"Sit still!" Long Nose screamed in rage as Merlin dodged the two Lung Beasts for the dozenth time. Water and wind were unable to hit Merlin. "Why won't you die?"
"I like living." Merlin shrugged, and he leapt into the air as one of the two-headed Lung's struck out at him. He brought his scythe down, but the blade didn't harm the beast. Instead, he used it as a makeshift sled, placing his feet on the bladed part, and he gripped the pole, grinding down the back of the construct's spine as the second head attempted to bite him in two but missed.
The other Lung flew forward, wrapping around the first, both heads coming at him, but Merlin twisted his body and leapt off his weapon. He swung his scythe out, and the blade once again failed to harm the construct, instead wrapping around the snout of one of the Lungs, which he then used along with his momentum to swing forward and slide across the ground. A second later, he then raised his scythe up just in time as Long Nose came up behind him and attempted to slice his head off.
His scythe blocked the sword, and he deflected it. At the same time, he stepped to the side and dodged both Lung's as they came down at him again. He twisted fully out of their reach, narrowly avoiding them, and sliced out with his weapon, hitting around the two constructs and clipping Long Nose's shoulder.
Long Nose grunted but was unharmed, not being sliced or cut. Instead, he felt the mana invade his head, and a transfer of memories was given to Merlin.
"Stop doing that!"
"No." Merlin rapidly dodged out of the way as Long Nose swung his blade out wildly. Water and air blasted out as the Spell Sword spammed various spells, and the Lung's kept striking when they could, but none of them ever touched Merlin. He was always just out of reach, just in the right place at the right time.
Long Nose charged and sliced out over and over again, but each time he did, his blade would fail to reach the man. Long Nose was confident he was stronger. He was faster. He was more durable. One strike and he'd kill Merlin. He just couldn't reach that strike, no matter how much effort he put into it.
Merlin was always just out of reach.
Merlin gave another smirk and lazily side-stepped the sword swing. It was so close to his face that he was able to catch a glimpse of his reflection as the blade passed over him. He then twirled back and avoided both the Lungs as they crashed down where he had been.
Merlin was able to dodge all these fast-moving attacks and make it look easy because, to him, the world looked different.
Merlin gazed at Long Nose, and within his vision, he saw a red thread. It stretched from Long Nose's blade and came directly at him, and as Long Nose got ready to attack, that thread would follow, giving away his movements, which allowed Merlin to step out of the way, removing himself from the path of the red thread. Long Nose's attack would continue to flow inside the line of the thread, but Merlin would no longer be present to be hit by the attack.
The red threading didn't just flow from Long Nose either. Four others came out of the two constructs, one for each head, and they also connected to Merlin. As the constructs got ready to strike, Merlin would watch the way the threads would shift and bend, and then he'd dodge right as the threading settled.
The attacking Lungs would remain on their path, their attack following the thread perfectly, but he would already be out of the way.
This vision that he had was known as Instinct—the evolved form of Danger Sense. Danger Sense was a rare trait. Even in Mordheim, where it usually appeared, only about one in every ten kids would awaken it, and in order to awaken this trait, they'd have to go through utter hell. In Esteria, those odds went down to one in every ten thousand.
What most people didn't know was that this trait could evolve. This rarely happened because leveling up the trait was so hard. Only those who faced constant battle and put themselves into danger could evolve it. This was because Danger Sense worked by alerting the user to a dangerous attack or malicious intent directed at them.
When a user had Danger Sense, a part of their body would burn and ache. Usually, this was a scar, such as a burn mark. In other cases where they were missing a limb, they'd feel phantom pain as Danger Sense went off. A person tends to unlock Danger Sense after nearly dying and being scarred. It is their Core's way of preventing such a thing from occurring again.
The issue with training Danger Sense was that it could only activate when the user was actually in danger. This meant training wouldn't be enough to trigger it unless their lives were actually at stake.
Those who did live in constant danger would eventually find their Danger Sense evolving and changing. Some traits were able to reach a point where they would transform into a brand new trait. Usually, this happened with Resistant traits, which could all eventually evolve into Immunity traits. When Danger Sense was pushed to the absolute extreme, it would become the Instinct trait.
This trait is what allowed Merlin to dodge all the strikes that came his way. No longer did he get a pain in his body that would warn him of danger. Instead, when faced with an opponent whom he understood, the Instinct trait would show him the red lines of killing intent, and by avoiding these lines, Merlin would avoid all attacks.
Because Danger Sense was so rare, and evolving it was so hard, most people weren't even aware of the existence of Instinct. Those who were still couldn't comprehend how powerful the trait truly was.
Merlin himself only possessed stage one of Instinct. The only other person he knew who had this trait was Captain Laerton, who wielded stage three.
Instinct combined perfectly with his own magic. By using Memory magic, he absorbed memories and thoughts that flowed in Long Nose's head. This allowed him to focus in on how the man fought. As such, he knew all of Long Nose's spells and moves as well as the man's subtle tells or way of being. Everyone had a preferred method of fighting and unique ways they would strike. Subtle ticks that, if noticed, could be giveaways.
Long Nose's index finger would always twitch right before he got ready to strike. By viewing Long Nose's memories, Merlin became aware of this, and so he focused his Instinct trait on Long Nose's fingers, and the twitching of a finger is what would cause the red threading to move.
As for the constructs, they were even easier. They weren't living creatures and were instead programmed beings. It was like playing a video game and studying the boss's moves. The Lungs had a series of movements they performed on a loop and could only follow commands programmed into them. As such, they always struck in predictable ways.
Most people would be able to figure the construct loop out; however, they wouldn't be able to use the information, as paying attention to both the constructs and Long Nose would be next to impossible. Thanks to Instinct, this became easier to do, as Merlin simply had to check on the threading and make sure he wasn't in the way of it while ignoring the Lungs entirely.
They'd never hit him.
Of course, while Merlin made this fight look easy, there was one glaring issue he had. He still had no way of harming Long Nose, something Long Nose was starting to realize as well.
Long Nose gritted his teeth and stepped back. "I don't know how you're able to dodge all my strikes so easily, but whatever. I'll show you why I'm to be feared. Behold! An embodiment of the Leviathan!" Long Nose lifted his sword. It didn't matter if Merlin could dodge every attack. All he had to do was nuke the battlefield. "Ril Water-Wind Sea-King!"
The two Lungs suddenly shattered apart and melted. Water and wind exploded into existence, and the entire forest began to shake. Merlin's eyes widened, and he panicked suddenly when his entire vision shifted into a bright red as Instinct told him that there was nowhere to dodge. The entire forest was about to be the target of this attack.
The air twisted and shaped the water, which kept forming in the air, creating a massive and twisting snake-like being forged out of a lake's worth of water. It was huge, circling the entire forest, and from above it peered down. It resembled a massive cobra, forged out of a clear blue liquid, and the mana it gave off was intense.
A Ril-level spell required an enormous amount of mana to use, and White also had the ability to cast one; however, because White was in the dungeon, he lacked this ability due to the nerf dungeons gave off. Long Nose felt himself nearly vomit, and he almost collapsed to his knees as most of his power faded away. Despite that, he began to laugh. It didn't matter how good Merlin was at dodging. In a few seconds, there wouldn't be a forest.
"Die!" Long Nose sliced his sword down, and his massive Sea-King reacted.
The construct glowed and ignited, and the water that made up its form blasted down in a single intense beam of pure mana. It had enough power behind it to vaporize the entire forest, and Merlin's Instinct told him dodging such an attack would be impossible. Luckily for him, he didn't have to dodge the attack.
"It took you long enough. I thought your lazy ass would never show up."
The beam slammed down, but Long Nose watched in shock as something massive appeared in front of Merlin. The energy, which rippled through the air, swirled around and began to fade, and to Long Nose's horror, he saw that the thing that stood in front of Merlin had its mouth open, and it was actually sucking in his Sea-King! "W-What the fuck?"
When the energy of mana all died down, Long Nose processed what he was seeing. It was a massive, fat man with the head of a pig and incredibly pink skin. He wore thick leather armor that was tearing and snapping as it struggled to contain his form, and he let out a meaty burp and wiped his chin. Around his neck was a massive cape bearing the symbol of Phoenix Flight.
"Y-You ate my spell!" Long Nose screamed.
"It wasn't half bad either." Gormay licked his lips and stood up, rubbing the back of his neck. "Oy, Mir, why are you getting into fights with ugly guys?"
"He's from Mordheim." Merlin sighed. "Hurry up and take him out so we can go and help the rest of the recruits." There was a reason he had escaped into the forest. Being near a dungeon caused phones or radios to stop working. By getting away from the dungeon, he was able to send a text to his brother demanding that he come save him.
"You got it." Gormay took a thundering step forward, and the entire forest shook. Long Nose stumbled back in fear and clutched his sword. He tried to force his mana out, but he had reached his limits. Gormay's entire body ignited in a thick brown aura, and smoke started to flow off his flesh. "So, you think you can just pick on my sibling and get away with it?"
"S-Stay back! What the hell are you!"
"A very pissed off brother." Gormay pointed a finger at Long Nose. "Vil Burger Golem."
"B-Burger what?"
From behind Gormay, something began to form. It flowed from his aura and looked like clumps of meat. They shaped into a pair of giant feet, and then more meat connected to them, forming legs. Next came the body, and the meat was replaced with layers of bread as two massive burger buns on top, with a juicy burger in the middle that held the golem's core. Two jacked arms of meat jutted out of the sides of the burger, and the construct flexed.
When it was all said and done, a hamburger with arms and legs stood, even bigger than Gormay.
Long Nose stared at the thing in utter bafflement.
"This burger bites back," Gormay announced, and suddenly jagged fries stabbed out of the front of the golem, creating a wide-open mouth, and it roared and lunged for the screaming Spell Sword.
***
Meanwhile, back in the dungeon, the Brass-Bull stood in the hallway where the three Knights had vanished. It remained perfectly still and stared down at the shadows, waiting for any signs that the three Knights would emerge.
If need be, it would wait here forever. What little part of White was left was entirely focused and honed in on killing the three Knights, and so the Brass Bull wanted nothing more than to kill them all.
Thankfully, he didn't need to wait forever.
The shadows suddenly twisted, and a massive hunk of iron on a chain blasted out. It was a thick anchor made to halt a battleship, and it rammed into the chin of the Brass Bull. Its head was shoved back, and it hissed, stumbling away.
From the vault, a beaten-up Davi, Ken, and Olivia all stumbled out. Ken and Olivia threw off their blankets, and Davi gripped his sword as tightly as he could.
The Brass Bull regained its footing and gritted its teeth. An intense heat formed across its arms and down its back, and the thing stepped forward, swinging out a powerful punch. Davi stepped to the side, avoiding it, but the second arm slapped out toward him, about to hit him. At the last second, before it could, the anchor was swung out again, as Ken gripped the chain and used all her force to swing it around. She lacked Yujin, and so her body was powered with her natural strength and Qi, and she was just strong enough to ram the anchor into the monster's wrist, deflecting its blow and causing it to miss Davi.
Ken then dragged the anchor back over to her and got ready to throw it again. The bull glared up at her, but before it could try to attack her, it was distracted when Davi leapt into the air.
He landed on the outstretched hand and rammed up it, his body absorbing the heat that tried to cook him alive. He absorbed the force of the attacks with Way of Self Iron and forced them into his legs, kicking off the beast and shooting himself toward its chest.
As soon as he reached it, Davi gritted his teeth and did something he shouldn't have done. He used Old Bird's Flapping Wings for a fourth time. Using it three times would badly strain the body. A fourth would bring about a massive wave of backlash. Because of this, he attempted to lower the damage by only inhaling half the power he had spent.
Next, he did another thing that he shouldn't have done. He used Way of Self Iron at the same time.
Last time he did this, the two energies had a tug-of-war-like state within his body, and it caused them to shatter and blow up inside of him. This time, he was ready for it and wanted to create that effect on purpose. Instead of dragging all of his power back into his Core, like he usually did with Old Bird's Flapping Wings, he shoved it wildly into his body and then used Way of Self Iron to grab that untamed energy and bring it to the tips of his fingers.
As he did this, something else occurred, not within his body, but within his mind. For the briefest of moments, through sheer will and instinct, Davi saw a series of ones and zeroes. He imagined a code, one that depicted how he and the world both worked. Using these numbers, he created a Vow.
Davi reduced the backlash effect that would hit him from combining these two unstable forces. This was to prevent an explosion from occurring that would kill him like it did last time. In order to do this, however, he had to give something of equal value up, and so he allowed the total damage of this blast to be reduced. This would further lower the damage he would take.
All these clashing abilities resulted in a unique phenomenon. Because his Enchantment stat was so high, and Davi was a talented Enchanter, the Vow went through, and it began to fill in missing pieces of the code for him in order to create something that would benefit him the most.
The mana he drew in earlier was wild and untamed. It lacked an element. This was because Old Bird's Flapping Wings could absorb all forms of mana traces that were in the air and then would take that raw energy and shove it back into the user's Core to refuel it forcefully. Because the mana was raw, it lacked an affinity or element and was, in essence, something akin to Qi, as Qi Lines lacked elements due to having no natural Core.
This mana that was currently in his body was not his own, and as such, shouldn't be under his control; however, Way of Self Iron latched onto this energy and forcefully dragged it through his body, bringing it into his hand. The force of all that power began to build up and was about to explode, just as it did the first time, but then his Vow was created, and this caused the energy to change and shift.
The explosive force had to be reduced to avoid harming Davi. The Vow needed this to happen, yet the energy was also not his own. If it had simply been Davi's mana, it could have fully altered and changed it freely, but because it was raw mana, it could only shift and alter it in specific ways. In order to follow through on the command, the Vow took a sudden approach.
All at once, Davi's eyes widened as he felt an intense heat building up inside of him. He had been planning to unleash the explosion point-blank to harm the monster; however, unknown to him, his Vow had interrupted his commands in a different way. The raw, untamed mana suddenly became tamed and shaped, molding itself and forcing its way out of his body, the same way a spell would, not harming him.
In his palm, it formed, becoming a white-and-black mass of spiraling energy. It burned his hand to hold, for he was touching pure mana. It wasn't a spell; it wasn't transformed into an element such as wind, fire, or lightning, or even light; it was just absolute energy, shaped into an orb to better fit inside the palm of his hand.
This had been the conclusion the Vow came to. In order to 'lower the damage the explosion would cause to Davi,' the Vow took the energy out of his body; this way, the explosive force wouldn't go off inside of him, which would in turn significantly reduce the damage he'd take if it blew up. The thing he gave up was 'to lower the overall explosive power of the blast,' and so the Vow shaped that raw energy into a spherical shape in order to force all that energy into a single point forward. Instead of lowering the destructive power, it would force all that energy into a single point, lessening the blast's reach.
Davi barely had time to process all of this as he stared at the white and black mass of pure power that was spinning rapidly in his hands. It was like trillions of particles all came together. It shifted forms and colors constantly, appearing as a black hole, then a white hole, then an orb of mixed colors. It was unstable and on the verge of detonating in his hand, for such a thing as this was not meant to exist and was rapidly coming undone.
Davi knew what he needed to do. He gritted his teeth as hard as he could and slammed his hand forward, letting out a roar. He smashed the orb directly into the chest of the bull, and the monster's eyes went wide as it felt the buildup of power ram into it.
All at once, the mana imploded, slamming into the bull with enough force to crack and dent its brass armor. Its flesh was ripped open, the metal tearing away as a hole was fully blasted into it. It roared as its insides became visible.
Davi wasn't able to escape the whole explosion either. His left arm, which had been holding the orb, was dislocated due to the kickback of energy, and he felt his hand break and shatter. Still, the backlash was nowhere near what he thought it would have been, since the Vow had gone through, and the force that would have been forced upon him was sent outside his body and into the orb.
He was sent flying through the tunnel and rammed into the wall as the explosive force shoved him back.
The Brass Bull wasn't done, however. It still stood, even with its injuries, and it was about to charge toward the downed Davi, but before it could, Ken threw the anchor at it as hard as she could. The metal object slammed into the hole in the Brass Bull, and it howled in pain and glared down, only for its eyes to go wide.
Olivia stood on the anchor. The fire burned away at her flesh, but she ignored it and slammed her arm into the hole that was inside of it. It slapped up at her, but it was too late.
"Vil Blood Cerberus!"
Olivia put all her mana and remaining blood into the attack. She had been down to her last spell, and so this attack should have killed her, but she was in her Polymorph state, and so even if this version of her died, it wouldn't matter!
At least she hoped…
The blood ignited and flowed from the tip of her wand, bursting out the back of the Brass-Bull as her construct came into existence. It only lasted a second as her blood entirely ran out, and Olivia dropped, falling off the anchor and toward the ground.
She felt her heart give out, and in an instant, she shriveled up and died. Her body was full of life one moment and then dead instantly the next as the spell tried to take blood that simply wasn't there.
This wasn't the end of her story, though.
Suddenly, her body ignited in a golden light, and her outfit shifted, fading back into the leather armor created by Clause, and new life flooded into her. Olivia took a gasping breath as Polymorph shut off and reverted her to the form she was in before she had cast it. This meant she was still out of usable spells and extremely low on mana, but she wasn't dead.
She crashed down directly into the arms of Ken, who caught her just in time. "Oh, Haru!" Olivia still shook and nearly vomited. "That was horrible! Dying sucks!"
"You died?" Ken yelled in a panic. "What did you do?"
"Don't worry, I'm good." Olivia winced and grabbed at her chest.
"You don't look good."
"Y-Yeah. Low on blood and out of mana." Olivia felt her head begin to pound, and the world moved back and forth. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. Quick Regeneration would give her enough blood to stand on her feet soon.
The plan had been simple. Davi would poke a hole in the Brass Bull while Ken got her close enough to blast it with everything she had. It didn't matter if her Polymorph form died because she would come back, just like when Davi did. She also knew that when her Polymorph timer came back, her Polymorph form would be fine since the damage the transformation took always reset after she reused it, so she didn't have to worry about that form being dead.
Ken stared at Olivia in utter bafflement but eventually shook her head. "Right? Whatever." Still holding the snow-haired beauty, she turned to Davi. "Yo, dumbass, are you still alive?"
Rubble shuffled, and Davi pulled himself out of the section of the stone wall he had crashed through. His broken arm dangled uselessly at his side, and he was even beaten up now, his armor gone as he was truly out of energy.
"Somehow." Davi let out a wheezing cough.
Ken's look softened slightly. "Try to stay alive. As soon as Yujin gets his strength back, I can heal you and Olivia-"
A loud, piercing roar filled the air, and Ken's eyes widened. The Brass Bull stood back up and screamed toward the heavens above. The hole through its chest had grown to the point it barely had a body left, and it was possible to see all the way through it. Bits of metal were melting off its body, and it was crumbling and falling apart, but somehow, some force left over urged the creature to stand and swing toward the two women. If it were dying, then they would die with it.
Davi also surged forward with renewed strength, and he threw himself in the way, hoping to use his body as a shield. The hand smashed down toward him, and he got ready to block it, knowing it would be useless, but then, before it could reach him, a bolt of lightning as black as the night sky tore through the creature's wrist and blasted its hand clean off. A jagged black spear then stabbed into the wall, shattering it.
The hallway suddenly buzzed with power, and the bull twisted its head. Its eyes widened when it saw a figure in golden armor who wore a black oni mask.
Sieg held his hand out, and his lightning buzzed louder. The metal rod that had been used as an arrow and pierced through the monster's wrist suddenly pulled its way back to him, pulled by a form of magnetism.
Sieg caught it and carefully took aim. The Brass-Bull charged at him, boosting itself forward, and it swung out at him. "Row Electric-Shadow Bow." The black lightning shaped itself into a massive war-bow, able to bring down even castle walls, and Sieg fired his arrow.
The Brass Bull was split straight in two right down its body, the arrow ripping through it as if it were wet tissue paper. The lightning didn't stop there, though. It clung to the beast, and the shadows of the bolts shaped and twisted into the heads of hawks, which began to tear and burn it away, melting it down until not even ashes remained.
Once the creature was fully destroyed, Sieg let out a sigh, and the black lightning around him reverted to its standard color, and his golden armor shattered and broke away.
"Are you three okay?" Sieg walked forward and folded his arms. His expression, as usual, was hidden behind his mask, which had turned red once again.
Ken had to stop herself from drooling when she saw his muscular body and his rock-hard physique. Eventually, she managed to close her jaw. "W-What the hell was that?" She demanded. "What did you do?"
"I slayed the monster. Come on, Yuan, I thought you were smarter than that."
"You bastard," Ken growled, and she would have slapped or pounced on him then and there if not for the fact that she was holding a knocked-out Olivia. The poor girl had finally blacked out. "Need I remind you that between the two of us, I'm not the moron who sneaked off during the trial test! Your actions are the reason it took so long for us to join the guild!"
Sieg awkwardly coughed and looked away. The reason he had vanished when Davi first needed help with the kitsune and lung monster was that he had been teleported back to the Knights' exam area. He had been in huge trouble for wandering off, but his reasoning for leaving was an important one. In the end, it all worked out, and he and Ken were here now.
Davi gazed at his brother before turning back to Ken. "We should get out of here."
"Good idea." Ken nodded and threw the sleeping Olivia over her shoulder. "Let's leave before anything else happens—"
Suddenly, the entire dungeon began to shake, and a bright white light started to appear from above. There was a humming sound in the air, and with each second, the shaking grew worse.
"Great!" Sieg said sarcastically. "You jinxed us! Way to go, Yuan!"
"Oh, shut it!"
"Shit." Davi cursed. "We need to leave now. The dungeon is leaving."
"What? What do you mean the dungeon is leaving?" Ken's eyes went wide.
"It means what I said." Davi hissed. "The dungeon is about to teleport and head back to wherever it is they go when their boss is killed. The time limit didn't reset just because it got another boss! If we don't go now, we're going to all be trapped inside!"