James walked down into the darkness, tracing his hand along the wall. He did not need to do this for balance, but he enjoyed the feel of the cool stone on his fingertips. It helped keep him grounded in the present moment, in the physical space he occupied, when his mind would rather have skipped back upstairs and across to the tunnel where Mina was fighting her struggle.

Fortunately, he soon reached the bottom, and his attention focused squarely on his own situation.

His eyes scoped out the final floor to the extent that he could from the entrance without actually going in. Unlike the previous two floors, this one did not lie in darkness

Rather, James saw that torches lined the wall in front of the entrance. The downward sloping tunnel he had descended seemed to lead into a winding path. He could only see the wall in front of him and, when he pressed himself up against the right side of the entrance, a dead end to his left.

You’re being paranoid, he thought. Just walk out. This is the final floor. It would be cheap for there to be an ambush waiting.

But he remembered the two Green-Skinned Ogres that had escaped him.

James began generating silk and shedding his skin, combining the skin and silk to make a dummy, imbuing Mana into the creation and shaping it with Monster Generation and his Will. The combined creature quickly crawled out from under his armor and slithered onto the floor before it began unfolding itself, standing almost upright.

Body Double Dummy, go on in and see if the coast is clear, James silently ordered. Try your best to look like me while you do it.

The creature twisted from side to side as if stretching, pulled itself to its full height—which was slightly more than James’s full height, since it was made of his skin and silk and did not need to conform to his skeletal structure—and then hastened to obey.

As it stepped into the tunnel, two axes immediately descended, one from each side of the entrance. They were wielded in two pairs of thick, green hands.

“Grahhh!” roared one of the ogres.

“Yarg!” yelled the other back, as their axes fell on the Body Double Dummy and hacked through its skin, chopping through the external layer but failing to penetrate the strong silk underneath. The creatures did not seem to realize what was off about this creature at first; they kept trying to cleave it apart with the axes they had apparently acquired.

Their movements were slower than James remembered. He wondered if the weapons they held were too heavy for them. They hadn’t had axes on the previous floor, only clubs.

James thrust his upper body out as the axe on the left descended, grabbing hold of the down-swinging arm and yanking the Green-Skinned Ogre sideways and backward, into the tunnel.

The creature cried out for help, but there was nothing its comrade could do. Their bodies were too thick to fit two abreast into the entrance. The monster that remained on the final floor could only look on helplessly as James ripped the throat out of its last fellow Green-Skinned Ogre with his bare hands.

James shoved the dead creature out into the final level, and he saw the other ogre’s shadow dance along the wall as it repeated its trick from the previous floor and ran away.

What, you don’t want to avenge your brother? he thought. I don’t mind chasing you, but running away is an embarrassing thing to do as you die.

James stepped into the final level, picked up the axe the dead ogre had dropped, and looked down the tunnel to see if he could hurl the weapon and kill the last of the Green-Skinned Ogres. Unfortunately, it had disappeared around a bend.

The Body Double Dummy got up from the ground, shook itself off, and stood ready to obey James’s next command.

I need to use more of this special silk in future monsters. He silently ordered the creature to follow along behind him.

This last level seemed to be snake-like in shape. James’s back was to a dead end when he started, but as he walked after the ogre, he saw that the tunnel he found himself in was one of twists and turns.

I could start knocking down walls and probably catch up to it faster, he thought. Or I could use earth magic to cut off its retreat. He could still hear the ogre frantically panting as it tried to keep ahead of him while continuing to clutch onto its heavy axe. It was only a few twists of the path ahead of James, but in practice, that meant three walls or more that James would need to knock down. If he used earth magic, he could simply cut off the retreat and walk the rest of the way.

Nah. The ogre will die whenever I get to it. Better to save my energy. Whatever actually lives on this floor has weapons. It’s probably an upgrade on the ogres in other respects, too. James had half-expected the monsters would have killed off the Green-Skinned Ogres for invading their territory. If the creatures of the final challenge had given the green ogres axes instead, it meant that they were confident enough to arm potential invaders and intelligent enough to try using the other monsters as pawns to kill off their challenger.

Worthy opponents.

He examined the axe in his hand for any clue as to the original owner’s personality or other attributes, but there was little to notice about it. A short, hard steel axe head fixed to what appeared to be a black iron hilt. Heavier than it should be for its size, though still not too heavy for James.

There were no distinguishing marks. All he could think was that whoever wielded this was definitely physically stronger than the ogres, or the wielder would swing too slowly to hit its target.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

James rounded another corner and began to hear the trickle of water. As he advanced further, it grew louder. The sound of running water.

Is there a waterfall at the end? he wondered.

As he drew near what James felt confident would be the final bend in the tunnel, he braced himself for whatever he might see. He clutched the found axe tightly in both hands and breathed in deep, mind running through various plans of action in case of ambush.

James stepped around the bend, and he finally got a clear view—of sunlight and blue skies. The underground tunnel he had marched through, seemingly deep within the bowels of the Earth, led into an open air area. Before him, James saw what appeared to be a largely open field, with a building he recognized as a Shinto shrine dropped into the middle of it—a beautiful wooden structure of lanterns, columns, translucent paper sheet doors over wooden lattices, and gently sloping roofs, intricately decorated with designs inlaid in jade and gold.

In the distance, James saw mountains that ringed the area and appeared to grow thick with vegetation. He saw a waterfall pouring off the side of one of the mountains—the source of the noise of rushing water. He heard the chirping of songbirds.

“What the fuck is this place?” he murmured.

I was just in a bunch of dark caves. The final boss lives in a Shinto shrine? We just went all the way from something that felt vaguely Lord of the Rings straight to the East? There’s no thematic unity!

“That’s a fine way to talk about our home,” said a quiet voice, but one that nonetheless carried. One of the paper doors slid to the side, and a massive creature lowered its head to slide under the lintel and step outside.

James could only stare.

Big fellow, aren’t you? And you can talk…

He used Identify and confirmed what his eyes told him about what sort of enemy he faced.

Blue Oni, Lv. 39.

That might mean roughly similar to Samuel in power.

The ten-foot-tall blue-skinned figure carried an open, leatherbound book in the palm of its left hand and a huge kanabo in the right, which it casually lifted up and leaned against its shoulder. It wore the white robes and black hat of a Shinto priest. A single long tusk curved up from under the right side of its jaw, while a single long, curved horn adorned the left temple of its head. The figure’s features were androgynous, but James interpreted it as male based on its body structure.

So, this is the final boss. Not bad at all. Wait, did he say our home?

On the other side of the building, one of the other paper doors suddenly crumpled and flew outward. A giant red foot could be seen within the shrine.

“Don’t forget about me, brother,” it growled in a much deeper voice.

The foot lowered, and the Red Oni emerged on the other side, barely bothering to lower his head, smashing apart some of the wood of the shrine. James observed that the Red Oni’s tusk and horn were the photo negatives of the Blue Oni’s, appearing on opposite sides. Unlike the Blue Oni, he wore samurai-style armor over his body—and there was nothing ambiguous about his gender. This one was a big, buff man, bristling with muscle, though the same height as his brother. The Red Oni did not carry any weapons, however.

“Do you have to be so uncouth?” asked the Blue Oni, turning to face the Red Oni. “What if Carol makes us clean up after we kill him? Do you want to go off into the mountains and find wood to patch that hole?”

“Oh, lay off me, Blue,” the Red Oni grumbled. “This is our moment to shine. Our first real enemy. Worry about Mom and the cleanup later!”

“Fine,” said the Blue Oni with a short huff of breath. “We do have bigger problems to deal with.”

James noticed movement from behind the Blue Oni and swallowed. If there were any more Onis than these two, he was going to leave. He didn’t think he was ready to fight a whole Oni family, given the level he’d seen for the Blue Oni.

But as his eyes focused on the motion, he realized it was just the Green-Skinned Ogre, quivering behind the Blue Oni.

Oh, I almost forgot about him.

“Come on out here!” the Red Oni called. “I know you’re not afraid of a fight, right?” There was a slight, taunting edge to his voice, which James ignored. He had been in far too many fights to be goaded that way.

“Pardon me,” James replied. “I think you two have something I lost on the previous floor.” He pointed at the Green-Skinned Ogre. “Do you mind if I finish up with him before we fight? I don’t want us being interrupted.”

“Uh, sure thing, right, bro?” the Red Oni said, looking at the Blue Oni—clearly the brains of the operation.

The Blue Oni looked at James for a moment with narrowed, searching eyes. Then he nodded.

“It’s no skin off our noses, human. He smells, anyway. Like they don’t have baths up there on the other levels or something.”

James guessed that the Blue Oni had never left the rather lush and beautiful environment that Carol had created for him. Upstairs, there wasn’t a water source or even a place for the ogres to relieve themselves. It was possible that they didn’t have those biological functions.

Clearly, Carol had lavished most of her attention on the Onis.

James ordered the Body Double Dummy to trail along after him as he walked out, and keep close to the opening that led backward into the tunnel and cave structure. One thing that was clear to James was that the Onis were too large to fit into the tunnel that he had just emerged from. The Body Double Dummy was not powerful enough to keep the path of retreat clear, but if James did have to run away, it could perhaps distract one of the Onis for a few seconds while James darted into the hole.

Back me up if you have a good opportunity, though, he added.

Then he stepped into the open field area, all senses on edge, wary of any possible trap.

But the only thing that struck him as he walked into the field was how bright and clear the sunlight was.

The Green-Skinned Ogre seemed to panic as James strode toward him and the Blue Oni. It turned and tried to run further back into the shrine, but the Blue Oni turned back and grabbed it by the scruff of the neck, lifting it into the air.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” the Blue Oni declared. “You are not going back into our place. If he makes a mess of you, it happens out here.”

Turning, the Blue Oni hurled the Green-Skinned Ogre toward James. Despite the fact that the ogre was hundreds of pounds and still carried the heavy axe, the Blue Oni did not seem breathless from throwing him.

James raised an eyebrow. How strong were these things?

Surely the Red Oni is stronger, too. The blue one is definitely the bookworm of the pair, and the red one is cut like a bodybuilder.

James cracked his neck. Soon he would find out.

But first…

James’s eyes focused on the Green-Skinned Ogre, which had begun pushing itself upright just a few feet in front of him.

It was time to finish up level two.