The description with Identify had made a point:

  Greater Chromatic Armored Chameleon

  Wade figured if 'armored' was part of the creature's very name given by the System itself, there was probably some merit to that.

  And Wade could see the thick plates of bone-like armor all over it now that he was getting closer and closer.

  Which meant he had to be deliberate with how to crack that plating and deal damage. He pulled out the modified grenade from his bandolier, focusing on this step while being wildly reeled in. Pulling the safety pin and gripping the spoon. Because the moment he released it, the grenade would detonate almost instantly.

  Bael launched some kind of cutting spell of his own, and Wade watched with despair as the blade of bright blue struck the mana cast link dragging him at his ankle - and failed to cut it.

  A moment later, a rattling sound of purple and blue lanced out over his shoulder, missing him. Expanding outwards into some kind of net that landed right ahead of him.

  He could somehow tell by instinct that was Medy making her best attempt.

  The moment the magical net touched on the creature's link, some kind of surcharge zapped through the net, burning it away, just as Wade was yanked right through.

  Medy started shouting something to Bael. The actual words were difficult to hear, but the tone was clear: Panic.

  It was at that moment he realized he wasn't getting out of this by anyone else's assistance.

  In hindsight, the desperate look Bael had given him as he'd passed by meant the demon himself didn't have any good ideas on how to protect Wade.

  He still tried his best, using his mana-empowered legs to straighten his slide, keeping his hand in an iron grip on the grenade, his other hand reaching for the Glock.

  In a moment, he was ready.

  Wade held the live grenade in hand, and his Glock in his left. Time to get to work.

  He dodge rolled out of the hook.

  Like the spit, the System's command over physics was far above whatever this creature had. He went intangible for a few hundred milliseconds, during which the reeling hook instantly pulled far backwards, holding onto nothing anymore.

  Wade completed his dodge roll on the ground, aiming at the creature with his Glock. Right at the open mouth.

  The bullet hit, tapping into the armored shell near the eye instead, cracking it apart slightly. And otherwise doing nothing more.

  Shit.

  Wade belatedly realized the important part of the dodge roll tech - he needed to dodge damage. The roll had let him escape out of danger, but getting hooked wasn't actually doing damage to him.

  Damage wise, the enemy health bar barely flickered. Random youtube trivia videos flickered through his head: Bears could be shot directly in the face, and if the bullet caliber wasn't big enough, the only thing that shot would do is piss off the bear.

  And those were normal Earth animals. The kind of hyper-aggressive monsters here fueled by the arcane realm and floating mana was several orders higher in danger.

  The creature moved its mouth again, and a line of blue power launched back straight at Wade's feet. Too fast for him to avoid. Hell, jumping into the air with his empowered legs would probably get him yanked out of the air and slammed into the ground, so that was a bad idea.

  Instead, Wade sat down as fast as he could.

  Simple reason: Keep the grenade held tight in his hands. Because if he fucked up and let go, he was dead.

  He felt the magical bind latch onto his boot before he'd even fully sat down, but his preparation was enough that the pull just completed the motion. Getting reeled across the ground while he was already sitting down and prepared for it let him keep that grenade held tight.

  Once again, he was yanked at full speed across the bone surface, sliding over patches of slimy meat and occasionally splashing through rivers of mana.

  Trying to dodge roll out of the reel wouldn't save him this time. The creature's reflexes far outpaced his own - he'd barely had time to think about securing the grenade before getting hooked and pulled back.

  A second dodge roll would get nothing done except leaving him drained of stamina and defenseless.

  Plus, the creature was no longer keeping its mouth open now. It had it clamped shut and was focused on moving somewhere safer with its meal. So the exposed weak point was no longer exposed.

  There could have been hundreds of possible ways out of this despite those limits.

  Defensive wise, he could cast out two walls of mana at his feet to give him a foothold in an attempt to prevent getting reeled into the giant mouth.

  Offensive wise, possibly trying to slice the link with a magic blade or something to sever the link currently yanking him down. Although that had much lower chances of working if Bael and Medy both hadn't been able to do that. Distance could be a factor.

  He could unbuckle the rainboot and let that get whisked away. Although it would come at the cost of the water mastery buffs.

  And yet, as he was getting dragged straight across the bone uneven flooring, he wasn't certain he could pull any of those things off. And if he didn't get them right the first time, he was dead and so were Medy and bael.

  A single memory floated to his head.

  "Look, you're still new and learning the game here. Shooters take a bit of a different mindset than RPG's." Jason had said, controller still in hand. "Your brain goes into survival mode, so that's why it's important to go into each zone with a plan already in mind."

  Wade had just picked up an extraction battle royal shooter Jason kept recommending. Unfortunately, he was fourteen years old at the time and this was the first shooter game he'd played in his life.

  Simply walking around was tense enough in that game, and on the first encounter with a hostile player, Wade had basically been a fish gutted at the monger's table. Half his shots missed because he hadn't even considered to account for recoil.

  "I'm just frustrated man." Wade had said. "I had those frag grenades in my quickbar, like, they were right there. I should have used those to flush him out into the open. And when I ran out of bullets, I had that secondary pistol I could have swapped to." His head flashed back on that doomed five second struggle before the game over screen.

  "Or ran up to him and melee'd instead of trying to roll away while out of stamina." Jason laughed. "Yeah, plenty of things got messed up there."

  Wade shook his head, the fight still fresh in his head. "God, you know in hindsight, I even heard a door open before he lit me up. That should have tipped me off from the start someone was there. It's just…" Wade gritted his teeth. The thing that had upset him the most was how he'd basically wasted half that fight shooting above the bastard's head, harmlessly peppering the walls behind.

  He had been using his current pick-up weapon for the past fifteen minutes, an assault rifle of the common variety, functional against the computer enemies on the map. Which meant he'd had plenty of practice and already noticed the recoil pattern. He'd even learned to adjust how to fire it from Jason's tips.

  All that had gone out the window the moment his character's shields started flashing blue and red filled the screen.

  Jason had reached a hand out and patted his shoulder, the memory slightly fuzzy. Only the game over screen was crisp in Wade's view.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  In the real world, another bump on the uneven ground sent him flying for a moment, before he slammed back into the bone. All he could do was focus on the live grenade and keep it safe.

  Unfortunately, that focus failed on his Glock, which was let go by accident, clattering over the bone behind him now, way too far for him to grab again.

  The creature wasn't staying here either, it was actively moving backwards, aiming to isolate Wade from the other dangers here. Trying to secure its meal in peace before anything else in the unknown territory above would be a problem. And slamming him into the walls whenever it got a quick chance.

  Wade could outright see one of those eyes pointing backwards as the creature picked up speed, watching where it was going. The other chameleon eye was still locked right on him, verifying Wade was still properly hooked and being hauled in.

  The creature was on a full sprint now, using just the one eye to guide itself as it scrambled with left and right turns down the maze of bone, Wade sliding behind helplessly.

  Medy and Bael were far behind him now, both scrambling to chase after him. Both looked beyond worried in the half second he was turned around enough to see them. And then they vanished from view as the creature raced around a pillar that turned out to be a whole new wall of bone. Wade whiplashed behind, hitting a wall with a grunt, but otherwise holding onto the grenade with everything he had.

  "Wade. Relax." Jason's hand patted his shoulder again in the memory. "You're not going to think of any of that on the spot. You're learning the game right now. Focus on one or two things at a time. You get better with practice and deliberate planning."

  The bone floor scraped his back through the armor Wade had equipped, the backpack and leather had been the only reason he hadn't had his skin rubbed clean off from the rough ground.

  The creature's speed picked up, dragging him into the dark.

  "You need to walk before you run." Jason's voice echoed. "Don't try to bunny jump around or do animation-cancel tech. Even just sliding around isn't what you need to do right now."

  "And what do I actually need mister wise man of the gaming chair?"

  "Just stand still and land your shots." Jason laughed. "You'd be surprised how many fights you win if you focus on only on those two items." Two fingers went up on his hand, and he had counted them down. "You stand still and land your shots. Start adding more once you can do those two things under pressure."

  Magic would be a brand new plan out of nowhere. The time to come up with new spells to cast was several minutes ago, not now.

  Right now, it was the time to fall back on what he'd prepared.

  Zin's grenade experts came to mind in the same instant of clarity.

  "What about heat and the explosion?" Wade had asked while Leon was taking his turn learning how to shoot the Glock.

  "Heat is basically a non-factor unless you're within five feet or so. Its the pressure wave is what kills you." Chawky had spoken. "Square-cube law, mixed with thermodynamics. Here's a better way to think about it, there's a fun little winter trick people back home used to do. Get boiling hot water, go outside in the middle of winter, we're talking freezing temperatures. And then toss it in a circle above your head. Despite the insane heat of the boiling water, moment it spreads out in the air, so much surface area is exposed that all that heat is basically deleted in an instant. Goes from boiling hot water to harmless ice crystals before the water's even a few inches away from the bucket."

  Wade had nodded at that, contemplating his plan. Calculating. "And how do I get the explosion part to stick around or be as damaging as the shrapnel?"

  "Just the explosion part?" Chawky had hummed. "Enclosed room probably. Got to be real tiny though, like the size of a cupboard. Broom closet maybe. Explosion would be contained, and you'd really feel the damage of that in specific."

  Wade could see saliva on those jaws now, the thing getting ready to bite down as it dragged him backwards to a safe location.

  Just stand still, and land your shots.

  He focused. His first loss condition would be letting go of that grenade prematurely. He held onto the grenade like he'd been doing this whole time.

  His second loss condition was getting bit. And he already had everything he needed to prevent that.

  He reached his focus out, and touched onto the demonic armor plate he'd equipped from that supply crate.

  Inside, mana was already primed and ready. All it needed was to be cycled. He knew how to do it, he'd practiced a few times, and he had the intelligence points to match someone who'd been learning for months.

  He pushed. The mana flowed slowly within the runes, speeding up as his will exerted further within it. The runes began to glow a soft blue.

  The same kind of glow Selena's armor often had during combat.

  Bael had said this equipment was specifically picked to help the most under the mithril sea - as in focused on helping with tumbles, and protecting against infectious bites.

  He'd also said a fully charge plate could block a significant amount of bite force downwards, because the arcane runes inscribed were hyper-specialized on exactly that kind of protection. It wouldn't trigger on most other damage as the tradeoff.

  The creatures down here were strong.

  But they weren't blackrot empowered strong. Which meant the bites down here were under the rating these armors were built for.

  Wade prepared for the moment. And it came. The creature scrambled into some kind of alcove, then dragged him the rest of the way up.

  The jaws opened like a fish's mouth would.

  Keep the spool in place. Cycle the mana in the armor to keep it powered up. Stand still, land the shots.

  Darkness loomed over him.

  The jaws snapped down on him faster than he expected. Several teeth going right for his head, chest, and leg. All strong enough to squash him into paste.

  Power flared out as his armor's runes lit up so bright he could see the insides of the monster's mouth.

  The monster's teeth sank into a molasses of power. Rapidly slowing down, until they froze in place just a few centimeters from Wade's actual body, one fang right by his eye. Wade could see it vibrating in place, as the monster tried biting down harder, gnawing at the strange material between it and Wade.

  Mana within the plate began to drain away like he'd opened the sink valve, he could feel it pool away. He was functionally stuck within the creature's mouth.

  But that was exactly where Wade wanted to be. Now it was time to land his shot.

  He shoved his hand further into the mouth, and let go of the grenade spool.

  The modified grenade had no fuse. Instead, the moment Wade let go, a mechanical trigger directly activated the rest of the grenade, all within two hundred milliseconds.

  "Sharpnel and pressure is the dangerous part. The actual explosion itself is only a few milliseconds as an event." Macrom had told him. "You let this thing go, you'll get to blink once and the moment you open your eyes, boom. Last thing you'll see. So, uh, don't."

  A blink passed.

  The grenade disintegrated in his palm, detonating. Metal fragmented as the pinecone structure fractured at precisely engineered weakpoints, shrapnel launching outward at supersonic velocities.

  And at the center of the explosion, was Wade.

  Engulfed in flame and destruction, ripping apart teeth, and burning flesh flash-fried by the explosive force.

  Shrapnel collided an instant after the explosion. Digging inside the soft exposed unarmored sections. Down the monster's throat. Through teeth and tongue.

  And from that explosion… Wade dodge rolled out of both the explosion and the mouth, exactly as planned.

  The timing had been simple. Open hand, dodge roll immediately after. By the time the explosion had ended, the invulnerability window would still be active.

  Which it had indeed been the case.

  Heat defused rapidly outwards, shrapnel passed through Wade as if he didn't exist, slicing holes directly through the creature in all directions.

  By the time Wade was once more tangible to reality, the shrapnel had already been spent and was far away from him.

  And so had the explosive power, mostly absorbed by the inner mouth of the creature.

  The vacuum of air left behind sucked everything back inwards in a pressure wave, which ripped apart everything with flesh, bone and air cavities like the creature's lungs - and Wade's.

  At this point he was fully material again, the dodge roll immunity passing, his body fully exposed to the secondary aspects of a point-blank explosion in his hand. But he remained trapped in the full animation, forced to complete the entire thing. Right as the deadly shockwave hit.

  Water mastery (Common) - While swimming, running, or standing in water: Gain increased movement speed, waterbreathing, clearsight, enhanced stamina efficiency, and immunity to barotrauma and nitrogen narcosis.

  Water Mastery had a few odd buffs, but one of them was what Wade was after the most: Immunity to barotrauma.

  Immunity to crushing pressure. Like what was found in the deep depths of the sea.

  Or pressure from a shockwave in the air.

  Because definition wise, barotrauma was simply tissue injury from rapid pressure changes.

  Exactly like the collapsing pressure wave ripping through his body, same as it had in the fight with Blackrotten Medy from the grenade explosion Eri had half-shielded him from.

  And like before, the health bar that dropped down wasn't his.

  Level 55 Greater Chromatic Armored Chameleon - 27%

  Wade completed his roll, back on his feet. In one swift motion, he turned, and kicked as hard as he could at the creature's exposed throat.

  It remained stunlocked, spasms racking through its body, skull rattled.

  The mana-empowered kick didn't do great damage. But that wasn't the point.

  Electric static filled the air, and Wade could swear he almost smelled the ozone.

  Twenty five percent of the earlier explosion's damage was converted into electric damage, and the System dutifully applied it through Wade's empowered kick.

  It did damage.

  Level 55 Greater Chromatic Armored Chameleon- 9%

  Wade lifted his boot again, and slammed it into the monster's half-burned jaw, forcing it open slightly, exposing the ripped up insides.

  It was effortless. His earlier mana empowering buff still active on his feet. Giving him strength that he normally shouldn't have had, while all the muscles in the jaws were basically nonfunctional and offered no resistance.

  The head itself was shoved upwards, and the ruins of the creature's blasted open throat was exposed.

  It gurgled. One foot nearby tapped the ground, as the creature was trying to scramble backwards or do anything.

  Wade knelt and held the top of the mouth opened with one hand, and slapped his other hand inside, on the roof of the monster's mouth. Then he focused on that hand and channeled the mana in his irradiated body.

  He imagined a beam of power. Nothing fancy. Just pure conversion of power into a thin continuous beam. Like a mining laser.

  It flared out into the world and sliced into the creature.

  The health bar above it began to go down, slowly. But that was fine. Wade wasn't after dropping the health bar to zero by random damage. He had a target in mind.

  Wade drilled through the roof of the mouth, keeping the laser at the same spot, burning through the bone on the other side to the real target he was after: The brain.

  And he knew he got it all at once. Because he heard a crack, and suddenly the health bar went from nine percent to zero percent all at once.

  Challenge Gauntlet Complete! One storefront coin added to inventory.

  Vitality has been increased by 1.

  Level up!

  THE GAME recognizes your accomplishment. You have eliminated a challenge gauntlet enemy alone within an Impossible Difficulty zone.

  Gold Lootbox spawned nearby.