A four-on-two was a better situation, but it still certainly wasn't ideal, especially considering the strength of all four opponents was at the level of a dungeon boss monster. Blood had been conserving her mana a little, but had decided it was worth sacrificing mana instead of stamina, as the first was still far more easily recovered. She started to use Blood Queen's Claws far more often, firing them out almost continuously at one point. She focused on the very first ape that had made it to her, which was now in a pretty sorry state, deep wounds on several parts of its body separated by innumerable cuts and shallow gashes on every other part of its flesh. Blood darted back to dodge a sloppy swing before dashing forward, low enough to the ground that she pushed off it with her left arm as she moved forward, coming up inside the ape's guard before unleashing a devastating one-two with her claw skill right into the beast's neck, her speed so great the ape simply couldn't react to what was happening.
A second decapitation brought the numbers down to three, and now it was much easier to maneuver for the girls, though the fight was still a slog. The bosses were just that tough, their vitality, durability, and stamina the biggest of factors setting them apart from regular beasts. They were more powerful in terms of strength or speed or both, of course, but their overall supreme toughness was what made them a particularly difficult challenge. When a single mistake could take a Wayfarer out of the fight or kill them, and it was not true of the opponent they fought, the danger just became that much greater.
The fight was a long grind, but they eventually killed the remaining three bosses while only sustaining minor injuries. They took some time to rest to restore their mana as well as use just a touch of their regeneration skills to top themselves up. When their mana and physical health was back up to full, they started the fourth round. Beth noted that the bosses in this round were all uniformly level one hundred four as well, and they were back to a mix of different kinds of beasts.
The rounds progressed from there, nothing particularly challenging popping up, but the levels increased slightly as they went until they hit round ten, at which point they faced five rather tough level one hundred and seven bosses. Beth was in a bit of a tough spot for a while and thought of using her Presence to wriggle out of it, but she really wanted to try to finish the minimum required rounds without having to call on her new power. She definitely wouldn't have been able to do it on her own, but with Blood's help she was able to slowly wear down the five bosses and kill them, winning the tenth round.
They rested afterwards, restoring their resources while Beth checked their progress. The last seven rounds had only rewarded them with one more level even though they were killing groups of higher-leveled bosses. It looked like the experience curve beyond level one hundred was even more brutal than what they had experienced getting up to one hundred. It was likely another reason why even people determined to be Wayfarers and climb to the top struggled as, after every rebirth, the minimum required level to rebirth increased, and not just by one or two. Beth saw a long, long climb in their future, but she had already been inspired by the likes of Baelvyr, Tazeen, and yes, even Jaq. She would climb that mountain, no matter the height, no matter the distance, no matter the time.
They had spent something like fifteen hours clearing the first ten rounds including their rest times, which made Beth a bit nervous, as the fights were only getting tougher. They spent more resources every fight, also making their post-fight rests longer each time, and that was still considering they hadn't had to sleep yet. She could worry about it constantly during the rest, or they could focus on getting their resources refilled and worry about the fights as they came; Beth decided on the latter option, letting her worries go as much as possible as they meditated.
The start of round eleven was much the same as all the others, with five bosses appearing after a word from the projection. The overall level of the five was just one above the previous round, keeping the pattern that had been so far established. This round was again a bit tougher than the one before, but Beth still held off on using her new ability. She wanted to push as far as she could, considering she would likely need five or more hours sleep after draining her stamina. She couldn't do that more than maybe two or three times total and still be within the time limit for the stage, so she was pushing as far as she could go on grit, and Blood's help, alone.
It took hours, again a large part of the time being from their rest periods, but they managed to push through four more waves before they were into the second day. They were both also starting to get somewhat tired, and Beth decided to use that essentially to their advantage. They were in need of sleep anyway, so in round fifteen she started slightly cautiously, luring three of the bosses onto her as Blood took on two. After wounding two of the bosses moderately and the third slightly, she managed to disengage with two rapid uses of Monstrous Blow before using her boosting skills at max to clear the area. She knew it only took a second to activate her Presence, but that second was still a long time in such an intense, fast-paced battle.
Beth called on her new power, feeling reality twist a tiny bit around her as the red metal crown settled into place on her head. She could immediately feel the strength surge through her, the crown settling on her head causing power to boil up inside her. She leapt forward, back into the fray, swinging her blade with unrelenting force, her weaponskill just able to keep up with her new strength. The edge of her blade tore into the side of the lead boss monster, an ugly brute of a troll, Beth not even bothering to aim for something especially weak like the neck. Her boosted strength was now monstrous, her Presence seeming to multiply her current stats. With her already high STR, her Presence now gave her a level of power capable of shattering the bodies of the bosses.
The first boss didn't shatter but was sliced almost entirely in half by her first blow. Its regeneration absolutely was not going to do anything about reattaching the halves, certainly not at this level, and the two parts of the corpse flopped to the ground with a wet *Thump.* Even after a handful of seconds, now that she knew what to look for, Beth could feel her stamina draining. She had to be fast about this if she didn't want to be absolutely exhausted by the end of this round.
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She darted forward again, targeting a giant snake that was slithering towards her quite quickly. Its black scales were each the size of her torso and thicker than a dinner plate, but that wasn't enough to stop Beth, only slow her down. She blurred under the jaws as the massive snake lunged for her, slashing upward once, twice, thrice; gashing open and tearing apart the neck of the beast before it could even withdraw from that first lunge. Beth was bathed in blood, the crown on her head seeming to tremble for a moment at the rush, before she darted slightly to the side, swinging in a massive upward strike that finished decapitating the snake.
She darted out and forward, avoiding the flailing corpse of the snake as it writhed in its death throes, bursting towards the flame golem at the back. This boss was like a massive beast made of magma, only the colder sections of its skin being hardened into obsidian-like plates keeping it from being a moving pile of magma. Beth's fire enchant certainly wasn't going to do her any good here, but having the equivalent of four hundred or more STR stat meant even the hardened rock of the brute's exterior was like glass before her. The problem, she learned after two slashes, was that even cracking the "skin" of the beast did little, and just swiping her blade through the magma that composed its flesh did little damage. Fortunately, her second swing encountered a solid mass in the chest of the beast, and she immediately pivoted her strategy.
She leapt back, shaking the last of the molten rock from her blade before sheathing it. Taking a second to flex her arms, she darted forward again, slamming a Crush boosted punch directly into the center of the beast's torso. The magma golem staggered back, unable to stand before her enhanced strength, emitting a roar that washed a wave of furnace-like heat across her. Beth didn't let up, grinning as her fist cracked open the golem before a fully empowered punch shattered the pulsing red heart of the beast, a mottled rock the size of Beth's head exploding like a frag grenade from her charged up strike.
Beth quickly shook the fragments of stone and bits of molten rock off herself before turning to Blood, finding her companion just finishing off the first of the two bosses she had been battling. Beth dashed across the room, a steel blur as her Presence allowed her to move at a truly ridiculous speed, before impacting the back of the spider that Blood was battling. Beth's Presence really made her into a wrecking ball, as she tore apart a chunk of the spider boss's abdomen and ripped off two of its legs. The spider wailed and tried to turn, staggering in a bit of a sloppy circle before Beth tore off another leg. Just as the beast collapsed, Blood leapt atop it, performing a double-handed Blood Queen's Claws into the top of the spider's head, impacting its eyes and tearing through into its brain. It was only a second later, and another overwhelmingly powerful punch from Beth, before all five of the boss corpses started fading away.
"Phew," Beth said, tossing her pack to the side before collapsing on her butt. "That was tough." The crown faded from her head as she sighed, Blood sitting next to her.
"Are you alright?" her companion asked.
"I'll be fine," Beth replied wearily. "I just need to rest. That minute of using my Presence totally exhausted me."
"Let's just pull out the bedrolls," Blood grunted before putting word to deed, kindly hauling out Beth's sleeping gear as well. Beth had just enough energy to shuck her armor before rolling into her bedding and passing out. Blood set her own bedding right against Beth's before shucking her armor and sliding up against Beth, back-to-back, and falling asleep herself. What Beth had thought proved accurate, as they slept for more than six hours before they were up and ready to go again.
They had five rounds left to get a full clear, and Beth was hoping they would be able to get through them without her needing a second sleep cycle, but she knew it was going to be a grind either way. They started the sixteenth round after they had packed up and had a bit of food, Beth almost emptying her limitless canteen before they talked with the projection.
The round wasn't any different than what they had faced before, other than the increasing toughness of the opponents. Even when the level of the beasts they were up against didn't increase, they were just stronger types overall. Facing an unarmored troll with a crude club was a lot different from facing a horned lizard with some dragon blood flowing through its veins, despite them both being of the same level. The rounds after ten had seen not only all the beasts demonstrating some use of skills, but they had also been able to tap into mana at even a basic level. If the corpses hadn't vanished after a round win, they would have found beast cores in all of them as most enemies from level one hundred had beast cores, particularly stronger enemies like elites and bosses. This made them tougher overall but also gave them access to skills, or more skills in some specific cases, as well as saw increasing numbers of beasts able to use mana. Whether that was to boost themselves or cast attacks, things perhaps a little too crude to really be called spells most of the time, but certainly blasts, breaths, and slashes made of mana, depended greatly on the beast and the circumstance.
Increased toughness even beyond what beasts typically displayed, as well as the much higher probability for a core and all that brought on, were the two big changes at level one hundred. Beth knew from what little dribs and drabs of Liveria's knowledge she was slowly getting access to that the chance of cores would increase up to level one-fifty, where it was guaranteed. Intelligence would start increasing now as well, though it was much slighter, and even by level two hundred the beasts wouldn't really even be sentient, let alone sapient, but their animal cunning and ability to do more than mindlessly charge would increase.
They were only seeing very small demonstrations of the latter so far, as the bosses they had fought were still essentially all dumb brutes. The increased toughness, both in general and brought about by having a core and cycling that mana through their bodies, was the biggest factor that really ramped up the challenge in this version of the boss rush. It seemed pretty clear to Beth that the participants in the trial were meant to get to level one hundred before this stage, and the two-day time limit when pitted against the power of the beasts was actually a serious challenge. Beth had several advantages, including that Blood was still marked as her companion even after hitting level one hundred, but she also wasn't the greatest around, nor was Blood. She was sure there were young Wayfarers who absolutely blew her and Blood out of the water to the point where even this stage would be a joke for them to solo, and that's considering she was talking about going all the way to round twenty.
Round sixteen ground by, with Beth managing to hold out on using her Presence, though she took a nasty blow to her left arm that cracked both bones in her forearm even through her heavy gauntlets, the damage somehow penetrating through without hurting the mana steel much. It slowed her a little during the fight, and it meant even more time spent meditating, as she would have to use a bunch of mana to heal the injury as soon as they were done before meditating to restore the even larger mana deficit. Still, she persevered, glad that Blood made it through that round without taking any injuries apart from a few small cuts and bruises that were easily dealt with thanks to her own regeneration skill.