CHAPTER 7 — “Drowned Honor” #2
“I want to prove that I can beat it. Whatever ‘it’ is. The memory, the archetype, the…” I trail off, not sure how to finish.
The feeling of helplessness, Johnson offers quietly. The feeling of being held down while someone you trusted destroyed everything you were.
I don’t answer. Don’t need to. He understands.
Okay, he says finally. We push forward. But if things go bad—if it looks like we’re going to lose—we retreat. No arguments. Agreed?
“Agreed.”
Good. He hops onto my shoulder, settling into his usual perch. Now finish your treatments. We have a knight to kill.
The boss chamber is beautiful.
That’s the wrong word, maybe—too soft for a dungeon, too gentle for a place designed to kill. But there’s no other way to describe it.
It’s a throne room. A real one, not the improvised goblin version from Floor 1. Vaulted ceilings that soar into darkness, columns carved with scenes of battle and triumph, a dais at the far end where a throne of dark stone sits empty.
And kneeling before the throne, head bowed in eternal supplication, is the Drowned Knight.
He’s massive. Seven feet tall, armored in plate that’s corroded by centuries of submersion but still intact. A greatsword rests across his knees, blade pitted with rust, edge still sharp enough to kill.
And around him, scattered across the flooded floor like fallen leaves, are bodies.
Dozens of them. Adventurers, soldiers, fools who thought they could claim this floor’s treasure. Some are fresh—recent enough that I can make out features. Some are ancient—bones held together by little more than dungeon mana.
All of them dead.
All of them killed by the knight who hasn’t moved in two hundred years.
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│ THREAT ANALYSIS ││ \[Drowned Knight\] (Floor Boss, Level 9) │├─────────────────────────────────────────────────┤│ HP: \~400 ││ Primary Attack: Greatsword Sweep (devastating) ││ Secondary Attack: Shield Bash (stunning) ││ Special Attack: \[Call of the Deep\] --- summons ││ Drowned minions from defeated adventurers ││ Passive: \[Undying Loyalty\] --- regenerates HP ││ while on the throne room floor ││ ││ WEAK POINTS: ││ ? Helm visor (vulnerable to precision strikes) ││ ? Back (unarmored, but hard to reach) ││ ? Water dependency (weakens if removed from ││ submerged environment) ││ ││ THREAT LEVEL: Severe ││ RECOMMENDED PARTY: 5-7 Level 8+ combatants ││ ││ YOUR STATS: ││ Level: 7 \| HP: 56/105 \| MP: 18/32 ││ ││ SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 18% ││ ││ "Better than the mushroom.
Progress." │└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Eighteen percent. I’m practically a professional at this point.
He hasn’t noticed us yet, Johnson says. He’s in a dormant state—will only activate when someone enters the throne room proper.
“How do you know that?”
I’ve watched adventurers die in here before. Pattern recognition. A pause. Also, the way the mana flows suggest a trigger zone about twenty feet ahead.
I study the room, looking for advantages. The water is waist-deep here—shallower than some parts of the floor, but deep enough to slow movement. The columns could provide cover, but they’d also obstruct my own attacks. And those corpses…
“The [Call of the Deep] ability. He uses the dead adventurers as minions?”
Raises them. Temporarily. They’re weaker than his normal stats would suggest, but there are a lot of them. Johnson’s ear twitches. This fight is going to be about resource management. How much can you kill before he overwhelms you with numbers?
“How many can he raise at once?”
Unknown. The most I’ve seen was eight. But that was against a party of four. Solo against one target… He trails off significantly.
Right. He might raise more because there’s only one of me to deal with.
This is going to hurt.
“Any suggestions?”
Don’t die.
“Helpful.”
I try.
I check my supplies one more time. Three healing poultices left. One dose of antitoxin. Four Glowcap charges for the [Alchemical Synthesis] trick. The cleaver, recently sharpened. And whatever mana I can scrounge together for emergency healing.
It’s not enough. It’s nowhere near enough.
But it’s what I have.
I step forward.
The moment I cross the threshold, the knight moves.
No warning. No sound. One instant he’s kneeling, head bowed, the picture of eternal servitude. The next he’s on his feet, greatsword raised, helm turning toward me with a creak of ancient metal.
The eyes behind the visor glow the same pale blue as the Drowned. But brighter. Colder. More aware.
He sees you, Johnson says unnecessarily.
“I noticed.”
The knight takes a step forward. Then another. Each footfall sends ripples through the water, slow and deliberate, the movements of something that has infinite patience and infinite time.
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t roar or challenge or make any of the dramatic pronouncements that bosses are supposed to make.
He just comes. Silent. Implacable. A wall of death in rusted armor.
I throw the first Glowcap charge.
The explosion of light catches him mid-stride, and he staggers—not much, but enough. The helm turns away from the brightness, giving me an opening.
I move.
The water fights me every step, but I’m getting better at this—learning to use the resistance instead of fighting it. I reach his flank before he recovers, cleaver singing toward the gap in his armor at the back of the knee.
Contact.
The impact jars my arm, sending numbness shooting to my shoulder. But the blade bites—not deep, but deep enough. Something dark leaks from the wound, not quite blood but close enough.
The knight’s response is immediate.
His elbow comes around, catches me in the chest, sends me flying backward through the water. I hit a column, feel something crack—ribs, probably—and slide down into the water.
Get up, Johnson snaps. He’s calling them.
I force my eyes open. The knight has stopped advancing, greatsword planted in the floor, helm tilted back. The glow behind his visor pulses brighter, and all around the room, the corpses begin to twitch.
[Call of the Deep].
“How many?” I gasp, struggling to my feet.
Counting… six. No, seven. Eight. They’re still rising.
Eight Drowned minions, plus a floor boss, against one wounded healer with a knife.
The math doesn’t work. The math has never worked. And yet here I am, doing it anyway.
Story of my life.
The next few minutes are chaos.
I can’t describe them properly—not in sequence, not in any order that makes sense. It’s just a blur of movement and pain and desperate improvisation. Drowned hands grasping, the knight’s sword sweeping, water churning red with blood that’s mostly mine.
I kill three minions. Four. The cleaver is slick in my grip, almost useless, but I keep swinging.
Johnson is everywhere—a blur of fur and teeth, tearing at exposed throats, buying me seconds I can’t afford to waste.
The knight is relentless. Every time I think I have an opening, he’s there—sword descending, shield rising, armor deflecting blows that should have ended him.
His regeneration, Johnson gasps in my head. He’s healing. Not fast, but steady. You need to do more damage.
“Working on it.”
I throw another Glowcap charge, use the distraction to land a hit on his sword arm. The blade bites deeper this time—through a gap in the armor, into whatever passes for flesh underneath.
The knight makes a sound.
Not a scream. Not a roar. Just a low, grinding moan, like metal scraping against stone. For a moment, his movements falter.
For a moment, I see something behind the helm visor. Something almost… human.
Then the moment passes, and his fist catches me in the jaw, and I’m underwater, drowning, and everything goes dark.
VELTHAR.
Johnson’s voice, sharp and desperate.
MOVE. NOW.
I can’t see. Can’t breathe. There’s water in my lungs and darkness in my eyes and something heavy pressing down on my chest.
The sword. He’s bringing down the sword. MOVE.
I roll.
Don’t think about it. Don’t question it. Just roll, sideways, through water that fights me every inch.
The greatsword hits the floor where I was lying. The impact sends a shockwave through the water, throws me another few feet.
I come up gasping, coughing, vision swimming.
The knight is standing over me. Visor down. Sword raised for a killing blow.
And something inside me… snaps.
I don’t remember deciding to use the mana.
Don’t remember reaching for the power buried in my [Fragmented Soul] trait.
One moment I’m dying, the next there’s fire running through my veins—arcane energy, wild and chaotic, nothing like the controlled magic I used to wield.
But it’s enough.
The discharge hits the knight point-blank, a blast of raw force that sends him staggering backward. His armor smokes. The water around us flash-boils, sending steam billowing through the chamber.
I’m on my feet somehow, moving on instinct, closing the distance before he can recover.
The cleaver finds the gap in his visor.
Through his visor.
Into whatever remains of his face.
The knight makes that sound again—that low, grinding moan—and his hands come up, grasping blindly. I twist the blade, feel something give way, and then he’s falling.
Slowly.
Like a tree in a forest.
Like everything I lost two hundred years ago.
He hits the water with a splash that echoes through the chamber, and he doesn’t get up.
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│ FLOOR BOSS DEFEATED ││ \[Drowned Knight\] --- Level 9 │├─────────────────────────────────────────────────┤│ XP gained: 350 ││ Bonus XP: Solo clear (+50%) ││ Bonus XP: Underleveled challenger (+100%) ││ Bonus XP: Near-death recovery (+25%) ││ Total XP: 962 ││ ││ LEVEL UP!
││ Level 7 → Level 10 ││ ││ CLASS EVOLUTION AVAILABLE ││ ││ HP: 105 → 145 (+40) ││ MP: 32 → 48 (+16) ││ STR: 14 → 18 (+4) ││ AGI: 16 → 20 (+4) ││ INT: 18 → 22 (+4) ││ WIS: 20 → 24 (+4) ││ DEX: 17 → 21 (+4) ││ LCK: 6 → 8 (+2) ││ ││ "Three levels from one fight.
The System is ││ clearly rewarding suicidal bravery.
Don't ││ let it go to your head." │└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘