The Systemic Lands

Chapter 409: 5th Floor – Tough Monsters

Chapter 409: 5th Floor – Tough Monsters

The large golem rushed me again, and I dodged out of the way, easily kicking off the floor. It swiped out with its hammer, but that was what I was waiting for.

Acid Shot. The shield of the monster was brought around to block my attack. Air Burst. Air Burst. Using my movement skill twice, I quickly circled around the Human Hammer Golem at close range, moving to my right and to the monster’s left which was the side it held the shield. It was fast at adjusting and moving its weapons but it wasn’t fast at moving itself except running forward.

That was something I had noticed while dodging the monster and it was a weakness I could exploit. Air Burst. Air Burst. I used the skill some more to quickly move around and to the back of the monster. I wouldn’t have dared get this close without my movement skill. Acid Shot x5. It turned its shield and blocked one of my attacks at its back which was impressive, but I had aimed vertically.

Two Acid Shots hit the monster’s head while another two hit its legs. Air Burst. I quickly retreated as it swung its hammer to get me. After that I just kept my distance as the monster began to melt and I recovered my energy.

Unfortunately, the one round of attacks was not enough to kill it. I had to move in again and attack the monster a second time once I had recovered enough energy. That was enough to finally put the Humanoid Hammer Golem down for good.

As it turned to dust, I let out a sigh and collected its point crystal. Once I could damage a monster and it couldn’t damage me in return, then I was sure I could win the fight. It would take time and be a hassle, but it was doable.

Making my way up to the sixth floor, I took a break to recover my energy and give myself a pat on the back. I was over ten percent done with the tower. Five floors down, another forty five or forty four floors left depending on how you would count it.

I took another break in the safe room. To rest up and mentally prepare myself for the next hell, whatever it might me. Since there was no major deviation on the 5th floor, like having multiple level 5 monsters, then that meant it something like that happened it would either be on the 10th floor, or the 25th floor. Or it might not happen at all. The logic of the Almighty System was obtuse as ever.

There was clearly a method to its madness, but I didn’t believe for a second, I had cracked it. I had been putting a lot of thought into how it set up its floors, but I just didn’t understand. Some floors were mazes, others were very long dead ends, and the last floor was completely open.

It was hard to say if they were increasing in difficultly, but they weren’t getting easier, that was for sure. After resting up, I put on my packs. I hesitated at the pack with the oil and the lantern, but I had brought it this far. If I needed it, I would regret not taking it with me all the way. Better to have it and not need it, then need it and not have it.

With both packs on, I left the safe room. The lighting instantly went from light blue to murder red. That was my new name for the color, murder red. I looked North and South at the immediate ‘T’ intersection. Based on the positioning of the elevator on the last floor, I was somewhere in the middle of the floor.

I went South, for no particular reason, just a hunch. I came to another intersection to my East and West. I took the East passage and it looped around back West and there was another North South passage connecting to it as well.

This was a maze floor, at least that was what it appeared like to me. Perhaps the floors repeated. Maze, maze, columns, linear, open, and then starting all over again. Well I began to make my way South, running past the occasional level 4 humanoid golem.

I quickly began to realize some of the walls were two tunnel units thick in some places. That would make keeping a mental map a bit harder, but I had experience from the last couple of floors. My directional calling also helped keep me oriented, which way I was going.

While the monsters did provide pressure, I was used to the pressure. They also weren’t like the cats, quick enough to keep up with me and corner me with ranged attacks. That would have been troublesome, but this floor was clearly about working out the maze.

After a very long dead end to check out the Southeast corner, I was a bit annoyed. I found the boss room in the Southwest and made my way North. After the fourth floor with the illusioned wall, I made sure to check every wall visually.

My main hope was that the tower didn’t use the illusion type that was used to hide the pits to hide fake walls. It would be too exhausting to manually check each and every wall physically and too easy to make a mistake and overlook something.

There were no traps that I ran into which was concerning. Each floor had some type of terrain twist to it, which meant that I still had not uncovered what the twist was to this floor. I made my way to the Northwest after checking the Northeast.

My head was beginning to hurt keeping track of everything while keeping an eye out, but I couldn’t afford to go slowly or make a mistake. In the very Northeast corner of the floor there was a room and the golden key rod was sitting on a pillar in the middle of said room.

I could smell the trap nonsense a mile away, metaphorically not literally. The fact that this was a room and the golden key rod was not in the very corner and the room wasn’t filled with monster spawners indicated, that there was something else going on.

What was also annoying was that there were three layers to the room. A null skill floor, then a patch of floor without the glowing red dots, which meant I could use skills, and then more null skill flooring around the pillar itself.

The flooring that appeared to be regular without the null skill flooring was probably trapped. I went forward to the edge of the null skill flooring. Acid Shot, I formed the skill in front of me where the null skill flooring wasn’t present, over the parts I thought were trapped.

Beams of energy lanced out of the floor and the ceiling above my skills, shredding it before it could cross. Acid Shot. Acid Shot. The beams of energy were yellowish in nature, so possibly radiance.

They only appeared in certain locations as well on the trapped portion and didn’t change. The sprinkling of some of the Acid Shot that got through revealed hidden recessed square holes, about the size of my arm.

Once I spotted them, it was easy enough to spot the rest of the holes where the beams emerged from. With that it was simply a matter of maneuvering around them to get the golden rod key and then leave the room.

It was tempting to call the traps laser traps, but those were some really big lasers. Energy trap made more sense in my mind. What a massive headache to have to look out for something like that as well. The trap activated instantly. Like the blade trap, I wouldn’t be able to avoid it, if it activated unlike the crush and the pit trap. That would make those two traps a lot more deadly, if I couldn’t dodge.

After having explored most of this floor, I knew where the boss room was. I made it there without any issues and put the golden key rod in. Once the door opened, I blinked and took a moment to process the interior of the boss room.

The edge of the boss room had dots of light embedded into the walls, floor, and ceiling signifying no skill areas. After spending more time looking I noted that at the corners of the room, just past the null skill floor, were more energy traps. This was not going to be fun or easy in the slightest.

Once my energy was recovered and I was fully rested, I entered the boss room, leaving my packs in the corner and then quickly moving to the center, just outside the boss spawner. I mentally confirmed the position of the traps and how I couldn’t use my skills on the outside of the boss room.

The tower was getting more difficult as I climbed. I had no idea how the Astrologer’s proxy expected me to climb this without having done the heist. It would have been a nightmare and I probably would have died.

Acid Shot. Acid Shot. The boss spawner light walls went away, and I immediately attacked and moved. There was no monster, that I could see. Even using my Sense stat, whatever it was, was hidden. The exit door to the elevator hadn’t opened yet.

That meant the boss was still alive. I retreated to a corner without my packs, and put my back to the wall. While I wouldn’t be able to use a skill here, I wanted a clear line of sight to the rest of the boss room. I made sure to check above me as well. I couldn’t spot anything.

The tension quickly built up as the boss didn’t appear and appeared content to wait as well. “Come out. This is nonsense!” I yelled out, but the boss didn’t reveal itself at my taunting. Would it not go into the null skill areas since it might reveal itself? It was hard to say what the Invisible Golem would do.

I hated being in this kind of passive situation as well, but I was struggling to come up with a way to attack the monster and not be attacked in turn. It was content to hide, which was annoying. My initial attacks hadn’t done anything either and I hadn’t sensed anything moving.

This kind of boss monster clearly showed that the Almighty System was clearly being as aggravating as possible. The boss was clearly content to wait. But I was forced to fight it. If this was a zone, I would have just shrugged and move on. But I couldn’t do that inside the tower. I had to kill it to advance. There was no other option.

Whatever material the tower was made of, made it impossible to melt through. While it would have been nice to skip this boss, I had no choice but to come up with something. I moved out of the null skill area for flooring and made sure I didn’t walk into the energy trap. Force Wave. I used the skill in a way I hadn’t before. I used the skill a second time in another direction Force Wave.

I spread out the wave as much as possible. Normally when using it to make an annihilation attack, I had shaped it to match the curve of Aqua Sphere. This time I spread it out. I knew it would be weaker, but that wasn’t the point. The point was to disturb the energy, so the monster would reveal itself.

There! I saw a disturbance! Air Burst. Air Burst. Acid Shot x10. I got part of the monster and its invisibility broke. The monster was very small, about the size of a shoebox and it was shaped like a centipede, only silver in coloration like all the other monsters in the tower.

Acid Shot x2. It quickly maneuvered out of the way and darted around the room. It was incredibly quick. I had no choice but to wait as my energy recovered and I retreated to a corner of the room while keeping an eye on the Invisible Centipede Golem.