Liliei gripped her mace tightly as Nalaine came just behind her, preparing her spells. There were two armors just in front of them, guarding the opposite entrance, and the four others were currently on the balcony. All of them had red glow that came from their helmets as they started moving. She heard Lenc behind her as he started telling them what to do.

“Liliei, do you think you could hold them off if you only dodge and don’t attack?”

The thief looked at the armors that were still starting to move. They didn’t have sword and shield but their fingers were elongated like claws and she didn’t really want to be on the receiving end – they looked sharp – but if she concentrated only on dodging, then…

“I’m not sure, but it should be possible.”

“Then do that. Nalaine I’ll need you to…”

Liliei stopped listening on Lenc as she went forward. The sooner she was on the armor, the further they would be from Nalaine and Lenc, which was good if she wanted to stay as their target. By the time she had done half the distance, the armors seemed to be fully awoken, the glow having even intensified, and after a look at her, they dashed forward and nearly hit Liliei who could only barely dodge backward. Damn the things were fast. She had her mace but she let it dissipate – they were too fast for her to try to retaliate so it would be useless – and concentrated on not being hit.

The one thing that made it possible for her was that the armors had no strategy. In the previous rooms they were slow but well organized however, here they acted like mindless beasts, dashing and hitting wildly, sometimes encumbering one another. This only barely allowed Liliei not to get hit as she continued to dodge. After a few minutes dodging – or was it a few seconds, she couldn’t really tell – the armors stopped attacking and without knowing how, she felt they were grinning.

“Dive left!”

When she heard Lenc, she reacted immediately, diving to her left just in time as she heard two loud thuds just behind her and two others a bit further. It took her only one second to realize they were the armors that were on the balcony before who had jumped down – which meant it had only been a few seconds, and that her situation just got worse. She jumped back to her feet and turned to look, just in time to duck under a claw strike. She then jumped backward to take some distance but this time there was an other armor already dashing for her and she was too slow to dodge the strike, getting a large gash on her right arm.

“I could use some help here!” she shouted as she barely dodged another strike.

“Coming soon just a few more seconds.”

Dodging had been manageable when there was only two, but now that the armors were six, it was downright impossible. They still had no coordination but the sheer number of attacks to be conscious of was overwhelming. She quickly got hit another time on her shoulder, then her torso, her legs cam next and she was glad that it didn’t hamper her movements like it would normally – after all she had no muscles that could be torn by the slashes. Finally, the call came from behind.

“Okay run here!”

She didn’t hesitate even one second as she turned and ran with all she could toward Nalaine and Lenc. Nalaine was holding a large pure white sphere between her hands and her brows were scrunched in concentration as Liliei got nearer, followed by the armors. Then the instant she was out of the area of effect of the spell, Nalaine pushed her hands forward while releasing her hold on the magic as she spoke.

“Cone of Frost”

The effect was immediate. The energy contained between her hand shot forward, instantly trapping everything in front of her in a huge cone of ice. The six armors were frozen inside and they could see through the perfectly clear ice that the red glow in their eyes had completely disappeared indicating their death. A few seconds later, Nalaine sat down, soon followed Liliei who immediately set herself to healing her wounds.

“Good job holding them. That must not have been pleasant.”, Nalaine was looking at Liliei’s wounds as she spoke.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

The thief shrugged, “It isn’t, but honestly, it doesn’t compare with losing an arm, so...”, she trailed off. It wasn’t only to reassure her friend either that she said that, as the pain hadn’t really bothered her much, even more since she been prepared for it. She pointed at the large ice block: “anyway, nice spell. You don’t think you could prepare it before going into the room, could you?”

Nalaine laughed a bit before answering.

“No, sadly, this require way too much concentration and precision for me to move while casting it. We need to find another way, also because this pretty much emptied my mana pool and it’s quite taxing.”

Now that she thought about it, Liliei too was starting to feel the tiredness settling in. It was still quite faint, but if she was to do more rooms in the same way, it would quickly become a problem. So, what they needed now was a way to deal with these armors more easily.

The two girls turned in perfect sync, looking at Lenc behind them with a ‘so what do we do?’ look on their face. The man was lost in his thoughts and took a few seconds to realize the look on their face. And responded with a small grin.

“I think I know how we’ll do.”

The next corridor was free of trap, which made Liliei quite happy. They had rested for nearly half an hour for Nalaine to refill her mana pool before continuing. This time however they stopped just before going into the room, letting Nalaine cast a few spells on Liliei.

The Demon wasn’t too proficient at buffing spells – she was more about shooting down the monsters – but she was still able to cast a few and Liliei felt herself suddenly getting swifter and lighter. Then after another few seconds, an area of cold started to spread from the thief, and she went into the room. This time, the room had a major difference from all those they had walked through until now: there was only one other exit, placed right in front of where they came from, but there were still quite a few armors in the room. They were placed around small alcoves where the exits would have been.

The moment Liliei got inside, eight of the armors started moving, turning to look at her. She hadn’t used her Ability since it would require her to degrade her agility, which would be detrimental on the long run. This time there were four armors already on her height and four on the balcony. The ones on the ground rushed at her and she ran toward the ones on her right.

As she approached the armors, the last spell Nalaine had laid on her started to affect them, the initially cold wind beginning to turn into a glacial storm as it was alimented in mana by the Demon. Liliei rushed straight between the two armors, the speed buffs combined with the storm slowing the monsters making them too slow to catch her as she got behind and stabbed one of them with a dagger construct – not to much effects but her goal wasn’t really to do damages.

She was getting close to just under two of the armors that were on the balcony and just before getting there she dashed to her left, two loud thuds behind her as she ran around the two she had just passed a few seconds earlier.

She saw that the last two had also jumped down, making it eight armors on the ground and now rushing at her, four in front, two on her left and two behind. They were slightly faster than her, but as soon as they got in range of the storm, the cold slowed them and prevented them from catching her. Now she just had to wait. She started running around the armors, dashing between them when they let enough space to do so, dodging as best as she could – with a lot more success than the previous room thanks to the monster being slowed by Nalaine’s spell. It didn’t take too long before all eight were near her, trying to hit her, and a few seconds later, a blue shard flew through the room, embedding itself into one of the armor, which crumbled to the ground.

Liliei allowed herself a small grin as she continued to dodge, letting the armors slowed by the storm hamper the one that weren’t as, slowly, one by one, the armors got shot by large ice spikes. At one time, she saw a spike fly two meters over her and heard a shrill scream above her that made her shiver, but she continued until all eight armor had been downed.

The instant the final one fell to the ground, she felt the storm disappear around her – Nalaine no longer feeding it – and she sat down in the middle of the rests of the monsters.

“So, your verdict?” asked Lenc as he and Nalaine got close.

“Perfect, the buffs make it a lot less complicated to dodge, even if…” she trailed off, looking at a large dent in her waist where a claw had caught her as she tried to dodge another. “Well, I’ve still got room to improve. How’s your mana pool?” She turned to Nalaine while she slowly reconstructed the wound.

“Still around half full, the storm did cost quite a bit, but it was still quite manageable. But you really did well Lei, even with everything that was still eight on one and you only got hit once.”

The three stayed there talking a few minutes before they continued, taking the only exit to the room other than going back – even if, with the Dungeon, it probably wouldn’t be the same room they had left. Liliei once again taking the lead to find if there was a trap. This time the indication was the stone on which she had walked very slightly sinking. She immediately jumped back, barely in time to dodge the three spear shooting out of the left wall at leg height – getting hit by that would be quite dangerous, not directly lethal, but you would be immobilized and bleeding out quite quickly unless you had a way to heal.

They continued after the spears retracted, and only a few meters further, the found themselves in front of an intersection. There were two ways they could go and they could see the interior of both rooms. To their right was a large room, at least five times the size of the previous ones. It seemed to be round and they could see a large chest on the opposite side of the room. However, all along the walls were armors, standing guard, and two very large ones – one and half times the others’ height – were in front of the chest. To their left was a room seemingly like the others they had gone through, but with a large circle made of red metal on the ground.

The three looked at each other and took to the left, only too happy to get out of this floor.