The team was resting as they waited for the door to open to their next challenge. Levi had pulled out some food and began making a stew. Levi was starting to get sick of stews. However, it was the best and easiest meal to make with this small camping cast iron pot and fire. Doing everything in one pot and adding various vegetables and meats made it the best. On top of being convenient, it was also quite filling, often resulting in leftovers and full bellies.

Levi walked over to Piper, who was lying on the bed, recovering from the several arrows that hit her as she was leaving the room.

“How you feeling?” Levi asked.

“I’m good,” she said. “Tycen’s healing spell and your ritual are really doing a great job, but it is still taking longer than expected. I hope I’m ready in time.” Dameion flew over to Piper, his nebula changed color, and he began slithering around her. Small bits that looked like stars in the heavens landed on her wounds and began glowing. Instantly the wounds started to close, and Piper’s face became more relaxed as the pain faded away. Piper slumped back into her bed; eyes closed asleep. Levi gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead and left her to recover.

“Does it always force you to sleep?” Levi asked.

“Yes,” Serenity said for Dameion. “It is powerful healing magic; the side effect is forced rest. It is not like being unconscious; it is more akin to being put to sleep with a lullaby.”

“Interesting,” Levi said. “Good to know now and not in a battle.”

“Just so,” Serenity said. Levi nodded and took this time to stretch and do some meditation. It was a wild thing, being a magical being. His muscles rarely got sore or tight. He often wondered how superheroes never had to stretch before they fought. It made sense now. Stretching was more of a meditation for his mind and soul than for his body. Even though he still did enjoy the feeling a nicely stretched body felt like.

After a couple of hours of rest, sleep, or meditation, the team all were now sitting on the ground eating stew. They were all very satisfied with the meal, and everyone looked completely refreshed. Anna was amazed at how well the team recovered. She loved being on a three-star team with members who worked hard but also saw the importance of recovery and rest. At this point in the dungeon, Levi and Piper have taken serious damage; each had fully recovered but serious damage none the less.

The door swung open, and the team made their way through the tunnel. They entered a small clearing where there were several small houses with villagers. They were satyrs, half goats, half humans. Some had large horns, and some had none at all. They all had various colored furs and were all different sizes. Levi pushed out his senses and calculated that there were likely 50 villagers or so.

“This is weird,” Levi said.

“Are they real?” Anna asked.

“They are real, but I don’t know how sentient.”

A bell in the center of the town rang and every villager started sprinting around in a mad panic.

“What the hells,” Piper said.

“That’s our cue,” Levi said and started sprinting toward the town center. As they approached there was a horde of monsters approaching from all angles of the village. Giant spiders, zombies, and lesser demons were approaching.

“That is trouble,” Tycen said. “Each of us take a cardinal direction and win your battle.”

“Bet,” Levi said. He took off to the south of the village.

“Sounds good,” Piper said as she took off north.

“Be safe, Tycen,” Anna said sincerely and ran east. Tycen went in the opposite direction going west. Tycen loved these types of battles. Large open areas for him to fly and do damage. He was a heavy hitter, and being able to hit hard and evade through the sky was exactly how he got his class evolution as arch angel. Tycen chanted a spell and his morning star started to glow red. He dived bomb down into the center of the horde, locking in on one massive spider. He smashed the spider down and an explosion happened the second he contacted the spider. The explosion radius cleared out a small circle inside the hordes number.

Not looking to see the aftermath of the attack, he did that over and over again. All that could be heard were small explosions as Tycen flew from group to group, utterly destroying all the monsters. Tycen’s speed was slower than Piper's, but not by much. He was fast, powerful, and agile. His skills were impressive as well. Being able to see and react to how enemies were moving was impressive.

Tycen was grinning at how free he felt in this combat situation. He grabbed a zombie by the head and threw it into another zombie. A lesser demon approached, and he swung his morning star into the head, taking it clean off. Lesser demons were small demons about the size of humans with red leathery skin, red leathery wings, and a long pitchfork tail. They were called lesser because they were smaller and weaker. They were required to attack in packs or hordes, while greater demons were a much bigger threat. They attacked with sharp claws and with biting. In contrast, greater demons could use spells.

Tycen had no problem killing lesser demons, the speed of his weapon cutting through all the monsters like room-temperature butter. The issue that Tycen would face is stamina. The sheer number of monsters was what was keeping the archangel from being overly confident. Tycen imagined that everyone would be facing the same problem. The monsters were easy enough to kill; there were just thousands of them. Could they have the stamina to last the whole fight?

Levi pushed out his senses and found that the horde was immense. He shook his head; this was going to be a long battle. He sent out fifteen drones, and Anza loose. The mimics were able to set up a solid line of destruction as the monsters got close. After that, he let his crystal wisps familiars enter swarm mode and attack every monster in their way. Dameion couldn’t attack still. He could release chaotic energy, which Levi suspected that he could use to do substantial damage.

Dameion changed colors to midnight red and dark gray, a sign of chaotic energy, and released it over a small section of enemies. Dark clouds with red streaks fell on the group of enemies. Levi held out a hand and focused on activating the chaotic energy, and the energy exploded. Levi looked on with wide eyes and laughed. Levi pulled out his wand and began drawing out a summoning circle.

From the center of the summoning circle were large insect-like creatures the size of large dogs. They had the abdomen of a wasp, with the face of and pincers of a bullet ant. They had eight eyes that went all over their body.

“Alright flesh-eating mites,” Levi said. “There are zombies and lesser demons out there for you to devour… go crazy.” The insects took off. As one left the summoning circle, another would follow; shortly after, fifty of the flesh-eating mites were pouring over the battlefield. Levi used Vapor to fly high above the battlefield to watch the battle going on.

Anza, in her alpha form, was eight feet tall, double the height of the drones. Anza had double the tentacles and double the power. In terms of solo action, she was the one who was the most lethal. This caused the enemies to focus on attacking her, and unfortunately for the monsters that only made things worse for them. Anza would whip out her tentacles and sharpen them to be mini spears. Each easily cut, penetrating, or slashing down monsters with one single strike. The drones followed her example, although not as strong or big they were very effective. Levi looked to his right and saw fire rising and an awful stench of burning leather, rotten flesh, and whatever smell the burning spider gave off. As his crystal wisps were setting that section of enemies on fire.

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Piper was having a tough time. She was not a wide-area attack specialist but a close one-on-one combat specialist. She had managed to kill many monsters, but her stamina was dropping really low. Sweat pouring down her face she looked up after killing a couple hundred monsters in thirty seconds. She sighed as there were still many more coming.

“Can I get some help,” she said breathlessly. In a moment, a summoning circle was drawn in the air above her. “Please don’t give me those horrifying bugs, I will pass out…” Levi chuckled.

“Then don’t come watch my battle,” he said. “I got a swarm monster coming to help you. I’ll do a void storm as well.”

Before the summoning circle was completed, Piper looked up and saw Dameion slither over a large area in the sky, which created a rip in the physical realm. Down poured beams of cosmic light obliterated a few hundred monsters, Giving Piper a much-needed reprieve. She drew herself a stamina recovery ritual and felt its effect. Then, the summoning circle was completed, and spectral creatures landed next to Piper. They all had bows and arrows. They looked at Piper for direction.

“Fire at all enemies,” she instructed. “When you need to conjure arrows, let me know and I will go and attack while you reconjure.” The archers nodded, then turned to the battlefield. They knocked an arrow, and all fired at once. Arrows rained down on the monsters killing several as they made their slow movement to the town.

Anna was having no trouble with the monsters, but her mana was running low. Her blizzard spell and her hailstorm spell were highly effective against the seemingly unending threat of monsters. She had easily mowed down a few hundred monsters. Anna was a hard-hitting sorceress, which was great in wide-area battles like this. What was not great was that she dealt heavy wide area damage at the cost of most of her mana. She had down a couple of mana potions already but was still feeling the fatigue set in. She looked down and saw that a ritual circle was being drawn under her.

The blue light of mana started to pour out of the ritual circle and into Anna's mana stream. Anna felt refreshed and was able to continue her onslaught of attacks. She mentally thanked Levi because she knew he was the only one to draw a ritual circle from wherever he was. She felt her mana stream begin to fill to full; it was now recharging faster than she could cast spells.

After what seemed like an hour of fighting, there was a loud ding, and the monsters stopped and then vanished. The group slowly walked to the center of the village where the bell was and found that it had lifted out of the ground to form a small portal. The team stepped through, exhausted. They entered into the expected resting room. On the wall, there was a clock that read six hours. They were given more time to rest.

“Thank you, Levi, for all the rituals,” Tycen said.

“Yes,” Anna said. “That was most helpful.” Levi nodded, his stamina and mana were very low. He had used the void storm a couple of times on top of the rituals and summoning he had done. Levi estimated that he had killed close to 2000 enemies.

Piper walked over to him and kissed him. Levi smiled, and the team all crashed without much discussion, the beds feeling extra comfortable. Levi was the first to wake up with his headache gone, and most of his stamina recovered. He walked over to the table and drank a stamina position. It tasted like a lemon-lime sports drink he used to drink back home. He enjoyed the flavor. Levi hadn’t checked his stats yet, but he knew that the battle had given him some progress. He wasn’t sure how much because the monsters were all one-star. Killing hundreds of one-star monsters was not nearly as helpful as killing one three-star. Levi wasn’t sure exactly why it was that way, but he didn’t really question it.

Progress Made: Levi Winters

Plus 30 to stamina

Plus 15 to Wisdom

Attributes Total: 1395

Strength 135

Stamina 190

Speed 130

Vitality 235

Wisdom 655

Objective: Floor #3 - Protect the Village - Completed

Reward: Villagers Cloak

Reward: Villager’s Tunic

Reward: Pan Flute

Monsters Defeated: Zombies x750

Loot: Blood 5kg

Loot: 10,000 Copper pieces

Loot: Amulet of the Undead

Monster Defeated: Giant Creeping Spiders x750

Loot: Spider webs 10kg

Loot: Spider Venom 10kg

Loot: Arachnoid Wand

Monster Defeated: Lesser Demons x500

Loot: Chaotic Shard Dust 5kg

Loot: 7,000 Silver Pieces

Loot: Demon Dagger

Loot: Demon Wings

After reading the reward and loot from the battle, Levi was weirded out that he had a bag of blood. He knew it was for summoning, but that seemed like a weird thing to have, no less the sheer amount of it. Levi was curious to check out all the items he had received from each dungeon floor once he got out. He had definitely received items that could help him, but he was nervous to try anything new that could mess up his strategy. Levi pushed those thoughts to the side and began meditating.

The team woke up feeling refreshed and made their way into the next room. It was a large room but mostly empty. Not what they had expected after seeing the last two rooms full of random things. Inside the room was a large statue of a being with a tri-blade spear that looked like it was made of bone. It was sitting on a throne that also looked like it was made out of bone. As soon as the team walked in, the door behind them slammed closed. The eyes in the statue glowed green.

The statute came to life, emitting a spooky green glow. It narrowed its eyes at the team of four. The statue was of a man who was 10 feet tall and made completely of bone. He had a bone crown on top of his skeleton head that was now flaming with green flames, his chest was covered in an extravagant bone chest plate, his legs were covered in the same style of bone leg plates. A small cape made of green flames fell behind the monster.

“Any ideas what this is?” Levi asked.

“No,” Anna whispered.

“Not at all,” Tycen responded.

“I think this was the assassin leader of the ancient clan, McNarrow,” Piper said. “My dad used to tell me legends of the once glorious assassin, who didn’t use shadows to do his killings but cunning and power. What gave it away is the spear. That is the classic weapon that all tales have told about the leader. Large tri-bladed spear infused with death magic. It’s toxic and causes necrosis upon every hit, doesn’t matter if its large or small. The cuts will deal deadly damage.”

“Lovely,” Levi said. “So how do we beat something that is already dead?”

“I don’t know,” Piper said. “I know one thing is forsure.”

“What’s that,” Anna asked.

“Magic spells won’t work on it. The green flame it emits is a magic blocker and its life force. Simple water magic won’t be able to do much damage. The longer it fights, the more damage it takes, the weaker its attacks get.”

“I see,” Levi said. “The green flames are what holds it together; we have to do some physical damage while also getting it to expend the flames.”

“Exactly,” Piper said. “I don’t know what the best way to do that is, however.”

“There are no traps in the room, so that’s good,” Anna said.

“My weapon will be effective against it,” Tycen said.

“Yes, any weapon that bludgeons will have the advantage as it will be able to break the bones. Since it has no skin, my swords will be useless…” Piper said.

“I can summon some golems,” Levi said. “They always have maces.”

“I have an idea,” Anna said. Then Anna conjured some onyx stones and handed one to Piper. Piper used her powers to turn it into a mace. Anna did the same.

“This’ll do,” Piper said. “This’ll do nicely.”