Chapter 431

“What’s wrong?” the prince asked Ajax as they made camp for the final time in this dungeon.

“I will need to change.” Ajax said with a bit of disappointment as he looked down towards his gauntlet, already four of his germs had shattered and his other elements weren’t fat behind. “I appreciate how long you kept your silence regarding my gauntlet but once we return to Gryndor I will look into having some new more specific weapons commissioned.”

“You don’t have to look at specialization as a bad thing.” The prince said, he could clearly see the problem Ajax had with replacing his gauntlet: his extreme versatility would now become limited or he would be forced to sacrifice his weapons. “It could in fact push you forwards instead.” 

“How would it do that?” Ajax asked. 

“The gems in your gauntlet are all so very small.” The prince had insisted that he wear something to magically mask the gauntlet for as long as he couldn’t make use of the discovery as well. “Despite being mana gems with a specific affinity the break under your spells, in terms of raw power that is less than what a level ninety mage can output.” 

“And how would specialising help?” Ajax asked. 

“You might not be aware of it yourself but you are already limiting yourself to one or two elements per weapon, it's a simple fact that certain elements are better wielded by specific weapons.” The prince said. “With the bigger gems and the correct enchantments added those weapons would be able to even further augment your attacks instead of barely maintaining the weapon. That’s to say nothing of the skills you will gain that will stack with your [Augmentation] skill.” 

“That could work.” Ajax said, unconsciously he had started to smile as he appreciated the prince’s advice of this being a better way forward for him. “Do you know any craftsmen who would be willing to work with me on this new approach?” 

“I do, but I will say that it's a good thing your boon will allow you such an increase in wealth.” the prince said with a smile. “The only way you’ll be able to buy yourself a priority on their backlog of orders will be with some of the more rare resources and materials they desire.” 

Following their talk Ajax was more hyped for the upcoming fight and he was ready to push as far as it took to win. “This is the strongest opponent I will fight before my style is forced to evolve.” Ajax muttered to himself. “I have to win.” 

While Ajax would have one more dungeon to delve in Sylvanthal and the Empire’s main dungeon as well neither would present him with a stronger opponent. The last of Sylvanthal’s dungeons had a first floor with level thirty eight mini bosses and an eighteen level floor gap. The strongest fight he would face in there would be a level one hundred and twenty eight with no chance of challenging a one hundred and sixty four. As for the Empire he wouldn’t have a boost group with him ensuring that he could guarantee a one versus one with the mini boss so he will stop his delving much sooner.

The only element they knew about the final floor was the fire element. Ajax had chosen it in hopes of coming upon an environmental floor as that would be trivialised by his escort while the monsters would be just a little bit weaker.

Ajax got his wish much to the rangers disappointment. While the floor environment didn’t pose an actual challenge to them most of them could just disregard the heat at such a high floor.

If he was asked to describe the floor Ajax would be able to do so with a single word, ‘hell’. The entire floor looked like a wide open plane of grass with a tree or two dotted around and set ablaze and this is what remained. The floor was covered with ash and the skeletal blacked trees were the only point of reference in their small depression. 

The heat wasn’t even the worst part of the floor's environment, much worse were the segregations of air that not even Aranor could understand, the humidity would change from above 90% to under 10%. The hot air would feel like a lungful of water one moment before it scorched your throat as you moved forward.

Much to everyone's relief it didn’t take long for them to run into the first mini boss as the pack was running around the hellscape. 

“Are you sure you want to fight a hellhound?” the prince asked with some concern. 

“I’m sure.” Ajax said with a nod. 

One of the things Ajax had miscalculated was how well curse mana would go in addition to fire for creating a floor theme. While the percentage of the curse mana was much lower than on most floors he had found it on before the sheer density of the mana in the air meant to this time Ajax wouldn’t have the luxury of relying on [Mana Syphon] and drawing out the fight or he would get himself infected with too much curse mana.

“After you kid.” Most of the rangers had their bows drawn ready to put down the entire pack with the exception of the boss as soon as Ajax engaged.

It was easy to figure out which one was the boss, not only was it larger than the others, going from the size of a hippo to that of an elephant but the mini boss also had two heads. Ajax very much wondered if there was a three headed Cerberus model for a Floor boss but he very much doubted it since he had already faced a boss with two heads, unless the three heads weren’t as independent as the ettin had been.

The hellhound’s heads resembled a doberman but the body wasn’t as lean, looking more like the jacked frame of a rottweiler. Unlike the ettin Ajax could tell that the hellhound would be less durable but at the same time much faster, but with his new Trait there was no need to push this into a battle of attrition as he now had a much larger resource pool to force the fight to end quickly.

Ajax drank a potion before the fight would even begin, he knew regardless of the outcome the fight wouldn’t last as long as the potion so there was no need to wait. He next drew his bow and fired a heavily infused ice arrow. 

With his ice gem shatter Ajax noticed how the bow had suffered minor damage from his spell, not only that but his arrow had actually missed its mark because one of the fletchings had frozen from the spell, instead of hitting the hellhound in the eye it got him in the snout.

The opening shot was like the opening of the flood gates as arrows rained down onto the unsuspecting pack killing all but the mini boss. In a favorable twist it actually seemed like Ajax’s arrow hitting the snout was actually a better outcome than hitting the eyeball. While the ice magic wasn’t able to last all that long with the internal furnace the hellhound had the unexpected drop in temperature momentarily froze the mini boss. 

The elves had quickly backed off after taking out the pack leaving only Ajax for the boss to focus on. Ajax felt a sense of instinctual fear as he watched the elephant sized monster dash towards him with the same agility he had seen in dog races on the internet. The two heads were locked onto him and the one that had been hit by the arrow now had flamin snot mixing with some blood slowly dripping down as the ice melted. 

Ajax quickly dismissed his fear, he had long since learned to suppress the instinctual fear that came from fighting something so much bigger, the system was the great equalizer and levels were much more important than physical size.

Ajax had also forgone taking out his shield, against a boss like this there were only two things he really needed to worry about. One was the boss’s claws, but his armor's enchantments should be enough that any hit he takes from them would only leave a nasty cut and wouldn’t actually snag him.The other was the jaws and there was no point in using a shield against that since would only give them a better place to grab a hold of, he couldn’t even use his shield to remove the bite attack from the fight as the beast had two heads.

Ajax charged towards the beast with his axe and sword while also starting to exert his control over the burnt ashy ground, unlike the ettin the hellhound was doing nothing to stop him from molding the battleground to his whims.