The dog-like creatures darted towards him, the two of them who managed to dig themselves out came first as the last one was still digging. Every step they took sounded like a fresh piece of meat slapping against another, every large movement they did had an undertone of a squelching sound in their movements.
Having just come through the flesh corridors, this didn’t phase Sam as much as he expected. Drawing his four daggers he readied himself for when they came in range. Though the movements of his daggers would be slightly sluggish with only two Psyhands on them, it felt... different somehow. Having discovered how to feel with his hands there was a strange boost to the intuitive nature of how to aim with them. It felt like his hands were numb before as if he had been sleeping on his arm and tried to use it for dexterity tasks. But now it was like that numb feeling was gone, he didn’t know how dull they were before but the difference was night and day. It didn’t do anything to their strength, reach or speed, but it made everything easier.
Just before the first Hound stepped into his Area, he had already started moving the daggers, he had a very acute understanding of his reach, so he knew when they would enter it. Sending them forward he opted for all of them to make slicing motions, if he penetrated them with a stab there was a legit chance of him not getting them back without walking over and pulling them out.
The first cut landed well, cutting deep into its flesh, it jumped a little to the side causing the second slice to miss, however, a micro-adjustment made the third and fourth slices connect.
[ Flesh Hound killed. Experience gained: +6. ]
Sam liked this, not the name of the dogs but that one full attack, per his standard, was enough to kill them. He didn’t get a message about a critical hit, so killing them took no more than three attacks. He needed to know if it was enough with one or two, or if it needed all three. He knew that each of his attacks did 5 damage, not counting whatever resistance they might have, but he didn’t know how much HP they had.
The third had managed to claw itself out of the floor, covered in gore and slop, making his way towards Sam. As soon as the second Flesh Hound came into range, he repeated the action but with only two attacks this time. Both landed properly and the Hound fell! The same XP notification happened again confirming its end. Sam was happy with this, no critical attack needed to take them out, and with only one Hound left he could afford to test.
His next plan was ready, he would attack one blade at a time, to see if one was enough like with the Goblins and Kobolds from the dungeon. He had sped up the slash to connect shortly after it entered his Area. The first slice landed, and he did damage but the hound was still coming at him. Sending his second attack at it he missed, sending the third and fourth slices towards the Hound in a panic move as it was getting dangerously close. Both landed taking it out.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he found out that he needed to land two attacks on the Hounds to take them out. Though happy that they didn’t land any hits on him, it also meant that he had no idea how much damage they would do. A luxury problem in one way, and necessary info for planning in another.
The Dungeon didn’t have him wait long, in the following second after the three Hounds were dead, six more started clawing themselves through the floor and walls around him. He didn’t have time to celebrate his minor victory. The quest log listed 00:54 / 10:00, barely a minute has passed since this started, three Hounds were taken out and now six more were coming.
Thinking that he had to be more proactive, they used several seconds to dig themselves into the room, he couldn’t afford to be attacked by multiple monsters. And always hated how in the old games where the hero let the villain do his speech or power-up scenes, he ran into range of the still-digging Hounds and attacked them as soon as he could. This proved very practical, not being able to dodge he could simply attack them before they were any danger, he managed to take out four of the six this way. One of the two remaining was handled as soon as it came out leaving only one as a threat who got all four blades.
He was feeling great, though the Quest log listed his total time as 01:47, having used less than a minute for the whole process his positive thoughts changed. The Dungeon was still not waiting, and on the other side of the room, four more Hounds were clawing out through the wall, but a large boil in the ceiling burst, dropping down not only its highly viscous fluids but also a large fleshy clump. As the first dogs got through the walls, the clump got itself up on its legs. The clump had very, very vague humanoid shape, though everything was fleshy and gooey, it seemed that there were some cartilage-like substance around its body. Giving it functioning legs and arms, all of which ended up in larger asymmetric globs, somewhat giving it hands and feet. Its head was no more than a bulge between the shoulders, almost like a tumour with two small eyes.
It took a step towards Sam, having him snap back into action, being too stunned at the scene where the boil contents animated themselves to preemptively react. As the second squelching step came it sped up, but not before the four Hounds had made it through the wall and started running towards Sam.
Preparing to repeat the earlier action, he divided his four blades into two pairs, attacking the first two dogs as they entered his Area. The first attack at the leftmost Hound was registered as a Critical hit! Doing double damage. This was lucky in two ways because it died even though the second attack was missed. Only one attack hit the right Hound, however using a second to move the other blades in and cutting it did enough damage to kill it. Good timing as well as when it fell it slid almost to Sam’s feet.
The two remaining Hounds made their way into Sam’s Area, followed by the Golem only a few steps behind it. Repeating the last action worked wonders, he was getting a bit used to it now and all four daggers connected, easily stopping both Hounds in their tracks. His happiness at this working perfectly was incredibly short-lived as it only took a second for the Golem to enter his Area.
Bringing all four daggers to his Target he aimed four slashes across its body. The first and last attack landed, as the second and third missed the target as it reacted to the damage. Bringing the daggers around again he aimed for another attack, but the speed of the Golem was surprising.
Flailing both its arms out to the side Sam’s opponent brought them together, the momentum stretching them out ever so slightly. Not enough to double the reach but it was just enough that Sam had misjudged its reach. The first swing missed, but in the movement, he got hit by the second. That hit landed with a sickening slam into his body.
[ Armour, Defence 5 has lowered the damage. ]
[ HP: 25 / 35 █████░░ ]
The blunt force that made it through his armour was incredible, it felt like taking a sledgehammer to the side, he lost his footing and fell over, rolling and sliding across the slick floor. After the Defence rating had protected him, that blow took out almost a third of his health. He couldn’t take many of those blows.
Before getting to his feet, he brought his blades down at his target, using his own hands and legs to get back standing. Doing this much at the same time threw off his aim, only one attack landed, and the others harmlessly whipped past its body.
Not wanting to repeat the process, Sam started running. The Golem was just as fast as he was so he couldn’t do more than keep the distance, barely out of its attack range, though still within his own. The movement of running and trying to look back, on the slick and problematic surface made attacking that much harder. Only one of his four attacks landed, and it didn’t even land that solidly.
Paying too much attention to the Golem, Sam didn’t notice the Hound's corpses on the floor and tripped over one of them. Planting his face into the yielding floor he swiftly got himself back on his feet, but not before taking another hit from the Golem. His erratic movement as he was getting up made one of its sideways slams miss, but the other one hit true, again sending him a short distance away in severe pain.
[ Armour, Defence 5 has lowered the damage. ]
[ HP: 15 / 35 ███░░░░ ]
The remaining health turned into a dark orange, almost red colour, this put some panic in his mind as he got himself to his feet, and he kept running, wanting distance. He wanted to land all his attacks and do some damage, but in his pain and lacking focus they all missed, the massive Golem dodged some of them and he just didn’t have the angle for others.
Sam managed to dodge an incoming duo of attacks, jumping to the side allowed one attack to swoosh past him, the other slamming into the ground with a strange slap. Using the moment of the extra distance allowed one of his four attacks to land, opening up a deeper gash than before. Now that he had a brief moment he saw that the Golem was looking wounded, or damaged might be the better word. It didn’t change its speed or aim to take him out, but it felt slightly motivating seeing that his attacks were at least landing.
He took the time to make an extra volley of attacks in the brief moment before he had to run again.
[ Critical hit, double damage. ]
Though only two attacks landed, one of them was a Critical hit! It was still standing and moving after this hit but the last landing slice seemed to sever something in its body, it fell forward mid-step and remained motionless.
[ Flesh Golem killed. Experience gained: +60. ]
[ XP to lv.8: 148 / 640 █░░░░░ ]
Taking a few seconds to breathe, he felt very happy with this. He had managed to take out the golem and... he landed many hits, having no idea if there were any resistances on this thing but it had much higher HP than anything he had fought before. Not to mention the damaged output it had.
Since its feet were just cartilage clumps, the slick floor must have worked against it as well, which was the only saving grace Sam had in this. Though his heart sank as he heard the sound of tearing in the room, a glance at the Quest log, the time was just 04:24 / 10:00, having over five minutes left. Realising this made him horrified at what was coming. Each time he took out something more clawed through. And each time it seemed to increase in danger. Almost to prove his point, he looked behind him to see something new. First of all, another Golem fell out of a boil in the wall, but through the wall came another six Hounds.
Having only seconds to think before this turned horrible, he ran towards the group and started attacking, aiming at the hounds before the Golem. Though the latter felt more dangerous, the Hounds were faster. Mixing in all of this was just too much to consider.
Managing to take out three of the six dogs before the Golem got on its legs, he panicked and started making space between them all. Pulling out one of his health potions he chugged the D-rank vial as he ran.
[ Health potion - D, consumed. 17 health restored. ]
[ HP: 32 / 35 ███████ ]
He had no idea how much the Health potions were worth, but just the thought of him now being almost back to full health, with several more potions in his bag made this feel much better. The coming fight was worse than the last one, yes, but at least, he had a backup!
Having made some distance, he got a few valuable seconds to attack the incoming Hounds. All three of them entered his Area at roughly the same time, he focused on two at once. The first attack was missed, but the three others landed true. This killed the second target but only wounded the first. He ignored the message about XP being added to his bar and focused on attacking. Splitting them up with two attacks per target again, he managed to properly kill the target he missed only a second ago, but he didn’t get the last Hound in time.
Getting in range it pounced at Sam, managing to bite deep into his arm.
[ Armour, Defence 5 has lowered the damage. ]
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[ HP: 29 / 35 ███████░ ]
It seemed that only three damage made its way through the armour, not considering the pain, the main issue was that the Hound didn’t let go. It used its weight and powerful jerks with its powerful neck muscles to pull at Sam. Pulling his blades in all four landed solid cuts into its body, the powerful grip on his arm letting go as the creature went limp.
This felt like a tiny victory, had it not been for the spatting stomping of his last target coming at him. Now aware of the stretching effect of its arms, he jumped backwards when it swung, having both attacks miss him.
With renewed focus and motivation, he brought down his blades towards the Flesh Golem.
[ Critical hit, double damage. ]
Though only the first attack landed, it landed properly! Making a deep gash down from its shoulder to its gut. Not seeming to be enough to damage it, it did give Sam an idea. If this place was spawning more creatures when the other ones were dead if he took out the legs of the Golem, would that buy him more time?
Not having much time to do anything now, he started running as the Golem started moving towards him.
Kiting continued, Sam, doing his best to dodge while cutting into its legs. Focusing on the same leg each time. The smaller, or harder-to-reach target made it much harder to hit while running and dodging, focusing on doing just that was more important to him than taking the monster out at the moment. This also meant that he missed attack, after attack. Luckily this also allowed him to avoid getting attacked as well, each time the Golem swung for him he rolled forward best he could. It was more to create more space than anything, as the Golem got back into running it gave Sam an extra step or two of distance between them.
[ Critical hit, double damage. ]
The first hit that actually managed to land, was a critical hit! This cut deep into its leg and almost severed it. It was enough that each time it lifted the leg the half-cut opened, making the steps more unsteady.
Adrenaline surged in his body as his plan seemed to be working, this time he hadn’t even taken damage from it and the unsteady steps allowed him to stay ahead of it ever so slightly. But he wanted that leg. Focusing on one slice at a time to do just the barest minimum of damage, he continued his plan.
It took him seven misses, all missing completely or passing through the already-opened gash without hitting anything before he landed another hit! Blade cut deep into the existing wound, not enough to cut all the way through but after only two steps, the pressure and weight of the golem tore through the remaining flesh holding it together. It collapsed forward and landed with a wide splatting slap, jiggling along the floor until it stopped.
Still alive, it was struggling to get on its legs due to one of them missing. Sam got paranoid as he looked around himself, still keeping an eye on the Golem he wondered if something else was going to come through any walls or something. But, to his internal glee, nothing happened. The Golem struggled but there was nothing else coming out.
Quest log timer listed 07:24, he just needed to wait for the next few minutes and he’d be fine!
[ Flesh Golem killed. Experience gained: +60. ]
[ XP to lv.8: 238 / 640 ██░░░░ ]
“What?” Sam asked himself as he saw the updates in the System windows. He didn’t kill the Golem, it’s still there, struggling, right?
Taking a proper look at it, it wasn’t struggling anymore and had just stopped moving. This was bad, still had over 2 minutes left he was horrified as something bulged as it bit itself through the wall. Repeating the earlier actions, as there was just one target, he ran over and started attacking it before it could get out.
As soon as he was in range he started slicing, again and again, landing two entire volleys of attacks before it burst out the remainder of the way.
Out of the wall came what looked like living intestines, almost like it was also turned inside out it looked fleshy, and veiny and was covered in a sticky, slimy substance. Not having a mouth it looked more like it had a circle of teeth in its front opening, like Lamprey. The whole thing was not only incredibly large like an Anaconda, but it was also dripping with an unknown substance which made it even worse as it covered the distance between them in a flash.
Its bite, or rather its attempt to hit him with its teeth missed, however as the rest of its body came flowing after the sprang pounce the tail curved around his body. It only took a brief moment for it to coil itself around him, his arms caught up in a powerful constriction as its muscular pulses squeezed him harder and harder.
[ Armour, Defence 5 has lowered the damage. ]
[ HP: 27 / 35 █████░░ ]
Sam could take this damage for a short while, however it was made worse when its head coiled around and it chose to rake its mouth of teeth across his exposed body.
[ Armour, Defence 5 has lowered the damage. Critical hit. ]
[ HP: 2 / 35 ░░░░░░░ ]
The critical hit made sense, he couldn’t move and he was also in its grasp. Even with his decent armour for his level, this hurt like nothing he had ever felt before. Though all of this was debilitating, a mixture of survival and gaming instincts fueled by an ungodly amount of adrenaline had him push through. Despawning two of his Psyhands he re-manifested them at his body near his bag. Taking out a potion and uncorking it on the way to his mouth he fed himself a health potion in the nick of time.
[ Health potion - D, consumed. 17 health restored. ]
[ HP: 19 / 35 ████░░░ ]
Based on the earlier damage, he couldn’t take the same critical hit again, he didn’t have much time to act as the constriction squeezed him yet again.
[ Armour, Defence 5 has lowered the damage. ]
[ HP: 17 / 35 ████░░░ ]
Despawning and manifesting his hands he could place them where he wanted, placing them next to the daggers on the floor he instantly attacked the snake’s head as it moved in for another rake. Though the pain three of the four attacks missed, he had a hard time focusing but to his surprise it worked! Just the one attack was enough for it to not move its head closer and rake him to death. However, it didn’t stop it from squeezing him stronger than last.
[ Armour, Defence 5 has lowered the damage. Critical hit. ]
[ HP: 13 / 35 ███░░░░ ]
He had to repeat the motion, attacking the snake as he moved in for the raking, he had to wait for that moment as it was the only chance he had for survival.
The snake moved in for another rake, and Sam repeated his attack. Like before only one attack landed, barely, but it was enough for it to reevaluate the attack yet again. Sam was stoked that this was working but this changed as it squeezed again.
[ Armour, Defence 5 has lowered the damage. Critical hit. ]
[ HP: 9 / 35 ██░░░░░ ]
Dropping one of his blades he used that Psyhand to get his last D-rank potion, pulling the cork before lifting it as he attacked.
Two of the three attacks landed at the same time he managed to drink the potion.
[ Health potion - D, consumed. 17 health restored. ]
[ HP: 26 / 35 █████░░ ]
Letting out a strange fleshing wiggle, somehow managing to get an angry roar out through this, it threw caution to the wind and went in for another rake right after the potion contacted his lips.
[ Armour, Defence 5 has lowered the damage. Critical hit. ]
[ HP: 1 / 35 ░░░░░░░ ]
The health bar disappeared, and only a deep red number remained. He had no way to get loose, having tried the whole time without success. He had more potions but they weren’t as good, 10% would heal him 3 HP, which wouldn’t even help him through the powerful squeeze. He had only one option, he needed to attack, he needed to get the snake to die or let him go right now!
Picking up the dropped dagger he launched his final strike, with all the focus he could muster he sent the daggers flying.
The first attack swished past its head, not hitting anything. The second attack followed suit, the creature had seemingly learned how these things worked. The third attack.
[ Critical hit, double damage. ]
The dagger came in from the side and cut deep into the top of its head. The same instant the slice passed through the flesh, Sam could feel the powerful constriction loosen. The whole creature fell together into a foul-smelling heap, letting go of Sam at the same time.
[ Flesh Golem killed. Experience gained: +80. ]
[ XP to lv.8: 318 / 640 ███░░░ ]
Sam looked at the Quest log in panic.
[ Solo Dungeon Clear conditions - 2/?
-Exit into the next room - Complete
-Survive the Chamber - Complete
-Reach the bottom of the Pit. ]
He was satisfied seeing the timer replaced by a message of completion, but he wasn’t fond of the following step. At the same moment as he relaxed the pedestal in the middle of the room disappeared into the floor with a slurp as the floor opened up. Though it disappeared the room remained lit. Like a sphincter in the floor it opened up into a large circle, the movement moved the muscular skin-like floor down into the hole, consuming the corpses of the hounds. Sam had to jump to his feet and throw himself towards the edge of the room, heading towards the hallway that brought him in here. The yielding floor let him land safely, but the expanding hole was quickly retaking his location. Managing to fumble himself half-standing he jumped into the disgusting hallway, landing in some foul-smelling slop but as he powered through the disgust, looking behind him, the expansion had stopped.
Through the hole came a horrible, warm and damp wind that flowed past him. Had he not already gotten used to the hallways in the dark, this would have pushed him over the edge.
Crawling himself over to the edge of the floor hole, he looked into it. There was barely any light, most of it by the top. He could see a spiralling ledge going downwards almost like the inside of a nut, the ledge looked to be made of some cartilage-like substance, it looked crusty and fragile, some loosening from the wall and falling as he looked at it.
His moment of relaxation allowed the fatigue from not only his recent fights, but his entire day of Dungeons to catch up with him. Passing out on the nasty, but surprisingly soft floor.