Beatrice dodged nimbly underneath the swipe of the paw. A second one soon came for her, oversized claws digging into the floor as she dodged with a backflip that had her skirt flutter in a most daring way. Left leg connecting to the ground long before the right one, her arm and the spear it was holding were dragged along the movement. The straightening of her posture doubled as a wide arcing, vertical strike that sliced open the belly of one of the many beasts surrounding her.

They were bear-like creatures, not large for a specimen of that genus but imposing enough because of it. Their dark grey fur was spotty and loose like the skin underneath, making the monsters look like sickly amalgamations of flesh. Their front paws ended in six overly long claws, more like sabres than nails.

The wounded creature bellowed aggressively, opening its maw wide as spit flew about the place. Of teeth, only the fangs were genuine articles and of an unappetizing, infected yellow. The gums instead had been claimed by symbiotic maggots that worked just so much better at clawing apart the prey, once it had been secured by the sickening beast.

Beatrice was engaging with five of these things on her own and was holding her ground quite well. The bears were slow and she was fast, incredibly so by comparison. All she had to do was keep on dodging and strike when she had the opportunity.

Out of the sliced open stomach of the beast ruptured a stream of red. Tiny writhing bodies were flung at Beatrice, the bloodstream-maggots landing atop her form. Beatrice didn’t even attempt to dodge or shake them off. Equipped only with tools that could suck or transport blood, they were no harm to the artificial being.

Instead, Beatrice thrust forwards her spear. A motion made immediate by Unsteady Limb, the skill causing her arm to move at an immense speed as she spent the whole 100 Swing. From her side all the way to the maximum reach of her arm, her hand extended and the spear impaled the Maggot Ursa’s head.

Its comrades were quick to avenge or, hateful and tormented beings as they were, simply saw its death as a perfect time to strike. Either way, Beatrice disappeared from where they were converging on her. Twist Position translocated her two metres, taking advantage of the gap between the now dead and disintegrating Ursa and the swiping body of a second one.

Before they could recover from the confusion, Beatrice had already turned around. Ramming her weapon into the back of the neck of the creature, she felled that neighbouring bear and then backed off. The tip of her spear, a lighter shade of bronze as pure as the L-Baelementium used to form it, cut through the air with a deadly glint as she whirled it into a perfect defensive position. Between the immense claws and her body sat the length of the black-wooden shaft.

John was quite happy with that creation, even if it was still far below the quality of what a skilled smith could have done with the same materials. There had been an attempt to place an order with the insane blacksmith Marathyu (John was able to recognize quality work, even if the guy had impaled him for an ‘ingredient’), but the man refused to work with any material lesser than Mithril.

Of course, John could have bought the supreme metal off the Abyss Auction, but that would have taken a double-digit percentage out of his current finances, including that which he had in the Guild Bank.

In the future, John would be happy to make such an investment, but for now there was a laundry list of building projects and other plans that had priority in acquirement. As such, the spear she got would suffice until they found someone who was willing to smith Elementium into a proper weapon or they got a fitting one as a drop, either from plundering it off someone or the usual Instant Dungeon bullshit.

‘Although I should probably weight loot differently if I want that,’ John thought, opening the window just to glance at the new options he had again.

They were already locked for this on-going Assault, but it wasn’t like he had much better to do as he was sitting atop his tower and watching the surroundings through the eyes of his familiars. There were two new categories in the settings, easily summarized as environment and special enemies.

The former needed little explanation and as such hadn’t surprised John in any way. Traps meant that there were now parts of the environment that wanted to kill them. In this forest of evergreens, that came in the shape of some parts of the floor being not exactly secure and filled with underground-dwelling bees that would then swarm them. They didn’t do a lot of damage and were unable to get through Mana Protection because of it, which made John suspect they had some nasty poison effects he would have needed to be wary of if his defence wasn’t this reliable.

Loot and Mimics were also fairly obvious. John rather welcomed the possibility of chests appearing outside of Special Rooms. He hadn’t encountered a lot (and no Mimic either at this point), but at least they were there.

Lastly there were Aids, which were simply the opposite to Traps, environmental set pieces that worked in John’s favour in some description. As per usual, the things that were helpful for John were much rarer, harder to reach and, in the case of this dungeon, a double-edged sword. The pinecones hanging from between the needles were explosives that could be thrown like grenades after they fell off. John had that figured out only after two seemingly random explosions occurred.

Trees that had explosive seed dispensers also had some rather good fire resistance, which was exactly why John wasn’t having Salamander torch the entire place right now. Instead she was flying around in support of the guard of the only bridge that went across the lava moat.

For the new special enemies. Horrors were simply extra strong, giving more experience and other special rewards, while Rares were something that John hadn’t encountered yet.

Aclysia’s newest skills synergized quite effectively with that narrow crossing as she wielded Eclys with grace. One by one the Maggot Ursas approached and one by one they were felled by the white blade. In heavy concentration, not being quite used to the new movement, the weaponized maid was currently fighting in her base body. Black negligee along with lines and areas of her skin of the same colour turned her pale form into a thing of broken beauty.

‘Wait 3 seconds, then advance over the head of the bridge,’ John commanded her, making his tactical decisions from his position of safety. Obeying, with awareness of her almost full Devotion, Aclysia advanced by cutting her way through the enemies with the freshly off-cooldown Cutting Flurry. She lunged forwards, in her hand the nameless low-mithril alloy dagger that doubled as a salver. It vanished down to Aclysia’s hand between the eyes of the first bear.

The second strike followed immediately after, the weaponized maid executing a somersault with Eclys appearing in her other hand. With her bolstered Agility, the move was executed in a flawless curve and the blade became naught but a silvery-white streak. Despite that, the Maggot Ursa that had been her target got away with its life. Swaying its body, raised in attack, to the side, it sacrificed its right arm rather than its entire life.

A thing that didn’t help it a moment later when Eclys made room for the massive blade Marath. The oversized blade was sluggishly ripped in a half-circle in front of Aclysia, turning the bear directly in front of her and the one behind it into four bear-halves. As they disintegrated, more of them immediately followed after.

They weren’t heading for Aclysia, however. Most of them, at least. Now that its guardian was a fair bit removed from the bridge, the bears were eager to charge down John and snuff out the life of the likely easiest prey. A nervous Gnome was jumping on her feet, standing in the gateway that led into the empty inside of the tower.

‘Now!’ John shouted out the mental command and immediately Aclysia reacted. At a perfect five metre radius around the white-haired guardian appeared a circle of white light. A simple flare, that also glowed underneath the feet of all beings within its range, which immediately turned away from their charge towards the bridge and readjusted their attention at Aclysia.

Master’s Shield worked like a charm. Quite literally, as it compelled every enemy within its range to attack the artificial maid for the next 11,7 seconds, the amount of Devotion she had spent (and current maximum) divided by 10.

“HEY YOU!” John shouted down towards no Maggot Ursa in particular, simply trying to get at least one’s attention as he jumped down the tower and opened his arms wide like an easy target. “Come and get me!”

It worked, once again, like a charm as the closest bear had its natural instinct overtake the compulsion. Being showered by extremely weak Shardbound attacks properly did its part as well. The deformed creature was set on the path towards John, the white light under its feet discharging in a foreboding black smoke that scattered low on the ground.

A surge of immense power rushed through Aclysia as the secondary effect of Master’s Shield activated, bolstering her next attack. At the exact same time as she attacked, Servant Strike finished its cooldown. While the effects may not have been multiplicative, the combined force came out in a slash that had eleven times the normal force behind it.

Eclys’ slash didn’t just separate the Ursas around Aclysia from their life but created a cutting wave of silver energy, like the sword normally only would when slicing through air, that travelled forwards. A certain sister maid found herself in the path of the shockwave, reacting barely in time with a manoeuvre that had her body fold down at ankles and knees to a ludicrously low level. In any other situation, such desperate acrobatics would have left her wide open, but as the enemies around her were all mowed down, that turned out to be no problem.

“These are nice, yes, I deem those attacks nice,” Sylph blabbered in the resulting moment of quiet in the Assault. Only a single one of the bears had survived, and John was still baiting it towards himself. “Such niceness, as nice as Aclysia’s thighs, absolute niceness. Although I currently like Beatrice’s more, cause stockings are great. I should wear great stockings! I only have these weird boot things,” she shook her tiny feet as she rolled through the air; the black things she wore actually did double up as stockings, but only to her kneecaps. In other words, none of the thigh squish that John wanted. “Yes, I shall get thigh-highs that are high to my thigh!”

“Sylph, we are elementals,” Salamander berated after flying over. “Wearing clothes that aren’t part of us in battle is supremely distracting. You would just lose them.”

“Nuh-uh!” Sylph disagreed. “I’d wear them and look totally sexy!” She clapped on her upper legs, her slender legs jiggling just the right amount. “Totally sexy, I say! The sexiest concubine that has ever walked these lands I will be! Flew! Flew the lands! Skies? HEAVENS!”

“Look,” Salamander pinched the bridge of her nose as she let out an exasperated sigh, “it would look sexy, but that’s no-“

“Sally just called me sexy!” with a happy outcry and little jumps in her hovering, Sylph interrupted her elder. “Everyone heard that, right? She called me sexy! I have a sexy bum, a sexy, super cool little bum! I have wavy hair.”

“This is my life,” the endflame elemental grumbled and then turned away, new Maggot Ursas finally appearing from the forest around them. The fight of his group continued, and while he was still keeping an eye on the situation and helping with the overall battlefield coordination, John retreated past Gnome and into the inside of his tower. On all fours, the monstrosity was right on his tail, ignoring the stone elemental as she, in turn, left him to pass.

That was because John wanted this specimen for a bit of practice. Gnome stepped into the circular courtyard after them, sealing the gate to make it near impossible for new enemies to come in. ‘It’s really convenient that these guys suck at climbing,’ the Gamer thought; this was definitely one of the easier dungeons he had come across recently.

Now exactly where he wanted to be, John stopped in his backwards retreat and instead raised his fists. The Maggot Ursa raised its entire mass off the ground, paws spread in what would be a deadly hug. A quick jab of John’s left crashed into the bear’s upper chest. The reverberations of the impact against the sturdy ribcage shook through Purgatory as fire seared the loose grey fur of the beast.

Having gotten a shallow strike in, John quickly dodged underneath the bear’s left side. With his Third Eye manifest as a streak of blue mana hovering in front of his forehead, the Gamer’s situational awareness was almost at the point of future sight. With such a buff, guessing the exact timing of enemy attacks was quite easy.

John felt like a clairvoyant being in a world normally twisted by fog.

The Maggot Ursa whirled around and swiped at John, who had already jumped far out of range of the sabre like claws. A whip of water grew out of Undine’s glove form as her summoner used the distance to get another opportunistic strike in. With increased surface tension, the saltwater cut a streak over the skull of the beast before liquifying following that single strike.

Neither attack up to this point had done a lot of damage. ‘I need to push myself a bit more,’ John thought. While his usual strategy didn’t hinge on winning melee engagements, on the contrary it was more about playing for time until reinforcements arrived, self-sufficiency never hurt anybody. That aside, this monster was incredibly weak for its level, so he should be able to do at least this much.

Again, the bear got on its hind legs in preperation of embracing attack that was a sure way to get murdered if one got caught within. Again, John quickly jabbed it before dodging under its arm. This time, however, the Gamer decided to follow the successful dodge up with a kick.

With the reflexes of a feral animal, the Maggot Ursa whirled its head around and caught John’s leg by the ankle. During a physical attack, the respective limb stretched out of a temporary bulge within Mana Protection, leaving them open for counterattacks.

The outline of the beasts’ fangs intruded John’s perception like hot nails. Then, the tiny and razor-sharp mandibles of the maggots began stripping flesh in a matter of seconds. ‘Dumbass,’ John scolded himself, the pain barely bothering him. He had went for an overconfident attack and got caught.

Trying and succeeding at keeping his balance on one foot while the Maggot Ursa gnawed on his flesh, John conjured Shardbound. A purple quartet of shards appeared around his left hand, combining into two. Arcane sparks flew everywhere as the bear tried to capitalized on its hold, scratching towards John’s immobilized body but stopped by the shield of mana surrounding him. Then the attack spell flung forwards.

One of them missed its mark, scraping alongside the beasts fallen face and ultimately cutting into its shoulder. The other was right on the money, ripping into the hateful black eye that stared at John and the brain matter behind. In its death, the bite of the creature intensified only, John feeling his ankle crack moments before the monster was turned to dust and ash.

‘I need to take a page out of Dark Souls book and not be greedy in my attacks,’ John thought. There was no one to blame but himself for winning that fight with a costly spell rather than through patience. ‘Need more practice.’