Edited by: Flubbykin

“The numbness should be gone.” I said taking my hands off Blanka’s head.

As soon as I did, the greenish light of healing magic vanished from my palms. Last hour or so I spend casting some minor healing and detoxification spells, and because of mana fever, this task took me longer than it should.

It was simply harder to maintain the spell - as if you had to constantly balance your body not to fall. It was also more exhausting and putting it simply- weaker in effect. Mana fever is no joke.

“Thank you, I guess, especially that I find it rather unlikely for you to heal everyone you meet.” “I will add healing costs to your potions balance.” “... I take back what I have just said.”

The woman got up from the ground and cleaned her clothes off the dust staining it here and there, then, she proceeded to move her joints in all directions checking out how her body felt after the poison left her body.

“Toxin of those bastards doesn’t have to enter your bloodstream to take an effect, the mere contact with the skin is enough… interesting. I will have to collect samples for further experiments.” I said that more to myself than to my companion. “What? I thought your guild specializes in healing potions! Since when are you interested in poisons?”

Once again a grimace of disappointment crawled onto her face.

“Paralyzing venom could be used to create painkillers. You could re-attach someone’s hand back to his arm without him screaming like a slaughtered pig and twisting to the sides, which would greatly increases the chances of success… Quick to judge, are you?”

I answered without even looking in her direction.

And once again first confusion, then rependece danced in her eyes.

But my other buyer - Syndicate - would be greatly pleased to hear about a new way of kidnapping people which I am about to provide them, because, Blanka was not fully mistaken, I was definitely going to use it for as good as bad things - depending who would pay more.

“F-fine! Let’s quickly deal with this dungeon so you can collect your samples, so you could save the world or whatever you are doing in your spare time.”

Collecting samples? Right, I keep forgetting that this is what more people would do. In my case, I prefer eating monster that produces the toxin and then simply making it out myself. We still have to pay attention to keep our fake appearance up.

“Can you fight?”

I ask in order to avoid talking about non-vital subjects.

Once again warrioress twisted her body checking every muscle, picked up her swords and slashed few times the air. Then with a pleased nod she answered me.

“Yes. Full battle capabilities!” “In that case… Ladies first.”

I said pointing in the direction of one of the corridors. Blanka taking a stance moved onward working as my meat-shie… I mean, vanguard. Common tactic - warriors on the front, mages on the back.

I sensed Remus and his brother’s presences deep in the dark, the connection was still undamaged. I sent them away to both scout the area ahead and eventually drag away attention of the monsters.

We still got attacked, yet somehow I believed that without the efforts of my other familiars, the monster’s party would be much bigger. Could Blanka defeat bigger group of monsters? I don’t know it, after the previous fight she was quite bruised here and there, more enemies meant more bruises… and the toxin spreading faster. Who knows, that could be possibly a lethal situation..

The dungeon was overflowing with magic. So raw and savage that using [Echo of earth] was pointless - I would be simply blinded by the vivid powers that were overflowing in this place.

“Sebastian. Back…” I said quietly. Devil quickly moved behind me covering my rear-side “... Kaito…” I didn’t have to finish. Clever wolf-beast started crawling up on one of the boulders taking position slightly above us.

Why did I order them to do that? Because it was too quiet. Up until now the corridors were carrying the echo of monsters crawling deep in the dungeon, but now? It was dead-quiet here. I wanted to tell Blanka about my observation, yet apparently there was no need for that, she was not a rookie and guessing by the stance she took she was well-aware of the change in the dungeon. Bah, she even turned back in my direction as if she wanted to tell me about some urgent matter…

… genius brains think alike, huh?

Codex-chan

~ Hm? What is it?

Is that spell of yours still active?

~ If you are asking if I stopped gathering powers to fuel it up - then no.

Are we close to finishing it?

~ Thanks to little carnage that this girl caused while you were sleeping I have gathered quite a lot! I would say I am around 10-15%!

Till end?

~ No. In total.

JUST HOW MUCH BLOOD DO YOU NEED?! Seriously, what is this spell?

~ Seee-cret! - her voice rang like a music in my ears. - ...if you want to speed it up, stop using magic. You know, I don’t have a material vessel, or, speaking bluntly, I exist in your mind and mana, when you use (or abuse) it it’s harder to me to contro…. to help you.

What did you try to tell me?

~ Nooo-thing! - once again a ringing-like tone.

She was just trying to tease me… or was she?

Still, you are aware that I am a magician? Not using the mana will be rather exhausting.

~ Suit yourself.

Blanka made another ten or so careful steps deeper into cave, then, she froze in place, shivered and jumped back.

In very last moment.

A beast dropped from the ceiling, similar to the creature in the boss room, yet this one was much smaller and its presence-hiding techniques were not as sophisticated and thus its attack was much easier to predict.

And then the whole corridor turned into hell pit.

A completely new breed of monsters emerged - they appeared in all shapes and colors, yet had one common trait - all of them had natural camouflage making them look like part of the cave as they stayed still.

Even the main species of the beast was different - the previous creatures looked like insectoid themed beasts, these ones are as if they were made of spiders and lizards? Or just multi-limbed lizards?

No, their heads were equipped with twisted mouth-parts, just like insects had. It was nearly impossible to classify them using only one or two animals. Old man Kleir with his love of monsters would kill to lay his hands on these monsters.

For now though, it was not a time for admiration, but extermination. I will have lots and lots of time to witness their inner beauty once they all would lie dead before me - with their stomachs cut open.

I brought my spear and thrusted vertically upward, piercing through the skull of a beast that was about to land on my head. Greenish blood splattered all around letting out irritating odour, very quickly my throat and nostrils started burning a little.

So, toxic blood? What the hell is this place?!

Another two monsters bolted at me from the sides rising their frontal limbs like tarantulas ready to attack and opening their colossal mouth on the relatively small head - it looked as if 80% of the head was covered in the mouth alone. How were they able to see?

… that’s the point. They weren’t. Lack of eyes made them blind, the creatures were sensing the heat and vibration.

And damn, they were fast, the sound of their extremely thin legs hitting the stone ground of the cave created a crescendo of quietish noises.

Kaito jumped from the boulder right onto the two attackers - one of the creatures didn’t manage to react and now its body was being ripped into pieces, yet as soon as Kaito burrowed his teeth in the toxic body I could hear his cry of pain… still, he did not release the bitelock.

His fur bristled, his eyes narrowed and he put even more force to his attack causing bones of the beast to crack and then give under the pressure.

For those beasts their toxic blood became a double-edged weapon, for it triggered Kaito’s passive skill of Blow trading - the more damage they would cause to him, the deadlier he would become.

Another group of beasts tried attacking me from behind, yet I didn’t even turn to face them. They didn’t even manage to get close to me as they fell on the ground with steel sharp feathers dug deep in their bodies.

And Blanka… Blanka was beautiful - the thing she did. Her moves were so minimalistic, yet strangely elegant, completely unlike her previous crude and simple, yet effective blows. She was dancing - as if flying on the ground. Her moves were so fluently changing from one to another, that you couldn’t tell when one was ending and another starting. Or maybe it was but one never ending move?

She moved to the front and tilted her upper body back ducking under the sickle-like limb, twisted her body to the side rising one of her blade up and other to the side.

Vertically slashed, moved back, pierced slightly from the side and jumped over the attack aimed at her lower body.

Her whole upper and lower body were acting like two different beings. I saw such fluidity in movements once - when I sparred with the elf lancer - one of Lanele’s friends.

She made a pirouette in place parrying two attacks and answering with a quick counter. In that short moment when she was facing me I saw her eyes - they lacked any signs of presence, as if in a trance- her spirit left her body. She wasn’t even watching her opponents - as a doll dancing in the middle of a musicbox.

“Kaito, watch her.” I said turning around and facing beast coming from the opposite side of the corridor.

I started chanting a spell, beautiful flames started dancing on my palm… yet in the end I decided to clench my palm into fist ceasing the fire.

Magic, with its reduced impact yet increased recovery time became a vital resource that was not meant to be wasted lightly. Then again my battle capabilities were relatively low - enough to deal with peasant with a pitchfork, bandit with a knife or few drunk adventurers, I could defeat noble or two who learned “fencing” instead of actual fighting style with ease and I could keep most monsters away thanks to the range of the spear, yet. let’s be honest. I am still a novice apprentice in terms of skill. I managed to live up until now thanks to high reflex, dexterity and the ability to quickly adapt to new situation and finding out my enemies weakness. I had no idea how long I could last fighting melee-only in corridors filled with waves and waves of monsters. Especially if in every corridor we would find completely new set of monsters with different fighting style and weaknesses.

Then again - I should focus on supporting the most burdened part of our group.

Damn, this would be completely different story if I could turn into beast, yet right now I definitely didn’t want to show this side of me to Blanka, even if I could just say that my shapeshifting abilities comes from the gift of druid wisdom. I already have showed this skill to too many people, if I would keep this up, it’s only a matter of time when the problems would start to appear.

I clenched my teeth, focused my gaze and emptied my head.

Blanka was doing fine, for now, Sebastian - or Bachoru, proved why he was called a general of hell’s army - despite his vesel not being even a shadow of his real power, he was easily overwhelming his enemies with mere positioning and decision making. He needed some time to grow the steel-feathers and shoot them, he was killing maybe three or four enemies per minute, yet he was so perfectly playing with aggression on his opponents, that none of them even managed to get into striking-range.

Kaito was in the worst position, he pretty much did what I asked him to do - he joined Blanka’s side protecting her blind spots, yet, because of his lower-devil nature, intelligence (which was clearly lacking common sense, being rich in pride instead) and nature of berserker he quickly lost control and let himself be surrounded.

Another group of monsters was approaching Kaito from the side, I decided to stand on their path not letting them join their comrades. These creatures were not intelligent, or if they were, then they were so overwhelmed by hunger and rage so much, that there was little if not any planning and coordination in their action - they were chasing the closest target possible, which at that time appeared to be me.

One, two, three, four… seven of them. Not good. Seven enemies each having eight limbs and very small corpus and head. Seriously, if not their outer flesh you could take them for mere oversized spiderling.

How to fight with them? First, I should reduce their mobility to ensure focused attack on their vital points. Crap, wide-area fire magic would have been a bliss here…

… or was it? No. It’s far too fishy. If there is something that this place taught me, is that nothing here is left to fortune. No with boss waiting till all his underling would die to perform a quick sneak attack. Not with monster splatting toxic blood…

Fire would be the most obvious tool to be used in this place, so… what if…

I looked at the dead body under my feet.

Using merely one point of mana i casted a spark that fell on the stream of blood running out from the lifeless body.

It caught flames within seconds, like a gasoline covering whole body of the monster. I put the flames down, using much more mana than just to cease a mere fireplace.

This creatures are living traps!

The irritating effect of their blood was just a side-effect! If fire mage would try to take down few of these beasts at same time, they all would pop like a firework warehouse.

A great way to kill all of them in a single time, isn’t it? The only problem - that would drown the whole relatively narrow corridor in napalm-like hellstorm. A single mage could never put this whole fire down alone. Not with the number of these creatures.

Up to this point, we are all living only because I suffered a mana fever from the previous boss.

… We all lived thanks to a bloody fluke.

Just what in the bloodiest hell is this place?!