“At least let her down!” I shouted after Eskil. “The middle of a fight is no place for an unconscious person.”

“As I said, thrall, if you wish to claim her, you may fight me for the honor. Until then, she belongs to me.”

“She belongs to no one, you fucking moron,” I fired back. Eskil didn’t hear me. He’d already bounded away on his giant legs.

“I’m with you there, friend. What an insufferable turd. So, what now?” Richard asked, staring at the giant’s back.

“We go after him,” I replied, already jogging.

If only he hadn’t taken Aerion… As much as I wanted to separate from the asshole and figure out this mess, I couldn’t leave her with that thug until she regained consciousness. I’d have to cook up a plan on the go.

“Five thousand,” Richard said as we ran after Eskil. “Five thousand against three. Can’t say I like those odds.”

“Except, we’re not here to beat an army,” I called over my shoulder. “We just need to take out that dungeon core, and this whole place comes crashing down. Could you try, uh… Breaking its heart?”

Richard shook his head. “Afraid not. Too far, for one. My range isn’t nearly sufficient. Besides, I’ve got to wonder if it’s even alive. And if it is, would it have a heart?”

The dungeon core being alive was a good point. I couldn’t honestly say. The latter concern, though, I was less worried about. If it was alive, chances were good Richard could affect it. I mean, he’d shattered the hearts of the warriors we’d just fought, and they were made of ice. The only question was, to what degree? I was willing to bet the dungeon core’s stats were off the charts.

“Worth a try,” I said. “We’ll just have to get you close.”

“Close, yes… How wonderful,” he replied dryly.

When we finally caught up to Eskil, he was, predictably, surrounded by enemies. With Aerion still slumped over his shoulder. With no other option, Richard and I fought our way to his position, coming close enough to keep an eye on Aerion, but not so close that we found ourselves inside his ax’s range. Richard aside, I had no doubt Eskil wouldn’t hesitate to lop off my head if he got the chance.

Our current situation, while cosmetically similar to the situation we’d just come from, was actually quite a bit better. Five thousand was a large number, but it was a whole lot better than flailing against infinity. Between Eskil’s whirlwind of carnage, Richard’s subtle but important heart breaking, and me protecting him, we were causing some serious damage. Eskil alone probably took out two hundred, and between Richard and me, I wouldn’t be surprised if we’d racked up another hundred.

And it hadn’t even taken all that long. At this rate, we’d carve out a sizeable chunk of this army.

Unfortunately, our elite team had one glaring flaw—none of us had ranged attack capability. Which meant that, despite the dungeon core sitting pretty right above our heads, we couldn’t touch it. Not unless we somehow vaulted ourselves hundreds of feet into the air. That was a problem I’d been banging my head against, but so far, I had nothing.

That was when the three horseback-mounted Ice Commanders picked their moment to enter, and our situation rapidly devolved from ‘only slightly hopeless’ to ‘we’re all going to die.’

That was because, unlike all the action movies I’d ever seen, the minions didn’t mysteriously back away when the commander took to the field.

Nope. In fact, their morale strengthened, and they came at us even harder. Except now, they were joined by an absolutely lethal monster.

“Duck!” I yelled as one of the Commanders caught sight of us and threw his javelin our way.

The giant spear shattered just before it hit Richard, turning into a cloud of fast-moving shrapnel.

Luckily, Richard had learned his lesson from the serpent fight, and slammed his body against the ground.

The barrage of shards was so vast that even I got caught in the crossfire, with my armor taking most of the damage. Unfortunately, one of the shards found its way into a gap in my armor… Specifically, in my left shoulder.

I cried out in pain, falling to one knee as the ice shard embedded itself into my wound,

Fatal mistake. I saw his next attack coming, but all I could do was curse myself for allowing myself to fall to my knee. I was vulnerable and the enemy Commander knew it. I saw his scimitar sweep down at my neck, its curved, icy blade promising an instant, painless death.

Light of the Fearless wouldn’t make it in time. No weapon would.

But my inventory was another story.

I thought about throwing Rocky, but that would be a waste. What if I couldn’t recover it later? My Steel Mace flew out, aimed directly at the Commander’s face.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

He didn’t even move to protect himself. All he could do was stare in horror as the mace collided with his face… At the same exact moment his scimitar hit me.

The only reason I lived was because the flat side of the scimitar smashed into my face, its wielder having all but forgotten about his attack.

My helmet’s chin guard protected my jaw, but my nose was a different story.

Two things happened at once. My nose shattered… And the commander was knocked off his mount, landing with a sickening crunch on the ice a few feet away.

I barely noticed. My vision went white as blinding pain consumed me. I screamed as I clutched my bleeding face and rolled around on the ground like a child.

The pain was unbelievable. It hadn’t just been my nose. The blade must have shattered something else in there because it didn’t subside. I just wanted to curl up and die.

“Greg!” A voice penetrated the haze. “You’ve got to get a hold of yourself!”

I tried. I really did. I knew we were surrounded by enemies. I knew Richard could only hold them off for a few moments, and I knew that if I didn’t pick up the slack, we’d all die.

Despite that, my eyes refused to open. My arms felt like wet noodles and my legs had turned to jello. My limbs didn’t respond when I asked them to move. I had no idea pain could do this to someone…

And then, another voice came through.

“Greg, if you don’t get up, I’ve a mind to punch you after we get out.”

That didn’t sound very fun.

I blinked. I recognized that voice.

“Aerion?” I squeaked, opening my eyes. All around me, chaos reigned. My first thought was that it looked like the middle of a battlefield. A second later, my foggy brain recognized that this was, in fact, exactly what it was.

And I was on the ground—the worst possible place I could be.

I grabbed my sword and scrambled to my feet. “Your threat was super effective,” I said, flashing Aerion a thumbs up, which earned me a look of confusion from the elf as she thrust my mace into my chest.

“Stop losing your weapons,” she said with a wry smile.

I stashed the weapon in my inventory and smirked. “I’ll try. Not all of us are blessed with godly bashing powers like you, you know?”

That was all the time we had for banter because the swarm that Richard had been keeping at bay poured forth, and I was back in the fight… albeit with a broken nose.

Oddly enough, the pain rapidly abated, to where I didn’t even feel it. On the other hand, my motions grew increasingly fluid, my strikes more aggressive. I ripped through the ice soldiers faster than before, like a scalpel through rushing water.

It wasn’t long before Aerion joined me, and we started splitting our way to the next commander’s location.

The feeling was so intoxicating that I lost myself in the fight, cutting apart enemies one after another with Aerion by my side doing much the same and Richard breaking hearts from behind, that it was some minutes before I realized that not just one, but two enemy commanders had gone down. Courtesy of our resident Neanderthal.

That left just one more commander, and the head honcho. The white walker.

As it so happened, the four of us converged on the poor commander at the same time.

It wasn’t a fight. It was a fucking massacre. Eskil’s ax split the commander’s ice horse cleanly in two, lopping off the guy’s right arm.

If the loss of an arm fazed him, the commander sure didn’t show it. Executing a perfect backflip off his bisected mount, he drew his sword and engaged Aerion.

He’d chosen poorly. If he thought the little elf was a soft target, he learned just how wrong he was in the seconds that followed. Aerion ripped into the guy like a rabid dog, pummeling him with Aurora, each strike augmented by [Shock]. This, on top of [Reave] and [Fading Fury] meant it was all the guy could do to defend.

Too bad for him, he still had three of us to deal with. Richard cleared out the nearby rabble and softened the Commander, while Eskil and I went in for the kill.

If I was honest, Eskil alone would have done the job—decapitation tended to kill most things—but for good measure, I speared him through his torso, activating Light of the Fearless’ twin abilities to turn the attack into a horizontal slice that separated his upper body from the bottom.

The Ice Commander fell to the ground… In three pieces.

I flung the ice from my blade and formed a line with my allies. Everywhere I looked, enemies surrounded us, encircling us like a noose. A noose of about twenty feet. Standing. Waiting. Not daring to step any closer. Because anything that did, died.

And behind that army was the Supreme Commander himself.

The horse-mounted White Walker cut an unbelievably imposing figure, and now that we were closer, he was even more impressive than ever. His very presence exuded a pressure unlike anything I’d experienced. This guy was strong. And he was laughing at us, cackling like the arch-villain he was.

“Do you think you can defeat me?” he asked, clearly amused.

“I do not fight battles I cannot win,” Eskil murmured. It was a strangely subdued response from the Viking. No bravado or bluster. I suppose he felt the pressure as much as we did.

I didn’t know if I shared his optimism, but even so, we came here to win.

And so, four pairs of eyes turned towards him at the same time. A slew of pending System Messages flew down my sight.

Congratulations! Dominion has increased from 50 to 54.

Congratulations! [Light of the Fearless]’s Ability [Light of the Fearless] has leveled up to Emergence - 0.

Congratulations! [Light of the Fearless]’s Ability [Shadow of the Fearless] has leveled up to Emergence - 0.

Congratulations! [Light of the Fearless] has ranked up to Emergence.

Congratulations! [Shadow of the Fearless] has ranked up to Emergence.

Congratulations! [Initializer] has leveled up to Emergence - 10 (MAX). Max Essence Increased from 310 to 330. Essence Utilization: 282/330. Would you like to reclaim Initialized equipment?

I extended my arm and pointed Light of the Fearless at our enemy. Aerion lifted Aurora, Richard his Needle, and Eskil, his giant ax.

The final boss of this dungeon, and the last hurdle we had to clear, had arrived.