Before the morboon champion could proceed to deal with the shocked group, clearly frozen in place from fear of its might, a powerfull pain shocked its own mind as its slumped down to earth, losing one of its legs holding it standing. As it gritted its teeth, the pain coursing through, and tried to make sense of what was happening, a figure appeared in the corner of its vision. The same foolish puny thing that had solitarily charged at it and consequently crushed was now behind it, the bloody tool in his hand dripping with even more blood.
A powerfull roar came from its throat, signifying its pain and anger and driving it into pure rage induced state due to its condition. That did not help much, on the contrary, Rex believed it to be as stupid a move as one could do in a situation when they were already losing a lot of blood due to the recently lost leg. Forcing a much larger blood circulation would only result in the creatures demise much sooner. Not that Rex planned to wait for it to expire on its own though, so he took the ctions of the champion for what it was- a last ditch desperate attempt to equalize the speed between it and him.
A couple of desperat and honestly akward swings, all gracefully dodged by Rex, the monster staggered, giving Rex all the oppening he needed. And thus, taking the oppening, Rex moved in, closing any distance between himself and the monster, and then, within moments he delivered a powrfull slash across the creatures exposed neck, half severing its head with the motion, resulting it the fal and death of it. As mana dust dispersed, a similar loot as the last time was left behind it, providing a solid rewards for their run, ensuring they could be in the green should they exit right now. Not that they could, having not chosen a path towards said exit.
With the champion finished, it took them another thirty minutes or so to reaach another intersection, providing them with yet another choice. And, thanks to Rex insistance, the group went down yet another path that lead them deeper in, no plans to extract themselves from the dungeon aany time soon. This time, they enemy of choice were kobolds. Sure, weak creatures, even by the standarts of their party, but due to the stage that they encountered said monsters, said individual weakness was covered up by the sheer number of monster per pack Rex and the group encountered. Normaly, trow a few dozens, maybee even a hundred of kobolds at such a small party and you have a recipe for disaster, but with the tight knit teamwork among the girls and Rex's sheer monster strenght and power drawing a fair number to himself, it was a relative breeze to cut through. It took them just another couple of hours to get through this segment of the dungeon. And Rex was still absorbing all of the blood he spilt while killing the monsters. Why waste such usefull and readily aviable resource and material. The more he thought about it, the more appealing the idea of multiple floating swords around him, be it cleaving through numerous enemies or defending him again waves and waves of arrows, became. Still, he was ways of somewhat finishing his first sword, let alone many others, so the idea had to be set aside for now. Neither he nor his party were strong enough to take on monsters powerfull enough to fasten his progress to a noticable degree. He would have to make do with a single, ever growing sword and a small chain-wire. Rex had to admit, as far as tools went, he was quite stacked already.
Yet another three hours later, the group finally reached another cross section. They all looked quite tired, with Rex being the only exception. Even with his relentless merciless brutal carnage, there were plenty of kobolds that had reached the rest of his group, making them work hard for every step of their progress. It was not until Rex finally deployed his chainwire that the number that could reach girls shrunk notably, at teh same time creating rather horrifying memories in their minds regarding a small metalic like wire splitting bodies upon bodies in half. Upon hearing their general dislike and aprehension regarding such tools, all Rex could do was laugh and think to himself- 'Good thing you have not seen movies where lasers split people in finely cut pieces.'
Regardless of their current state, there was still some time for them to combat through before they could return to their inn, seeing as they have yet to chose a path that led towards a portal out. Luckaly for them, there was one such path before them. Though the whole 'Ragudons ahead. Avoid at all costs' did arouse any desire for them to proceed. Ragudons were a rather peculiar monsters that could best be described as centaur like creatures, with the lover half of an oversized lizard that had grown to the proportions of a horse, and upper side of a humanoid torso with eagle head and large talong at the end of their two hands. They were solitary creatures, though considered B class entities. And for a party of supposed F ranks, that was an obvious death sentence. What the creatures did in such a low tier dungon- that was anyones guess. How the party that explored this particular path got through and back to both find its far end and return to create the warning? That was anyones guess and Rex was fine not trying to figure it all out.
"Urghhhh. I already am damn tired. This means we will have to slog through at least two more sections before returning. " complained Alurial, the least fit person of the group.
"We have one tent with us. To spend the night in these intersections is always and option. That would allow us to go a bit deeper and explore more." Rex added, clearly quite for his own idea. "But I dont mind us going forwards still. I have enough juice for quite a bit more of delving. If you ask me, we pick a route that does not have hordes of relatively weak monsters that could overwhelm us with sheer numbers and allow me to do most of the work. If on our next intesection we dont find acceptable path towards exit gate, we camp there and try again come morning. With a few hours of sleep and rest it shoould be enough to cover us." There were back and forth for a few minutes, condiserding pros and cons of either possible strategy at this point, but at the end, they agreed with the proposition Rex had made. Yet another proof of him outclassing the girls by quite the wide margin already.
Their choice of paths led the group through lizardmen and thanks to relatively slower speed of theirs, probably due to the damp and cool enviroment they lived in, Rex had a field day.His superior speed and skill shone brightly in such conditions, as he weaved through the groups with grace and skill of an experienced master, leaving only gems and other loot items behind, with rare few of the creatures remaining alive as he passed through. Unlike before, his main focus was on killing everything in his path to conserve the energy of his party, most of them showing notable signs of exaustion. And while they could perform somewhat, if it came to it, he found there was no need to tax them overly. The rare monster that was left behind took nothing more than a simple stab to end it after all.
Another hour and a half later, yet another intersection was before them, with one of the tunnels promising path home. What was even better was that it was guarded by yet another biome of lizardmen, and seeing how Rex had just blased through one and still had energy in his tank, something the girls could simply not comprehend, it was decided to push for one last time.
"Worry not ladies. I GOT THIS." Rex assured, a confident grin on his face as he moved forward, once again taking his forward position, ensuring that a rather large gap was created between him and the rest of his party.
"All you then." Samanta confirmed, the party of girls following Rex said distance behind. It was easier for him if every one of the monsters focused on him from the get go, instead of chasing after the annoying ones that decided to go for the softer looking ladies in the back. He could only assume that with the way he cut through monster after monster, they probably reasoned that his meat would be tough and not very tasty, if they were capable of reason that is.
'Ahh, the magnificent feeling of growth one experiences as they grind.' Rex basked in the pleasure of his once again elevated Drain passive skill, slicing apart monster group after monster group with practised ease, his blood sword a blurr of activity, splitting bodies apart and drinking its fill of the blood spilt in said carnage. And as much fun as Rex was having, there was also some noticable weakneses of his current strategy- speedruning through everything in his path, leaving only corpses behind. Namely, the amount of blood he could absorb in the process was miniscule. After all, as soon as a monster died, its body dispersed in mana dust, leaving only its core and sometimes some other drop items behind. And while annoying, Rex had to deal with it for the time being. His party wanted to get back home and rest, and since it did not interfere with his own plans and needs in a reasonable manner, he simply went ahead with it.
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With no need to hold back his strikes to ensure plenty of their opposition was still alive to be cut down by his party, ensuring that they too kept growing, he was able to increase the speed of their progress yet another step further, eliciting a few meaningfull glances among the girls, their previous discussion coming straight to mind. Rex himself remained mostly unaware of it, only having some slight info on them discussing something. Then again, since he was the only male in the party, he reasoned there were a few sensitive topics that he should be excluded from.
With the increased speed, thanks to Rex ability to go a bit more all out than before, what could have been a segment requiring in between three to four hours was just barely completed within two, leaving Rex quite the sight to behold. What awaited them, before the platform with gate baack hime was quite the sight to behold. A large, three and a half meter entity sat on the ground, humongous two handed axe laid next to him, its handle resting against the gray scaled body. Muscles bulging everywhere, clearly noticable even from the distance and with scales covering most of its body.
With his weapon drawn, Rex slowly aproached the specimen, already psyched and ready for anything. He held no illusion of being able to sneak up to the creature and finishing it off before he had to engage it in terms of strenght and competence. Sure, he was a much better fighter and tactician, but the sheer size and mass of the monster, as well as its no doubt unnaturaly sharp instincts would be quite the fun challenge, unless of course he was willing to wrech his own body once more, invoking the power of concepts. And since he was no masochist, the former would have to do.
A few steps later, the monster opened its eyes, angry and predatory red eyes locked on his moving form. And unlike most other lizardmen Rex had encountered so far who seemed just a tad bit sluggish, this one had that sheen to its eyes that many other lacked. With speed surpassed Rex's expectations, the enourmous monster got to its feet, gripping its axe in both hands and letting out a monstrous roar. Following that, it began its charge towards Rex who, in turn, had started his own sprint forward, very soon bringing the two combatants right in front of each other.
Using its forward momentum, the lizardman swung its axe in a half circle arc, utilising both its inherent might as well as the innertia of its sprint to load as much power in the strike as possible. This is where Rex reasoned monsters instincts kicked in, enticing it to use its moves in such a manner to achieve maximum benefit from the exerted force, since there was no way that understanding of physics was taught to magical monsters that just appeared within the dungeon. Unless of course the dungeon itself preprogrammed its monsters with a baseline of advanced knowledge, something Rex was rather skeptical about.
Sidestepping and bending out of the strikes way with relative ease, something his much smaller frame and build allowed for, Rex delivered a quick sword swipe to the monsters now exposed flank, barely creating shallow wound and instantly retreating back, avoiding the incoming blade once more as the monster finished a full rotation and swung its weapon upwards, then following it into a roll forward, creating small distance between the two and roaring once more. It seemed the lizardman was not happy with Rex avoiding its strikes. 'Suck it up. I aint that dumg.' Rex thought to himself as he launched forward, precisely avoiding the axe once again, but this time, before he managed to deliver another slash on the monsters side, it tail was swung at Rex, forcing him to step back, robbing him of the opening he had gained without inflicting a fresh wound on his scaly opponent.
"Damn, thats some instinct. A single, not too costly mistake and you are already adjusting. Tsk tsk tsk, I will have to up my game as well then." Rex chuckled as he was forced to avoid a few more attacks of the axe, sometimes followed by the tail as well, in an attempt to take him by suprise. Unfortunately for the larger predator, Rex was just that well equiped to see every single attack coming a mile away and react accordingly.
The dance went on for a few minutes, with Rex mostly avoiding attacks that were tossed his way in a more and more desperate and frantic manner, slowly creating some unexpected gaps in the monsters attacks. It was during one such gap, larger than any others beforehand that he too upped his own game. Instead of swinging his sword, creating another, small gash on the monsters side, he stabbed, penetrating its skin and sinking his swords blade deeper into the flesh. Following the nasty wound, he poured his mana through the weapon, causing the monster to spazm in agony, his blood magic doing its thing, slowly poisoning the monster all the while delivering signals of excruciating pain.
It was quite impressive how the lizard alpha could still move in such a condition, its swings becoming much more sluggish, but daring and even desperate. Both Rex and the monster understood their respective roles now. Rex was the hunter, and the alpha was the prey. And the monster was not very keen on its new role, driving it berserk. If previously Rex was dodging with minimal exertion, now he was doing so purely out of neccesity, his body not being fast enought to create larger gaps. He was pushing quite hard already, the monsters berserk elevating its speed notably, though it came with a large cost. Even as Rex was doing his best to avoid the barrage of strikes, he could see how the monster was slowly coming apart, blood errupting from more and more places on its body, and none of said places was a wound he had inflicted on the monster. The berserk was putting just that much strain on its body. A true last desperate trump card that would put one out of commision for quite some time should the ywin whatever encounter was deemed desperate enought to use it.
Still, Rex was a monster in his own right, spelling lizardmans doom the moment the two charged towards one another, allowing Rex to gleam a lot of information from its physical capabilities. Thus, while many of his moves looked as if he was barely capable of avoiding them, it had been calculated and precise dance of death. And with the monster going full berserk mode, it was still the case, even if it was now much closer than Rex would like. Still, blow after blow was avoided, the blood poison and its berserk overload doing enough damage, untill finally, with a painfull, soul shaking shriek it slumped to the ground, bleeding profusely from all wounds and orifices. Blood that Rex absorbed in his sword without a second of delay. The dungeon was stingy in that regard. Leave such resources too long on the ground and they disperse in mana dust in no time. Once under his influence however, it was safe and free to be used however Rex desired.
Just a few moments later, the body of the champion scattered to dust, leaving behind a rather large monster core and a few rather odd looking crystals that Rex saw for the first time. Beckoning the girls over, indicating he was done, the party looked at the drops, and noticing the crystals, a sharp inhale of breath could be heard.
"I am assuming thats something rare?" Rex asked, expecting an explanation and reprimand coming for his ignorance.
"OF COURSE! THOSE ARE EMPOWERMENT CRYSTALS!" exclaimed Alurial with frantic excitement. For a moment there Rex could swear he saw dollar signs and slight desire flash in her eyes.
"Yes, yes. Empowerment crystals. Very nice. Now EXPLAIN!" he sarcastically rolled his eyes, practically yelling the last word, noticing just how dazed and overly excited the girsl were, shocking them out of their reverie.
"Right, sorry." Alurial stammered, ashamed of her momentary lack of focus. "They do what days, weeks or even months in the dungeon, slaying monsters would do otherwise. Strenghtening ones body with a much faster pace."
"So, stat potions. Okay. But why are you so excited about it then?" Rex asked in return, not quite understanding their excitement.
"For starters, only variant monsters have a miniscule chance to drop them. Then, as the drop chance indicates, they are unreasonably rare, thus becoming an insanely coveted super insanely expensive thing, auctioned in the capitals greatest auction house as the main item. Thats obviously because whoever is lucky enough to get one would instantly consume them."
"And I am asuming there is another reason for that, besides the obvious quick gain?"
"Yes. Supposedly, it increases ones upper limites ever so slightly, based on their base potential." Samanta chimed in.
"Ah, so it allows one to go over their base cap. Makes sense." Rex replied, then looked over to the three crystals besides the core. "So? What now?"