The trick was better breaking-ball control. When he did the big blast, a proper throw could hit him between four and six times. More ruptures meant more damage. It was difficult, but I was also getting better at the big dodges.

  Somewhere around fifteen hours in, when he was approaching 50% health, he started trying other things. He was activating more panels at once, and no longer sending the big blasts. Again with the clever enemies.

  Fortunately, I had gotten more used to throwing while in that mess. I could send fastballs constantly, alternating between the Heavy Steel Ball and the Extremely Sharp Knife, even while dodging his lasers.

  These were chipping away at this shield, bit by bit. This only worked because, as Lacie had pointed out, all his power came from one source. The more lasers he shot, the less his shield recovered. If he shot less blasts, I could throw faster. Either way, I was ahead of his shield.

  He turned to even more blasts, turning from sets to a constant barrage. There were four or five hitting each second, and I could barely throw an attack, but his shield wasn't recovering at all.

  In all fairness, this should have been enough to keep me tied up forever, but Calcul suffered from the fact that I was a crawler and I could improve mid-battle.

  As he sent a particularly fiendish barrage, sixteen lasers criss-crossing my location that I had to slide through like some heist-movie nonsense, everything seemed to slow. The boss music became a distant, chaotic rumble.

  Your Dodge is now Level 16.

  New Achievement! You now tread in the realm of gods!

  You've trained a skill past 15 using battlefield conditions, as opposed to just taking a bunch of potions to do it. That's quite the accomplishment.

  There's a lot that helped along the way, but in particular, you have repeatedly evaded an attack that was listed as having a 100% chance of hitting. I'd say you're cheating, but I also saw the way the designers set this up, and let's just say that there are a lot of ways to botch a 100% figure. You can thank the developers for these second-tier enemies.

  Reward: The skill is the reward. The good news is this level-16 dodge is totally unfair on floor five, so it's one big fucking reward.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  The battle changed. Dodging was just easy. I couldn't exactly see better, but I could sorta sense the blasts forming in my peripheral vision, then lazily slip aside as they made their way towards me. That achievement, describing it as the realm of gods, was not wrong.

  I felt invincible. Of course, I reminded myself that dodge still said it couldn't evade anything where evasion was literally impossible, aside from the once-an-hour cheat.

  No matter how many blasts Calcul rained on me, my stream of throws was constant, draining away his shield.

  Three hours later, the shield was entirely gone. Looking panicked, he scrambled at the controls. I saw the panels begin glowing, readying another big attack. I suppose if the shield was already gone, why not.

  I sent a chain of fastballs into the side of his head, and Calcul slumped into his control booth, a red X on the mini-map.

  The boss music didn't stop. The panels were glowing brighter. The glow was spreading around the whole tower, not tracking me and not staying focused on just one third of the space.

  Lacie: Is that thing building in power?

  Maddy: I hate this place. Get one of the doors to the outside opened up.

  Lacie: What are you planning?

  Maddy: It's gonna explode, right?

  Lacie: We'll die outside, too.

  Maddy: In here, I've got nothing. Out there, I have some tricks to help. Maybe you can do something too. Stand about two meters past the left side of the doorway, facing towards the side you're closest to, with every buff you have on yourself, within arm's reach of the wall.

  As I said that, I kept going faster. I hadn't checked my stats, but my skate skill had definitely improved during that fight. Not a surprise, as I had been speed-skating on a vertical wall for three straight hours.

  I was soon at the top, braking hard and then kicking off of air to get into that tiny gap. The chamber below was already so bright I had to have my hitai-ate closed to not have my eyes burned out.

  I sped away from Lacie, got onto the wall, and pushed with every bit of power I had. With me on the wall and her upright, I scooped her cleanly into my arms, transitioning to the floor so I didn't shoot out yet. Once more loop to regain speed along the wall, then we shot out of that open doorway, hurtling into open air.

  As we plummeted, I searched for anything to land safely on.

  Lacie: Try to hit that cliff.

  Trusting her, I kicked off with my double-jump. Seconds later, there was a flash of light, and a wall of force hit us.

  I blacked out.

  Leaves were hitting my face. I was tumbling to the ground through branches, cradled in them. A log was on top of me.

  I blacked out again.