Chapter 15: Slaying the Dungeon Boss — Thousand-Faced Mage
[Godshadow] (SS Rank)
[Effect]: Enter a stealth state for 24 hours after activation. While stealthed, movement speed increases by 80%, and attacking will not reveal the user.
Cooldown: 1 hour
MP Cost: 100
With its values modified, Godshadow had become practically permanent invisibility.
Its cooldown was only one hour, perfectly covered by the twenty-four-hour stealth duration.
As long as John wanted, he could remain invisible forever.
"Now that suits me."
John nodded in satisfaction and immediately activated Godshadow.
His figure quickly turned hazy.
Then, little by little, he vanished from where he stood.
In this state, even if all the undead creatures from earlier were to revive at once, none of them would be able to detect him.
John did not linger. He continued walking deeper inside.
At the end of the vast tomb hall stood an enormous stone door.
Countless human faces were carved into its surface.
Joy, anger, sorrow, delight—every expression imaginable was there.
And the eyes of those faces looked disturbingly alive.
They rolled ceaselessly in their sockets.
Anyone with a weak heart would probably be scared half to death just by looking at the door.
John, however, moved as if he were returning home. With practiced ease, he pushed it open with one hand.
[You have entered the Boss Area. "Stealth" is temporarily disabled.]
John's figure briefly reappeared.
Beyond the door was a chamber.
It was much smaller than the tomb hall outside.
At the center of the room stood a stone platform.
Seated atop it, with his back to John, was a robed figure.
Above him floated countless masks made from different materials.
Some were bone, some stone, some metal...
Just like the faces carved on the door, these masks seemed alive. Their lips writhed continuously, releasing whispers that made one's scalp tingle.
John's gaze settled on the figure upon the platform.
A line of information appeared before him.
[Thousand-Faced Mage] Lv.30 (Catacomb Boss)
[HP]: 50,000
[Magic Power]: 3,100
[Defense]: 1,000
[Skill]: Thousand Face (Equips different masks to obtain different magic abilities)
...
The Thousand-Faced Mage, creator of the underground catacombs.
Within the game's lore, he was an infamous existence.
He had once been an outstanding graduate of an aristocratic magic academy, but after coming into contact with dark magic, he had fallen beyond redemption.
In pursuit of the ultimate peak of magical power, the Thousand-Faced Mage had peeled off his own face and refined it into a mask.
He was not only ruthless to himself, but even crueler to others.
Every undead creature in the entire catacomb was his handiwork.
He treated human beings as experimental materials, transforming them bit by bit into undead creatures.
All for the sake of engraving masks capable of unlocking ever more varieties of magic.
Looking around, nearly every mask in the room was stained with another person's blood.
"Heh heh..."
The Thousand-Faced Mage had sensed John's intrusion.
He slowly turned around, revealing a smooth face devoid of features.
"Another specimen has delivered itself to me. How delightful."
The Thousand-Faced Mage's voice echoed from the masks floating all around the room.
Slowly rising to his feet, he stretched out a hand, and a vampire mask flew onto his face.
In an instant, the aura around him turned cold and sinister.
The mask on his face twisted into a vicious grin.
"Die!"
Whoosh—
A cloud of blood mist surged from within his robes.
It transformed into a dense swarm of tiny vampire bats that shot forward like a rainstorm.
Even if each bat could only deal a single point of magic damage, there were simply too many of them.
A fragile class would probably be torn apart in a single exchange.
Unfortunately for him—
John was currently wearing [Divine Protection], which granted immunity to all magic attacks.
[-0!] [-0!] [-0!] ...
A string of white immunity numbers burst out one after another.
John's HP did not budge in the slightest.
That sight shocked the Thousand-Faced Mage.
The mask on his face trembled faintly and twisted.
"How is this possible? You... how are you completely unharmed?"
John ignored him and silently drew his dagger.
The Thousand-Faced Mage's voice rose with excitement.
"Such high magic resistance—I've never seen anything like it before.
A perfect specimen!
You... I must have you!"
The moment his words fell, every mask in the room began to writhe and merge together.
In the end, they formed a pitch-black, twisted mask that fused onto the Thousand-Faced Mage's face.
In an instant, his information in John's vision glowed red.
[Boss Thousand-Faced Mage has entered Berserk State. Magic attack increased by 50%!]
Walls of flame, ice spikes, wind blades...
All kinds of magic attacks erupted from the Thousand-Faced Mage like a tidal wave crashing toward John.
"Die for me!!!"
The Thousand-Faced Mage let out a shrill scream.
Behind the mask, his eyes shone with wild excitement, as though he could already see John collapsing and becoming yet another one of his experimental materials.
[-0!]
A huge, glaring white number appeared.
The Thousand-Faced Mage's pupils contracted instantly.
"How can that be?!"
In the next moment—
John's figure flashed with Instant Move.
In the blink of an eye, he appeared behind him.
Bloodfang gleamed coldly as he drove it forward.
[-8500!]
Absolute True Damage, stacked with the assassin talent's critical-hit effect!
The Thousand-Faced Mage instantly lost a fifth of his HP.
"Get away from me!"
Crying out in pain, the Thousand-Faced Mage abruptly hurled out a barrage of magic spheres.
[-0!]
With 100% magic resistance, Horus completely ignored the attack.
John activated Instant Move again, and his figure once more appeared behind the Thousand-Faced Mage.
Another stab.
[-8515!]
His magic attacks were useless, yet the other side could inflict enormous damage upon him!
Faced with such a hopeless disadvantage, the Thousand-Faced Mage finally panicked.
His voice trembled as fear surfaced for the first time.
"Who... who exactly are you? Why... why is your magic resistance so high?!"
[-8591!]
The only answer he received was another merciless strike.
John was like death itself. Flashing in and out of sight, he caused the Thousand-Faced Mage's HP to plummet.
No matter how desperately the latter struggled, no matter how many spells he unleashed in resistance—
none of it could change the fact that his HP was racing toward zero.
Puchi.
[-8171!]
With the final stab piercing from his back through his chest, the Thousand-Faced Mage's body shuddered.
In only a few short seconds, it completely broke apart and perished.
All the masks scattered across the floor and shattered into fragments.
[Congratulations, player, for killing the dungeon boss Thousand-Faced Mage Lv.30!]
[Rewards obtained: EXP +50,000, Gold Coins +100, Fame +1,000]
[You have plundered B-Rank Skill "Flame Shield"!]
[You have plundered B-Rank Skill "Ice Spike"!]
[You have plundered A-Rank Talent "Thousand Faces"! (Allows perfect control over conflicting elemental skills of A-Rank and below, and boosts them by 20%)]
[You have plundered A-Rank Skill...]
System notifications kept popping up.
John glanced at his skill and talent panels.
He discovered that they had suddenly been filled with a dense list of magic-related skills and talents.
[Player]: John
[Level]: 30 (EXP pool overflowed; will level up automatically after class advancement)
[Class]: Assassin
[Talents]: Wrath of the Raider (SSS), Universal Synthesis (S), Absolute Stillness (S), Thousand Faces (A)...
[Attributes]: Strength 660, Agility 985, Mind 350, Stamina 770
[Skills]: Absolute True Damage (SSS), Godshadow (SS), Annihilation of All (S), Ice Spike (B), Flame Shield (B)...
[Equipment]: Divine Protection (S), Bloodfang (A), Lightning Robe (A)
[Wallet]: 139 Gold Coins, 988 Silver Coins, 937 Copper Coins
"Tch. A pity. For now, I only want to be a good assassin."
John shook his head and closed the panel.
Then his gaze fell upon the A-Rank treasure chest dropped after the Thousand-Faced Mage's death.