The first area of the dungeon was a labyrinth full of traps and monsters to fight.

We had to find our way to the middle section in order to fight the mini-boss who would unlock the possibility to go to the next area.

Right at the beginning, a big rock fell on us and separated us from Shimatsu.

We kept moving in different directions, but we either found monsters to fight or dead-ends.

The monsters of this floor were mainly hobgoblins and bloody wolves.

We stumbled upon some traps, but they were easily dealt with.

The problem was that everything was similar. We couldn’t tell apart if we passed by that point or not.

Hours passed by, but we didn’t make any progress.

“There might be some kind of hint that will show us the way out of this place,” I said.

“Yeah, we kept moving in circles and found the same things. The same monsters kept respawning and the same traps were everywhere.” Kamui added.

I started touching the walls but there were no secret buttons or rooms hidden behind them.

“Maybe the way is invisible and we have to go through a pattern to find it.” Said Kamui.

Right then, I thought of an idea. I closed my eyes to feel the mana surrounding us. At first glance, there was nothing different, but I felt there were some lines with different mana condensation than the others.

“Kamui, close your eyes to feel the mana, there is something odd about it.”

Kamui did what I told him and after a few minutes, he noticed the same thing.

“Yeah you’re right, let’s try following these condensed lines.”

We followed them until we arrived at a dead-end.

“Maybe it was just the structure of this floor that made those irregularities.” Sighed Kamui.

“Don’t jump to conclusions quickly.” I touched the walls of the dead-end, and suddenly my hand didn’t touch anything.

“This is an illusion,” I said to Kamui.

I tried passing through that wall cavity and I found myself in another hallway. Kamui followed me and celebrated our discovery.

We kept repeating the same process until we found a four ways path. All the paths had the same condensed mana lines.

“Maybe we should try one by one.” I jokingly suggested to Kamui.

He sighed and went near a wall to rest a bit.

I went to sit next to him to think of our next move when he mistakenly touched a hidden button in the wall and a hole appeared beneath us. We fell in the tunnel and kept sliding in all directions until we fell inside a dark room.

We looked around us, but it was total darkness until some bone lamps started shining one by one.

The room was all built using crimson-colored plates. There was nothing worth noticing. It was a simple setup, with only bone lamps and rocky walls around us.

At the end of the room was a statue of a Minotaur. We approached it and tried to touch it when it started moving.

We jumped to the back and took our stances.

The statue turned toward us and the rocky skin around it started falling apart until a full figure was shown.

The brown Minotaur was four meters tall. He had white horns coming from the side of his head and a golden ring attached to his nose. He held an iron club on one hand and the other was missing and replaced by an iron mace spike.

He growled and kept smacking his club at the ground while glaring at us with his reddish eyes filled with malice.

The first one to make a move was Kamui. He used an ‘Air Slash’ to test the monster, but it was repelled with his iron club. Then, I took this chance to use a ‘Step Slash’, but I was met with a swing from his club before I slashed him.

I immediately changed my stance to an ‘Uppercut Slash’ and blocked his descending smash.

He kicked me to push me away, and Kamui jumped over me and used my tilted back as a stepping platform to launch a ‘Tiger Hunt Slash’.

The Minotaur couldn’t block all the swings and was cut over his torso.

While he was busy swinging his club at Kamui, I used a ‘Breathless Fang’ to swiftly cut his back and spun around myself to perform a ‘Nail Slash’ at the same spot to make the injury deeper.

The monster didn’t budge and attacked me with his mace spike. I blocked it, but the power of his swing pushed me away.

Kamui and the Minotaur kept exchanging blows, and no one could break the stalemate of their clashes.

I took a deep breath and stood up. Without making the faintest sounds, I used a second ‘Breathless Fang’ to cut him again on his back.

This time there was a response. He groaned and tried to impale me with his horns.

I caught one and pushed his head to the ground while propelling myself upward. “Now it’s the time, Kamui,” I called to my teammate to continue the combo.

He thrust his sword right into the minotaur’s eye and I launched a ‘Tiger Hunt Slash’ to smash him to the ground.

In a desperate moment, the monster put his club at his back to protect him from my attack.

The Minotaur fell to his knees, blood coming from his cut left eye. He strongly huffed but stood up again. Steam came from his head and he let out a sharp growl.

He extended his mace arm in front of him, and the iron needles launched out like small rockets.

We dodged a few of them, but the others were homed at us.

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Kamui stopped running and put the hilt of his sword in front of him, and then he swung the sword around him, sent a circling air slash at the needles, and destroyed them.

“Ono-Ha-Itto-Ryuu, Tornado Slash.”

The enraged monster didn’t stop there. He took this chance and tackled Kamui and threw him away.

He turned towards him and tried to stomp him. He blocked his leg with his sword.

Behind them, I moved my sword to the extreme of my side, leaned forward a little, concentrated the surrounding mana into the tip of my sword, and with a blink of an eye, I stepped forward in an instant dash and slashed the minotaur on his back.

“Ono-Ha-Itto-Ryuu Ougi, Flash Slash.”

The monster fell on his face and I pulled Kamui up.

He was not dead yet. He pushed himself up and his eyes were brimming with fury.

Kamui and I took our stances by holding our swords on top of our heads and swinging the swords with tremendous speed and power.

“Ono-Ha-Itto-Ryuu, Crescent Cut.”

The minotaur was cut in half and fell dead.

The door to the next floor appeared and we heard a hand-clapping behind us. We turned and found that Shimatsu was there.

“Good job at slaying the Minotaur. That was a magnificent fight.”

“Where were you watching us from? We didn’t hear from you since we were separated at the beginning.” Said Kamui.

“I was following you, but I kept my distance to not bring the monsters toward me.”

After drinking some healing potions, we proceeded to the next floor.

***

The second floor was a large foggy area. There were no obstacles, no walls, and no traps. We kept moving aimlessly in the hope to find something that distinguished this floor, but there was only fog.

“Maybe there is something different in the mana surrounding us.” Kamui tried sensing the mana, but it was all the same. There was no difference whatsoever.

“Damn, there is nothing.” He quickly gave up.

“I think you’re on the right track. If the first floor relied on mana to find the way, then maybe this one too.”

I tried sensing mana on my end, but I didn’t pick up anything strange so far.

Kamui was frustrated and swung his sword and launched an ‘Air Slash’ by mistake. Surprisingly it hit something and it shattered.

“That was a lucky punch.” I smacked him on his back.

Suddenly we started feeling a change of mana in our surroundings, and we heard something running away from us.

“Let’s catch it quickly,” I said to Kamui.

I dashed toward the escaping figure using ‘Step Slash’ and cut it in half. “This is an illusion spider,” I shouted.

“Then we were trapped inside an illusion since we arrived here.”

“Yeah, it seems so.”

We heard more footsteps running in all directions.

“This is the perfect chance to use this move.” Smirked Kamui. “Ono-Ha-Itto-Ryu, Tornado Slash.”

All the monsters surrounding us were instantly killed. The illusion spider was a C-rank monster capable of trapping its prey inside an illusion to kill it slowly. Its danger lied in its illusion spell, but its durability was weak.

The fog dissipated and we were inside a blank chamber with nothing but grey walls and a statue at the far end.

The statue was that of an armored centaur holding a spear.

“I guess that’s the boss of this floor.” Stated Kamui.

This time, the statue turned towards us before we approached it.

The monster moved towards us and stopped midway. He turned the spear around his hand and smashed the ground with its head which made the fog return and surround us again.

The centaur dashed towards us, swung his spear and we dodged it.

Kamui landed behind him but the monster’s back legs kicked him.

I attacked him and he blocked my sword attack with his spear. He pushed me with both hands and tried to impale me with his long spear.

I parried the thrust and countered with a vertical slash. His body armor protected him and he head-butted me. I felt dizzy and fell on my legs. Blood came from the injury on my head and blurred my vision.

“Damn, he’s using every part of his body to fight.” I cursed.

Kamui launched an ‘Air Slash’ that was deflected by his body armor.

“So mana attacks don’t work against him.” Muttered Kamui.

“We must destroy his armor first.” I addressed my friend.

The centaur jumped back and dashed towards me with another spear thrust. I blocked his attack with an ‘Uppercut Swallow Slash’ and continued with a ‘Tiger Hunt Slash’ directed at his back.

He didn’t try to block my attack and every slash hit his steel armor.

As I landed on my feet, he kicked me with his legs and threw me away.

He tried to impale me again with his spear, but Kamui intervened and parried his attack with a ‘Step Slash’ and countered it with a ‘Nail Slash’.

I stood up and used a ‘Step Slash’ of my own and followed it by several normal attacks.

We were desperate to destroy his armor as quickly as possible, but there were no scratches on it.

“We need some strong moves to faze him.” Said Kamui.

“I have an idea. Cover for me.” I said to Kamui.

The armored centaur charged at us with several swings of his spear that were parried by Kamui’s sword. Meanwhile, I tilted my knees and held my sword over my shoulder, directing it at the ground. I absorbed mana and transferred it into its tip and impaled the ground.

“Ono-Ha-Itto-Ryuu, Bull Tackle.”

I injected the mana I absorbed into the earth and sent out mana bursting directly at the feet of the monster that exploded under the ground beneath him.

The centaur was blown away by the explosion and a huge crater appeared.

“I never thought of using that skill on inanimate objects.” Kamui was impressed.

“Since our swords can’t cut his armor, so I thought maybe something more explosive than our slashes could do the trick.”

Suddenly the fog got thicker and we could no longer see the crater.

“Hey Kamui, stay behind me.”

We were back to back and kept turning to look in all directions as the fog surrounding us got more thicker over time.

My ears picked up a little noise around us and I heard a swiff in the air.

“Kamui, dock down.”

We both docked down and a spear flew by our heads.

We stood up again and suddenly we were hit by the fists of the charging monster.

We were both thrown away and touched something cold.

I took one of the cold objects and it was a part of the monster’s armor.

I looked around us and saw the remains of the armor.

The steel objects started moving fast and caught us by the legs. We were completely fixed to the ground by them.

The centaur approached us and a brown figure appeared.

“So that’s his real body.” Muttered Kamui.

The monster held his spear over his shoulder from the middle and threw it at us again with all his powers. The frisson between the spear and the air created fire around it.

There was no way to dodge the attack since we couldn’t move our legs. Nonetheless, Kamui held his sword with both hands over his head and launched a very strong ‘Crescent Cut’ that came into contact with the flying spear and an explosion happened between the two attacks.

I took this chance to use a weaker ‘Bull Tackle’ on the ground beneath me to free myself and used a ‘Flash Slash’ to cut the head of the centaur while his gaze was directed at Kamui.

My blade cut through his head cleanly and it rolled out on the ground.

The body of the monster fell and a door appeared through the mist near us.