The Knight's Weakness
From a results standpoint alone, Ulthar's words about the remaining resources for conquering the dungeon being hidden somewhere inside had proven accurate. The weapons and abilities of the floor bosses I had faced on the way here were shining in this very situation. It was highly likely that Ulthar had already known I would acquire this ability during the conquest.
I glanced briefly at the blue energy enveloping my legs before turning my gaze back to the enemy before me. In the next instant, I dodged the boss's rage-filled strike by fluidly lowering my body, then kicked off the ground and swung my mace toward the opening. Clang!!
Unable to escape the momentum of his previous movement, he took yet another hit. But even though the attack connected, it felt slightly different from before. It was as if I had struck something far more solid, and the impact had rebounded toward me instead.
The moment I realized this, a single realization pierced my mind. The spot I had struck with the mace earlier was the boss's helmet. In contrast, the area I had just attacked was his upper body—where the armor's thickness was completely different. Attacking there was never going to deliver a proper blow. Moreover, compared to his body, which far exceeded the bounds of common sense, the iron mass of the mace was simply too small.
Having taken almost no damage, the creature quickly regained his posture unlike before and grabbed the mace's chain with his empty hand. With tremendous strength, he yanked the chain and began swinging it wildly in every direction.
"!!!... Ghh!"
The force naturally pulled me upward as I clung to the mace. But I didn't panic. I calmly released the handle without hesitation, maintained my balance, and used the power of the ability applied to my legs to land stably.
In that brief moment, the boss gripped his greatsword in one hand while seizing the mace he had taken from me with the other. However, there was one fact he had overlooked. That mace was not the real thing—it was a mass of slime created by tearing off and reshaping a part of my own body.
As I rose to my feet and saw him clutching the mace, I immediately dispelled the transformation. The menacing weapon instantly melted into sticky, soft slime that coated his hand. The boss, caught off guard by the sudden phenomenon, couldn't hide his confusion.
I tried to reclaim that portion back into my main body right away, but then a good idea flashed through my mind. As the saying goes, crisis is opportunity. Even though it was only a tiny fraction, part of my body was now in direct contact with him. I made a quick decision and immediately applied another transformation to that separated piece from a distance—the same 100% pure viscosity I had used once before.
The slime that had melted from the mace was only a small amount, but it was more than enough to seep into every corner of his hand. As a result, his fingers became completely stuck together due to the powerful viscosity. Of course, using Dissolve to deal damage was one option, but there simply wasn't enough quantity for that. Rather than partially melting him, sealing him completely like this was far more efficient.
!!......
The knight, suddenly unable to use one hand, thrashed violently, yet the slime filled with viscosity refused to come off. Swordsmanship with a greatsword was fundamentally a two-handed technique. In other words, with only one hand left, there was no way he could execute proper swordsmanship.
Having gained an unexpected stroke of luck, I immediately changed the ability I had been using.
Specified Ability Change… 'Knight Commander Harson’s' Advanced Swordsmanship. Specification Complete… Applied.
At that moment, the blue energy wrapped around my legs vanished, and a new sensation spread throughout my entire body. At the same time, I created a longsword of appropriate size for this body and pointed it straight at him.
While conquering this dungeon, one question had arisen in my mind. Why was the boss a knight, and why was there a separate floor boss with the title of knight commander inside the dungeon? It would have been far more natural if the dungeon boss held both the lord and knight commander positions from the start.
Here, I carefully formed a hypothesis about that question. And after directly facing the boss for a short while, I became certain that my hypothesis was correct. Simply put, in terms of swordsmanship skill alone, the floor boss—the knight commander—was superior.
The boss gave up trying to remove the slime stuck to his hand and immediately charged at me. His posture was clumsy because he held the greatsword with only one hand, but the power behind it could not be ignored. This time, however, I did not back down either. Just like when I first entered the boss room, I reinforced every muscle in my body to its limit. Gripping the sword with both hands, I charged straight toward the massive knight rushing at me with fierce momentum.
Objectively speaking, this scene was no different from the frontal clash that had already proven ineffective earlier. But the difference this time lay not in external factors, but within myself.
The black knight charged forward, radiating overwhelming presence. The suffocating pressure made my body instinctively shrink and my eyes want to close. But I couldn't allow that. Between the knight's figure filling my vision, a faint thread was connected.
I could tell almost instinctively. I had to swing my sword along the trajectory that thread indicated. All I needed to do was move my body so the blade could follow that path. The rest of the details unfolded naturally, as if my body itself was expressing my will.
The movement of muscles, the angles of my arms and legs, the strength applied to my wrist gripping the sword—every element necessary for swinging the blade manifested naturally, just as it always had.
This couldn't be attributed to Nabi's support. She only ever warned me in advance about the spots the opponent was targeting; she never provided direct assistance like this. In other words, this was likely the power of the 'ability' I had just switched to. It felt as though my body already knew exactly how to respond appropriately in this situation.
Of course, a large part of it was thanks to this body finally being prepared to follow all the movements my mind demanded. If that hadn't been the case, even using the ability wouldn't have mattered—my body simply wouldn't have kept up.
While I marveled at the performance of this ability that surpassed imagination, the two of us, rushing toward each other at blinding speed, collided head-on without either yielding an inch.
Teeeeiiing!!!---
The unpleasant noise of steel colliding at tremendous acceleration. Naturally, in terms of strength and power, I was still overwhelmingly outmatched by the boss. At this rate, it was obvious I would be sent flying helplessly to the opposite side just like before.
But in that moment, something astonishing happened.
Kiiiiiiiiik!......
!!!------
"!!......"
As expected, my body wasn't sent flying backward. Instead, following the sound like shattering glass, an unpleasant noise of something scraping filled the entire room. Both I and the boss who had swung his sword couldn't hide our startled surprise. He had naturally assumed I would be pushed back again this time.
Yet his prediction missed the mark for a simple reason. The longsword in my hand had received the impact from his greatsword while completely dispersing the force concentrated at a single point. Instead of blindly thrusting the sword forward like before, I had raised the hilt to a slightly higher point on the left side of my head, tilting the blade slightly downward from horizontal to catch his greatsword.
His assumption that I would swing my sword just like him had been wrong from the very beginning. The fact that he had fallen into that misconception was largely thanks to the feint I had mixed in beforehand. As a result, his greatsword, naturally swinging diagonally downward, collided with my blade lying at a slant and failed to deliver its full power to its original target. Instead, it struck the ground with sparks flying, missing its mark entirely.
Using the opening created by that, I quickly slipped to his side. However, without the Swift Legs ability like before, fully closing the distance was impossible. Even if he couldn't use his hand, the remaining arm flying toward me like a blunt weapon was still threatening enough.
But I had anticipated this situation as well. Moving forward with clean, fluid motions, I thrust the longsword I held with all my strength straight into him.
Pshuk!!!
A precise strike aimed at the armpit—one of the areas his full-body armor couldn't protect. As expected, the sharp blade easily exploited that weakness of the boss. After cleanly dodging the follow-up attack that came flying at me, I created distance between us once more.
When the fierce exchange finally settled and we returned to a standoff, it was clear who was smiling. The boss, now with a sword embedded beneath his shoulder, looked considerably worse for wear on the outside. In contrast, I—who had landed a solid hit on him—remained completely unscathed. My Residual stat had steadily increased while climbing up to this point, so this level of exertion didn't even show.
Calming my excited heart and quietly reflecting on what I had just done, I couldn't hide my own surprise. To think I had directly clashed with that monster and achieved meaningful results. Even though he had been unable to use one hand, this level of accomplishment was truly astonishing. As expected of the knight commander's swordsmanship—the only one in this vast castle, even if only half of it. Well, considering the effort and time I had invested to catch that guy… this much was the least he could do.
Meanwhile, the boss showed clear hesitation about the sword embedded in his body. If he tried to pull it out quickly, his previous experience stopped him. Having personally experienced what happened when he grabbed a weapon I had used, he had no choice but to be cautious in his actions.
Moreover, when he glanced at his remaining HP, it didn't seem like any noticeable damage had been dealt. Thinking about it, even if a small longsword was stuck in that massive body, it would probably feel like being pricked by a slightly thick needle, to put it exaggeratedly. In other words, from his perspective, while it was uncomfortable, leaving it in might actually be the safer choice.
But he didn't know. The very act of stabbing the sword through the gap in his armor had been part of my plan from the beginning. Unlike the mace earlier, which had only made contact with the surface of the armor, the longsword was now precisely embedded in the armor's opening. That meant it was possible to infiltrate part of my body inside the armor without any resistance.
It was another strategy I had prepared in case directly making contact by throwing my body proved difficult. Of course, this too was tricky, but surprisingly, the most important and difficult part had been easily resolved. Now all that remained was to execute the plan as intended.
Before he could make a move, I quickly took the initiative.
Shluuurp!
!!!!!!......
The moment I dispelled the longsword's transformation from a distance, I immediately infiltrated it inside the black armor. Naturally, the boss—who couldn't possibly be unaware of this—flinched for an instant. Then, burning with rage, he began unleashing indiscriminate attacks toward me.
He knew full well that removing his armor piece by piece on the spot to extract the object that had infiltrated inside was impossible. So he had clearly changed his approach to dealing with me—the root cause of all this—as quickly as possible.
However, his attacks, filled with impatience, never managed to break through my defense, which stood at a higher level.
Chaeng!- Ting! Chang!! Teeeng!!- Chang!!!
Creating another longsword by transforming a different part of my body, identical to the one I had just used, I perfectly deflected every single one of the greatsword strikes raining down on me. It was swordsmanship born from the harmony of Nabi's support and the copied ability—something no ordinary person could even imagine.
The fierce exchange, so intense that the sword's trajectory was barely visible, continued for a while. Meanwhile, the slime I had infiltrated inside moved at high speed toward its target according to my will.
Unlike ordinary humans, magical beasts didn't die just because their vital points were destroyed. Therefore, targeting the heart or brain was meaningless. Using a very small amount of slime to strike the body part that would be most effective against him.
In that moment, the boss's body—which had been moving without rest—froze as if it had turned to ice. An unexpected action that wouldn't have been strange even if it felt completely alien. In contrast, I—who had been preparing for his next attack—looked up with a small smile.
Before I knew it, the boss's eyes, which had been burning red between his helmet, had completely lost their light. Everything had gone according to plan.