“We’re leaving them behind.”

At his blue-eyed friend’s decision, the winged player furrows his brows.

“What are you saying now? I can make two trips and bring them up. There’s no need to abandon them here, only because of a small obstacle… Don’t you see it’s better to have more units with us, Ariet?”

“No, it’s you who doesn’t understand, Vandi.” Says Ariet, turning around and starting to climb the two-meter cliff. “The Dead Hounds are a liability. They’re useless in this terrain, and they can’t climb cliffs. We already lost a few precious minutes the last time it happened, we can’t be wasting time every time there’s another cliff.”

“I’ll make it quicker than the last time!”

“No, you won’t. We’re leaving them behind, so forget about them.”

The undead player reaches the top of the cliff. Following him, the remainder of their support mobs, with the exception of the Dead Hounds, which can’t climb vertical surfaces, start climbing the rocky surface.

“But won’t we miss them later? There might be somewhere ahead where they can shine…”

“Don’t get me started on missing units…” Says Ariet, fury seeping into his words. “Do I have to remind you the reason we lost our last zombie? The reason why I have to use my skeletons as scouts!? And this is without having fought any monster yet!”

“Ahaha… everybody makes mistakes…”

“The same mistake, three times in a row!?” Ariet’s shout echoes in the empty abyss, an army of voices repeating the word ‘row’ for a long time. “You allowed all our zombies to fall to their death because you didn’t properly check our path!”

Vandi scratches his head. “Well, I was distracted…”

“Yeah, sure. Distracted. Don’t you mean overconfident? *Sigh…* What a scout you are…”

“Hmph! Says Mister Perfect, the one who never makes mistakes. Oh, sorry, I’m wrong. You do make mistakes. Like making the entrance too dark to see the opponents!”

“As if my mistake is comparable to yours! Just admit it–” The undead player stops in the middle of his sentence, when he sees a spell being fired at them. “Enemy attack! I’m sure they came because of your shouts.”

“Haha, how funny you are!” Counters Vandi, his voice filled with sarcasm. “It was you who shouted the loudest.”

“Stop!” Shouts Ariet, forcefully finishing the argument. “Focus on the battle first!”

With their faces still contorted with anger, they duck behind the closest rocks. From there, they observe the trajectories of the attacks, trying to locate their aggressors.

A mix of arrows and spells falls upon them, most of them stopped by the rocks they’re hiding behind.

“They’re hiding in that crevice.” Ariet analyzes the situation. “We’ll need to go all the way around to get close, we can’t allow them to play a stalling game. Shit! I knew fights would be hard because of this damn terrain.”

Vandi snorts. “The terrain? This is nothing to me. Watch me, I’ll solve this by myself.” He says before flying toward the place where the enemies are hiding.

“Stop! What if there’s a trap?”

“Ha! There are no traps here.”

Instead of coming back at Ariet’s warning, Vandi beats his wings with more force, gaining velocity.

“Ugh… you fool… what if there are more enemies than you can handle…?”

Left behind, the undead player has only one option left: to chase after him.

He starts running, followed by the remaining support mobs, using the passage hanging over the abyss. He orders the Touched, the only ones who have healing skills, to make sure nobody dies to the ranged attacks.

The path twists and turns. As expected, Vandi, who can fly, engages the monsters before Ariet and the support minions can reach a quarter of the distance they need to cross.

“Fuck! Will we make it on time…? Ugh, not again…”

In front of him, there’s one of those places where the path might crumble, but he doesn’t stop, hoping for the best. Luckily for him, the bridge stands firm and nobody falls into the abyss below.

Ariet keeps a close eye on the fight, trying to get as much information as possible.

“You don’t have the Champion’s buff! Stop fighting alone!” Ariet shouts in a last-ditch effort to change Vandi’s mind. But the only thing he achieves is to further fuel his ego.

“I don’t need it. I’m the king of the skies, such weak monsters can’t stop me. Hahaha!”

True to his words, the angel player is avoiding most attacks, while flying around and attacking with his own. Thanks to his superior mobility, the enemy can’t use cover effectively. But he’s against too many enemies. If reinforcements come, he won’t survive.

Ariet massages his temples to calm his frustration and takes a look behind him, to make sure all the support mobs are properly following him.

It’s then that he notices one Touched, the Divine Blood’s basic unit, is missing. “Did it fall off…? No, it’s there. What’s it doing?”

He sees the missing Touched standing still, some distance away. He squeezes his eyes, trying to grasp the situation.

“Paralyzed…? No, it has a grayish tone. Petrified, then. Petrified…? But I don’t remember the demons or shapeshifters having easy access to it…”

Ariet shakes his head in denial, decides to leave the petrified Touched to its luck, and resumes running.

Now that he’s about to reach the halfway mark, he can finally see the monsters Vandi is fighting against. Some look like the standard demons, but two of them look like a two-headed imp and goblin monstrosity.

“I knew it! The Flesh Monstrosities! Why didn’t Vandi warn me…? No, I’m sure he did it on purpose.”

He immediately looks around searching for any sign of hidden enemies. They could be anywhere, as the Flesh Monstrosites have almost infinite possibilities.

“Wait, if they have a petrifying skill, this means…”

Ariet opens his eyes wide at his realization. They’ve been lucky so far, but if there’s a chance to be petrified, Vandi could fall to his death at any moment.

“Vandi! Stop fighting and come back immediately! It isn’t safe!” He shouts.

Vandi stops flying around for a moment to turn to look at him. He crosses his arms in defiance.

“Ha! I won’t! You want to have all the glory to yourself.”

“Ugh, he’s so…” Ariet strongly squeezes his fists and increases his speed. “At least, stop flying around and stand on the ground, please!” He pleads one last time.

“So you want me to die? I never expected you to fall so low!”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“No, this isn’t it…” Knowing it’s useless and he won’t change his mind, Ariet lowers his shoulders in defeat. “...you fool… if we lose this because of you, I swear…”

Ariet starts running at his maximum speed. Now he’s moving so fast that a single misstep will make him fall to his death.

“Please, I need to make it in time… If I’m near, I can at least grab him with my Vine Snare before he falls…”

Due to the increased speed, one of the Touched makes a mistake and falls into the abyss. One skeleton soon follows it.

“Shit! This is so bad…!” Ariet despairs at the current situation. “At this rate, never mind Vandi, all of us might…”

Unaware of Ariet’s worries, Vandi continues to laugh and fly around.

“At this rate, I’ll have finished before you get here, Ariet! Hahaha! Who’s the useless scout now, huh? My contribution to this Dungeon Battle is a lot higher than–”

But before he can finish his sentence, his Champion turns gray and he falls, still wearing the same smug expression on his face.

Ariet observes Vandi’s petrified champion fall with anguish.

The recently created statue crashes on the cliff. There it slips, getting closer and closer to completely falling off, before stopping.

“Wow, it’s a miracle…” The undead player releases all his pent-up emotions in a sigh of relief. “Now I’ll save him and–”

Right at this moment, one of those imp and goblin monstrosities kicks the statue, making it fall from the cliff’s edge. The monster then looks indifferently at Ariet, as if to mock him.

“–NOOOOOOOOOOO!!”

Ariet extends his arms, reaching for Vandi’s statue, but he’s way too far away to reach it. He grabs his hair and starts pulling. If this weren’t a game, he might turn bald after this day.

“Where’s the fucking monster that did this!?” He shouts. “Before the battle ends, I must find it. I’ll have my revenge!”

----------------------------------------

The first thing we see after climbing the stairs is a large, white shining ball of light. Weirdly enough, now that we’re closer to it, it feels like the light is less intense than before. Must be because the surroundings aren’t so dark.

The chanting voices are also louder. There’s no doubt they come from the hooded humanoids standing in a circle around the shining sphere.

“I’m sure this is the last fight,” I say.

Laura nods. “Me too. But why are there sacred elements all around? Weren’t the undead the main theme?”

“This looks like a temple of some kind. Maybe we’re in a desecrated temple? Or maybe it’s an evil cult?”

“Hmmm… it makes sense… Anyway, let’s get closer first.”

We get closer to the creepy ritual, making as little noise as possible. We don’t want to alert them before we’re ready.

There are two rows of hooded figures, standing a few meters apart from each one. The smaller circle is composed of about ten silhouettes while the external one has at least thirty, maybe more.

“That’s a large number of enemies, “ I whisper. “It might get messy.”

“You’re right…” Laura scans the enemies standing in front of us. “The ones in the outer ring are Touched, aren’t they? They shouldn’t be that strong. But the ones in the central ring are another story.”

I ponder for a while before giving my opinion on the matter.

“They look like Touched, with the glowing rune on their foreheads. And the others…they should be in the 200 cp range.”

“How do you know? Did I miss something?” She tilts her head to the side, asking me to explain what I saw and she didn’t.

“It’s just my gut feeling.”

“...”

At my answer, she sends me a killing glare.

“...Why?” I shrug my shoulders. “We have no other info about them, so my gut feeling is better than nothing, don’t you think? Hahaha…” Still feeling her uncomfortable gaze on me, I decide to follow up with something else. “You know… I should be able to take care of the outer ring by myself, though I’ll need some time to finish them off. Do you think you can deal with the inner ring until then?”

Seeing that I don’t intend to fool around anymore, she recovers her usual neutral expression.

“Hmm… If they’re indeed at the 200 cp range,” she says, sending me one last glare, “I should be able to deal with them with the help of our support mobs… I think.”

“Nice! Then, let’s get rolling! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

We move ourselves into position and I start casting Chain Lightning. As soon as the spell is completed, I shout out loud.

“Eat this, you creepy cultists! Fuck you all! I’m going to make sure there’s not a single one of you damned cultists alive! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

You can’t imagine how good it feels to shout this. I’ve been accumulating too much stress thanks to some stupid cultists… It’s a shame I can’t go and get rid of those cultists, so the ones in front of me will have to do.

…For now.

As soon as the first spell comes out, I start casting a second Chain Lightning. And a third. I don’t want to risk them splitting up, so I better secure my win while they’re still in formation.

“Here goes all my MP…” I comment, watching my status screen. It’ll take some time to recover my MP, even with the Mana Core passive.

The first spell hits the closest Touched, and the lightning starts to spread. Due to their sheer numbers, it stops quite soon, and only six or seven Touched fall to the ground. When the second hits, the Shared Voltage and the Battery upgrade start doing some work, incapacitating almost all the remaining ones and leaving only the furthest ones standing.

As for the third Chain Lightning… Let’s say there should be enough excess damage to one-hit-kill most units. Unfortunately, there are no more infinite lightning chains, so it just goes to waste.

Yeah… the third one was a little bit overkill. But I didn’t want to risk it, so who cares?

“It’s clean-up time!”

I make a round, circling over the shining sphere and finishing off all the paralyzed enemies. “Whaaah, hyaak! Paaaam!” I make weird cries every time I swing my staff. Why? Because I can.

It’s similar to the Whac-A-Zombie game, but not quite as good.

Whac-A-Touched. Doesn’t it sound weird? Whac-A-Zombie sounds a lot better, and also makes a lot more sense, since zombies come out of the ground, like moles.

At about the halfway point, the paralyzed enemies start awakening up, only for the closest one to me to hit me with a melee attack, triggering the Lightning Shield, and starting the chain again.

Thanks, bud. You made my life easier.

“Maaaaaaaaaa! Raaait! Ratatatataa!” I end my killing spree and swipe my nonexistent sweat. “Ufff, uff… it was hard. Too much exercise.”

I calmly observe Laura’s fight against the ten elite monsters. She’s doing pretty well. So far, the only casualty is one Imp. I can see its corpse from here…

“If you’re finished, I would appreciate your help!” She shouts.

Who is she talking to? I look around in confusion. I already did my part, so she can’t be talking to me, right?

“Stop fooling around! I’m talking about you, Mad Rat!” Her voice sounds a lot angrier than before.

“Hahaha… One Chain Lightning coming up!”

My MP has recovered enough for me to cast another Chain Lighting. Finishing off thirty monsters isn’t as quick as it sounds.

As soon as the lightning hits the first enemy, it starts a chain reaction, – heh, how ironic for a spell called Chain Lightning to start a reaction, don’t you think? – spreading to the other elite monsters.

They aren’t as tightly packed as before, so only four are affected, but those that are, are reduced to ashes… I mean, to 1 HP and paralyzed.

My intervention is good enough to secure our win.

“See, I’m helping too,” I say, preparing to sit down and relax while I watch the show. Now that there’s no way Laura is going to be defeated, I can finally rest assured…

Or I should be able to because I’m sure she knows what I’m thinking. Before I can sit down, the little demon calls for me again.

“You’re right. And it would be amazing if you keep helping me.”

“*Sigh* Alright…” Why do I have to keep working? Can’t I take a break while you fight for me? This is rat exploitation! I’m going to denounce you to the animal rights association!

Reluctantly I ready my staff once again and prepare to join the melee.

The fight progresses as I expected, and we start overwhelming them now that they don’t have the numerical advantage. I help too with a few spells and staff attacks until, finally, the last elite monster falls to the ground.

“Whew…” Laura exhales. “This was intense. But now we should be finished here…”

No, why did you have to say this!? Don’t you know this is the best way to get yourself killed!? You should never raise death flags!

But I don’t have time to shout out my complaints because immediately after, the shining sphere starts pulsating. White spheres come out of the dead units, allied and enemies alike, and start floating to the big, shining, and now distorted sphere.

See!? I was right!

We observe the orb’s transformation. It grows darker and darker until it looks like a black hole.

We exchange a look. We both have the same scared expression right now.

I’m not sure if she’s scared of the unknown, or if she knows what’s coming, but… I sure am afraid of what’ll happen next.

Because I DO know what comes next.

“Oooh, shit,” I say, covering my face with one hand. “I know what this is. Isn’t this Baldy’s favorite…?”

I anxiously check our surroundings. More than forty corpses. If we sum all the cp costs, it should be at least 5.000 cp… It’s just a quick approximation, but in any way I look at it…

Yep, we’re fucked.

[https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]

“The best part of this Dungeon Battle was watching the replay from the opponents’ side. There was so much bickering and complaining that they barely achieved anything. The suffering at the end, when one was dead, criticizing everything, while the other was alone, was exquisite.”