Serra’s hands were no longer just trembling like before... they were vibrating with the shock of every impact.

The golden dome of her barrier glowed and the light turned a sickly translucent yellow as her mana reserves hit the bottom of the barrel.

Each time Kahn’s hammer slammed into the surface, the cracks didn’t just spread but they screamed as well.

The barrier would knit itself back together desperately but Serra knew that she couldn’t do this forever.

Kahn didn’t let up.

He was a machine of meat and malice with his crimson aura flaring during every overhead swing.

"I’ll give you one last out, Serra!" He roared. "Let me end the Wizard apprentice... Choose to forget this ever happened... I take the hoard, I buy the title, and I make you my wife. You’ll be a noblewoman, we no longer have to see any blood or dirt. Our lives will be full of just gold and silk. How about it?"

Serra’s eyes snapped open and even though she was tired, her eyes burned defiantly.

"I would rather rot in this hole... than touch a hand as filthy as yours!"

Kahn’s face contorted with his teeth baring in a snarl that was more animal than human.

He heaved the hammer back making the weapon’s head glow with a concentrated violent red and with a guttural shout, he brought it down.

The barrier didn’t just crack this time like before, it shattered instead.

The shards of holy magic dissolved into stinging sparks that bit into Serra’s skin. The physical shockwave traveled up her staff and into her bones, rattling her skull.

Her eyes rolled back into her head as her nervous system shut down from the strain and as the world faded to black, the hammer continued its trajectory toward her skull.

In that final, frozen micro-second of consciousness, she didn’t see the dark cavern but she saw a woman.

The figure wore a heavy white veil that draped over her face, obscuring everything but the cold disappointed set of her mouth and the glow of her eyes.

She looked at Serra with a gaze of utter disgrace.

"Charl..." Serra’s lips moved but no sound came out before the darkness swallowed her whole.

The hammer was inches from her temple when the air suddenly grew heavy for Kahn. The massive metal head slowed, as if pushing through a wall of thick invisible honey.

Kahn’s eyes darted toward Klaus.

The "useless" metal-seeker had his hand extended and his face had turned pale with concentration.

Every vein in Klaus’s arm was bulging as he pushed his Magnetic Field to its absolute limit, fighting the momentum of the brute’s strike.

"Fuck yo—" Kahn started, but he didn’t finish the sentence.

With a violent shift in power, Klaus didn’t just stop the hammer but he used Kahn’s own momentum against him.

The brute was blasted backward making the sudden reversal of kinetic energy launching him off his feet.

Kahn hit the ceiling with a bone-jarring thud making the stone crack around his broad shoulders as he was pinned there for a fleeting second by the sheer magnetic pressure.

Klaus didn’t waste time watching him.

Over the last few minutes, while the rest of them were being turned into paste, Klaus had been playing a different game.

He wasn’t a saint, and he wasn’t a hero either but he was a survivor.

He had already used his Magnetic Field to secretly drag a group of Gold and Silver Metil Diamonds through the rock, stashing them in a hollow he’d carved near the exit of the cavern.

’I hope this goes as planned...’ He thought then looked down at Serra.

On a normal day, Klaus would have left her as a distraction. He was a pragmatist and luggage was a liability in a chase but the Holy Church of Light was notorious for its "Rescue Bounties."

Saving a consecrated member from a certain-death scenario was worth a flat 20 gold coins.

’Twenty gold to carry a girl like this? That’s a return on investment I can’t ignore.’

Klaus scooped her up, slinging her over his shoulder. Unlike Taula, who was heavy... Serra was light.

He reached into his storage ring and pulled out a standard-issue longsword but he didn’t intend to swing it.

He dropped the blade to the floor and stepped onto it.

"Iron Skin..." he whispered.

His legs took on the dull matte sheen of hardened steel.

Using Magnetic Field, he locked his metallic feet to the blade of the sword, creating a singular, unified object and then, he pushed.

The sword hissed as it levitated an inch off the ground, and then, like a cultivator from light novels... Klaus shot forward.

He began surfing becoming a streak of grey and gold flying through the tunnel toward the Boss Gate.

Kahn dropped from the ceiling, landing in a three-point stance that cracked the floor.

"Don’t you dare touch that door!" He screamed and his voice cracked.

Klaus didn’t even look back.

He leaned into the curve of the tunnel with the wind whistling past his ears. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Both of them knew the risk. Opening the Boss door meant unleashing whatever horror waited inside, and normally, a full party was needed to contain it but Kahn was alone, exhausted, and blinded by a greed that had rotted his brain long before the dungeon got a chance to so it was a chance to take him out, especially if this was what he wanted.

Klaus reached the massive ornate ceremonial door and as he skidded to a halt, the stone began to groan with the seal breaking as it sensed a challenger.

Kahn was closing the gap with speed making his heavy boots sound like falling boulders. In a last-ditch effort, he hurled his hammer. The weapon spun through the air like a blur of red death aimed directly at Klaus’s spine.

Without turning around, Klaus flicked his wrist and the Magnetic Field caught the hammer mid-air, reversing its polarity and sending it screaming back toward the thrower.

Kahn was forced to catch it and the impact slowed his charge, making him dig his heels into the ground.

The Boss Gate swung open shortly after and Klaus offered a small jagged grin.

Inside the Boss Room, there were no glittering walls and there were no piles of gold either.

There was only a throne of bone and a tall, spindly creature draped in tattered, moss-covered robes which was a Tier 2 Goblin Shaman but it wasn’t the Shaman that made Klaus a bit excited.

A thick, pea-green smog began to billow out of the room.

As the smog touched the piles of Metil Diamonds near the entrance, a horrifying reaction occurred.

The beautiful blue and gold crystals didn’t just tarnish... they began to bubble and liquefy, melting into puddles of black useless sludge.

’A Rot goblin...’ Klaus thought. ’I knew it.’

In the game of Artemis Online, there were always signs to know what kind of Goblin Boss you’d be facing in a dungeon full of goblins.

If a dungeon had more than five Hobgoblins acting as elites before the final chamber then the Boss was almost guaranteed to be a Rot Shaman.

Rot magic was the ultimate middle finger to looters; it was a corrosive energy that targeted high-density minerals and mana-conducting metals.

"My diamonds!" Kahn shrieked.

The man had lost his mind, he didn’t even see Klaus anymore.

He saw his noble title, his mansion, and his sister’s future melting into black slime.

With a roar of pure agony, Kahn charged directly into the toxic green smog, swinging his hammer at the Shaman in a blind frenzy and other Goblins were also in the room as well.

Klaus didn’t wait to see the outcome.

The Rot smog was already curling toward him, and he knew that it didn’t just melt diamonds... it could rot the unique alloys used in storage rings. He banked his sword, surfing back toward the hidden hollow he’d prepared.

Inside the Boss Room, the sound of crashing metal and goblin screeches filled the air. Kahn was clearly a beast but even a beast needs to breathe.

Klaus reached his stash.

The ground caved in slightly as he pried it open and revealed the metil diamonds, he didn’t even count them.

He simply opened his storage ring and used his mana to vacuum the Gold and Silver shards into the spatial pocket swallowing them whole.

’He’ll kill the Shaman...’ Klaus reasoned as he worked. ’He’s too angry to die easily and once the Boss is dead, the exit portal will trigger at the entrance.’

Klaus finished his haul and began moving again, he wasn’t worried about not getting enough Metil. He had been purposely holding out on them after all and there were many more formations and shards waiting.

’Let’s get rich!’

...

Outside the ruins of the merchant town, the whitish-gold light of the dungeon gate began to ripple and tremble and suddenly, a figure emerged, floating an inch above the grass on a flickering longsword.

Klaus hit the dirt hard with the sword clattering away as he lost control of the field.

Serra rolled off his shoulder, the healer was still unconscious but breathing and Klaus tried to stand but his knees buckled.

He was a Second-Class Wizard Apprentice now with higher mana and mental power but clearing out a whole dungeon of a lot of metil diamonds was not an easy thing to do.

’I let my greed get the best of me.’ Klaus thought, staring at his trembling hands.

The portal behind him trembled as well and the heavy armored boot stepped through the glowing portal.

Kahn emerged, but he was no longer a man.

He was a walking nightmare.

His armor was pitted and melted and the skin of his face was sloughing off in wet, grey strips. One of his eyes had been rotted through, leaving a hollow weeping socket of green pus.

His left arm was a blackened, withered limb, but his right hand still gripped the hammer with a strength that defied biology.

"You..." Kahn wheezed. "You took it... you took it all..."

He raised the hammer, the last of his crimson aura flickering like a dying candle. He took a staggering step toward Klaus... He was going to take Klaus to the grave with him.

Klaus reached for his sword, but his arm felt like it was made of lead, he was too slow and the hammer began its descent.

CLANG!

The sound of metal on metal rang out across and suddenly a blond-haired woman stood between Klaus and the rot-stricken giant.

Her green eyes were cold, reflecting none of the warmth she usually showed as she held a massive heavy-headed axe, the blade of which had caught Kahn’s hammer mid-swing and the impact didn’t even move her.

Taula looked over her shoulder at Klaus for a brief second before turning her full murderous attention back to Kahn.

"If you dare lay a hand on my friend..." Taula said as her eyes flashed red. "I will peel the rest of that skin off your bones myself."