Chương 13

The heavy stone doors slammed shut behind Rudra with a loud thud, sealing him inside. He lowered his staff and looked around.

'Forgotten Tidal Cave' was a terrible name. This wasn't a cave at all. It was the flooded, ruined basement of an ancient library. Massive stone bookshelves lined the walls, completely overgrown with glowing blue algae. The floor was covered in ankle-deep, freezing seawater. As Rudra took his first step, the water sloshed heavily against his boots.

"Wet socks," Rudra complained loudly, his voice echoing in the dark.

"The absolute worst." He took a sniff of the air and immediately regretted it.

"Ugh, rotting seaweed and dead fish," he gagged, pinching his nose.

"Great. I'm already starving, and this place is completely ruining my appetite." A blue window popped up in his vision. [The environmental effect 'Chilled' has been applied.] [Your movement speed and reaction time are reduced by 5%.]"A 5% drop? I can live with that," Rudra muttered. His base stats were so high that a minor debuff didn't really bother him. He splashed forward into the first corridor. From the shadows of the rotting bookshelves, three figures stepped out.

They were skeletons draped in heavy, tangled seaweed. They held rusted blades covered in sharp pink coral. [Drowned Archivist (Lv. 13)] [Drowned Archivist (Lv. 15)] [Drowned Archivist (Lv. 13)] Rudra smirked. After one-shotting those giant crabs on the beach, a few brittle skeletons didn't scare him at all. He gripped his heavy iron-oak staff, planted his boots in the water, and swung with everything he had. CRACK! The heavy wood smashed into the first Level 13 skeleton, instantly shattering its ribcage.

Bone fragments rained into the water. It was an easy one-hit kill. But Rudra had swung way too hard. Carried by his own momentum and slowed down by the ankle-deep water, his boots slipped. He lost his balance.

"Whoa—!" His guard flew wide open. The Level 15 Archivist lunged forward, scraping its rusted, coral-covered blade across Rudra's forearm. It wasn't a deep cut, but a sudden, burning pain shot up his arm. [You have been inflicted with 'Coral Toxin'.] [You will lose 5 Health every second for 20 seconds.] Rudra's eyes went wide. His 313 HP pool immediately started dropping.

"Five health a second?!" Rudra yelled.

"That's a hundred damage from a scratch!" Panic took over. He scrambled backward, splashing water everywhere, and swung his staff like a madman. He battered the remaining two skeletons to pieces through pure, frantic panic, completely draining his stamina bar. When the hallway was finally quiet, Rudra slumped against a wet bookshelf. He clutched his burning arm and watched his health bar finally stop at 180 HP. His chest was heaving. Stats aren't invincibility, he realized, a cold sweat breaking out on his neck.

If there were five skeletons instead of three, playing baseball like an idiot would have gotten me killed. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Okay. Lesson learned," he breathed out, gripping his staff tighter.

"Take it seriously." When he entered the main library room, he saw dozens of Drowned Archivists wandering between the flooded aisles. This time, Rudra didn't charge in. He approached the first group carefully. He used the exact defensive footwork and parries he had stolen from the militia instructors. When a skeleton attacked, Rudra stepped back perfectly. He tapped the rusted blades away, swept their legs, and kept his balance centered. He didn't take a single hit. He didn't get poisoned once.

But it was agonizingly slow. Because he was trying so hard to execute textbook defense, he wasn't putting any actual power into his strikes. It took him nearly ten minutes just to clear one aisle. By the time he reached the heavy iron doors at the back of the library, his arms ached from pulling his punches.

"This sucks," Rudra groaned, leaning against the iron doors.

"Fighting by the book is so boring." It wasn't sustainable either. He was burning more energy trying to hold himself back than he would by just fighting naturally. He took a deep breath, let the icy air fill his lungs, and pushed the doors open. The final room was a massive circular hall with a broken glass ceiling. Moonlight spilled onto the center of the flooded floor. Standing right in the light was a towering, armored skeleton.

It wore a torn captain's coat, and a massive rusted ship's anchor was chained to its right wrist. [Tide-Bound Curator (Lv. 20 Boss)] The moment Rudra walked in, the Curator's eye sockets ignited with blue fire. It raised its arm, dragged the heavy anchor through the water, and charged. The boss swung the anchor in a massive, horizontal sweep. Rudra's first instinct, after thirty minutes of careful practice, was to block it. He raised his staff and tried to execute a perfect parry. CLANG!

The moment the iron-oak connected with the anchor, the heavy force crushed Rudra's guard. He was thrown backward, sliding through the water and slamming onto one knee.

"Fuck!" Rudra cursed. The boss didn't stop. It raised the massive anchor high over its head, ready to crush him. Rudra looked up. Blocking didn't work. Swinging recklessly got him poisoned. Alright, Rudra thought, his mind suddenly going totally clear. No more playing by the rules. Time to just fight. He was still hoarding 90 unallocated stat points from his grinding on the beach. He had saved them out of pure, stubborn arrogance. If he held onto them for even one more second, he was going to die here.

With a quick mental command, he dumped the points. [Strength has increased by 30.] [Agility has increased by 30.] [Stamina has increased by 15.] [Intelligence has increased by 15.] A rush of energy flooded his muscles. The freezing chill of the water completely vanished from his senses. As the anchor came crashing down, Rudra didn't try to block. His freakish hand-eye coordination tracked the falling iron perfectly.

With his Agility now sitting at 80, he stepped smoothly to the left, swaying out of the way by mere inches. The anchor smashed into the stone floor, blasting freezing water into the air. While the boss was stuck off-balance, Rudra gripped the staff with both hands. He didn't pull his punch, but he wasn't swinging blindly either. Using the fluid motion of his dodge, he spun his body and unleashed all 81 points of his base Strength directly into the Curator's exposed ribs. BOOM!

The 5% Knockback effect on his Rare staff triggered perfectly. The giant skeleton was lifted right off its feet, flying backward and crashing into a stone pillar.

"Hell yeah!" Rudra laughed, surging forward through the water. He fought exactly the way he wanted to—wild, joyful, and entirely unorthodox. He used his crazy reflexes to weave around the heavy anchor swings, creating openings, and then punished the boss with his explosive stats. The Curator desperately backhanded him, its coral-spiked gauntlet tearing across Rudra's shoulder. [You have been inflicted with 'Coral Toxin'.] The red warning flashed, but Rudra completely ignored it. He didn't panic.

He just trusted his damage output to finish the job first. Using the momentum of the boss's own strike, Rudra spun around and brought the heavy oak staff crashing down directly onto the top of the Curator's skull. CRUNCH! The skull shattered like cheap glass. The blue fire flickered out, and the massive skeleton collapsed into a pile of rusted armor and wet bones. Rudra stood over the remains, breathing heavily. He watched the poison tick away his health until the timer faded, leaving him at a comfortable 140 HP.

He wiped seawater from his face, a wild grin stretching across his cheeks. He finally figured out how to fight in this game. [You have defeated the Tide-Bound Curator.] [The dungeon has been cleared!] [Experience has been acquired.] [Level Up!] [Level Up!] [Because you are the First Discoverer, the boss has dropped an exceptional item.] Rudra looked down at the pile of bones. Sitting perfectly dry on top of the rusted anchor was a glowing blue skill book.