"When you kill it, you must be careful! Don't let its corpse fall off the cliff!"
"I know! This is the third time you've said that!"
Victoria responded with some impatience. She took out a Reflection Gem and an Impact Gem, slotting them into her magic conduit to cast a spell.
A rapidly spinning, deep blue water wheel formed in front of her palm in an instant.
But the moment she threw it, the water wheel appeared directly on the opposite side of the cliff from her position.
Psh!
Accompanied by the dull thud of flesh being pierced, the monster's corpse was sent flying toward the inner stone wall by the force of the impact, rather than being knocked off the cliff.
Looking at the two gems that had turned to ash on her magic conduit, Victoria shouted toward Greg with a bit of heartache, "Remember, you owe me two gems!"
"We're brothers, why mention that?"
On the other side of the battlefield, Greg was also about to finish off his opponent.
Facing a Rock-shattering Golem of immense strength, he chose not to meet it head-on.
Catching the brief moment of stiffness after the golem's charge, he nimbly slid to the side to avoid it. At the same time, he spread the fingers of his right hand, aiming at the golem's feet.
"Entangle."
As his low voice fell, five pitch-black mana tentacles shot out from his fingertips like living vipers, instantly coiling around the golem's rocky body.
"Roar—!"
The Rock-shattering Golem let out an angry roar and struggled violently, its rocky frame creaking, but it could not break free from this LV3 proficiency 【Tentacle Entanglement】.
Immediately after, Greg clenched his fingers tightly!
Crack! Crunch—!
A series of tooth-aching shattering sounds exploded!
The five tentacles tightened to their limit in different directions simultaneously!
The golem's seemingly indestructible rock body, under the erosion of shadow mana and the tearing of immense force, collapsed like building blocks being violently disassembled. It turned into scattered piles of large and small stones, and the mana light at its core flickered out.
A notification popped up in Greg's mind indicating he had gained experience and reached Level 30.
This meant his dark-attribute magic only needed one more opportunity to advance to LV3.
But his main focus right now wasn't that. He immediately ran to the corpse of the humanoid monster Victoria had just killed and searched it.
Soon, his fingertips touched a small object with irregular edges.
"Found it!"
He pulled the object from the corpse's neck with force and held it in his palm.
It was a deep purple fragment about the size of a thumbnail, made of a material that was neither metal nor stone, with edges covered in cracks.
Twisted patterns were etched on the surface of the fragment, and in the center was a slightly raised relief of a pupil that had already lost its luster.
【Shattered Eye (1/3)】
The item description in the original game was:
《Once reflected a scene that should not be gazed upon, carrying thoughts that cannot be understood. What its complete form witnessed was the collapse of order, the end of all things, a silent hymn praising fragmentation.》
A typical Soulslike style description—vague, full of metaphors and ominous hints.
When playing the original game, Greg had only thought the developers were trying to be mysterious, adding a bit of flavor text to the item. He hadn't taken it to heart at all, even thinking it was a bit pretentious.
But now he was certain that this was definitely related to the belief system of the Mother of Fragmentation!
It might even be a fragment of some holy relic or a symbol of status used by those believers back then!
Greg carefully picked up this third piece of the Shattered Eye, then took out two other similar fragments he had collected from other monsters during their earlier exploration.
When the three fragments with cracked edges were placed side-by-side in his palm, less than an inch apart, they seemed to be drawn together by an invisible force. They all began to tremble slightly, emitting an extremely faint hum.
The tiny cracks on their surfaces actually began to extend, connect, and mend as if they were alive!
The fragments themselves slowly levitated, rotating and drawing closer in mid-air...
Hum—!
After a slightly louder hum, a flash of purple light vanished.
The three fragments had seamlessly joined together, forming a complete, deep purple eye-shaped object about the size of a pigeon's egg.
The cracks at the joints were almost invisible; only by looking closely against the light could one find the extremely fine seams.
But unlike when they were fragments, the pupil on this complete eye—which had originally been dull—was now closed.
The lines of the eyelids were soft yet carried an inhuman stiffness, as if they would never open again.
This miraculous and supernatural scene left Victoria and Silvia standing nearby dumbfounded.
It wasn't that they had never seen magic items resonate or combine, but a sight like this, where they automatically joined as if possessing their own will, was unheard of.
The look Victoria gave Greg became even more complex.
This guy not only hid his strength deeply, but he also seemed to have all kinds of strange knowledge at his fingertips... The secrets on him were just like this dungeon, bottomless.
Silvia's pink eyes also shimmered with amazement and deeper curiosity, but they were also mixed with a trace of imperceptible worry.
The things Senior Greg was coming into contact with seemed to be getting closer to certain... dangerous and ancient domains.
"Good."
Greg was completely oblivious to the turmoil in the two girls' hearts; his entire mind was immersed in the excitement of his plan proceeding smoothly.
He carefully put away the complete closed eye.
"Now only one condition remains."
He looked up toward a specific direction.
"This path is clear now. Let's head up."
Under Greg's familiar guidance, the three left the cliffside area and began to climb a small path that had originally been blocked by monsters.
The path was winding and steep, covered in slippery moss and exposed sharp rocks, but it didn't pose much of an obstacle.
After about fifteen minutes of climbing, they reached a natural rock ledge platform jutting out from the wall.
The platform wasn't large, but the view was extremely broad.
Standing at the edge of the platform, they could faintly see the shocking scene in the center of a super-giant underground void through the thin, eternal dim light of the cavern.
It was a ruined temple, so dilapidated it was almost tragic.
Its architectural style was of the same lineage as the broken stone pillars they had seen throughout the second layer—rugged, ancient, and full of geometric shapes and twisted symbolic icons.
But the scale before them was incomparable to anything they had seen before.
Even from a great distance, even with only broken walls and ruins remaining, one could still feel its former grandeur, solemnity, and... a certain suffocating sense of pressure.
Just by gazing at it from afar, a feeling of fear and repulsion slowly washed over their hearts like a cold tide.
Final condition: Gaze upon the ruined temple.
Achieved!
All conditions to trigger the hidden boss battle have finally been met!
Rate on N.U.
