CHAPTER 116: THE BOSS MONSTER

He extended his hand and swiped through the air. The moment his palm brushed the blue glow, the key dissolved instantly into motes of light.

A crisp notification appeared before him:

[First Floor Key Equipped!]

Riley nodded slowly, satisfaction gleaming in his dark eyes. "It’s time," he whispered, almost to himself.

He knew exactly what this meant.

There were five keys scattered across the first floor of the Forgotten Depths. Five keys — five chances to reach the hidden boss room.

But not all of them were easy to obtain.

The others were located at the far corners of the floor, buried deep within labyrinthine tunnels swarming with monsters.

Dozens guarded them. Hundreds, in some cases.

Anyone foolish enough to attempt those paths would either waste all their strength fighting endless waves of beasts or die before they ever touched the glowing fragments.

But this one?

This was different.

This was the only key not being guarded by anything at all.

A free path. A hidden route. A secret only a handful of players ever discovered.

And Riley knew about it — because of his past life.

He remembered vividly.

A single player had stumbled upon this hidden corridor, completely by accident.

He had found the blue key just like Riley did now.

That man had managed to unlock the boss room and enter, but his strength was lacking. He was nowhere near powerful enough to stand against what waited inside.

He died in less than a minute, his screams echoing in the hall until silence claimed him.

Riley remembered the chatter that followed afterward.

That player’s friends had talked about it openly after his death, voices filled with awe and regret.

That was the first time Riley had heard of this secret route — long after it was too late for him.

He had been jealous then. Bitter.

Not because the man had died, but because to Riley, dying at the hands of a dungeon boss was still better than what he had endured under Bree’s control.

A faint laugh escaped his lips at the memory, low and humorless.

Now, however, things were different.

This time, the key wasn’t wasted.

This time, the path forward belonged to him.

And unlike that fool, he wasn’t too weak to walk it.

Riley clenched his fists slightly, daggers still hidden within his storage ring. His smirk lingered as his gaze swept forward through the glowing tunnel.

A faint shimmer pulsed in the air before him, and then a notification appeared.

[Would you like to use the First Floor Key to enter the Boss Room?]

[Yes/No]

The glowing blue words lingered in the dim cavern, floating just above his vision.

Riley’s lips curved into a faint smirk, though his gaze hardened at the prompt.

His fingers flexed slightly at his sides. He could almost feel the weight of the decision hanging in the still dungeon air.

For a moment, he simply stood there, the only sound in the tunnel being his steady, calm breaths.

His eyes narrowed slightly, not in hesitation from fear—but from the subtle, sharp awareness that once he accepted, there would be no turning back until the fight was done.

Boss rooms were sealed spaces, which players couldn’t just enter and exit whenever they wished.

One would have to first defeat the boss before they were given the option to leave the room.

The only other way was by death.

His hand slowly rose, index finger hovering over the faint blue glow. Then, without any more delay, he tapped.

"Yes."

The instant he did, his body was swallowed in a burst of blue light.

The world around him folded in on itself, the tunnel collapsing in spirals of luminous particles.

His vision twisted violently, spinning, flipping, until it felt as though he were being dragged through a vortex between two worlds.

When the spinning ended, he staggered forward half a step, boots grinding against solid stone.

His vision cleared, and he found himself standing in another place entirely.

A new notification blinked briefly in the corner of his vision, but he ignored it. Instead, his eyes lifted to take in the sheer scale of where he was.

The boss room.

It was massive—an enormous rocky field that stretched farther than his sharpened eyes could fully trace.

The ground was jagged in some areas, smoother in others, as if worn down by centuries of shifting weight and pressure.

The air was thick and heavy, filled with a faint mineral tang that clung to the back of his throat.

But what stood out the most were the crystals.

All across the wide cavern, colossal shards of crystal jutted out of the earth and walls like spears driven into flesh.

They glittered brilliantly, each one glowing faintly with its own hue.

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet—the full spectrum of the rainbow was carved into the cavern in radiant stone.

The colors refracted faintly across the rocky floor, casting strange shadows and shimmering glows that made the entire field look otherworldly, almost sacred.

Some of the crystals were no taller than him, clustered near the edges of the chamber like ornaments.

Others, however, loomed like towers, jagged peaks of colored glass that reached upward to the unseen ceiling above.

The mixture of sharpness and beauty was both unsettling and breathtaking, a sight that might have drawn awe from someone else.

Riley’s expression didn’t change much.

He simply let his sharp eyes glide over the scenery. His smirk tugged a little wider at the corner of his mouth.

Aside from the endless crystals and rocks, the cavern was empty.

There was no roar shaking the ground. No footsteps trembling the earth. Not a single movement to be seen.

The boss was nowhere in sight.

Riley’s gaze lingered on the wide field for several moments, and then his eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

His head tilted, and a low, amused breath slipped past his lips.

"Hah."

It was a quiet chuckle, but it echoed faintly against the walls of the vast chamber.

He had noticed something.

On the far end of the cavern, a particular cluster of crystals stood out from the rest.

While all the others glowed faintly with soft, steady light, this section shimmered slightly more, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat.

The glow wasn’t bright enough for an average player to notice—not in a space so vast and filled with distraction.

But Riley’s sharpened vision, heightened by his class, made it clear as day.

His smirk curved into a sharper grin, dark amusement flickering in his eyes.

"To think the boss monster is still asleep..." he thought to himself, low laughter rumbling in his throat.

It was almost comical. In another life, in another time, players had entered this very chamber trembling, terrified, waiting for the beast to descend upon them.

Yet here it was now—slumbering, hidden, vulnerable.

Riley took a single step forward, his boots crunching lightly against the crystalline dust scattered across the floor.

His body moved with absolute calm, unhurried and steady, as though he already owned the space.

His daggers materialized in his hands, summoned from his storage ring with a single thought.

His grip tightened, and his eyes flashed with a predatory sharpness.

Muscles coiled, he bent forward, ready to lunge straight at the faintly glowing section of the wall where the beast slumbered.

But just as his foot shifted to propel him forward, the ground itself betrayed his intent.

Rumble!

The earth trembled beneath his boots, faint at first, then building into a low, shuddering vibration that crawled up his legs.

Riley froze, daggers poised, gaze snapping toward the disturbance.

A guttural growl ripped through the air, so deep it rattled his chest.

The sound was primal, thick with malice and power. It echoed across the rocky chamber, bouncing against the rainbow-colored crystals that jutted like jagged teeth from the ground and walls.

The rocks a few meters away shivered violently, dust shaking loose as though something massive stirred just behind them.

Grrrrrrrhhhhh!

Another growl followed, louder this time. The crystals embedded in the walls flared in response, casting brighter light into the boss chamber.

The colors blended—red, blue, green, yellow, violet, orange, and indigo—bleeding into one another until the cavern looked like a fractured prism swallowing light and spitting it back out.

Riley’s gaze locked forward, expression narrowing.

The rocks shifted again, this time parting slightly, until something alien yet unmistakably alive revealed itself.

A pair of burning, crimson eyes pierced through the cracks.

The sight was enough to silence even the echoes of the growls. For a single heartbeat, nothing moved. Nothing breathed.

Only those two glowing orbs glared at Riley, red and alive, sharp enough to stab into his very soul.

Then, with a deafening crack, the rocks scattered outward as though hurled by some invisible force.

The boss monster emerged.

It rose slowly, deliberately, towering until its full bulk dominated the chamber.

It was massive—three meters tall, broad and imposing, every inch of its monstrous frame radiating menace.

Its body was boar-like in shape, thick-limbed and heavyset, but it was no ordinary beast.

Shiny, crystalline plates layered over its hide, each shard catching the rainbow light and refracting it until the monster shimmered like a moving gemstone statue.

Its head was jagged with protruding crystal growths, its tusks curved and razor sharp, glowing faintly with a reddish tint.

Only its eyes, molten red and alive, were free of crystal. Those burning orbs glared directly at Riley.

Even its hooves weren’t flesh—they were crystal too, jagged and sharp, slamming against the rocky floor with a weight that sent shockwaves through the chamber.

BOOM!