"GRAHH!!"
It charged towards me, almost mindlessly.
I braced and took the hit. My feet left the ground. My back hit stone. The impact rang through my bones and left my hands numb. I rolled, barely stopping myself from smashing into a jagged outcrop headfirst.
The monster swung with a roar. I ducked.
I slashed upwards. The cut was too shallow. The monster regenerated almost instantly.
"GAHH!"
It charged again, head down, arms wide, pure instinct driving the mass of it forward.
I met it.
The impact sounded like stone breaking.
My spear hit its shoulder and snapped sideways as the monster slammed into me. We crashed together, rolling across the cavern floor in a tangle of limbs and iron. Its weight crushed the air out of my lungs. Claws scraped against my armor, shrieking metal on metal.
I jammed my knee up into its jaw.
CRACK!
Bone shifted.
It roared in my face, hot breath stinking of rot and blood, and smashed its forehead into mine. My head rang like a bell. My vision stuttered. I tasted copper.
I shoved the spear shaft across its throat and heaved.
The monster staggered back, boots scraping stone. It swung wildly. I ducked under one arm and hacked at the other, blade biting deep. Flesh split. Black blood sprayed.
The wound closed as I watched.
"Damn it."
It slammed both fists down.
The ground cratered where I had been standing. I jumped back, barely keeping my balance as shockwaves rippled through the stone. Chunks of ceiling crashed down around us.
It striked again.
I ducked, rolled, slashed. Cut after cut. Shoulder. Side. Neck. Every strike landed. Every strike healed.
Its patience, if it had any, ran out.
The monster grabbed me by the spear shaft and yanked.
I flew forward.
Its knee drove into my gut. My body folded around the impact. Before I could recover, it seized my throat and lifted me off the ground. My boots kicked uselessly against the air.
Its grip tightened.
My vision dimmed.
I twisted the spear and rammed the pommel into its wrist. Once. Twice. The third strike cracked bone. Its grip loosened just enough.
I wrenched free and landed hard, rolling across the stone as air tore back into my lungs.
The monster roared. Loud enough to shake dust loose from the ceiling.
It charged again.
I did not retreat.
I sprinted forward and slid beneath its swing, coming up inside its reach. Too close for power. Too close for momentum.
I drove the spear forward.
The tip punched into its chest.
And stopped.
The impact jarred my arms. The resistance was wrong. Dense, denser than its flesh. Like a crystal. Like a core.
The monster screamed.
Not rage. Pain, and fear.
It backhanded me instantly. The blow caught my side and sent me flying. I hit the cavern wall hard, stone biting into my back before I collapsed to one knee.
I looked up.
Blood poured from its chest.
Black sludge spilled first, thick and slow. Then red followed. Bright. Hot. Real. It splashed onto the stone and steamed.
The monster staggered.
I grinned through bloodied teeth.
"So you aren't a normal victim of the Scourge, after all. You have a heart."
It lunged, desperate now.
I rushed it.
I ducked under a punch and slammed my shoulder into its ribs. Bone cracked. I twisted and tore the spear sideways through its chest, ripping flesh apart. Red blood sprayed across my armor.
The monster howled and slammed both fists down again.
"GAHHH!!"
I jumped back as the stone exploded upward. Shards tore past my face. My boots skidded. I barely stayed upright.
It charged again, slower now, dragging one leg.
I materialized my helm as I ran. Metal snapped into place through shadows. Mana surged through me.
I poured it into the spear.
The tip screamed as a violent force built. The air warped around it. Cracks spidered across the stone beneath my feet as I planted myself.
The monster raised its arms and roared one last time.
I stepped forward.
"Collision."
I drove the spear into its chest, until I felt the tip of my spear cut into its core.
KRAKA–BOOOM!!!
The cavern erupted.
Light swallowed everything as mana detonated outward. Stone shattered. Flesh tore. The shockwave ripped through the chamber, blasting debris into the darkness.
The spear was launched out of my hands, lodging itself in a cavern wall.
I let myself breath, thinking I had defeated it. But I was wrong.
A scream tore through the cavern. A scream of anguish.
"GRAHHHHHGGGH!!"
It was still standing.
Half its body was gone, burned and broken, stone and flesh fused into something barely holding shape. Its chest was split open, the core exposed. Cracked. Leaking a thick red fluid that steamed as it hit the ground. The rest of it smoked, blackened plates sloughing off in chunks.
Its eyes locked onto me.
Nothing in them but lifeless rage.
"Shit."
It ran towards me. I reached for my spear and came up with air. It was still embedded in the wall behind the monster, too far, unreachable.
I grit my teeth, and slammed my bare fist against its own.
A shockwave echoed through the cavern, I felt my bones crackle as pain detonated through my arm. It didn't stop. Its other hand clamped around my head and drove me back into the wall.
Again and again, its massive fist, rained down on my head. My helmet, didn't dent all that much, but inside, I felt the shockwaves burst my eardrums.
Each blow sent pressure screaming through my head, through my teeth, through my spine. My vision fractured. Blood ran warm down my neck.
The pressure from all the fighting, today, was catching up.
⟪Hero. You are being Overwhelmed.⟫
The world softened at the edges. The screaming in my nerves dulled, as if someone had stuffed cotton into my skull.
'Ah,' I thought. 'So, you're here as well.'
Relief washed over me. A hand on my shoulder in the dark.
'Part of every dungeon, then?' I asked, not expecting an answer.
Another punch bulldozed into my helm.
⟪No. I am not. I am a part of you.⟫
'What the—?!'
That...was not mechanical. At least not as mechanical as before. Almost, human.That made my stomach twist.
'What do you mean by 'part of you'? Part of me—'
My vision dragged itself upward, even though I had made no conscious effort to do so, toward the monster's chest. The exposed core pulsed there, cracked and leaking, red energy spilling like blood that could not decide what it was.
⟪Create a violent force.⟫
⟪The strong kind.⟫
Mana was already moving, flowing through me on its own.
'On it.'
I forced my arm up between us and shoved against its chest. My hand slipped into the open cavity.
I felt the cracked, yet strong, core.
Red energy leaked from it like blood that did not know how to stay contained.
"I need you dead," I said.
My nerves screamed as the energy tore through them, uncontrolled, violent, raw. My arm shook.
I pushed harder.
"I don't care if I die."
The mana condensed in my palm, spiraling inward, crushing itself tighter and tighter against the core.
"But not now. I have a duty to fullfil."
KRA-BOOOM!!