19 Final Round (2)

也Cerberus... Aryan had fought the monster before. Quite recently at that too. But that fact only made him even more worried. He had faced the monster last month or so when DA's most awaited update, "Tower Of Hell" was dropped.

The beast was supposed to be the guardian of the tower and anyone who wanted to enter the 30-story tower had to defeat Cerberus first. The fact that he fought the beast recently was troublesome because... he fought it when he was at a much higher level than he was currently.

Not only that but the skills and equipment he had was also top of the class. And still, he had to fight it half a dozen times before he actually managed to kill Cerberus. Yet, here he was, about to fight the beast once again. That too in the tutorial nonetheless.

To top it all off, Aryan didn't even know of a way to speedrun past the monster. Or in other words, skip the battle entirely. He was never a fan of speedrunning, as he believed speed running took the fun out of everything.

Aryan was more of a completionist who wanted to complete every available piece of lore and missions as soon as an update dropped. Then spend the rest of his time theorising about what could happen in the next update.

Despite that, he did keep up to date with all the speedrunning tricks. That was how he had come across the special way of defeating the Gaunt. Sadly, ever since he was accused by Meera of doing something he never did, he couldn't continue watching the videos as he was busy defending himself.

That resulted in him never getting to know of a way to defeat Cerberus without fighting it head-on.

"There's no way in hell this shitty game is balanced."

Aryan almost felt as if someone was out there to have him killed as soon as possible. He hadn't even stepped a foot inside the prison and he was already on the verge of dying. On the verge, because it would still take a minute for Cerberus to appear and this minute was the 'verge'.

[Preparation time is over.]

[Final Boss: The Guardian of Hell: Cerberus has appeared.]

[Final round will now begin.]

The temperature of the island shot up in an instant. The trees that had been filled with luscious green leaves, were now on fire. The bright sky turned gloomy, black clouds swirling above Aryan's head. The water around the island turned black and murky, the ground began spewing lava...

Hell had descended in front of him. Finally, out of a hole filled with lava to the brim, a gate appeared. Along with it did Cerberus.

A thick-black furry hell hound stood in front of Aryan. However, unlike how Aryan had believed, this time around Cerberus wasn't 28 feet tall like the one he had faced. He wasn't even half of that height and barely measured up to 8 feet.

He still had his three signature heads. But somehow it didn't seem all that frightening at the moment. Cerberus appeared to be still in his adolescent stage of life. Thus his power was considerably lower than the Cerberus Aryan had fought in DA.

"Wait a minute... I just might be able to do this."

For the first time ever since stepping his feet inside this rotten game, Aryan was happy about the way Tartarus Online was 'balancing' itself. Aryan would have never been able to defeat the fully-grown Cerberus, but if it was a puppy, then he should be just fine.

Cerberus appeared to be asleep. However, as soon as Aryan took a step, the hound was on his feet. His ears were pointing in different directions, following the lead of the heads. Within moments, Aryan was found.

The dog immediately charged at him, thinking the human was trying to escape from hell. The ground shook with every step the hound took. The beast's agility was remarkable. Using the momentum to his advantage, Cerberus swung his massive paw at Aryan.

Aryan swiftly rolled to the ground at the last moment. Successfully evading the attack and stabbing the Kukris deep within Cerberus' hind legs. Cerberus howled in pain, but before he could even turn around, there was a loud noise, followed by blood dripping out of a bullet wound.

"Tsk, it's too shallow," Aryan mumbled before distancing himself from the hound.

There was another speciality of the Nimble Mechanic class. It was difficult to master, but it did not have weapons restrictions like the rest of the classes. For example, a tank could only use shields, a gunslinger could only use a ranged weapon and so on.

A mechanic, however, could use any weapon they wanted. As long as they were the ones who created the said weapon.

He had bought <Basic Firearm Crafting> for 800 gold so that he could craft the Scrap gun. But with his passive [Blueprint Advancement] skill, the <Scrap gun> blueprint was converted into <Crude Revolver>.

It wasn't enough to kill an Elite monster, but Aryan never intended on killing Cerberus with a shitty weapon like that. However, he did intend to use the Revolver to the fullest. He targeted the right head of the monster and unloaded the entire magazine at the nape.

"That should do it!"

Saying so, he charged at Cerberus and the latter did the same. But at the last possible moment, Aryan used [Frozen Chains] to immobilise the monster. Aryan, on the other hand, didn't stop or slow down.

A moment later, he dipped his hands inside the inventory, grabbing all of the grenades he had purchased from the shop. Then, he proceeded to wrap them all around Cerberus' injured head and pulled off the pins before making a break for it.

A loud, colourful explosion followed and just like that, Cerberus was left with only two heads. Something he wasn't too happy about as he howled in pain.

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[Objective]: Behead the Guardian of Hell: Cerberus.

[Progress]: 1/3 Guardian of Hell: Cerberus's head taken.

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[You have enraged Cerberus.]

[The second phase will now begin.]