“End them in one hit! Fuck ’em up, Amaterasu!”
This skill of Amaterasu’s was often called cheating, to the point of the devs receiving a lot of backlash after implementing it. If it came into play, no one would have time to revive, heal, defend, or buff themselves. A single hit destroyed everything, so every player who heard its blunt name and learned about its effect for the first time had the same reaction: “WTF?” That was how infamous the move had become. Many players ended up rage quitting the game because of how broken it was.
The light behind Amaterasu glowed a deep red. The principle of this magic was very simple, praised by physicists as beautiful.
Beyond that of nuclear fission. Beyond that of nuclear fusion. The move was a direct conversion of mass by magic. It could be considered a weapon that followed the logic of science fiction, more fitting for an interstellar war rather than anything fantasy; it activated just as the theory proposed by the genius Judea laid out. The worst, strongest magic that would materialize a demonic sun to the earth.
It was called—
“Grade 6: Mass Conversion Bomb: E=mc².”
Her call made the light of destruction blanket the entire area in white.
E = energy, m = mass, c = the speed of light. The speed of light converted to seconds was c = 299,792,458 meters per second. The digits of this explosion’s energy broke into astronomical territory. A nuclear fission had occurred when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and the mass that disappeared, using the word “weight” to describe it without making a misleading statement, was estimated to be about 0.7 grams. By simply changing that tiny mass into heat, hell was brought upon the Earth.
Amaterasu was converting the mass of the surrounding air. The weight ratio was one-to-one meters to kilograms, and she could convert all of that into energy. The scariest part was that there was an almost infinite amount of air in the atmosphere. In other words, this was a nuclear bomb produced by the progression of civilization. The mass of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere, measured by Einstein’s formula, would be converted to heat and set alight.
The wild, dry flames filling the wide space were over one hundred million degrees Celsius. A heat over seven times the temperature of the Sun’s core burned everything away. The light was so violent that no one could open their eyes. Within that scene, I could hear the death cries of the Goblin Royal Guards everywhere.
When the light passed, all of the goblins had disintegrated aside from the Goblin King, whose body had been half turned to ash.
“Wh-Wh... Wha...?”
Barely breathing and covered in wounds, the Goblin King could only stare straight ahead with its eyes wide open. It was only natural, since all of its underlings had disappeared in the blink of an eye. The King itself was half dead. It was probably feeling the same emotions as the players who’d raised the backlash against the devs.
On my part, I actually wanted to praise the Goblin King for surviving it. If, for some reason, the game glitched and friendly fire became possible, all of my comrades would’ve also been decimated for sure.
The airy voice of a young girl came from behind the shocked King. “Skill: Coat of the Moon Shadow.”
From its shadow came the swinging scythe of the goddess of the moon. Her high-level stealth skill and shadow travel came into play here.
Tsukuyomi looked appalled as she watched the Goblin King fall to the ground. “I can’t believe this... It survived my sister’s attack...”
Amaterasu was so broken that even her own sister reacted to her like this. She’d really made me bend over backward to summon her, but it was definitely worth it. If it weren’t for her, we would’ve had no chance of winning.
The inside of the dungeon brightened up. In the game, that was the miasma of the dungeon lifting after the player beat the boss, signaling its completion.
Amaterasu came toddling over to me as I proudly looked around. “Nobu! Nobu!”
“Hm? What’s up, Amaterasu?”
“Head pats!”
If only this weren’t her character setting... Not that I have room to complain. I grumbled internally as I patted her head.
She smiled whimsically. “Nobu! Nobu!”
“Yeah? Want something else?”
“Amachan is sweepy now!”
If only she didn’t have use restrictions on her... Not that I have room to complain.
She collapsed where she stood, transformed into beads of light, and vanished.
And with that, the boss has been defeated. We should have a way out now. The only thing left was to return to where we’d come from and it’d be mission complete.
Ms. Kaori hobbled to her feet. “This was my first time seeing that at level 125. It really is terrifying...”
That was when I noticed a glowing, crimson red treasure chest next to the Goblin King’s throne; it hadn’t been there a few minutes ago.
What’s this? I wondered as I approached it. “A reward for completing the dungeon?”
Using the Eye of Judgment, the description of the item inside the chest was as follows:
Judgment Results:
Crown of the Legendary Demon Lord
Rarity: Impossible
Buffs underling monsters by a multiple of 4. Multiple equips possible.
Can be equipped by: Mages, Summoners
Are you serious? The usual buffing items would only multiply stats by 1.05 or 1.1 at best. Although, thinking about it, the Agartha event was intended to unleash crazy power-ups one after the other. In which case, this dungeon really was supposed to be unveiled after Agartha.
“Ms. Kaori, do you want this crown?” She’d helped me complete this dungeon, so I figured I’d ask.
She shook her head. “There wouldn’t be a point to me having it. You take it, Shinobu.”
“Then I’ll happily oblige.”
“You’re going to get even stronger with that.”
“I will indeed.”
“You’re a monster at this point.”
“Is that really a compliment?” I laughed.
She smiled back at me. “Of course it is.”
I was grateful for any number of power-ups.
A voice then came from the Goblin King’s corpse.
“Goblins who have lost their king. Dispose of this criminal who hath stolen our treasure!”
A black light crawled out of the King’s body, gathering into many spheres the sizes of pachinko balls, resulting in countless physical spheres of black. They moved in unison, flying every which way, with some of them lining the floor. The rest followed the corridor and flew deeper into the cave. The ones on the ground spread into black splotches, from which skeletons grew out of, like Tsukuyomi rising from the shadows.
Name: Legendary Goblin Skeleton (Sword)
Race: Undead
Class: Fighter
Recommended Level: 110
The number of skeletons in the room wasn’t anything to scoff at. There were probably over a hundred of them, just like the number of Royal Guards before. Amaterasu is down for the count, so how should I go about dealing with this?
“What should we do, Shinobu?”
“Taking them on one by one isn’t going to get us anywhere, so let’s just blast past them back to where we came from.”