“Do you ever wonder if the creatures that are spawned in dungeons are new ones or if they’re the same ones that were killed before?” Liliana asked conversationally as the group watched Koth’talan and the still statue anxiously.

Alistair’s head turned to stare at her, disbelieving. “What?”

“Well. Do you think the dungeon cores make new monsters each time they die? Or are they just… reincarnated? Recycled?” Liliana asked curiously, looking at the statue with an interest that was wholly different to the trepidation she’d been regarding it with earlier.

There was no point in being afraid now. They were going to fight it no matter what, and fear would be a hindrance. So Liliana had shoved it aside and was instead indulging in the questions she normally kept to herself. It was always entertaining to watch the chaos that would descend when she asked something completely random and thought provoking.

The fights that sometimes erupted in response were even more delightful.

Emyr snorted, shaking his head with a painfully fond smile. “Only you would even think to ask that, Lili,” He said, voice warm. Which, while sweet, did not address this very serious question she’d posed.

Liliana rolled her eyes, leaning her weight on her naginata. “It’s a fair question.” She defended her question.

Diana wiped sweat from her face with a frown as the temperature rose. “That’s sort of, sad. Isn’t it? If they’re recycled like that? They’re trapped in an eternity of being brought to life, just to be killed again and again.” Her voice went soft as she looked around the room with sad eyes, arms wrapping around her middle as she hugged herself.

Corbin tilted his head. “That explains why they’re always so angry then. Wouldn’t it?”

The heat was beginning to get oppressive as the lava bubbled and spread. Koth’talan’s face was a portrait of concentration as he moved his hands, guiding and controlling the deadly substance. Liliana frowned with mild irritation as she wiped sweat off her face before it could drip into her eyes. Stray strands of hair were already sticking to her skin and while she knew most of these minor inconveniences would be easily ignored once the fight began, they were annoying now.

“I’d be pretty murderous if I was forced to keep dying and coming back,” Emyr agreed with a grimace at the thought.

Liliana shared a wistful smile with him, the two of them the only ones aware that something similar had happened to Liliana. Perhaps it was what had spawned the question in the first place, some subconscious empathy. it wouldn’t stop her from killing the beasts, but maybe she’d feel a slight bit bad about it in the future. At least until one bit her ankle and she forgot to feel anything but anger.

“Then again, beasts are territorial. And we don’t know for sure if regular dungeon beasts share a similar level of intelligence as the ones in the wild. They might just be essentially automatons made of magic and the dungeon core’s essence.” Liliana added in, “any of those could also be the reasons for their heightened aggression.”

Diana still looked upset at the conversation, but before they could continue debating theories and philosophy, Koth’talan lowered his arms and took a shaky step back. He was panting heavily, and sweat was practically pouring off of him despite the fact that he undoubtedly had resistance skills for heat and likely lava as well. Liliana stepped forward and pressed a Mana potion into his shaking hand without a word. He shot her a grateful look as he popped the cork off of it and took it like a shot.

“Is it ready?” Alistair asked. Koth’talan inclined his head, wiping his face and hands as he gripped his sword.

Alistair nodded sharply and took his own step forward, brows pinched and face set in a scowl as he stared at the bubbling lava. Slowly the pool vanished, a stone floor crawling over it, shimmering for a moment before the illusion solidified. It did nothing for the almost unbearable heat in the room, but Liliana doubted a stone statue would notice the climate.

“Why couldn’t we just opened the lava pit under the statue and not even fight it?” Corbin asked, voice holding a slight whine to it.

“Can’t, look.” Emyr said shortly, sending off a fireball strong enough to blacken the stones it flew over before it hit the statue with a dull boom. When the flames cleared, there wasn’t a mark on the statue.

“Some kind of enchantment or contingency?” Corbin asked curiously.

“Presumably to stop anyone from exactly what you planned. Someone probably tried something similar, and dungeon cores are smart. They grow and evolve, using information gathered from those who delve into them to become more dangerous over time.” Liliana explained with a shrug. It was why it was so important to regularly dive in them, to keep the Mana a dungeon core had access to low.

They couldn’t stop them from evolving mentally, but they could stop them from combining their increased intelligence with excess Mana and overflowing. The Shattered Continent was a familiar cautionary tale for a reason. One dungeon had destroyed an entire continent.

“If the trap’s ready, let’s get this ugly statue the blood it needs.” Alistair instructed, and then began the disgusting and tedious task of gathering the bodies of the dead Minotaurs and dropping them over the basin, ensuring their blood would fill it.

When they were done, they all stepped back, past the large pool of lava that almost spanned the entire width of the room. They fell into their positions, skills and spells activating without word.

Liliana felt the magic racing through her veins, dancing with adrenaline as her mind calmed. [Battle Clarity] banishing any lingering fear. Her hands clenched and relaxed on the haft of her weapon and she spun it, eyes locked on the giant statue that would soon transition into the boss of this level.

The change came when the blood in the basin hit the rim, almost full to overflowing.

The blood glowed an unholy red that was matched by the statue’s eyes, a furious, flaming red that blazed balefully out at them. The blood rose, twisting tendrils snaking out. The statue’s mouth opened suddenly enough that they all reacted, bodies coiling to strike. But the statue didn’t move further than that, its mouth open only to allow the blood to pour inside. Liliana’s nose scrunched in distaste at the sight.

“That’s gruesome.” Liliana decided. Several others voiced their agreement, and when Liliana took a moment to glance over their team, she saw that Diana looked rather green. Their voices died off when the blood was gone and the statue closed its mouth, red light washing over it, staining the white marble a bloody crimson. Liliana’s [Identify] which had been silent up until then activated.

Sanguianus

The Bloody Idol

Level: 260

A Minotaur of such renown and power that he became an icon to worship amongst his brethren. As they brought him sacrifices to earn his favor and protection, his power grew. But he was not a kind idol. Driven by greed, he would only consent to aid his brethren if they brought him suitable payment for his services. He cares not for who is sacrificed, nor who his opponents are. If he is called with blood, he will fight any before him.

Rank: 4

Health: 53,500

Energy: 22,250

Highest Affinity: Blood 94%

Highest Stat: Vitality: 5,250

“That’s a lot of Health.” Liliana commented idly as her swords twisted around her head in dizzying circles, as if they were eager to strike.

“Means we can play with this one longer,” Anya chimed in with a sharp toothed grin that was all malicious glee.

“It is such a shame when they die quickly,” Emyr lamented with his own dark smirk, eyes flashing with something cruel and cold as darkness and flames flickered up his arms.

“You three are utterly insane,” Alistair muttered, but his lips were tugging in a smile that didn’t seem at all appropriate considering they were facing a boss well above their levels, with more Health than any of them had.

Liliana was confident, though, that the boss had likely devoted the lion’s share of his stat points into three stats. Health, Strength and Endurance. Beasts almost always focused on no more than three stats, four if they were outliers. Beats were the epitome of min-max, and as they usually had fewer stat points granted to their stats for their species as opposed to mortals’ classes, they were even more determined to focus on those few stats. She’d know, from the many arguments she got in to with her own bonds, trying to get them to spread out their points.

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That was the tradeoff, since beasts could break the level cap and reach level 900, when humans, dæmen and most beastmen could only reach level 700. Checks and balances, that was the only ultimate law of their world that broke every other rule of nature Liliana had ever known.

But the important factor here was that Liliana knew the boss wouldn’t be able to match her Speed, or Dexterity. He was all hulking, lumbering, brute strength and obscene amounts of Health. Which wouldn’t help him in the end, it just meant it would take him a little longer to reach his inevitable end.

“Hold.” Alistair growled out as Sanguianus took his first step forward.

There was so much weight and force behind that singular step that the ground shook. It forced them all to adjust their bodies to avoid tumbling to the ground. But none of them had abysmally low Dexterity stats, nor the inexperience that meant they’d falter from something like that. The boss took another step forward. They all held their breaths as its foot descended, sinking beneath the illusory stones and into the lava waiting below.

First the foot, then the ankle, then the shin and then the knee disappeared until the boss’ leg was up to mid-thigh in the stone floor before the illusion broke, revealing the burning magma. The boss, unbalanced, lurched forward, arms windmilling and failing to catch anything before he was forced forward, one hand falling into the lava as well as the deadly molten rock happily swallowed the limb too up to his elbow.

“’Talan!” Alistair barked out as the beast tried to pull back, hemorrhaging Health already from the constant and vicious damage as the lava ate through its stone limbs. It would be pure torment, the lava burning through the marble limbs as the boss’ regeneration reformed the melting injuries only for them to be eaten through again. A constant battle between damage and regeneration.

“Got it.” Koth’talan responded as the lava hardened over, trapping the stuck limbs and leaving the boss stuck, one leg and arm in the ground. His other leg was forced to kneel, and only one arm left to awkwardly defend.

“You keep him down there. If he looks like he’s going to bust free, turn it to lava again and keep melting him. But do not let him out.” Alistair ordered, not giving the other man a chance to respond before he charged forward with a wild yell, drawing the boss’ eyes and his only available limb to him. A titanic fist met a metal shield in a thunderous collision as Alistair took on the boss’ ire and the rest of them sprung into action.

Anya charged forward with her own howling war cry, fists punching together before she sprang into the air and then back down. Her Gravity affinity turned her small body into a deadly missile that spread cracks over the boss’ marble skin when she landed on its back and began punching with unrestrained ferocity. Diana and Emyr shot spell after spell at the beast: fire, darkness, water, earth, light, all breaking off chips and slabs of stone that healed slowly behind their relentless assault.

Corbin’s music filled the air, bolstering them all while he masterfully switched between melodies, weakening the boss and empowering his allies in turn. Koth’talan’s sword blazed with runes as he jolted forward, slicing into the stone skin with determination. One eye kept on the hardened obsidian that still kept the boss trapped.

Liliana, for her part, jumped into the air as golden, light made wings burst from her back and she raced through the air. She spun with a loud, joyous whoop before her blades carved across the boss’ back like whip lashes. She swooped and dived above the monster, blades burning with a radiant light that rivaled that of her wings as she worked to cut the boss’ Health down point by point.

Spells and skills activated and stopped. Her Mana yo-yoed as she kept up a breakneck attack pattern, moving so fast it was hard to keep her in sight. She twisted and flipped around spellfire and attacks, both friendly and not.

The boss, despite its trapped position, was not idle as they unleashed hell on it. It kept pounding on Alistair, forcing him to give ground he would painstakingly regain any time its attention wavered from him.

It had sacrificed its Mana for Energy and had no spells to send after them, but that did not mean it was helpless, even disabled as it was. Its skin hardened to turn their blades, Corbin switching songs to counteract it even as they redoubled their efforts to break through its marble skin. Its muscles bulged, and its swings gained power and speed as it reached and grabbed at the pesky beings buzzing around it like gnats.

Anya was sent flying when she tried to meet its punch with her own, leaving a crater in a wall where she landed, the crack of breaking bones loud in the room accompanied by her groan. Diana rushed to her, hands glowing with healing magic as Corbin played a healing melody to get her back on her feet. Anya wasn’t fully healed, mouth dripping blood in a red stained feral grin when she rushed back into the fight.

Koth’talan was forced to draw back when the boss strained against the obsidian encasing its limbs, marble skin tearing and shrieking as stone broke. The obsidian melted into lava once more, sending the boss lurching and scrambling for support as its limbs dipped into the re-made lava pit once more. Koth’talan sweated and stumbled back as his focus centered on managing the lava and alternating between activating the deadly liquid rock and hardening it to keep the boss from escaping.

Liliana was forced to teleport away when the boss unexpectedly switched from swiping at Alistair to reaching for her, its hand flat like a flyswatter, as if she was no more than a particularly annoying bug.

Liliana snarled as she vanished and appeared above its head, swords positively burning with Light before they plunged towards its beady, malevolent eyes, all eight swords driving down into one like a deadly drill. Bursts of exploding light blinded the beast, making it bellow and struggle. Koth’talan let out a positively filthy curse as it almost ripped its own arm out in its pain filled struggle and he had to hastily turn the obsidian back to lava.

Liliana irrevocably ruined the weakened and damaged eye with a vicious [Pierce] and diving thrust from her naginata. Its one free hand swung up to protect its face and forced her to teleport away. Her laughter rang out through the fight, rising above the curses and grunts of her teammates. There was nothing better than pitting herself against something so much stronger than her and leaving her mark in its flesh and bone.

This was when she felt the most alive.

So the fight continued. The boss was kept barely trapped, with Koth’talan pouring every last drop of Mana into quickly switching between lava and hardened obsidian. Alistair trying to keep the boss’ attention on him and mostly succeeding.

Anya and Liliana cut, slashed, stabbed, punched and ripped their way across its colossal body while Diana and Emyr kept up their long ranged assault, and Corbin filled the room with his music. Healing, empowering and weakening at a breakneck pace, his fingers a blur on his flute and eyes scanning the battlefield to make sure he was playing exactly what was needed at any given second.

It was exhausting, tiring and stress filled and all their nerves stretched taut. All of them knew how deadly the boss was, and Koth’talan was under arguably the most stress, as he was the only thing keeping the boss as harmless as it could get. But a single slip up on his part, even a half second of delay, would mean the fight could quickly turn on them if he failed to keep it trapped.

Anya had weathered a blow from the boss, but blood still leaked from her savagely grinning mouth and her movements were slower despite the healing she’d had as she kept fighting despite the injuries she’d sustained. Liliana was forced to teleport more often than she’d like when the boss’ attention switched on a dime to focus on her with no warning.

The boss’ high Health didn’t help, as it meant the fight dragged on longer than any of them would have preferred. The longer a fight went on, the more chances for a mistake as they tired. Yet they pressed on, dragging the boss down point by point of Health. Never giving him a chance to regain the Health he lost and viciously abusing every inch they gained.

When they reached the boss’ [Enrage] point, a heart stopping moment of terror filled them when the boss let out a below loud enough to burst eardrums and send a wash of pure, unadulterated fear running through their veins. His muscles bulged and Koth’talan only barely kept him from getting free once more, going down to one knee as he poured his Mana into keeping the twice as strong and ever so much more deadly boss from breaking free.

The fight became far more treacherous from there, as the boss’ Speed and Strength increased. Alistair’s shield sported a crack and one of his arms was limp, the bones broken from a direct hit he’d taken from the enraged boss.

Liliana was almost thrown into a wall when the boss, faster than she’d expected, grabbed her by a wing, forcing her to activate [Shatter Wing], leaving feathers made of light embedded in the beast’s stone hand like quills as she teleported away. With the forced cool down from the skill she was back to using [Blink] to get her preferred high ground, popping around the beast long enough to drive her blades into its body before vanishing and appearing elsewhere to strike once more, her Mana and Stamina draining steadily.

The boss was down to ten percent health when Anya met its strike once more head on. The power of her double fisted punch sent cracks spider webbing up the boss’ entire arm, sluggishly weeping blood, the first they’d gotten out of the boss the entire fight, but her own bones shattered from the hit and she was once more sent flying back. This time when she collided with a wall, she didn’t rise, crumbling into a heap on the ground as Diana and Corbin rushed to her to perform triage.

Liliana and Alistair were left as the only two directly striking the boss, Emyr raining whatever spells he could down on it, Koth’talan keeping it trapped. When the boss reached seven percent Health Anya jumped back into the fight, arms dangling uselessly at her sides and face twisted in incensed pain. She couldn’t punch, but Anya made use of the limbs she could still use, kicking with as much strength and ferocity as she had punched, if with less grace, taking her pound of flesh in repayment.

Five percent Health and Liliana managed to dig her blades into the cracks left by Anya’s foolhardy defiance. An ear shattering shriek of grinding stone proceeding the removal of the limb from the elbow down, thick blood splattering out and painting the stones as the arm crashed against a wall.

Three percent Health and the boss toppled forward as its remaining knee was turned into rubble by the combined efforts of Anya and Alistair.

One percent Health as they drew back, a glittering constellation of stars glowing above the body of the boss as Emyr grinned with a maniacal glee, the stars falling slowly, delicately, down onto the boss before they exploded, shards of stone and blood flying everywhere. The bright red light in the boss’ eyes dimmed and its body finally fell still. Health dropped to zero.

The group stared in exhausted shock at the mangled stone statue before them. Anya was the first to cheer before the rest tiredly joined in. Alistair dropped to the ground, head tilted back. Koth’talan flopped onto his back. Diana and Corbin leaned against each other, the bird beastman cackling in relieved joy. Emyr flopped across Alistair’s lap, panting heavily as he grinned.

Liliana perched herself on the boss’ head, leaning her upper body against one huge horn with a punch-drunk, dopey grin, her swords scattered around her. For the first time since they entered the dungeon, her mind was empty of paranoia and suspicion. All she felt was the overwhelming, intoxicating feeling of victory.

They’d done it.