I stared at the collapsing hallway at the other side of the room, the bomb seemed to have temporarily attracted the attention of every monster in the room and they swarmed towards the falling rocks but, once they noticed they couldn't pass, the wave of monsters would quickly turn back towards us.
Looking at the hundreds of killer ants, I licked my lips. For a second, I had the bad, stupid, idiotic, not good at all urge to charge them, engage them in battle… it would certainly fulfill my desire for a challenge.
I'd probably die, no, scratch that, I'd definitely die, there were just far, far too many of them, but…
Snapping out of my daze, I considered the situation. Every exit from the room was swarming with monsters and I only had three allies with me, allies that would probably happily sacrifice me if it came to it.
By my side, I saw the tank falling to his knees, his armored knees hitting the floor with a loud sound. "By the gods." He whispered.
The Amazon fighter at his side gave him a disgusted look before glancing my way and dismissing me. "Aww, I bet this was just because I snuck into the dungeon."
I met her eyes for a brief second, she seemed sad, but not distraught. Quickly, I refocused on the room. Did I have anything capable of dealing with this?
Well, Susanoo could make short work of it but, last time I tried to use it, I had passed out from a mind down in less than two seconds. I could probably last longer now that my attributes were much higher, but probably not long enough to eliminate everything.
A single devastating blow wouldn't help me if I passed out after it. There were just far too many. Looking from side to side like a madman, I made my decision.
Turning around, I grabbed the Tank's arm and dragged him with me back towards the hallway we had just left, the man didn't even complain, still too shocked by what was happening.
Both women gave me a look, and the amazoness was about to say something, but the archer considered my determined face and shook her head before following me inside.
Considering how fast the ants moved, I had about a minute before the ones following after us arrived, and a little less than that before the ones in the room reached the hallway we were in.
The tank finally recovered and snatched his arm away from me. Stumbling forwards, he yelled. "By the gods, what're you doing?!"
"Saving our lives, maybe." Waving my arms, I motioned for the women to walk ahead of me and, when we were 10 meters inside the tunnel, stopped.
"You do know we only have about a minute or two, right?" The older woman asked. "If you're just gonna pray, at least warn me so I can use you as bait."
Ignoring her, I briefly closed my eyes and then opened them again to reveal the shape of my mangekyou sharingan. Around me, a malicious air started manifesting, turning into a green flame.
A second later, my body was completely enveloped by this flame, concentrating hard, I forced the shape to form around me, three ribs started forming at my right side, but I channeled all my magic further away, and the right arm started manifesting.
I felt the blood leaking from both my eyes and my magic draining at a prodigious speed, before the arm had even fully formed, I started pulling out a mana potion from my pouch. At the same time, I punched up.
The still missformed bone of my Susanoo's arm dug into the ceiling with tremendous strength, causing the entire hallway to shake as I collapsed an entire part of the cave.
"Holy shit!" The older woman yelled and stepped away, but I ignored her.
A sharp spike of pain went through my head, but the entrance wasn't completely closed yet, so I chugged the potion and punched it again, and again. Almost falling to my knees, I caught myself and noticed that the skeletal arm had finally fully formed, so I dug its fingers into the ceiling and ripped out a huge rock, using it to fully block the path.
Finally, I knew I couldn't hold on anymore. It had been barely eight seconds, but I knew that I'd pass out if I used it anymore. Panting hard, I righted myself and dispersed the Susanno before blinking away the mangekyou.
Behind me, I could hear the chattering sound of insectile legs rushing towards my location, but the entrance in front of me was completely blocked.
Wiping the blood away from my cheeks, I slowly pushed myself back to my feet and turned around.
My mouth felt dry and I knew that my eyes were probably redder than usual, but I couldn't help smiling at the awed look on my three makeshift companion's faces. "Now, ugh… Now, we'll only have to worry about attacks from one direction."
If I had more mana, I could have probably formed Susanoo's form faster, and maintained it for much longer but, right now, that was nearly my limit, a few seconds more and I'd have a mind down.
"Fuck me." The young amazoness said, her scimitar lowered towards the floor. "Right here, I need to have your babies!"
"Shut up Lena." The human archer snapped and gave her a slap to the back of the head. "Great, now we only have to fight half an army of monsters. Shit, I'm not even supposed to be here."
There was still a few seconds before the monsters following us arrived, so I took a quick glance at my most recent allies.
The tank was not much older than me, around 24 or so, and he seemed to still be a little out of it, but his equipment looked both expensive and effective, he wore full plate and had a large heater shield with a dangerous mace. At his waist, there were three ornate daggers I thought were probably magic weapons.
The older woman was probably around 30 and wielded a large bow. She had a quiver filled with a little over two dozen arrows at her waist and another two quivers at her back, but they were covered and I couldn't see if there were any arrows inside. She wore a plate chest over her gambeson, but didn't have any leg or arm protections.
The third girl looked even younger up close, probably around fifteen or so, her lack of clothes was typical for an amazoness, but she had an arm protector to act as a shield and a large scimitar.
I… didn't have a lot of trust in the party. They had acted as a competent team before, but the man collapsed in fear and the girls weren't looking very confident at all. "So, I guess none of you are level three? What about level two?"
They all shook their heads and I sighed, it would be too much to ask, wouldn't it?
"Forget that, can you do that arm again?" The man finally shook himself and asked, but his eagerness faded when he looked at me.
I just shook my head. "I can probably do it once more, in five or ten minutes, after the mana potion recovers my mind."
"Shit, shit." Patting himself, the man started looking around desperately, trying to look for an exit. "This was supposed to be easy, only war shadows at most."
"Fuck, I'm not even a real delver." The older woman shook her head and glared at the Amazon. "Damn Lena, why did you have to keep begging me."
"But Layla, none of the others wanted to come!" The young girl pouted and stomped her feet. "I'll never become a level 2 if I don't delve! How can I catch a male if I can't beat the others off?"
I shivered, and gave her a wary glance. She was far too young to be saying anything like that.
"You use charm Lena, like everyone else that's not a berbera." The Archer patted the other girl's head in a maternal way. "How do you think I got Jaine here to help follow us in the dungeon?"
I traded a glance with the tank, but he just blushed under the helmet, too embarrassed to say anything about that.
"Does anyone have any other ideas? Any useful equipment?" I asked while drinking a health and stamina potion.
The tunnel we were on was wide, too wide. Enough that I could easily wield my spear in it, but the monsters could also easily surround us. The ceiling was lower than on the rooms, at only 5 meters, and the walls were uneven, filled with protruding rocks covered in moss.
For a second, I considered trying to activate Susanoo a second time and collapsing some of the wall, making the hallway narrower, but I really couldn't do that yet. Mana potion didn't work immediately, needing at least a few minutes to refill my reserves.
Thankfully, illusions took so little mana that I could use them freely and still regenerate mana from the potion, it would only take time.
"I do." The tank said, untying a pouch from his waist, he poured a potion inside it, then tied it closed and palmed the bag in his weapon's hand. For a second, he seemed unwilling to trust anyone, but eventually handed it to me. "Throw it as far away from us and towards the monsters, it will explode, hopefully killing a lot of them and blunting their advance."
I nodded, "Thanks, I'll try not to get as many of them as I can." From just behind the corner, the noise from the approaching wave of monster grew louder and louder, killer ants leading the charge, their pincers clicking.
The Tank also unbuckled one of his many belts and threw it towards the older woman, this one held his three daggers. She just gave him a nod. "They're not new, so be carefull."
The woman looked at the three daggers, then wrapped the belt around her chest and adjusted it for ease of drawing the blades. "Who the hell does this, it's the damn upper floors for god's sake!" She complained to herself and shook her head. "War shadows are supposed to be the strongest thing here, not crazy adventurers creating ambushes."
The first monster turned the corner, followed closely by a wave of ants, there were so many they started crawling over each other and the walls, I also saw a war shadow managed to get into the first wave. There must have been at least a hundred monsters just where I could see.
Fuck, I was gonna die here, wasn't I?
I waited until the wave started approaching, then I threw the bag over their heads and towards one of the monster covered walls. The explosion was… loud, echoing around the hallway. It made me wince and left my ears ringing, but also devastated the first wave and collapsed part of the wall, narrowing the path that the monsters could approach us. The sheer amount of noise left me deaf and dazed for some time.
When I recovered, the survivors of the first wave were almost all dead and the second wave was arriving, funneled into smaller amounts by the collapsed wall creating a bottleneck.
"Goibniu bless you, that was good aim." The tank patted me on the shoulders quickly and pulled out his weapon.
At my side, Yoshi gave a hiss and started climbing on the wall towards the ceiling, unwilling to abandon me, but too afraid to face the monsters head on.
An arrow flew over my shoulder, piercing through the first war shadow that appeared, breaking its glass-like face and causing it to collapse to the ground, getting quickly covered with ants.
Beside me, the tank yelled and charged, his mace flashed forward and crushed an ant while his large shield blocked another two from moving.
Having recovered a little, I lunged forward, skewing a rushing kobold before dodging a bite and watching the ant get crushed by a shield strike. Taking a chance, I activated the mangekyou again and started casting illusion, turning the ants against each other and causing pandemonium on their charge.
My eyes were still stinging, and I deactivated the mangekyou as fast as I could, even casting a dozen illusions caused my head to seem to want to explode. With the new bottleneck, and our team working well together, we started killing the monsters one after another.
Despite being the youngest, the amazoness was acting the most recklessly, she was actually a little faster and stronger than me, but was full of flaws and, soon, she was covered in blood from bites and scratches she couldn't dodge.
"Damn, you're really good!" The man complimented me with a smile, even as his mace smashed another killer ant.
"You're surprisingly good too." I said, even if I earned a glare from him in turn.
The archer had stayed back and aimed almost exclusively at war shadows, or any monster that was about to seriously hurt us but, not even five minutes in, I saw her joining the fight in melee range, her arrows having run out.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Our tank was doing a good job of blocking the blunt of their charge, positioning himself just after the bottleneck on the hallway, his armor was getting dented to hell, but he wasn't faltering like I thought he would.
I acted as a second gatekeeper, using my spear to fight war shadows and other, more fragile monsters while letting the killer ants be eliminated by the overeager amazoness or the former archer.
After the second wave, the monster's advance started slowing, not as many killer ants were arriving, and the diversity of the monsters increased.
With the unharvested bodies accumulating in the ground, only so many creatures could come at us at the same time and, if we killed them fast enough, we had a chance.
"By Ishtar, we're gonna make it." I hear the human woman say as she waved between the claws of two kobolds, sweat starting to accumulate on her gambeson.
We fought, we fought and fought until I felt the sweat and blood running down my forehead, my head was hurting like hell from all the illusions I was casting and my underclothes clung to my body, soaked as if I had been underwater.
My blows weren't coming as fast, my dodges slower and my strikes weaker as exhaustion settled in. By the gods, fighting like this had really shown me why it was important to have a team. I had forgotten how many times one of the girls had saved my life, or how many times I had saved them.
"That's… huff… it, don't… falter now!" The tank said, but even he was exhausted and had to take a breath between words.
The man dragged his feet forward and blocked a tongue from a frog shooter with his shield. The blow had been coming for me, and I hadn't been able to react fast enough, too tired and too preoccupied with the monsters around me to pay dodge.
With another lunge, I pierced the chest of a wounded war shadow, but my blow lacked strength and didn't kill the beast. I tried to strike again, but moved too slow and the creature managed to deliver another scratch to my spear shaft, breaking it completely and sending the blade flying aside.
My tired brain took a second to register it, and it was enough for a goblin to scratch my leg, drawing three deep gouges out of my flesh. The war shadow tried to take off my head, but the pain had finally snapped me out of my funk and refocused me, and I smashed it's head with my hammer.
Stumbling back, I nearly fell on my ass as my leg couldn't support my entire weight. Thankfully, there were so many corpses around us that they were getting in the way of the monsters, slowing down their advance.
Pulling out a new health potion, I drank it and searched for another stamina one, but I couldn't find any.
I heard a cry of pain to my left and saw a kobold bite into the shoulder of the amazoness, trying to take her to the ground. Meeting its eye, I made it turn towards its companion, then got hit on the chest by a landform weapon, denting my armor, but not causing me a lot of damage.
Still, the blow and the wounded leg finally caused me to fall, and the monsters took advantage of that.
A needle rabbit aimed a horn strike at my neck, but I managed to put my arm in the way and only got a glancing scratch, then a goblin struck me in the chest again, driving the air out of me, I felt something grab my good leg, and another monster tried to bite my face, but I managed to dodge that too.
Yoshi dropped from the ceiling, biting down on the needle rabbit when it tried to attack me again and swallowing it whole before engaging with a couple of Kobolds, keeping them away from me.
With a scream of rage, I briefly activated my Susanoo again, the green flames surged around me, manifesting one rib around myself that pushed the monsters away. Before it truly started draining me, I dispelled the construct, only using it for a second this time.
I had made use of it during the fight before, using it to block a blow that I couldn't dodge, but I knew this battle wouldn't be solved by one devastating blow, at least not one that I could manage, there were just too many monsters for that, and I couldn't risk passing out. This fight wouldn't be won by firepower but resistance.
Rolling to my feet, I saw that I had gotten a little space from that trick, I knew I had almost died, but by the gods… dying in a blaze of glory was surprisingly fun. Dodging another strike from the damn war shadow, I finally decapitated it with one of my daggers.
I heard someone laughing over the battle, a distant sound of amusement that should have unnerved me, but only gave me strength. From behind me, I saw one last wave of ice cause spikes to rise from the ground, skewering a lot of monsters, but I also saw the last magic weapon break into tiny shards and fall to the ground.
"Fuck." The older woman yelled, her voice filled with pain, I didn't have the room to look at her.
The attack thinned out the monsters once again, but it also destroyed a lot of monster cores, diminishing the amount of corpses around.
The woman yelled one last time, and I finally managed to glance back, seeing the needle rabbit that managed to pierce her chest. Having jumped from right beneath her, the vicious creature had actually gotten its horn under her plate and pierced through her gambeson.
The amazoness slashed the creature, causing it to dissolve, but it was too late for the older woman, the horn had opened her belly, and the fabric of her gambeson was getting soaked in blood. Finally, I noticed that the one laughing was me, but I didn't stop, I couldn't.
Looking around, I killed another two goblins and saw the tank actually lose his entire shield arm to a war shadow, a frog shooter also managed to hit his weapon away with a well aimed tongue strike.
Bleeding out from the missing arm and in incredible pain, the guy screamed and stumbled back. We were so close. there were no longer any ants around us, and there were only a few other monsters around, less than a hundred. We should win, we had to win!
With a roar of rage, I jumped on the war shadow, its claws tried to pierce my chest, but I angled it just right that my armor deflected the blade-like fingers and I pierced its core with a dagger before throwing a second one in the eye of the frog shooter.
"Thank you. Oh gods, thank… huff… you." The man huffed out, his clumsy hands opening one last belt around his armor. "We'll survive, it's only the upper floors, we'll survive." He kept repeating himself, but his eyes weren't focused on me anymore.
The man was on his knees, his free hand holding tightly to his missing arm, his dented helmet fell off his head and he was crying, his armor was probably a total loss, and his body must have been a huge bruise. He tried to cut off the bleeding on his wounded arm by tying it with the belt, but he couldn't do it, his fingers were broken from the frog shooter.
I met his desperate eyes, swallowing hard and feeling something stuck in my throat, I made my eyes spin, activating the mangekyou once again. I refused to die here, not after all of this.
With newfound strength, the man tightened the belt in one fluid motion, ignoring his broken fingers. Or more like, he could no longer feel them, or any pain, he could only feel rage.
With a roar of utter madness, the tank got up and charged at the nearest kobold, tackling the beast and grabbing its head with his broken fingers, smashing it against the floor before punching it to death with his wounded arm.
Almost casually, I leaned back, letting a needle rabbit fly by me before sending a dagger after it. I felt utterly exhausted.
Stumbling towards a group of three goblins, I knew I didn't have the strength to really cut them down, but my eyes showed me their movements with perfect precision.
I threw the dagger on my left hand towards the first goblin. The projectile didn't have much strength, but it still caused it to flinch and abort its pounce, the second monster stumbled into him and they sprawled to the ground. The third goblin jumped over them and right into my second dagger waiting for him.
The creature tried to dodge in midair, but it only meant it was no longer trying to slash me as my dagger pierced its core and it dissolved as it hit my body. Meeting the two remaining goblin's eyes, I gleefully watched as they killed each other.
Looking back, I stared right in the eye of the older woman. She had fallen against the wall and almost bleed out from the disemboweling blow, her eyes were almost fully closed but, suddenly, they snapped open filled with furry, her pain and weakness forgotten.
That didn't mean she wasn't weak, her body could barely support her and she only had a few minutes left to live, perhaps less, but she still stumbled up and tried to scream, only spewing more blood from her mouth before stumbling towards some wary Kobolds.
Fishing in my pouch, I dropped three health potions before managing to drink a fourth one, then drank another magic potion. The amount of potion was too much, I immediately felt like throwing up, and my stomach rebelled against me and I felt that their effect was greatly diminished.
Should I use Izanagi? No, I refused to sacrifice anything else to those assholes, I'll get out of here, and I'll fucking kill them all.
The tank smashed into another group of monsters, attracting all atention and ignoring the attacks he received while killing as many of them as he could manage. The amount of damage he was doing gave me time to think.
Despite myself, I smiled. The entire hallway was filled with monster corpses, the remains of spells cast by the three magical daggers and debris from both collapses, the metallic scent of blood finally registered in my nose, and I almost dropped my last dagger from my trembling hands.
Still, when I saw a dungeon lizard finally bite the tank's head, I took the opportunity to send my dagger flying with enough strength to pierce its brain. Unfortunately, the lizard's bite had pierced the man's skull and he was fully dead.
The potions had healed my wounded leg, either that or I was feeling completely numb, because I managed to walk towards the tank's mace and grab it, but no monster attacked me. We had killed too many, resisted for too long, even their dungeon aggression couldn't overcome the fear we put into them.
A little to my side, the archer used the wall to pull herself back to her feet and continued to stumble towards a new target, not feeling any pain and driven entirely by the anger I had put into her mind.
She took a step forward, and the monsters took two steps back, she took another step, then fell on her face, finally dead from the bloodloss.
Looking at the remaining monsters, I saw a dozen goblins, five Kobolds and a war shadow missing one arm. They looked at the dead woman, then towards me with fear. I couldn't help myself, I started laughing. The situation wasn't funny, not at all, but I laughed anyway.
The monsters seemed to be struggling with themselves, the influence of the dungeon driving them to attack me despite their fear. Poor dungeon monsters.
Widening my eyes, I had recovered enough mana to stare at them with my bleeding eye, in a second, a green ribcage started forming around me and, a second later, a Yin-Yang symbol appeared in the middle of the ribcage, just over my heart.
Ugh, my eyes were killing me, glancing at my mace, I frowned when I noticed it was too heavy for me to lift right now. With annoyance, I grabbed at my face with my left hand and tried to squeeze it to see if the pain would stop before glancing at the monster between my fingers. "Fuck it, if you aren't going to attack then just die!"
From the Yin-yang symbol, five large needles the size of javellings flew towards the monsters, flying faster than most arrows. The goblins almost exploded when the needles hit them, limbs and heads flying from the impact. The survivors finally ran, unwilling to fight anymore.
Standing straight, the green flames of my Susanno disappearing around me, I dropped the mace and snorted, now I just had to find those suicidal assholes who lured this monster train, this shit felt personal.
Then I fell straight on top of a dead frog shooter and the world went dark.