<~> CHAPTER 26

The slime ricocheted off my shield where it got nailed by one of Luna's bolts of fire. I slashed down at a different slime that was open and killed it all before bringing my large shield back up in front of me. Maxwell was making short work of the slimes on the other side of the room and even Piper had joined the fight directly since the slimes were becoming less and less of a threat as we got used to fighting them.

Like the last few times, this slime room had gone fast. It had taken much longer to find another slime room than it had taken to kill all of them. I leaned my large shield on the ground and wiped the sweat from my forehead. One benefit of fighting as a wolf was that I didn't sweat all over the place. The only reason I wasn't more self-conscious about it was that I wasn't the only one who had worked up a sweat.

("It looks like my side bag's full of cores now. I have about fifty now, that's probably more than we need for a while,") Piper told me through the rings. After the second slime room, she had become much more liberal with her mana use for the rings. Drawing energy from the cores wasn't instant but it meant that she didn't need to worry about wasting all of her mana without the ability to recover it. She had to avoid using the rings in combat but when she could draw energy from one of the cores she could speak to us without any restraint. Luna had a small bag of the slime cores too but she didn't carry nearly as many as Piper did.

I turned toward Luna. ("Why didn't you guys just hunt some slimes if it made things so much easier to communicate?")

She looked up at me and frowned. ("We didn't really want to spend the time on it. The only reason we have the luxury of hunting slimes on the way back is because we've been able to hunt so many things worth a lot of gold on this trip. That and... the guy we had before we met you didn't want to waste his time on slimes.")

I frowned at the reminder of their dead... companion? Teammate? I didn't know what to call him. The few times that Luna and Piper have talked about the guy haven't been flattering. It still made me a bit uncomfortable to hear how little his death seems to have affected them emotionally though. Piper even seemed happy he was dead from what I could gather. It felt a little gross to hear how... disposable lives could be in this world.

("Maxwell thinks we've spent enough time on this floor. We need to find the stairs soon,") Luna told me.

("Any idea how to find them?") I asked. ("So far everything looks more or less the same.")

("We have an item that can help. It's usually for emergencies but this floor is confusing enough that it should be fine to use it for this.")

Suddenly a loud noise somewhere between a groan and a roar echoed through the walls of the maze we were in. I sheathed my sword and shifted into my wolf form. Whatever made that sound was big and as much as I've had some practice fighting in my human form, I'd rather have my claws for whatever made that noise.

The others dropped what they were doing and turned in the direction of the noise too. It had been loud enough that the others had heard it.

("What was that?") I asked Luna.

Maxwell started speaking quickly and tightened the straps on his backpack.

("Maxwell says we need to run! It's a floor boss, this one isn't easy to deal with, we're better off trying to escape!") Luna said with panic in her voice.

Maxwell snapped something in his hands and a golden mist started going toward one of the doors. He pointed and said something along the lines of 'this way!' from what I could tell.

I pushed Luna forward. ("I'll go last, it'll be safer that way.")

I slung my shield over my back and followed the group through the door. I glanced behind me. The monster wasn't close enough yet that I could hear its footsteps but the roars were getting closer. We started moving forward as quickly as we could. The floors and walls were still trapped so we couldn't go at a full-blown sprint but I had gotten so good at noticing the traps that Luna was able to guide Maxwell past them with my help.

I couldn't help but keep looking back. The roars were still getting closer. We had taken turns, gone down a few paths that felt like they were doubling back, and ran down what few lengths of hallway we could, but the roars kept getting closer.

("Luna, what do we do if it catches up to us?") I asked.

("It's a large bipedal monster that carries a huge axe. All we can really do is fight it if it catches up to us.")

("Would it be better to fight in the open or in a hallway?")

There was a pause before Luna answered. ("Probably an open room, it would be too hard for all of us to fight it without getting hurt if we try and fight it in a hallway.")

I used the rings to talk to Piper, ("Tell Maxwell to take the next left. I can hear the echo of a large empty room from that direction. We're not going to outrun that thing, we're going to need to fight it directly.")

("Fuck, fine. I'll tell him,") she replied.

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Maxwell nodded and turned left at the next fork. This was the first time since he had used it that we turned away from where the golden mist was leading us but I didn't think we would make it to the stairs at the rate we were going. That thing was getting closer and closer every corridor we walked through.

"Shit." I heard Maxwell say as he slammed open the large double doors. The room looked like a large arena, somewhat like a colosseum. The floor was covered in fine white sand ringed in hard-packed dirt, at the edge of the dirt was an iron ring on the edge of a four-yard drop that led to rusty iron spikes below. Past that, tall walls rose and fanned out into large empty stands. There was a gigantic iron grate above us that let blinding natural-looking light into the room. Trying to look through the grate was like trying to look at the sun, it was too bright.

Maxwell led us to the middle of the room and spun around to face the door. I could hear the monster's hulking steps echo through the hallways now. I moved my shield to my arm. Normally I would have less reach without a sword but I felt safer in this form. I cracked my knuckles as the thing approached.

The monster had dark black fur that rippled over its muscular humanoid body. On its shoulders was a giant bull's head with long pointed horns and deep red eyes. The monster crouched down and roared at us, its muscles rippled with the sheer anger poured into its bellow. Here deep in the maze we found ourselves in, was a Minotaur.

I would have snorted in amusement if the monster was less threatening. Curled in one of its gnarled hands was a gigantic axe made from a dark looking steel. Before I knew it, my mouth was watering. Something deep in my instincts knew that this thing would be tasty when I ate it.

The monster charged at us and for a brief moment I would have considered letting Maxwell try and take it head-on but when he scrabbled out of the monster's path I knew that I would have to be the one that holds this monster down. I lifted my shield and crashed into it. The minotaur didn't expect the sudden attack and it stumbled, barely managing to avoid falling into the spikes below. The minotaur shifted all of his attention to me, it looked pissed.

It raised up its axe. The monster was slower than me but I had a feeling it was much stronger to make up for that. I jumped forward and flung my shield to the side using the guige to keep it from falling away. My arm reached up and wrapped around the monster's bicep as I dug my sharp claws into the muscles to hold the monster's axe arm still. My other hand wrapped around its neck to hold it in place while I did my best to cut off its airway.

The minotaur bellowed out in pain and fury as I locked its arm above its head and cut off its leverage. The monster's other arm slammed into the side of my chest with powerful blows that would have staggered me if I wasn't so grounded. A loud explosion of fire flared to life behind it and forced the two of us to stagger. I recovered faster, by now I was used to Luna's controlled explosions and I trusted her not to catch me in the crossfire.

Wildly struggling, it started pulling my arm off of its throat. Despite my better leverage, it was able to pull away my arm using its raw strength. It gasped and took in a breath of air before slamming its head into my own, knocking me back, and escaping from my grapple.

It panted in lungfuls of air as I recovered from the dizzying attack. When I got my bearings back it let out a scream as Maxwell's glowing blue sword swiped right through the monster's achilles tendon. Before it was able to turn and face him I slashed my claws through its chest. Unfortunately, it was only a flesh wound, I wasn't able to dig in deep enough to hit anything important. But I could hear his heartbeat beneath his chest.

Its focus centered back on me as it took a bloody step forward and slashed at me wildly with its gigantic axe. The weapon was huge and looked to be made of solid metal yet the monster swung it as if it was made of wood even despite its injured arm. The monster didn't seem to have any technique to it, not like Maxwell had when teaching me to use a sword, but I knew that if I got hit by his weapon there was a decent chance I would die right then and there.

Another explosion rocked his body and sent the monster off balance. The sand beneath him had superheated and turned to glass and he stumbled around on the sharp shards, drawing lines of blood through the otherwise white sand. The moment his axe touched the ground I knew I had an opening. I needed to disable his arm, I couldn't fight him on my own terms as long as he held that axe. I darted in and pierced my claws right into the minotaur's forearm this time, doing everything I could to sever tendons, tear muscle, and ruin his arm. I tried to break his bones too but they were too strong, my claws scraped across them without any purchase.

It bellowed and hit me with a backhanded shove. Despite the unfocused attack, the minotaur's sheer strength pushed me through the sand and I barely caught myself from falling into the spikes behind me. I scrambled back to my feet where the heavily panting minotaur took heavy steps in my direction trailing streams of blood through the sand.

IT IS WEAK. TIME FOR THE KILL.

All of my fur puffed up and my drooling mouth opened up. I was salivating. My instincts desperately bid me to tear this monster apart and EAT IT. I darted forward, my clawed hands open. The monster was slower than ever now, it was sluggish compared to me. Its right hand was hanging limply, the large axe had been discarded behind it. Its left fist swung wildly at me but I just ducked under the attack and leaped forward.

With a thud, the minotaur was knocked flat on its back with me on top of it. I stabbed my right-hand claws right through its left bicep and pinned the minotaur to the floor. My left hand pinned down its head, AND I ATE.

My drooling dagger-like teeth ripped into the monster's chest. The meat tasted good, very rich and fatty. Like marbled steak. The part of my brain that was still human laughed at the thought as I tore into my rare Black Angus beef.

I FOUND THE HEART

Ecstasy poured into my veins as chunks of the large tough heart slid down my throat. I paused and shivered in the afterglow of the flavor. My body rippled. I immediately felt stronger as the monster's meat settled in my stomach.

("Helena! Helena!")

I shook my head. I could hear Luna's voice. I lifted myself off of the corpse and wiped the blood off my muzzle before falling onto my ass. I was panting... tired.

My body shifted back to its human form. The blood that had been marking me splashed onto my clothes, I hadn't thought it through when I allowed myself to shift back right now.

I turned to the woman who stood off to the side. Afraid of me... again.

("It's okay Luna. It's alright... I'm alright...")