Cellestra giggled at my words as I turned around again, wading a path through the tall grass which, undoubtedly, hid more predators. I came to a halt when I spotted another anomaly in my thermal vision.

“There,” I said, pointing in the direction of the creature to the right in front of me. “About twenty yards out. Can you see it?”

Cellestra leaned to the side and narrowed her eyes. She took a few seconds but ultimately shook her head. “I can’t see anything.”

“Right. I’ll take care of it,” I said as I cast my earthen spike again, impaling the creature’s belly which ended its life in a matter of seconds.

You have killed a Steppe Lioness: No experience was awarded.

We continued forward through the grass, which eventually started becoming shorter until we reached the next stream. Beyond it was an altered landscape. The long vegetation had made way for dirt with cracks in areas that weren’t close to the one water source in this place.

Only rarely were there some patches of plant life that remained. At least we wouldn’t need to worry about ambushes here. Our next foe wouldn’t be able to pull off a stealth attack even if it wanted to.

Cellestra and I were both staring at an enormous creature grazing what little there was. It looked like some kind of bull, but… far more intimidating.

Short, slightly curved horns at the sides of its head which looked to be smaller than a cow’s head in comparison. However, behind the head were broad ‘shoulders’ so to say, which were covered by some kind of thick pelt. The way its body was shaped told me there was an immense strength in said muscular shoulders. The rest of the body behind it looked less ferocious and more like that of a common brown bull.

“Never seen anything like that, either,” I commented as I took a firm hold on my weapon. I had the feeling using a halberd against this creature would be ill-advised. The creature’s apparent strength would spell disaster at short range.

I’d have to focus on spells for this.

“It looks strong,” Cellestra said.

I nodded. “Better be careful.”

I skittered closer until I was in range of my spells. I opened the skirmish with a few paralytic venom bolts which didn’t do much. This beast’s hide seemed much tougher and not all of my attacks managed to penetrate it. Cellestra, seeing my spells partially fail, summoned an earthen spike under the creature, but was too slow. The beast had spotted us and turned its head to face us, lowered it, exposing its short but terrifying horns, and started a charge.

I remained still to face the creature head-on.

Cellestra seemed slightly unsettled by this strategy when I looked into her eyes, but she knew she could trust me.

When the charging bull-like creature was close enough where it could no longer change direction in time, I summoned an earthen wall in front of me. A massive crash followed and I felt part of my mana drained as it was used to sustain the wall. I canceled the spell while stepping away to the side. I hadn’t seen a notification about the creature dying, so I didn’t know in what state it was.

When it next came into view, it was swaying its head from side to side. If I had to guess, it was either dizzy from the impact or in pain. I used the time to summon two earthen spikes under its belly and Cellestra did the same. All three managed to pierce and create wounds, but they didn’t quite finish the job.

The creature was bleeding, but it wasn't enough yet. In the little time I had before the creature faced us again, I forced the spikes to disappear back into the ground and summoned two new ones, this time, laced with venom to deliver into the wound.

The animal snorted and roared as it prepared to charge again.

This time, I would wait until the venom did its job and started running circles around the creature so that it couldn’t attack properly.

After some time, it collapsed and a message confirmed it was dead.

You have killed a Common Bison: No experience was awarded.

“Okay,” I let out. “Now that thing was tougher than I expected. I’ll admit that. Makes me slightly worried about what’s next. The lioness was far easier than this.”

“Tougher, maybe,” Cellestra said. “But not really an issue as far as I can tell.”

I nodded, looking down at the perished creature. “You know, that thing does look like it’s tasty.”

The brunette giggled. “If you want to take a bite, I won’t blame you.”

“You know what? That’s exactly what I’m gonna do.”

I lowered my larger head to the beast’s side and used my halberd to rip open its skin, revealing the red meat underneath. The smell coming from it was more than wonderful.

My pedipalps ripped off chunks of meat and brought them to my mouth. I swallowed them whole, but the taste still registered… and it was good.

“And?” Cellestra asked expectantly, a smirk on her lips.

“It’s amazing,” I said. “When we’re done here, I’ll definitely eat my fill. In fact, I should take some with me for my parents for dinner. I imagine they’d love this too.”

The purple-eyed elf giggled softly. “That’s very sweet of you. I’m sure they’ll appreciate that.”

I took a few more bites as I couldn’t resist the hearty flavor. Selleron and his squad had advanced to observe what was going on and while I couldn’t see their expressions due to their helmets, I could only imagine the look on their faces behind them. I had my arms crossed as I addressed the soldiers.

“What? Never seen a lady eat before?” I said with a certain playfulness in my voice.

Cellestra couldn’t contain her laughter and I quickly rose up to continue this trial.

“One hell of a lady you are,” She said playfully after I’d created some distance between the guards and myself. “Ripping off meat and eating it raw.”

“At least I can eat and speak at the same time. How’s that?”

“Pretty convenient, I’d say.”

I grinned at our conversation as I skittered across the dry plains. There was another one of those bison in the distance to the east of our position, but I simply left it alone as I felt it would be unnecessary to take on another. A few minutes later, we reached the next stream and started to close in on the mountain ridge as well. It made me wonder, was this the end of the dungeon?

Wouldn’t that mean there was a floor boss or something here?

I didn’t have to wonder about the question for long, as within seconds I heard a sound that somewhat sounded like a trumpet. Seemingly out of nowhere, a colossal grey creature appeared where the sound had come from.

“What the hell is that thing?” I managed to say in view of the fear-inducing but majestic animal.

The creature was simply beyond what I thought possible in size. To support all that weight, it had four beams for legs that had to be about two feet across. It had two large, but thin ears at the side of its head which also had two long, white tusks protruding forward that looked like they could kill without effort. In addition, it possessed something that reminded me of the very first creature I’d seen in this dungeon. I thought it was a mouth at first, but the creature moved it around effortlessly, and when it did, I saw a mouth hidden behind it, which left me to think it was some kind of elongated nose.

“That has to be some kind of boss. No doubt about it,” I said, thinking of a way to defeat it.

“It’s even bigger than you. I didn’t think that was possible,” Cellestra said in awe.

“Hey, I can’t help that.”

Cellestra looked amused but her eyes remained fixated on the seemingly passive creature a good distance away.

“My spikes won’t reach high enough to damage its belly, and that hide looks tough as nails. I fear I may have to resort to my lightning arc spell. I doubt there’s anything else that can deal with something of that size. Perhaps elemental blast works, but let’s see. Just be ready to hold on tight if I need to run.”

“Got it,” The purple-eyed elf replied.

I nodded as I felt her grip on my hair tighten and neared the animal which seemed to just walk around idly. When I got closer, I could really tell just how much it towered over me.

I steeled my will and prepared an elemental blast as I got in range. I hurled it and stood to observe its effects. It somewhat pierced and then exploded, but didn’t seem to do enough damage to properly wound. If anything, it seemed to anger the creature as it turned around, started flapping its ears, and raised its nose appendage to create the same trumpet sound I heard earlier.

“Time to run.”