The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 4 - Chapter 14 - Guardian (Patreon)

                                                                                 Wolf

There really are a lot of rare loot boxes in this place. It makes me wonder what sort of reward the mini bosses will give.

For some reason, I can’t seem to find much if any information about centurion boss themes on the forums. As if it were censored or something.

I continue walking through the long, narrow hallway before eventually arriving at a large and quite fancy door. The door has a depiction of some sort of large monster on it, with bone-like blades sticking out of its shoulders and elbows, along with a full-on crown of bone-like blades on the top of its head.

Is this supposed to be the mini boss? Because I’m not really sure why else a depiction like that would be on it.

Other than the depiction though, the door looks like the sort of entrance door one would see in a rather old temple. Even if it’s not used for the main entrance.

I step up to the door before pushing it open, revealing a rather grand room on the other side. The room has some sort of large half-pyramid sticking out of the far wall, with a grand throne at the top, and the floor’s exit right behind said throne. Meanwhile, sitting on the grand throne is the very same creature that was depicted on the door that I just passed through, along with dozens of sentries scattered throughout the seven or so levels of the half-pyramid.

How the hell does this even fit inside of the temple? I’m pretty sure that pyramid itself is just as big if not larger than the temple looked when I was outside…

I stare at it for a few seconds before deciding to write it off as either System or dungeon logic and identifying the mini boss itself.

                                      _-| Alran – Scythian Guardian – Level 1020 |-_

My eyes widen slightly at its level.

That thing is nineteen levels above the standard starting level for a mini boss on this floor…

I narrow my eyes at the realization before quickly opening the System Forums and searching for information about the monster, which I end up finding rather quickly, along with a couple of images. One of which is rather… surprising.

After staring at the image for several seconds, I turn to look at the large golem, who has a face that look relatively normal, with a mouth, nose, eyes, and ears. But after seeing that image…

I turn back to look at the thread again, or more specifically, at the image of a scythian guardian’s head split open upwards five different ways like a plant, with some sort of vine attached to a bud sticking down the middle like a tongue.

That mini boss represents the saying ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ rather well…

I shake my head at the thought before reading on for information about the creature.

The creature is a temple guardian from the former planet of Scythia; a planet that was set ablaze by the harbinger known as Torusk Moonscream, killing every single living being on the planet, and eventually, killing the planet itself as well. It has a paralytic venom coating all of the bone-like blades covering its body, along with the teeth in its plant-like mouth, which can render something even ten levels above it immobile for a period of time.

But aside from that, it has the same burst speed as the rest of the scythian golems on the floor, and isn’t all that tough, defense-wise.

I continue reading through the rest of the thread for several seconds before closing out of it once I realize that the rest of it is all just lore from their world.

It’s certainly an interesting monster, but I should still be able to deal with it without many issues using my ice.

With that thought in mind, I begin walking towards the pyramid. And once I get within a dozen or so meters of the lowest level of the pyramid, the couple dozen or so sentries standing stiffly at guard positions across it immediately begin moving towards me.

Without missing a beat, I spread my ice element out around me while rushing to meet the sentries head-on.

Looks like it might take a while to get to it though.

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Or not.

I walk up the small icy staircase I made to the next level of the pyramid after dealing with the sentries, only to quickly freeze the sentries guarding this part of the pyramid and continue my climb using my ice instead of the suggested paths.

There’s always a much easier way to clear a room than the intended way. Especially when you have nigh-indestructible ice.

Although it looks like the mini boss doesn’t seem to like my actions, because once I reach the third layer of the pyramid, it finally stands up from its throne, walks down to the edge of the top layer, and stops.

My brows furrow in confusion as I watch it just stand there, only to raise in surprise when the creatures head suddenly splits open, and it lets out an ear-piercing screech that resonates throughout the entire room.

“Shit,” I grunt while quickly raising the soundproofing on my headphones higher. But despite that, I still hear ringing in my ears as I continue my climb towards the creature.

However, this time, instead of just purely climbing, I also create several dozen weapons of ice that I proceed to launch at it in the hopes that it’ll shut the damn thing up. And unsurprisingly, it does.

The thing closes its mouth again, which basically just makes it look like a normal head again, as it suddenly bursts into a sprint and hides behind its throne. My weapons all clang into the stone of the temple without doing any damage, leaving the mini boss to come back out of its hiding spot a few seconds later.

Seriously? It took advantage of the dungeon structure’s indestructibility to avoid my attacks?

I narrow my eyes as I continue sprinting up towards the top of the pyramid.

This creature might just be a bit more of a problem than I originally thought it would be.

At that thought, I stop using weapons and instead send a large wave of ice and snow towards it, coating the entire area with frost and freezing the few sentries that were trying to get in my way.

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