After defeating both of the enemies, the two continued down the hallway, eventually coming to another door. Beth opened this one slightly cautiously, concerned that she might be walking into a group of enemies. That concern was only partially founded, as there were only two beings within the room. They weren't the Echoes that they had just fought a moment before but were instead two humans. Before Beth could attempt to greet them, they both turned to her and rushed forward, clearly no good intentions to be had, proved by Beth checking their information.
Level 68 Fallen Noble
Beth wasn't sure what exactly their information meant, but they were very clearly hostile. It was a little disconcerting, Beth frowning as she drew her sword and engaged the two in combat. She wasn't sure just quite how she felt about humans showing up as beasts, though she thought they might be closer to the classification of monster rather than beast. They certainly behaved in a monstrous way, swinging at her with wild abandon. Beth was able to rather easily deflect their strikes, finding the leather armor the two wore not able to block the power of her blade.
Her ease of slashing through their armor wasn't reflected in their flesh, as the monsters were rather resistant to damage overall. Beth and Blood spent a considerable amount of time to first damage the creatures' limbs enough to cripple them, allowing the two girls to finish them off, though even that took some effort and time. The fights were certainly not going to be getting any easier, but Beth felt that they could still handle it, especially considering that they were tenacious and had fairly decent END for their level.
With that bit of bloody work out of the way, Beth and Blood were able to finally scan around the room they had entered, seeing it was very similar to the first room they had found themselves in. The differences were very slight, with the furniture being slightly different and arranged in a different pattern, a circle of chairs in the center of the room instead of two off to the side. The room also had two other doors, apart from the one they had entered, and checking the first showed another long hallway. Checking the second proved again that Beth's caution was warranted, as this doorway had two of the Echoes standing outside, both instantly animating and turning to attack her as she finished swinging the door open.
Beth leaped back, Blood on alert from the quick motion, chuckling a little bit as the possessed armors tangled with each other in the doorway. As she had constantly seen, nothing below level one hundred in terms of beasts had even a small spark of intellect, and she took every advantage in exploiting this. She darted forward in a blur before the enemies could get themselves sorted, slamming two punches in rapid succession into the armor on the left. The level difference was enough now that, combined with the stages seemingly having no more leniency, it took far more than a punch or two to cripple or kill the enemies. Beth was starting to grow more used to this with the third group, hammering punches into the two armors for ten seconds, the attack causing the enemies to be tangled in the doorway for far longer than they otherwise might have been.
The enemies didn't fare any better when they made it into the room, as Blood was able to shoulder-check the second armor almost immediately, sending it tumbling back into the hallway. Beth continued hammering the lead knight, her skills more than enough to overwhelm such a poor opponent. Even with her stats slightly behind, she watched as every blow caused a little denting, a little twisting, a little cracking in the enemy itself. By the time the second enemy had stood and begun to pursue Blood into and through the room, Beth had gotten to the point of hampering the strikes of the first enemy with the amount of metal she had moved and crushed in its arms.
She watched Blood as she wore the first enemy down, seeing the wolf still able to outmaneuver the enemies they were facing, but also struggling with dealing damage to anything armored. Her companion was able to knock the suit of armor down rather consistently, the opponent never really learning to adapt to the attacks or movements. Beth dodged a swing as she watched Blood get an arm in her jaws, crushing the elbow right at the joint and twisting, not doing much damage to the shoulder but still dealing a bit of crippling damage. Beth frowned as she stepped forward and kicked a knee, the metal squealing as it twisted, seeing a swing from the other knight glance off Blood's armored vest as the other knight stood.
Beth eventually finished off her opponent and moved over to the second beast, helping Blood finally take it down permanently. The two rested for just a moment, recovering the small bit of energy they had expended on that fight. Once they were ready to move on, they walked over to the farthest of the doors, which also complied with Beth's preferences, as she pointed out.
"You know where we are?" she asked Blood.
'Another maze, Sister,' Blood replied promptly.
"Right. Let's see if we can clear this just as fast as the one at home."
The two trotted off down the hallway, finding it to be a very similar experience to the first hall, including the Echoes partway down the hallway, which they defeated fairly adroitly. They also encountered a second set at the end of the hallway, fighting and killing them in the hall before opening the doorway at the end. They found three of the Nobles in the room beyond, Beth allowing Blood to take the lead in dealing with these enemies, the wolf able to deal far more damage far more quickly to flesh and blood opponents.
As soon as the three Nobles were dealt with, Beth picked a door and led the way down the next hallway. Once the two were locked in and moving, it took only a moderate amount of time before they had mapped a decent portion of the labyrinth. They eventually arrived at a room that Beth assumed was the halfway point or something roughly similar. It was a large, square room that was laid out in the semblance of a dining room, though absent of all food and attendants. The entire hall was empty, in fact, save for a single tall beast at the end.
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The only being in the hall apart from Beth and Blood was a giant humanoid near a set of plain double doors. The beast was to a Fallen Noble what the Hulk was to a normal person. It was tall and heavily muscled with a thick mane of hair and dirty, torn clothes only partially covering it. The beast was rather…shaggy, with thick tufts of hair all over its body, its back and chest in particular giving a little bit of a were-beast-type air. While it still had human facial features overall, the protruding canines were also an indicator that not everything was strictly standard issue anymore. Beth analyzed the creature before they got embroiled in battle.
Level 68 Enraged Demented Noble
That was certainly a bit of a mouthful, and Beth understood that this was some kind of elite or, more likely, a mini boss. Even with the two levels they had gained in the first half of this dungeon taken into account, it still put them eight down, and the gloves had definitely come off by this stage. Beth was just more excited by the powerful enemy, and it seemed Blood agreed, the wolf starting to creep forward with a gleam in her eye.
The mini boss didn't seem to care about them until they got within a certain distance, after which it suddenly exploded into motion. The beast charged Beth with reckless abandon, entirely ignoring Blood as the wolf circled wide. Beth met the charge head-on, noting that she was superior in speed, though neither her nor the boss were running speed boosting abilities. Well, she assumed the boss wasn't running a speed boosting ability, and she held off on Swift for now, only engaging Beastly Body in short bursts to enhance some of her swings. She was really trying to keep in mind Baelvyr's admonishment to use abilities as she was attacking and not before, though boosting skills that she could run for long periods of time were a little different. Still, she was trying to be conservative with her mana and more precise with her uses of any skill, so she tried not to run anything constantly.
Meeting the beast with a massive swing of her sword, the creature punched away her blade, a strategy likely less effective than it hoped as Beth's STR was enough for the beast to only knock her swing slightly away. She let her sword move up and out, relying on her old trick of releasing one hand from the hilt and punching out with it as her weapon skewed to the side. She didn't empower the punch, but it was still enough to stop the boss in its tracks, the beast slashing at her with its elongated nails as her fist impacting its side made it stagger slightly. Beth stepped back to just barely avoid the swipe, bringing her sword around in a backhand slash to connect with the beast's other arm just as it started a second swipe. She figured allowing this creature to get into a rhythm of rapid slashes wouldn't be the best idea, moving to slash or punch in rapid succession as she continuously interrupted the mini boss's momentum.
At the same time, Blood moved in from the rear, the beast seemingly having totally forgotten her, quite an achievement considering a thousand-pound wolf was involved. The large lupine sunk her teeth into the left thigh of the beast from the rear just as it was moving to block a punch from Beth. The beast wasn't able to resist the force, twisting slightly to the side and flailing a little with both arms, allowing Beth's fist to slam directly into its chin. There was a slight *Crunch* as one of the beast's teeth shattered, and it loosed an angry snarl dripping with bloody saliva as it tried to twist and rend Blood. It wasn't a particularly great move tactically, as Beth had not stopped at the punch but followed through with an overhead chop from the sword held in her left hand. She flexed her muscles and pumped up both Beastly Body and Monstrous Blow as her sword fell, the extra power in the strike causing the blade to slice through the skin of the beast's torso and cut apart its flesh. Her blade left a deep gash from right shoulder to left hip, the ribs of the beast visible through a bit of the center of the wound, and elicited a strangled, rage-filled scream from the creature.
Beth's developing fighting style was one of constant attack, both highly aggressive and fluid, and she hadn't paused after dealing the heavy blow, instead spinning on her right foot, bringing her left leg around in a full roundhouse kick. Her left heel slammed into the beast's right arm just at the elbow, Beth pumping Crush through her left leg and slamming mana down into her right, that foot digging into the ground with a cracking sound mirrored by the creature's elbow, Beth using the additional power and leverage to fully finish the roundhouse, slamming the beast's arm into its body and then lifting it from the ground and send it staggering to the side. Blood was right there waiting, shoulder-checking the beast right back towards Beth with the full use of her weight, STR, and Swift at maximum. The beast had just stumbled a step to try and correct its uncontrolled movement and now it was already back in the air.
Beth had followed along with the creature's flight and was ready when Blood knocked it back towards her, holding her blade forward in a perfect lunge. She made sure all her buffs were running and fed extra mana into her muscles as the point of her blade pierced the center of the large wound she had already carved into the mini boss's chest, shoving three feet of the black metal through the beast's torso. She had hoped for a fatal blow but was disabused of that dream as the beast screeched and slashed both arms wildly at her head, Beth thankful for the protection of her new helmet. It didn't fully negate the blows, but having her braincase slightly rattled but intact was a good deal better than having it ripped off. She lashed out with a Crush empowered front snap kick, her left leg impacting the beast's chest just as she heaved with both arms, tearing her blade free from the opponent's ribs.
The mini boss staggered back and was immediately accosted by Blood, not even getting out a scream before its neck was in the massive wolf's jaws. It snarled and roared, desperately trying to claw at the massive weight pulling on its neck as Blood's huge fangs cut ever deeper. Beth had darted two steps back and now charged up a powerful strike, filling herself with nearly half her total mana reserve as she took two slow steps forward, blade held up and to the left as her muscles bulged before condensing with a taut grinding noise. After the second step she lunged forward, slamming her right foot forward and down as she swung in a huge cleaving motion, bringing her blade into the mini-boss's right side as Blood shredded its neck even further. The beast had stopped flailing and tried to grab Blood's jaws, scrabbling to tear the massive mouth away from its neck, leaving it defenseless against Beth's strike. The sword tore into and through the creature's side, snapping ribs and ripping flesh before it connected with the large wound from the earlier stab. It continued on before lodging in the ribs on the left side of the mini-boss's chest. Beth let go of the blade, not bothering with trying to work it free, instead grabbing the enemy by the wrists and wrestling its hands from Blood's jaws, which snapped shut with a wet, sucking, crunching noise that drew a bubbling wail from the beast.
It didn't take very long after that for Blood to finish making mincemeat of the creature's neck, which was enough to put it out of its misery for good. Beth sighed before checking over Blood for injury as the notification resounded in her mind, letting her know the kill was confirmed. The wolf seemed to only have a few minor injuries to her face, and Beth let her sit off to the side and start to use Regeneration to heal up. She set about, in the meanwhile, prying her sword free from chest of the mini boss in a bit of a bloody, squelching operation.