This BOSS is a bit weak?

Passing through the area richest in Dragon Shards, a faint black mist began to cling to Karl's Power Armor.

The outer shell of the Power Armor showed no signs of corrosion, indicating that the black mist was not a corrosive substance or a spell like a Death Cloud.

Karl closed his self-breathing system and took a shallow breath.

He inhaled some of the black mist clinging to the Power Armor, but it was colorless and odorless, and Karl wasn't sure of its exact composition.

Just as he was about to continue forward, a voice suddenly echoed seductively in his mind.

"Up until now, you haven't found any clues to leave the dungeon. Why not indulge your desires? Why explore this place that looks so dangerous?"

"Turn around, go back to the tunnel exit, pin that Tiefling who doesn't know how to avoid suspicion all day against the wall, spread her legs, grab her hair, and have your..."

Along with the seductive words, lewd images began to flash in Karl's mind, as if everything in his mind could be easily realized if he turned and left right now.

He could indulge his desires on Hopp without restraint, without worrying about his moral bottom line, without thinking about the future. This suspicious tunnel would have nothing to do with them anymore.

In just a moment, Karl's breathing became heavy.

He gradually turned his body, as if he would rush towards Hopp the next moment, and then, as the voice in his mind instructed, satisfy his overflowing desires as a teenage boy.

Under the faceplate, Karl's gaze flickered.

But as his foot was about to step forward, a faint psionic fluctuation spread from his brow. The voice gradually weakened and finally disappeared.

"Could an ancient fiend be sealed here?"

Shivering all over, Karl, whose consciousness had returned to clarity, couldn't help but feel a sense of lingering fear.

Fortunately, he had gained psionic growth by resisting his own desires in the Dream World. Otherwise, he might have fallen for it just now.

"Activate self-breathing system!"

Following Karl's command, the mechanism at the helmet position of the Power Armor activated. A bubble, created based on the principle of an underwater breathing apparatus, filled the inner layer of the helmet, blocking out the outside air.

After standing still for a moment, Karl inferred that his abnormality just now was likely caused by inhaling the black mist.

Understanding this, Karl dared not delay and rushed directly into the depths of the tunnel.

'Whatever is inside doesn't want me to enter, which means it knows it can't beat me. Moreover, I've already inhaled its black mist, and it only dared to use my lust to drive me away, instead of controlling me directly. This either means that this guy is still sealed, or that it doesn't have any stronger power!'

Passing through layers of black mist, Karl soon arrived at the Ritual Site at the end of the tunnel.

Seeing a similar design again, Karl felt a sudden panic for no reason.

But fortunately, once he took a clear look at the furnishings, his heart calmed down.

'Goblin corpses all over the ground, a Grotesque Aberration being transformed, and the Blackstone Greatsword in the center of the Ritual Site... It looks like the tribe above was originally normal goblins, but this Blackstone Greatsword revived, luring the goblins here and transforming them into Grotesque Aberrations.'

Based on the scene before him, Karl roughly guessed the sequence of events.

Gathering his hands in front of him, Karl chanted a spell, his fingers forming specific gestures.

The Blackstone Greatsword in the center of the Ritual Site seemed to sense danger. It actually retracted the black mist that had been permeating the passage, injecting it all into the newly born Grotesque Aberration.

But it was still a step too late.

Before the monster could hatch, Karl had already finished casting the spell.

[Magic Missile]

With the name of the spell flashing in his mind, Karl swung his arm, and three shining darts formed by arcane force flew out. Under Karl's control, they simultaneously struck the Blackstone Greatsword.

"Crack"

Dense cracks spread across the Blackstone Greatsword, and thick black mist was released from the cracks in the sword's body.

"Damn it! Human! Ruining my plan!!!"

A shrill voice sounded in Karl's consciousness. The black mist completely detached from the Blackstone Greatsword and burrowed into the Grotesque Aberration's body.

The Aberration's body twisted and then suddenly exploded, turning into tentacles that wrapped around the surrounding goblin corpses.

Before Karl could step forward to stop it, these tentacles had already dragged the surrounding goblin corpses together to form a mass of flesh.

Disgusting mucus flowed from the mass of flesh. When this mucus dripped onto the ground, it actually produced white smoke.

'Is it using acid synthesized from the stomach acid of the goblins? Damn it, I'm out of spell slots, so I can only use normal attacks.'

Not expecting the enemy to have a second stage of transformation, Karl quickly activated the Repeating Crossbow on his arm and launched an attack forward.

Because of the previous performance of the entity residing within the Blackstone Greatsword, he thought he had defeated the opponent by dealing with its host sword.

He never expected that the opponent could temporarily change bodies.

'But based on its current performance, this strange thing can only parasitize things influenced by fiendish power. Otherwise, it should have parasitized me first.'

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh..."

Magic crossbow bolts hit the large mass of flesh one after another.

But apart from creating pits on its surface, the enemy's vitality did not diminish at all.

"I could have been born in a more advanced form..."

The voice sounded again in his consciousness, and the mass of flesh suddenly began to spin.

"I will corrode you into a fiend's slave, and then use your body to make that Tiefling bear countless offspring for me! To compensate for my deficiencies!"

The sound of the opponent's voice still lingered in his mind as the fleshy ball rolled towards Karl with an unstoppable momentum.

"Holy—crap!"

Instead of turning to flee, Karl seized the opportunity. As the creature charged, he plunged the arms of his Power Armor into the fleshy ball, then used the creature's forward momentum to execute a shoulder throw.

Thump!

His arms pulled free from the fleshy mass, Karl watched as it crashed to the ground.

The goblin corpses hadn't fully fused yet, and this impact scattered them, revealing a cluster of tentacles at the very center.

Seeing the main body, Karl immediately activated the lightning launcher on his chest. Brilliant electrical discharges lit up the Ritual Site—once, twice, thrice.

The black mist parasite, already disoriented from the fall, convulsed with each flash of lightning.

Karl had initially planned to fire his Repeating Crossbow a few times, but during his shoulder throw, the acid on the fleshy ball's surface had corroded its components.

Frustrated, Karl could only continue to attack the creature with the lightning launcher on his chest while personally tearing the tentacles from its core.

Suddenly, the previous black mist began to dissipate from the central mass within the tentacle cluster.

Seeing this, Karl quickly retreated.

The man and the mist fell into a stalemate, but the black mist seemed to be shrinking as it lost its host.

'He's definitely trying to take my body.'

With that thought, Karl reached into his Bag of Holding and grasped a Khyber Dragonshard.

As expected, once the black mist's scale shrunk to a certain point, the imminent dissipation of reality made the black mist's consciousness disregard the side effects of directly possessing Karl. Instead, it swirled and shot towards him.

At that very moment, Karl took out the Khyber Dragonshard and activated it with his magic.

A blue-purple light erupted. The charging black mist, much like Piccolo fighting the Spirit Bomb, was sucked into the binding force field released by the Dragonshard.