First boss fight in another world Chapter 14
"So, Zangika… what's the plan?"
Karn rolled his shoulders, eyes scanning the dark descent below. The dungeon entrance yawned ahead of them — old stone, older air.
"Explore it," Zangika replied.
Karn stepped inside.
The atmosphere shifted immediately. The walls weren't normal stone — they were threaded with glowing crystals, blue and green light pulsing faintly in the dark like a slow heartbeat. The deeper he walked, the thicker the air felt, pressing in at the edges of his lungs.
"Mana concentration is high in here," Zangika said, voice dropping slightly. "These stones are acting like natural batteries. I'm taking one for research."
A small panel opened near Karn's waist and silently absorbed one of the crystals from the wall.
"Deploying drone."
A small unit slipped out of the suit and shot forward into the dark ahead.
Silence.
Then: "Target acquired."
A projection flickered into Karn's HUD. Five feet tall. Green skin. Lean body, sharp nails, hollow eyes that caught no light.
"Goblin," Zangika said. "Dungeon guide classifies it as low threat."
Karn cracked his neck.
"Good."
He moved.
* * *
The Goblin didn't hear him coming.
Karn's fist drove into its stomach before it could turn — the impact folded the creature in half, blood and saliva erupting from its mouth as its body left the ground and cartwheeled backward. Karn didn't wait to watch it land. He planted his foot hard, pushed off, and was already moving when the Goblin hit the wall with a crack that echoed down the corridor.
He was on it before the dust settled.
The Goblin snarled and dragged something from its own gut — a crude blade, pulled free from inside its own body. Something unnatural glinted at its core.
"Zangika."
"Scanning — abnormal core detected inside the body."
"Combat mode."
The HUD flared to life. Angles, strike points, predicted trajectories — everything mapped across his vision in a fraction of a second.
The Goblin lunged, slashing wildly. Karn tilted his head and let the blade pass an inch from his face, already inside its reach. His fist buried itself in its gut again — a detonating impact that lifted the creature clean off its feet.
Zangika's targeting lines locked across the airborne body.
"Follow the path."
Karn twisted mid-air and went after it. First punch — the nose caved with a wet crack. Second — the jaw shifted sideways. Third — the orbital bone collapsed. The Goblin's body jerked with each hit, the force from the previous strike still rippling through it as the next one arrived. It wasn't falling anymore. The impacts were holding it up.
"Total hits: twenty-three… thirty-one… forty-seven—"
Karn wound up for the final strike. Full rotation. All his weight loaded into the shoulder, through the elbow, through the fist.
BOOM.
His hand went through the Goblin's chest.
Everything stopped. The body dropped. Karn stood still, arm buried inside the corpse, and slowly pulled his hand back out. Something small and glowing sat in his blood-soaked palm — the core.
* * *
"Ewww."
Zangika's voice rang out across the corridor. "I didn't know you were into this kind of thing. That's disgusting."
"I didn't mean to—"
"Too late. You got it all over me."
Before Karn could respond, micro-vents fired across the surface of the suit — a pressurised water wash that stripped every drop of blood clean in under two seconds.
"Much better."
* * *
They moved deeper.
More Goblins appeared in the corridors ahead. This time, Zangika didn't wait for Karn to engage.
A thin stream shot forward — not wide, not explosive. Just a line. Invisible. Silent.
The first Goblin's head slid off before it even registered the sound. The second one rushed in from the side — its throat opened mid-stride and its body tumbled forward on momentum alone. They dropped one after another, quiet as slaughtered livestock.
Karn watched. "That's... efficient."
"High-pressure jet stream," Zangika replied. "Molecular-level cutting. No mess."
They kept moving. Faster now. Cleaner.
Until Zangika paused.
"Multiple targets incoming."
Karn stopped. The ground vibrated underfoot — a low, rolling tremor coming from somewhere ahead. Then the dark at the end of the corridor broke apart into dozens of moving shapes, all rushing forward at once. A swarm.
Karn flexed his fingers. "Should I just punch through them?"
"Why punch when we can slice?"
"The dungeon won't collapse?"
"Calculated strike. Relax."
The Goblins screamed and clawed and rushed — a wave of bodies filling the corridor wall to wall.
Zangika fired.
One line. Perfectly straight. No flash, no explosion — just a whisper of pressure and then silence. The entire swarm stopped moving at once. For a half second nothing happened. Then every body split cleanly across the neck and collapsed in a single wave, like dominoes falling in the same direction at the same time.
The beam kept going. It punched through the far wall and a distant rumble rolled down the corridor — a chunk of stone somewhere behind the swarm collapsing, sliced clean through.
Karn stared at the wall of collapsed bodies. "...Remind me not to stand in front of that."
"Smart choice."
* * *
They collected stones as they moved, going deeper, until the corridor opened into something else entirely.
Two massive gates. Ancient iron, thick as Karn's arm, covered in carvings he didn't recognise. The air beyond them felt different — heavier. Charged.
"Boss room," Karn muttered.
He pushed. The doors groaned open.
A massive chamber stretched out before him — tall ceiling, wide floor, the crystal light here brighter and redder than the rest of the dungeon. And in the center, a large humanoid figure lay dead on the ground. Something was perched on top of it.
"...Griffin," Zangika said.
* * *
The Griffin
It lifted its head.
Eagle face. Golden eyes that caught the red light and held it. A lion's body beneath folded wings that stretched wide as it stood — larger than the dead thing it had been resting on.
It screeched once, the sound slamming off every wall at once.
Then it vanished.
Karn's eyes swept the chamber — too late. The Griffin was already above him, claws descending like dropped blades.
"Weapon — now!"
The spear materialised in his hand. He swung upward — CLANG — the claws deflected off the shaft, the impact shuddering up through his arms and pushing the Griffin back. It flapped once, hard, and shot upward toward the ceiling.
Then it opened its wings and shook them.
Hundreds of feathers released at once — falling like thrown blades, each one spinning with enough velocity to core stone.
"Speed: one hundred miles per hour," Zangika clocked.
Karn moved. Left — step. Right — twist. Forward — slide. He wasn't reacting to each feather, he was reading the pattern half a beat ahead, his body moving through the gaps before they finished closing. The ones he couldn't dodge hit the ground around him — stone shattered, dust exploded upward in columns, the floor cracking under each impact like the dungeon itself was flinching.
"Counter."
Karn planted his foot and launched. Water pressure built along the spear's length as he thrust forward — a pressurised beam shot out, cutting through the air where the Griffin had been a half second before.
The Griffin twisted mid-air and avoided it — but the beam kept going and hit the ceiling. A section of rock collapsed instantly, chunks the size of a man dropping through the chamber.
"Fast bastard," Zangika muttered. "It knows what the beam does now."
"Good," Karn said.
He jumped. And kept going — past the apex of a normal jump, his foot catching on nothing, on air itself. Air Walk engaged. He changed direction mid-ascent, cutting sideways without slowing, and the Griffin froze for a split second — just one — visibly uncertain about something that shouldn't be able to move like that.
Karn used it.
He closed the distance in the space of that hesitation, pressure at maximum, and swung a wide horizontal arc with the spear. The Griffin pulled back — fast, barely — but not fast enough. The tip caught its left wing. A clean slice opened across the joint. Blood sprayed across the chamber wall and the Griffin screamed, the sound raw and different from the battle-screech earlier — pain this time — as it tumbled back and crashed hard into the far wall.
It tried to push off the wall and rise again. Karn was already moving.
"Maximum output," Zangika said.
The beam fired directly into the Griffin's chest. The impact drove it straight through the wall behind it. Silence followed — the kind that comes after something very large stops moving very suddenly.
Karn hovered. Breathing steady. The chamber was thick with dust and the smell of burnt stone.
"We should leave," Zangika said.
"Yeah."
* * *
They exited the dungeon into grey afternoon light.
The guards at the gate moved to intercept.
"Proof of completion?"
Karn reached into his suit and pulled out the Goblin core. Still faintly glowing, still slightly damp. He held it up.
The guard looked at it. Looked at Karn. Looked back at the core. Stepped aside without another word.
"You may pass."
Karn didn't acknowledge it. He walked straight through, back toward his lodging, the noise of the entrance fading behind him. By the time he reached his room and dropped onto the bed, the adrenaline had already finished burning out.
He was asleep before he fully settled.
End of Chapter 14