<~> Chapter 41The rge boss door loomed in front of us, my hand looked small on the giant ornate handle. "Is everyone ready?"

  Everyoook a moment to look over their ons, Torien checked her arrows, Man prepared some fireballs that orbited arouaff. My other hand gripped around my cursed sword's grip in anticipation.

  "Ready..."

  "Ready."

  "Ready."

  "Ready!"

  "Alright, here we go!" As I pushed the handle inwards the rge doors swept open with ease. The room looked somewhat like a throne room plete with a rge red carpet that spilled through the ter of the room and uhe rge chair that domi. The ceiling was high up with pilrs and supports resembling the inside of a gothic church. Large pin red banners were hanging down and framed the decorated throne.

  Seated in the chair was a tall pale woman with blood red eyes. She held a gss of wine, or perhaps blood, and wore a gothic bck dress. I hesitated for a moment, unsure if we would have to fight another intelligent monster. We cautiously approached and the woman stared at us with a disied look on her face. I was about to attempt speaking to her when she suddenly became enraged as if a sudden switch had been flipped. She threw her gss across the room and made a noise somewhere between a scream and a hiss as she leapt to her feet atop the throne, ripping her dress in the process.

  "Demonic Vampire Queen, Level 18. Doesn't look like she talk either," Mimi said.

  Simultaneously Man and Torien shot their projectiles at the woman. She jumped up to the ceiling dodging them with ease. Hanging from the ceiling she screamed again and shot a spear of blood at me. Since I had been trag her movements I was ready for her attack, I'm not sure what made her single me out but better me than my friends. I leapt to the side and dodged but I didn't have a good way to follow up from this distance.

  "Mimi, you tell me if the Vampire is shadow or dark aligned?"

  "Mmm, doesn't look like it. She's... blood aligned?"

  "I didn't know that was a thing." Torien yelled.

  "Being aligo advanced magics is possible but it's pretty rare. Unfortunately I have no idea what blood might be weak against!" Man called out.

  A vampire with blood magic, figures. Without a better idea I shot a light orb at it anyway. It dodged the attad shot another spear at me, still attag at range from the ceiling. Does it know that I'm higher level than it maybe?

  It uself from pilr to pilr dodging ed attacks while throwing spears at me. I threw back more orbs of light but she was fast enough to dodge every projectile we shot its way. It was just too far to accurately draw a bead on it. Fortuhe same seemed be true for the Vampire as well, I wasn't having much trouble dodging its attacks but it didn't feel like we were getting anywhere.

  "I'm going to try shooting all of my fireballs at ohe glow from the fireballs around Man's staff intensified and they flew scattershot at the ceiling, growing in size as they approached.

  The vampire finally jumped down from the ceiling and avoided the explosions that lit the ceiling in a bze of fire and I finally had an opportunity to attack. I tried to close the dista I since I had the opportunity I wao try something else now that I could actually hit the thing.

  I charged up a light orb and used [Light Manipution] to alter it, making it mostly made up of ultra-violet light, thinking that maybe I could deal damage to a vampire using an analog to the sun. Trying to use [Light Manipution] in this way and while movi really unwieldly. I felt really difficult to bend the mana to do what I wa to but I think I was able to pull it off.

  Right before I was in melee range I shot the light orb at it. It tried to dodge but I still clipped its shoulder. The spot the orb hit had been clothed but her skin lit up and charred the dress away. I was excited that I had found a weakness but the moment I thought that, the skin uhe charred sprew and sloughed the burnt skin away leaving untouched fwless skin in its pce.

  I set that pn aside for now and followed through with a long ssh using my cymore. The boss room was rge enough that my swings weren't impeded the way they had been in the cramped hallways. The vampire was fast, it dodged my sshes, likely having anticipated them. It tried to ssh back at me with its rge cw like hands but I have quite a bit me with my sword, lettiep out of her attacks each time.

  I saw the exaent on its face when it decided I would be too hard of a target to kill first. Its eyes sed my other party members before settling on Bel. When I saw this I tried to charge but it leaped away and g to one of the pilrs.

  "Bel! I think it's going tet you !"

  "Okay!" I watched mana swirl arouaff as she prepared something hopefully defensive. Just as the vampire was in the process of leaping from the pilr an arrow shot at lightning speed through the vampire's foot pinnio the pilr and making her fail her jump, smming into the pilr face first instead. I started to run towards it but it recovered and violently tore its foot from the arrow leaving a spray of blood ohe once white n.

  The vampire's bloody foot snapped ba pce a moment ter pletely regeing the foot as if nothing had happened. I thought it had looked pissed before but the amount of malice aimed at Torien now was unreal. Torien tried to pull another arrow for a shot but wasn't going to make it in time as the monster sailed across the room towards her.

  Torien's eyes went wide at the speed the vampire hurtled right at her but before those sharp monstrous cws reached her a wall of soft cy ripped through the tiles of the floor and intercepted the attack. The impact didn't seem to ihe vampire at all but it was hard stu the d struggled to get out.

  Man took the opportunity to douse the monster in all of the fire she had been colleg since she had lit the ceiling up earlier. The monster screamed with rage as it burned. For a moment I thought we had won but it freed itself from the d jumped away from us. Magic swelled around it and the fire that g to it was extinguished with its own blood.

  Even at this distance I could see the charred flesh slough off her, leaving the creature standing naked with the dark blood trasting her milky white skin. The blood slowly melted away as it reabsorbed into her skin, leaving the naked vampire standing with her cws outstretched. She looked warily at roup, likely unsure of who to attaext.

  Its eyes darted back up to the ceiling whose fmes were extinguished now. It jumped backwards towards the pilr before extinguishing the fmes of the torch there and jumping to the . It was systematically jumping around the ro to avoid us while it put out all of the fire. I could uand what it was trying to do but I k wouldn't work.

  "Tori! Mori! How's yht vision? It's putting out all of the torches!"

  "With a little light we see fine in the dark!" Man yelled back.

  "Good!" I casted [Fireflies] I didn't want to bother with [Light Manipution] so I just snapped up the rgest range of it I could to make sure we could all see clearly. Luckily, roup was entirely made up of Beastfolk and Demi-Beasts so all of us would be able to see fine in low-light. The fact that the vampire was trying this at all led me to believe the enemy was ag on a script like some sort of video game boss. Why does this dungeon seem so unnatural?

  My thoughts had me distracted and I wasn't ready to dodge when a spear of blood rocketed towards me, ripping through the flesh of my calf and knog me on my back.

  "Lilith!" I could hear Bel yelling in the distand I felt my blood run cold. I sat up and lifted my sword just in time to block a cw attack from the Vampire Queen. I think I was in shock because all I could focus on in that moment was swinging wildly at the monster. I fumbled an attad she khe sword from my hand and it slid away. She then pinned my arms to the ground with her cws skewering them to the floor. I cried out as all the pain hit me at once, I felt light headed, my calf and bicep muscles were burning.

  The Vampire Queen's face opened unnaturally revealing a dark hole surrounded by tless teeth. I stared at it in horror sure of my owh.

  In that short moment before I died the false sword that had been on my waist the entire fight grew in size, opes e mouth of teeth and snapped around the Vampire's head in a split sed.

  I stared at the ceiling where the vampire's mouth had once been in shock as Mimi returo the form of my sword. The decapitated body of the vampire fell onto my chest before turning into a pool of blood and soaking me and my clothes. I shivered as I id in the pool of blood, both my own and the dead vampire's. I felt light headed, the blood loss was starting to hit me and I truly realized in that moment that all of this was very real.

  This wasn't a game, even if the monsters acted like it. This wasn't just happy go lucky fun adventuring. These wounds weren't scrapes that a healer just shove off with no sequehis was real. When we were out here, in a dungeon like this one, my life was at risk and a small mistake could e or any of my friends our lives.

  [Your party has defeated a Demon Vampire Queen][Your party has defeated the final boss of the Midnight Castle Dungeon]

  [Your level has increased from level 24 to Level 25][Bck Cat has increased from level 6 to level 10]

  [Swordsmanship has increased from level 34 to level 35][Mana Sense has increased from level 2 to level 4][Light Magic has increased from level 2 to level 5][Light Manipution has increased from level 1 to level 3][Soultouched e has increased from level 1 to level 2]

  [Learned passive skill Double Down][Learned Luck Magic Spell flip][Learned Luck Magic Spell Die Nudge]*[Learned Luck Magic Spell Bckjack]

  [Learned Light Magic Spell Light Beam][Learned Light Magic Spell Light Signal]

  I was feeling faint and before long my sciousness faded. My world falling into the bck around me.

  I woke up slumped over in a chair in a circur room with bck walls. There in front of me was a bored looking man in a grey robe, his head rested against his hand and his legs were crossed in front of him. Once he noticed me looking at him he sat up a bit straighter and leaned ba his chair. However he looked no less bored than before.

  "Hello Lilith, I am the god of death and ge. It is fortunate we are able to have this versation before your panion wakes you up. And before you ask, no, you are not dead."

  Saine

  Hello! Poor Lilith, not even fighting a vampire keep her out of her own head. It always made me ugh when people were talking about how bad of a was to go into the dungeon, knowing that I had already written it to end up this way. Lilith really got through by the skin of her teeth here and absolutely would have died if it hadn't been for both Mimi and Bel. Mimi having not even been a member of her party at the start. Anyway! I hope you ehis chapter, it was a bit of a fun challeo write it. I hope it felt as climactic as I was going for. Thanks for reading!

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