CHAPTER 38: BOSS FIGHT

Ash and jessie were comfortably killing a beast with one shot every few seconds.

Ash was reaching the level 10 mark.

[Level 9]

[Exp - 3240/5000]

Jessie had already crossed the level 10 mark, and now the Exp she got from the beasts had also reduced by half.

The gap between the time of beasts emerging kept widening. Both rankers had gotten comfortable with the killing but they knew a crucial fight was still left.

The beasts stopped emerging making Jessie and Ash tense when suddenly all the frozen dust of the deceased beasts circled in a whirlwind, accumulating at one place.

The atmosphere grew colder, sending a chilling sensation down the spine.

Ash felt his senses tingling.

"Jessie—it’s time for the boss monster," Ash alerted her.

Standing up from the ground, he readied himself for the fight. His one leg was still numb, but Jessie had healed it to some extent. The life in his leg was returning, but he wasn’t fully healed.

The whirlwind of frozen dust spun tighter, the shards grinding against each other with an ear-splitting screech. From the swirling storm, a massive shadow moved upward, its bulk blotting out the crimson sky.

A serpentine form emerged—an Icebone Basilisk, its body stretching over twenty meters, each scale resembling a jagged shard of glacier glass. Veins of blue frost pulsed beneath its translucent hide, glowing faintly as if liquid winter itself ran through its veins.

Its head rose high, crowned with crystalline horns that branched like frozen antlers, and its eyes burned with a pale, soul-piercing light. Every hiss it exhaled released a fog that turned the air brittle, frosting the ground in seconds.

The air grew heavier, the crushing pressure of its presence alone making Ash’s grip on his revolver tighten.

The serpent’s tongue flickered, spraying mist, and when it spoke, it wasn’t with words, but with a low, bone-rattling hiss that reverberated through the dungeon walls.

Jessie’s breath caught. "That thing... it’s massive."

Ash smirked, forcing calm into his voice despite the tension crawling up his spine. "Good. Let’s see if my new skill is worth it."

Without wasting any moment, he shot a bullet that hit its translucent hide. Its lost eyes gleamed with newfound life as it turned toward Ash and Jessie.

A crystalline barrier appeared in front of the bullet, freezing it in the air, and then with a swirl, it fell down.

"Of course, not so easy" he muttered, firing multiple bullets.

The beast, facing the onslaught of attacks, hissed and released a mist of snow that covered its body in haze. As the mist reached Ash—he felt his hands growing numb. His whole body was getting heavy and stiff.

His eyes darted toward Jessie, who was protected from the cold mist, and her eyes were shooting coldly. The suppressing aura of a D-rank was hard to fend off as an E-ranker, but now she stood on the same pedestal as a D-rank. Her hands tightened around the staff.

A majestic scene unfolded as the dragon of flames fell down, splitting into thousands of equal parts and pouring down. It was raining fire.

The cold mist was burned away by the hellish fire.

The barrier was broken by the bullets, so the drops of magma fell on the Basilisk.

There was no damage on basilisk’s body since splitting the Dragon Flame into small parts had reduced its attack power on a single target.

But the challenge had ignited something deeper in its mind. The long tail fell on the ground like a huge hammer.

The ground cracked as the Basilisk’s tail slammed down, sending jagged shards of ice bursting outward like shrapnel. Ash rolled aside, his half-numb leg screaming in protest. He aimed mid-roll, shooting three quick shots at the serpent’s glowing veins.

Ping. Ping. Ping.

The bullets pierced but failed to move forward, as if the veins themselves were shielded. The impacts left spiderweb cracks in the crystalline hide.

"Jessie—its body’s too damn thick!" Ash gritted his teeth, forcing himself up.

The Basilisk hissed, its maw opening wide. A spiral of freezing wind began to gather, snow and frost converging into its throat like a miniature blizzard preparing to erupt.

Jessie’s eyes widened. "It’s charging something—Ash, move!"

Ash dived just as the beast unleashed its Frost Torrent—a beam of condensed cold that tore through the cavern, freezing stone pillars into brittle sculptures that shattered an instant later. The edges of Ash’s coat crystallized, frost creeping along the fabric.

Jessie’s staff burned with determination as she slammed it down. A fiery dome burst around Ash just as the lingering cold would’ve swallowed him whole. The ice on his coat melted into steam.

She gritted her teeth, her voice sharp. "It’s not just shielded—it’s regenerating! Look at its scales!"

Ash’s gaze followed her words. Sure enough, where bullets had cracked the serpent’s hide, the glowing frost veins pulsed brighter and the damage sealed itself in seconds.

"Then brute force isn’t enough—or perhaps little brute force wasn’t enough."

The Basilisk lunged suddenly, its jaws snapping with a crack of frozen fangs. Ash barely managed to dodge, but the beast’s passing body whipped up an icy gale that slammed him into a wall. His revolver clattered across the ground, skidding away.

His breath exhaled white mist. His muscles felt heavy, sluggish. The serpent’s aura was trying to freeze him from the inside out, but his title and luck were fighting it back.

Jessie roared, flames surging around her as she stepped forward. Her new upgraded spell ready and her new class prepared to show its presence—the dungeon itself seemed to burn at her arrival. A torrent of fire shaped like a coiling dragon struck the Basilisk head-on, her class Flamecaster providing extra boost to her fire spell.

The new class had turned her fire into something different, something ancient.

Flames had evolved from ember to Inferno.

For a moment, the beast’s translucent body cracked violently, blue veins flashing. The heat of the fire could be felt even from a distance. The Basilisk rolled on the ground to rid itself of the flames, but the fire kept burning hotter and mightier than ever.

With a painful hiss, the beast started disarming itself—blazing scales ripped apart from its skin. The bare flesh and absence of thick translucent scales made it smaller and less intimidating.

But it wasn’t enough to stop it. With a hiss, snow wrapped around its body as if following its command.

Slowly, before their eyes, the beast started regaining its vitality. Condensed snow hardened into crystal, and crystals formed new translucent scales.