See my whole philosophy in combat was that unless you were training you should end a fight as fast and efficiently as possible. It was the reason I always went for the head, neck or chest if I could. I tried to stay away from the area with the magic stones though since while the single fastest method of killing a monster it also means less drops which I would rather not risk. Even still I was spec'd to hit hard enough to one shot anything not really invested in defense or at a higher level than me.-
The problem was that not only was the goliath both of those things but also had a "slow" regeneration factor which meant unless I did more damage than it could heal from I was going to be in for the long haul even with my flames. To counter that I wanted to make some cursed tools that created debuffs much like a curse from this world. This unfortunately meant I was going to need to really focus on expanding the restriction side of things or run the risk of getting caught up in the items debuffs.-
To start with I used a goblin cursed stone and a few teeth from a goblin to form a small marble that I refined before working to imbue a temporary AOE weakening effect. For the restrictions I went with [does not effect Alexander Drake, lasts only three minutes, disintegrates after three minutes, only works on monsters and disintegrates if ever stolen]. The final result was pretty decent thanks to those restrictions making the weakening effect stronger but as for how effective it would be against the goliath? I wasn't sure. I named this new creation of mine [Arms down] in reference to the vulnerability one has when relaxed.-
With the Goliaths natural armor hopefully taken care of I repeated this process but this time used a Deadly hornet stinger and some of the blood from the Dread grubs to create a diamond shaped lozenge the size of a cherry that I imbued with a technique for detonating once inside a body sending highly toxic solid poison shards into the flesh that melt then start to spread. Nasty stuff even by my standards as I was fairly certain that surviving one of these things was pretty damn difficult for anyone under level four or higher.-
I named them [Venom shots] and after spending three days perfecting these two items I was confident they would perform well. I also finished more or less adapting to my new stats and was now ready to set off for my fight with the goliath. Like always I breezed through the first few floors and the middle floors before slowing down as I hit floor fifteen as I needed to collect some stuff before my fight, namely crystal. Why you may ask? Well if the fight with the Goliath goes on long enough it'll draw monsters from the floor next to it.-
Rather than splitting my attention on the small fry as well as the big guy I wanted to plug up the entrance from floor sixteen to seventeen. I was going to refine and reshape a bunch of crystal to accomplish this. Temporarily of course since it would piss off a lot of adventurers if access to the lower floors was cut off entirely. Stacking the gathered crystals up near the entrance I activated my technique and immediately the stuff began to meld and grow outwards to dig into the surrounding floor and walls and anchor itself there.-
When I was done there was a opaque wall of smooth crystal hard enough that I was confident nothing bellow level three could break it down.
'I'll recover my energy and stamina before it's go time.' I thought and waited until I was in peak condition.
Good to go I held my weapon gripped tight in my left hand while I had an [Arms down] in my right hand ready to be thrown. Floor seventeen was as usual quiet and the wall of sorrow was fully intact which meant the goliath was back and waiting. I wasted no time at all strolling straight towards the wall which prompted the room to shake as the crystal cracked and the goliath started to free itself.
"FWIP! POP!" I lobbed the [Arms down] fastball style right at the goliaths body and the moment it hit it created a sound much like a kernel of corn popping but considerably louder.
A sort of ominous red mist burst forth from the item and the goliaths skin took on a slight red sheen as the debuff took hold. Sprinting forwards I switched my weapon to my right hand in alignment to use the sharp side and cleaved into the rex's now freed ankle.-
"CRUNCH!" My axe head sank into the skin and a small way into the shin bone before it got stuck.
"GRAAAAAAAAA!" The goliath roared in pain and swung it's fist down at me but I yanked my weapon free and tossed a ball of fire at the rex as I dodged behind it's leg.
The goliath screamed as the flame ravenously spread and scorched it's hide unstoppably. The pain and instinct to survive had the beast smacking itself hard to try and put the flames out but my flames didn't extinguish so easily. I meanwhile took my best two handed grasp of my weapon and jumped up to deliver an overhead chop to the beasts neck.-
Unlike most creatures that would immediately drop dead from such an injury the goliath just roared and swatted at me like I was an annoying fly. I had to abandon my weapon that was lodged in the things neck bones to avoid getting hit. I took that as my que to bring out a [Venom shot] and sprint around the angrily flailing monster as it was now blind since my flames had gotten to it's eyes.-
Controlling my flame with some effort I got them away from it's roaring mouth and I waited till the beast went to inhale and flicked the [Venom shot] into it's wide open inhaling mouth. It paused for a moment as it felt itself swallow something but it was far too late as I heard a muffled "THWUB!" as the item detonated inside it. Must've been near it's core too as the beast immediately started twitching uncontrollably and choking as the toxins spread like a extremely fast cancer. I snuffed out my flames since they weren't needed anymore and watched the beasts skin regenerate and then it's eyes slowly as it stumbled around trying to power through the paralytic poison.-
Not wanting to give it a chance to recover I dashed around behind it and leapt up and grabbed my weapons handle before pulling with my full strength to free the thing. The monster tried to swat at me but was miles off thanks to the poison and hit itself on the shoulder instead. I raised my weapon while planting my feet on either side of it's neck and began hacking away until the head came off and the body dropped.