C51: The Vacuous Spider
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As I'm falling, I feel a sense of weightlessness fall on me as even as the seconds pass, I don't actually make contact with the moon reflecting orb of shiny water below me.
[Challenge Mode activated: Rom, The Vacuous Spider. Set New Game Difficulty to your desire.]
"Well, since I'm stuck like this. I might as well think for a moment. I know this is a main game boss which is not optional, so im not going for anything crazy. But I also want it to be stronger than level 25 since im kind of used to that level by now with all my skills." I begin to theorize to myself as I lay down the requirements and what I remember.
"Rom is essentially a dumbass caterpillar but it has minions which is annoying. Honestly I don't remember him much outside the chalice dungeon where he is a required boss there too. I believe he has some sort of projectiles that I got confused on with him teleporting around but don't remember much of what type of projectiles or how I easily dodge them in my playthrough. Hmm. screw it, ill take the risk. Set to level 30" I finally come to a decision that im sure will come back to bite me in the ass somehow.
[Acknowledged. Adjusting world]
The standard mirage like water ripple passes through my eyes, though in the corner of my eyes, I do see a bit of red reflected in the moonlight. Totally not ominous or anything. Soon enough, the weightlessness fades as I plummet through the water and fog, landing on the 'water'.
The scene before me has changed as now there is only a single person. Not even a giant bug, a person. Just standing there, in the distance, in a daze specifically. No swaying, no bending, no shaking. Just standing there. Though I do have to say that they do look rather dapper.
Wearing a collar shirt that fits their form perfectly only reveals a slim figure, but not fully sure, what is known is that it is open around the neck. From the layers I can see, the second layer is a type of blue robe or jacket over the white shirt with studs or buttons around the right side of said 'jacket'.
It all comes together with a black robe that has patchwork connections around the sleeves of the wrist going all the way around while the left shoulder has small 'U' shaped chain. That chain seems to attached a second layer on the robes making it hard to tell if they are wearing 3 layers of clothing or four. The final touch is a large hat upon their head which curves upward to show their face. The final piece being a cane in their left hand. Black shaft with a silver head that is curved and looks quite sharp if it was to be treated as a weapon.
Messy short hair around the front that outlines the face which looks quite strict but pretty…
"Is that a woman? Is that the boss?...." I can only ask in confusion as it has been quite some time since I last saw Rom in-game nor getting any sort of response from the system to inform me of what traits the boss has.
I can only approach the individual to better observe them but they truly stay in the same place, not doing anything or even twitching. Eventually I just get bored and say screw it.
Taking out my Tontritus, I activate its trick state as Bolt begins to filter around it akin to snakes formed of lightning.
I aim and take a swing.
Only for the woman to dodge the blow as they easily bend backwards out of my swing to the point I couldn't even touch the brim of their wizard hat.
They soon straighten up as they look in my direction before pulling out a pair of glasses from their sleeve and putting them on.
"Thank you for your confusion. It has granted me the ability to learn everything about you." "your next words are 'what the shit' "
"What the shit" I curse and dash forward to swing again but I find myself simply standing closer to the woman without actually swinging.
"What am I doing again?" i ask in confusion before the system finally pitches in again.
[host is currently fighting Rom the vacuous spider. System was momentarily on Lockdown due to the preventing hosts body due to the anomaly caused by the challenge mutations. ]
'Okay, so what are the mutations?' I ask as I try to attack the boss but only find myself with my arm raised to strike but not going through with it.
[Rom the vacuous 'Spider' contains three mutations: humanoid Form, Thief, Anti-thesis of Self]
"Your next words are 'lovely' as if your reacting to whatever is blocking my sight"
"Lovely" I can't help but mutter as I frown a moment later.
"Your next words is, "Oh my god, thats a jojo reference" Rom speaks again but my body instead freezes and Rom seems to freeze with me before I mindlessly activate chaos step and dash forward with SoQ but mid swing as i was activating my other skills like overwhelming, weapon echo and shatter echo. I find myself swinging normally with no actual addons, the only thing that remained on me was the chaos step as even SoQ got canceled halfway due to lack of stamina.
"Haa haa" I can see my stamina suddenly feel from borderline full to nothing as I don't even have anything left to dash away like I usually would. Worse yet, my strike landed on the boss but on their flat palm as a very light blue akin to opaque energy blocks my attack before Rom steps forward and strikes me with their other hand on my guts with the same type of energy. A rock is seemingly released from the palm as it sends me flying backwards to the point of rolling in the 'ground' four or five times before I stop and slam myself with a vial.
Thankfully the system has my back at least as my confusion is answered.
[Host has had his active stamina stolen. It will regenerate like normal]
"Hmm, i think i understand the thief mutation. Is it a legendary grade mutation like my skills?"
[Correct, stronger mutations greatly increase the reward for slaying the bosses]
"Figured, but that sucks since im not fully sure how to get around it" I dash away to make room from the enemy as Rom waves their hand above their head. The energy that was previously stuck to their hand now locks in place in the air as it passes by the location until 5 spots are shining above 'her' head. She nudges her glasses up with the back of her hand before multiple rocks shoot out of each spot like a meteor shower.
I find that I can use my tracking skill on the projectiles due to the skill leveling up long ago during my second hunting session in Hypogeon Gaol. This aspect of the skill is rarely used as few enemies use non bullet projectiles but it's perfect here as I can rush in and bob and weave between the projectiles. I see Rom lifting her hand to adjust her glasses and I get a really weird theory in my head which I put to use as I just stop and think right in front of her.
She shifts her glasses with the back of her hand before a frown crosses her face before returning into a smirk.
"Your perverted tactics are amusing but ineffective here as I hold no interest in you. Yet you seem to already naturally have forgotten what I said not but a moment ago. Not that I would even be interested in a human male in the first place."
" 'I have learned everything about you' " I think back to what she said and I grow pale as my murderous intent soars. 'She saw my browser history' I think and shadow teleported behind her only to stall due to my intent to attack with my tontritus being stolen but I'm already dumb and randomly stall when I'm focused anyways so I just quickly shift to kicking her with chaos step.
The place where I kick begins to grow vines all over her arm and seemingly a tree sapling before it begins to flop over all brown as its life force was directly stolen from it. Though I wasn't idle this time as I threw a molotov at said arm. Which instantly catches fire thanks to the cocktails flammable properties along with the the decaying vines around her arm.
I then follow up with an oil pot. I know it was supposed to be done first but I'm sure she would have stopped me if I did this in reverse. At most this causes the flames to spread all over her body and not just her arm.
I then Shatter Echo with my chaos step kicks and overwhelming. Thankfully Rom was only able to stop two things. The fire and Overwhelming. This allows multiple chaos step kicks to land on her waist that sends her flying backwards, flopping around on the ground multiple times as the echoes follow after until all 10 kicks are finished.
Rom appears far more ragged now with pieces of her sleeves torn and my footprint on her waist. She had been shocked, deprived of oxygen as it turned into a splattering of flowers inside her. But then those same flowers turned into water, potentially drowning her before her gravity was momentarily inverted to make her fly before a meteor of my own had come out of nowhere and landed on her. Extinguishing all the water in her body as only her kin-based blood could have allowed her to actually survive the impact.
This wiped out a good chunk of her health. Very annoyed, she brings her fingers to her mouth and whistles and from the 'sky', a bunch of children fall down to the seafloor. No, not children. Miniature clones of herself that naturally look like children.
Honestly they look very cute with their oversized hats but the half broken glasses or rather monocles on their faces where they…in unison, nudge it back in place.
'Ugh system, can they also steal?'
[Negative]
"Thank goodness"
[But they can use the bosses arcane mastery]
"Not good" I say as all the mini roms place their hands above their heads like the Byrgenwerth hunter with the Rosmarius just outside had used on me.
I decisively escape as with about 15 children here and each cast allowing roughly 6-9 projectiles to come at me with a few tracking me. I naturally have to dodge until I find myself simply stopping.
"Oh no" I react as I realize I had unintentionally arrived near Rom during my escapade and she stole my thoughts of fleeing via dashing.
"Oh yes" She responds as she nudges her glasses while about 20 meteors are closing in on me.
BOOOM
A giant explosion occurs as even Rom who was at the edge of the blast was greatly affected with another chunk
"KYAAAHH"
One of the 'spiderlings' suddenly cries out as the others turn to find me standing underneath her with my fist up her chest and lifting her into the air. To escape the explosion. I changed my thoughts of fleeing from dashing into shadow teleporting.
Throughout these interactions with Rom. I realize that Overwhelming and a few other skills are 'externally' buffing me which is how they're stolen as compared to chaos step which is internally stationed and automatically grants me a barrier around myself before releasing it's effects. This barrier seems to be able to block any theft. That means if I use chaos step before using certain other skills. I can prevent them from being stolen.
This was the case with my shadow abilities as originally they came from Gascoignes axe but that transferred to me innately when I learned even 1% of it, making it my own.
This similarly influences chaos that I'm still rusty with but not as much as before.
[Chaos Step has leveled up. Level 2->level 3. Random effects are released with greater potency and new varieties will be introduced to the roulette]
With all these factors combined, I shielded myself with chaos 'barrier' before shadow teleporting away. Where I was before this teleport, a graviton magnetic pulse was released which pulled in one of the children nearby as well as Rom herself. It was only a foot or two closer but it's how Rom ended up hurt.
"My lucks pretty good huh? Guess you don't know everything. Otherwise you'd know how imaginative I could get" I smirk in reply to Rom's own that has faltered before I summon the Tonritus into my hand which is still buried inside the 'child's' back. The weapon gouges the spiderling before getting shocked and torn in half. No echoes gained, no body left behind as it turns into water.
They're just illusions but ones given physical form, similar to the Witch of Hemwick's summons but to a lesser degree but only in the aspect of numbers while they grow in power by comparison.
"You compare me to her but know that I am superior." Rom huffs in anger as she releases more meteors from her own hands, she hopes to keep me at a distance and no longer suffer due to my chaos abilities.
I instead try to keep pace with her, even summoning Gerald to help handle the 'mini me's' of Rom while I handle the main body. If im able to direct her near Gerald then I can have her stall him instead of me, allowing me to strike with random buffs like overwhelming, Shatter Echo or even Weapon echo if I try to hit with my Tontritus.
Gradually I get her down to around 2/3rd health and she teleports away, summoning a new group of minions around her as me and Gerald take down the rest of the bunch here. While I don't gain echoes from them, Gerald does gain exp which is very useful as he quickly begins to close the gap between us once again since I started primarily solo grinding for a while.
I put my hand on his shoulder as I chaos step drag him with me to where Rom is, tossing him at the Boss where suddenly a shrill sound is emitted from him as he lands beside Rom and blows into a whistle that causes a snake to spawn under them.
I unsummon Gerald just as the snake lunges up and bites down where Rom still was. That takes a surprisingly large chunk of health but ill still need to do that roughly 10 more times just to whittle Rom down to half health. I'm sure they won't make it easy now that they know this is possible.
Afterall, the best way to trick someone that supposedly knows everything about you is to pull out new tricks.
Boom
I took out the Cannon and stuffed it with bone marrow ash, shooting directly for another sizable boom that took out another chunk. Sadly it wasn't upgraded nor socketed with gems so it's power was roughly around the same as the snakes.
I then try out both the flamethrower and Rosmarius in each hand, the two are not really compatible as one is bloodtinge damage while the other is arcane that emits the sound of an aria sung by a weeping woman.
Then I use the kirkhammer I just bought from the system for 40k to act as my shield thanks to the stone aspect of the hammer. This allows me to blow up Rom's attempt for another meteor shower. Though my arms are sore from the blow, they technically don't hurt me, ensuring I stay safe in exchange of a little pain.
Rom then tries to swipe at me but she forgot that with her being humanoid, means I can parry her now. So I dragged out the hunter rifle I picked up from abandoned Yharnam to shoot her into a riposte before switching my gear back to normal and beginning a visceral blow. I follow normal procedure as I hope to weaken her before trying to do any soul shattering. If I even can since she is not a beast but Kin. meaning her soul could be much stronger, especially since I can 'sense' it even without plunging my hand into her chest.
Our exchange continues for quite some time as i've even had Gerald act as a suicide bomber with molotov cocktails and bolt paper. Rom's abilities came with tradeoffs as she could only steal a certain number of thoughts or powers, sometimes she would steal an oil pot I was about to throw at her and tossed it back at me but in releasing it again. I could just store it back into the system since she only stole the distance between her and the pot, not my actual possession of it.
"Oh my, aren't you two having fun." me and Rom both pause as a chill passes both our spines. We turn to find the witch of the house, Hemwick. From who knows where or when, she had summoned a chair made of pure darkness that slowly…slowly crawls forward like those plate scooters we would have in gym class but definitely not as fast but far more stable.
"Watcha doing here" i ask as I tense up and prepare to fight them both. Ill likely lose but i won't go down without a fight at least.
"I heard that I was compared to this slut here at some point. Originally I was too lazy to come here and deal with it." She begins her speech, summoning a glass of wine in her hand as she takes an elegant sip to quench her thirst. Originally she had a casual smirk on her face, similar to Rom's when I first encountered her but that had long faded.
As for Hemwick's, her expression turns into a mix of annoyance and coquettishness, "But, over time, 'I' kept hearing her derogatory thoughts, placing herself above me. As such, I willed myself out of bed and away from the gentle comfort your corpse gives me. So be a good dildo and penetrate her rough and deep, to the point she chokes on you"
The witch finishes her speech and I nearly choke on my saliva at being given such a nickname. Rom doesnt seem to share the same casualness as me as her face contorts into rage, "What could possibly give you the confidence to tread into my mind? You are beneath me, a pathetic witch that serves me, providing me eyes for my ascension while you lagged behind, melting down into pus and discarded magicks to derive even the small bit of power you possess."
Rom goes on a whole speel as her voice goes up an octave with each sentence of her rant. I can't help but lampoon about how she most certainly doesnt know everything about me as otherwise she would know just how many eldritch abilities she has. And it's likely a conservative amount as I have likely not seen the whole arsenal in store as I died before that.
Rom seems to spot my confused expression as if reading, "the audacity of this bitch, thinking she is stronger than Hemwick" from me. She then looks at the witch who gently lifts her right hand, allowing the moonlight to accentuate her gentle pale skin, marbled to perfection. This simple action completely shatters Rom's thoughts as it contrasts all her words of hemwick melting into pus and blood.
"What is this? How did you achieve that?" Rom cant help but ask as she finally puts in her full effort to try to steal something from hemwick only to fail horribly as she coughs up blood.
PUUTCHI "Im afraid you'll have to ask the gentle hunter how he did it. Though I'm sure you already have some ideas. Your own current form and mindset already contrasts what you believed yourself to be before. " She remarks before as Rom can't help but look at herself better, seemingly unaware of her own human form even up till now. Hemwick then swipes her hand at the spider, a beam of thick energy casually flows out, striking the spiders humanoid leg. Casually her to collapse to the floor, her hat having blown away, to reveal her messy hair unfurling into a proper straight but tangled mess of black hair.
After all the work I had done, I had brought down Rom to a bit less than half health but still a bit of distance away from the final 1/3rd. Yet now that exact value is just gone with a simple sweep of Hemwick's hand.
"Tata cutie, don't have too much fun with her. Lest you join her little mirages and lose yourself in her dream." Hemwick waves at me before disappearing as quickly as she came. The battlefield falls to silence as Rom is left slumped on the floor, who knows if it's the pain of her obliterated leg or the psychological damage of being injuried this badly by the witch of hemwick that keeps her like this.
I surely won't leave the matter to fate as I dash forward and with my halo active. I plunge my fist into her chest. Rom only has a blank expression on her face, similar to when I first saw her yet the sensation I get from it is deeper. As if she had lost her anti-thesis of self trait and became Vacuous once more. I feel minimal resistance from her soul as if she is willingly giving it up.
It does not take long before I pull the soul out that resembles the well known caterpillar with hundreds of eyes. I then shatter it with my Tontritus and it shatters before crumbling away into hundreds if not thousands of pieces. Never to be restored again.
[Legendary Prey Slaughtered]
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Word Count = 3836
Primarily fighting Rom the whole chapter. Enjoy the boss fight.
Whether you like the chapter or not, drop a comment. I can't be letting myself get complacent in my writing. I still have plenty of growth in all forms.
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