap-strewn field of trash, scrap materials, fallen reinforced concrete, and a whole lot of hazardous materials, utterly unable to realize that the smarter option (and the one that would have ensured its survival at least temporarily) would have been to turn around and run away.