I crouched and pressed myself against the vertical wall of the step as the giant boar-taur landed not 6 feet away. My Mirror cloak held and he never glanced in my direction. His entire focus was on the annoying voice sounding from the distant step. He lifted the bow again and fired another arrow, growling with annoyance as he did so.

  I triggered Scroll of Binding. Magical chains, glowing with amber light, appeared around Bristleback’s forelegs. He roared in anger and reared back, kicking violently, but the chains tightened, yanking the legs together and locking them immobile.

  The mighty boar-taur stumbled when he landed and fell to the ground with a resounding crash. I pounced, leaping right onto his broad back and hurling a potion of Impotence into Bristleback’s open mouth.

  “Potion of Impotence. Renders anyone who drinks this potion magically impotent. Blocks all use of mana for 60 seconds.”

  The potion smashed against his teeth, spraying liquid into his mouth. Bristleback’s entire body shuddered. The lightning dancing around his bow winked out and he sagged, as if suddenly weary.

  I drew both of my blades and plunged Fang into the center of the boss’s thick upper back, anchoring me in place. The blade delivered a massive dose of poison, drawing from my mana to fuel its power. Bristleback shuddered and roared again, twisting violently to reach me with arms that could rip me limb from limb.

  I clung to his back, anchored by Fang. With a shout of victory, I slashed across the back of his neck with Soulrend.

  The glowing ethereal blade bounced off.

  I was so stunned, I froze. Soulrend never failed to penetrate. It wasn’t physical, not even elemental. It only directly interacted with souls so armor, hide, and most magical defenses couldn’t stop it. How?

  Somehow, even with his front legs shackled, Bristleback bucked mightily, throwing me off. I lost my grip on Fang, leaving it sticking out of Bristleback’s torso. As I windmilled uselessly in the air, he punched me.

  He might not be able to use his magic, but he was still a 15-foot tall boss monster the size of a truck. His fist hit like an avalanche and I rocketed away, the wind blasted out of me, even though my Crash Test Dummy armored jacket absorbed enough of the damage that I don’t think any of my ribs broke.

  Cracked, sure, but not broken. I was good to—

  I smashed back-first into a falling boulder the size of a inground pool. Again my armor saved my life, but my head cracked so hard against the unyielding stone that stars exploded in my vision.

  I bounced off the rock and tumbled onto another flat step, rolling in an out-of-control tumble until I crashed facefirst into the vertical back of the step.

  “Ow,” I groaned as I flopped onto my back, stunned. As my head swam, the weird robotic voice from my jacket said, “Major frontal impact. Too bad you don’t have a jacket for your head.”

  Was my jacket making fun of me?

  Energy poured in from my Tesla Coil bracelet, healing my wounds and clearing my head. Had I heard the jacket right, or was it a concussion hallucination? Didn’t matter. In 3 seconds, I’d be back in action.

  That proved to be 2 seconds too slow.

  An enormous fist wrapped around my torso and lifted me into the air. Bristleback’s snarling face loomed over mine as he lifted his naginata-style spear sword in his other hand.

  “Now you die.” He growled.

  Ahab’s harpoon appeared in my hands, the long weapon pressing against Bristleback’s chest and I fired as soon as I felt its solid weight.

  The fiery harpoon exploded into the boar-taur’s chest with a blast of fire and ripped clean through to the far side, leaving a softball-sized hole gushing blood and gore.

  Bristleback staggered, his grip loosened, and I fell free. Even wounded so badly, he tried splitting me in half with his spear-sword. I twisted aside and Energy Ward helped deflect the blow just past my shoulder. Instead of ripping me in half, the blade bit a foot into the hard stone.

  Standing so close to Bristleback, his heavy musk scent, mixed with the reek of blood and open entrails and scorched fur was overwhelming. He’d taken even more of a beating than I had, but wouldn’t die.

  He lunged, trying to smash me into the stones with his enormous weight, but I dropped and rolled beneath him. Of course, he tried to drop on top of me and squash me like a grape.

  It was an awkward move with his front legs still bound, which gave me a second to slap another Piercing Strike emoji trap to the stone next to me. I triggered it and rolled aside.

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  A forest of spears exploded out of the ground, punching deep into Bristleback’s already-shredded underbelly. I’d timed it perfectly, just as the huge boar-taur dropped with all his weight. The move amplified the damage, forcing the spears deeper.

  Bristleback froze and a throat-ripping scream shook the air and echoed off the nearest peaks. That had hurt the tough monster.

  I rolled free and glanced up to see Bristleback shuddering in pain. He spotted me and still somehow rallied the strength to raise his spear-sword over head. He might be badly wounded, maybe even mortally wounded, but he could still kill me.

  I triggered a scroll of Ice Blast, aimed right at his face. I had never used that type of scroll before, so wasn’t sure what it would do.

  A thick bolt of absolute cold smashed into his long snout and toppled Bristleback right over backward, ice encasing his entire head. He writhed on the ground and one giant rear leg caught me in the chest.

  Even with my armor and Energy Ward, the blow catapulted me up onto another flat step and I got to enjoy another bone-rattling crash into the cliff wall.

  “Major offset impact. You’ll need more than a chiropractor after that one,” my jacket said.

  “Oh, shut up,” I growled as I spat blood. My bracelet was working overtime to keep me in fighting shape, but the battering was taking a toll. Groaning, I staggered back to my feet just as Bristleback smashed the ice encasing his head. Down on that lower shelf, he lay on his side, enormous chest heaving, covered in blood and gore.

  I had to finish him. So I pulled a pole ax from my inventory and leaped off the step. I poured all my strength and momentum from the fall into the blow, envisioning the long ax chopping Bristleback in half.

  Even dazed as he was, the boar-taur sensed the danger and rolled over, swiping my blow aside with his sword spear. I crashed to the ground next to him and he lashed out with one giant fist.

  I slipped past the blow, but as he withdrew the hand, he caught my armored jacket with his fingers and dragged me close. His humanoid torso bent nearly double as he snapped his deadly maw at my head. Those thick teeth could probably snap my skull in a single bite.

  I twisted as hard as I could in his grasp and with the help of Energy Ward managed to just avoid the snapping jaw. Then I seized him by both tusks and bit down on his wide, flat nose with all my strength. My teeth broke the rubbery skin.

  “You have cast Death Bite.”

  The move caught Bristleback by surprise and as the spell struck, he roared right in my face, then fell back, convulsing. In the process, he slammed me bodily into the stone so hard I lay stunned for a couple seconds. The charge in my Tesla Coil bracelet was nearly spent, despite how much damage I was dealing to Bristleback, but it saved me again.

  I rolled to my feet and backed away from the still-convulsing monster. Even if he wasn’t directly targeting me, he could crush me by accident. I wanted to leap in and finish him while he was distracted, but also wanted to see if the spell worked.

  I expected the transformation to fail, but I really wanted to see the 50% hit to his life points. That should be enough to kill him, unless it only took 50% of what he had left. That would be lame.

  Bristleback’s convulsing intensified even as the ground shook harder. More of the steps broke free, and an avalanche of stone raining down from above forced me to scramble aside and take refuge on a nearby shelf. The entire mountain shook so hard, I only barely managed to keep from getting shaken over the edge. Falling into the deep chasm filling with frothing water and dark, sinister shapes of underwater monsters would end my journey in a flash.

  Finally the shaking subsided long enough for me to rush back to Bristleback. The entire shelf was covered in gore. It looked like one of the falling rocks must have squashed Bristleback to jelly. All that remained was a disgusting crimson pool of monster parts that threatened to make me sick.

  I spotted Fang in the gore and scooped it up. It was a mess, but I was glad to have it back. I tossed it into my inventory, then frowned. Shouldn’t I get an achievement for killing Bristleback?

  A tiny shape hurtled into me from the side, hitting me so hard it knocked me back to the other shelf. I fell tumbling with something tearing at my head and neck. It was a blur of fur and claws and fangs and pure mayhem.

  “Bristleback, boar-koala. Level 51. This unique amalgamation of a boss boar-taur with a were-koala has produced a being so full of rage it will literally explode if it does not eat your heart.”

  Blood ran into my eyes, obscuring my vision, and my face and neck were ripped with scores of shallow wounds. My health plummeted and searing pain made it hard to think.

  One thought was clear, though. Death Bite had been a bad idea.

  I snatched and grabbed at the angry little beast as it clawed and bit and crawled over me, trying to kill me through sheer savagery. It bit and tore at my jacket and gloves, but they proved strong enough to ward off its attacks.

  Cyrus would torture me an extra year if I let myself get killed by a stupid were-boar-koala after I’d beaten Bristleback in his overwhelming huge form.

  Growling with anger, I finally got a grip on the little monster and hauled it off my head. It came free with several chunks of hair and another spray of blood.

  “Ow!” I shouted, shaking it hard as I tried to get a good look at my enemy.

  It looked like a koala, but with a boar’s snout and stubby legs covered in bristly fur. It hissed and gnashed sharp teeth at me, spraying yellow acidic poison. Without my poison immunity ring, it might have killed me from the poison infection alone.

  It tore at my gloves and bracers, black claws leaving scratch marks on the tough armor. I spun and hurled it against the vertical stone wall about 10 feet away. The little devil smashed into it but bounced off and rushed back at me with a shriek of absolute rage.

  I shot it in the face with a stun gun.

  The blast knocked it off its feet where it lay dazed for a second. That was plenty.

  I leaped high into the air. As I came down, I pulled out my giant ogre club. The enormous weapon seemed to fill the entire sky as I brought its full 500 pound weight down with all my strength onto the still-dazed boar-koala.

  The little monster splatted like a water balloon, streaks of crimson spraying to either side. When I tossed the giant club back into my inventory, only smears of red and tiny patches of fur remained to mark the spot where Bristleback had died.

  “Congratulations, Lucas! You have defeated Bristleback, the sacred boss and leader of the Peakstone boars. Extra experience gained for defeating a higher-level monster. Experience doubled for defeating your first level 50 boss.”

  I held my breath and time seemed to slow even as the apocalyptic destruction of stage 1 continued all around me. I couldn’t breathe, my heart nearly burst with tension as my fears spiked. Had it been enough to satisfy Cyrus?

  “Congratulations, Lucas! You have reached level 11!”