restless assault

Before the sun was up in the sky, Alex stood at the front of the largest ironwood tree. His body was clad in a simple white shirt and thick black pant while his a pair of leather glove covered his hand and past his wrists, seemingly the only protected part of his body. On the small of his back, two knives, one above the other. On his belt, on his thighs, another pair of similar blades while you could see the third pair seen under his armpit, held by a shoulder harness.

Say harness was also supporting a quiver, full of arrows, it's top resting on his left shoulder. An unstrung bow was stored inside say quiver, while the two handles were at its sides. If one were to look more closely, they would see a third handle barely poking at the bottom of the quiver, hidden.

Lower, on his thighs, Alex had secure a pouch containing three ranks of three throwing knives, tightly. While impressive, this arsenal was but the tip of Alex' weaponry range. Inside his storage, another sixty arrows were hidden, adding to the initial thirty in the quiver. Similar to the arrows, eighty-two other throwing knives lay inside the pocket dimension. As if it wasn't enough, another twenty throwing spears were also present with the last two.

Even the seeming defenceless appearance was deceiving, as Alex hid an armour between two layers of fabric and paddling, allowing him stealthiness and protection. Only his head was as vulnerable as it appears.

~~~

Raising his hand, Alex caught his large braid, and knot it in a bun, held by a leather strap, reducing the chance of his hairs used against him.

-You're ready?- Asked CS, seriously, knowing full well that they hadn't seen the end oft he surprise the Dungeon was keeping for them.

'As much as I could.' Say, Alex, while retrieving two runestones, inserting them on the bottom slot on his gauntlets. Closing his fist, the blue veins on the metals plating turned purple, warning him of the spell's successful activation, needing only Alex input to unleash them.

-Good, rain hell on them.- Nodded CS, before withdrawing to the back of his mind, ready to warn him of any danger.

Squaring his shoulder while taking a deep breath, Alex plunged into the DUngeon for the second, and hopefully last time.

~~~

Following his memories, Alex rapidly crossed the first rooms, taking great care to scan each of them for any sign of goblin or gems. Trotting forward, Alex rapidly crossed the room, first through the external ring, before entering the room closer to the centre.

The further he progresses without encountering any monster, the higher he raised his guards while spreading his sense wider. Before he could finish his second ring, Alex right ear perked, capturing sound from the central part of the Dungeon.

Rather than rushing ahead, he ensured all rooms between and around were secure, before daring to near the central chamber.

'How much goblins I slaughtered last time?' Asked him to CS, wanting to have a base number of a possible opponent.

-two hundred matures goblins, two thousand unmatured on the second floor. Three hundred mature goblins, and three thousand in bud on the third. Five thousand five hundred in total.- Curtly informed his CS.

'So at least a tenth?'

-As bar minimum, yes.-

Putting his back against the wall, once he attained the central chamber, Alex risked a peek inside.

The previously pits-only room was now sorting five thick roots sprouting from the ground. On those five roots, ten large buds run there length, each. Alex looked long enough to see that the nearly bursting buds were holding monster larger than goblin and variant.

The sight sent chills running through his back; he difficultly found his breath as his eyes widen. 'Hobgoblins, fifty of them!'

-Those fuckers seems near maturation too, nearly completely formed!- Cursed CS. -The Fucking dungeon his ready to pop fifty fucking hobgoblins on the first floor!-

Hiding back, Alex tried to regulate his breathing.

'How much magic did the Dungeon spare to births them so rapidly and nearly adult too?!' Screamed him in his mind, not in fear, but anger.

-You're a threat to its existence, the backlash had to be this intense for it to protect itself. We can be sure than the entire pool of magic from those five thousand had directly gone to them. It could even have halted its production on the lower floors to mature them faster even if they had the same incubation period that goblin, at least six times faster, turning a month in five days.

Don't forget the twenty-five variant and fifty goblins.-

'I'm not, don't worry. How do you think we should act?'

-Take potshot at the variant while running around the room, through the different entrance. This would attract the goblins. Once they're gathered in one point, running after you, lead them further, before annihilating them with a spear.

With some variant dead and the goblin missing, the remaining variant shouldn't exit the room, fearing that the hobgoblins would be vulnerable. If they follow and/or the hobgoblins follows, then, it's your call.- CS advised Alex, making sure to emphasis on his safety.

'Throwing knives is it then.' Responded Alex, before two knives appear in his hands. Silently moving from the wall, Alex barely made himself appears, before throwing both at the nearest variant and bolt away.

By the time the knives land, the corpses crashes down and the rest of the monster the room understand what happens, another two knives impaled another couple of variant from another entry. With nearly a fifth of their number down, the variant squeaked and screamed to the goblins, which rapidly shot forward the entrance the attack comes.

Regretfully for the monster, this would free Alex sight, allowing him to kill twice the number he took down until then.

Seeing the intruder appear from yet another entry, and killing another four variant, the goblin group screams in rage and runs after him.

As he planned to attract them this time, Alex didn't move from his place, firing another two knives, bringing the variant he killed to ten, more than a third of their numbers. Where they in another situation, the variants would have immediatly rushed to him. As they were the only tall enough to form a meat wall between him and the buds, the variant didn't move other than fill the created hole.

~~~

Seeing that the goblins would soon be on his heel, Alex immediatly turns around and dart out of here. Running fast enough to keep the distance between them, he led them to the outer ring, at the edge walls of the Dungeon. Hiding in a small alcove of a wall, Alex took out a spear, just in time to see the goblins rapidly gather in the middle of the room.

As they lost their target, the goblins instinctively stop, regroup, and started to sniff and look around, searching to find the trail of their prey.

What they weren't aware of was the role had always been inversed. Exiting from the wall's shadows, Alex raised his spear and threw it at the group's centre. Not holding back, the spear zoomed and landed not a second later.

The instant the spearhead tip encounters the ground, the purple pattern on the blade edge flash. The tightly packed groud of goblins, at the heart of the spell range, burst apart into a gorry show of flying limbs, raining guts, and splashes of blood. Those at the edge of the range or further weren't spared, skewered and shredded by bones shrapnels.

The few 'lucky' survivors made themselves know in a concert of moan and cries of pain and fear, earning them a knife to the head.

Had he not witnessed the vicious result of a bombarda spell, Alex would have been caught off guards and peppered with bones shards and splashes of blood. Thankfully for him, he took cover on the other side of the wall before the bulk of the gore-feast spread too far.

Shooting the still few alive, Alex just took his spear back, before exiting the room, leaving the Dungeon to clean the mess and his cores.

~~~

Once back to the central chamber, Alex peeks at the inside again. While he was gone, the variants had thrown the corpse in the pits. Regretfully, his knives were still on the corpse, and he was unaware of their fate.

Hearing the bubbling liquid digesting the dead monster, Alex could see a veiny pattern start to glow on the buds softly.

-There using the corpses to hasten the maturation of the hobgoblins!-

Not leaving CS time to say anything more, Alex bolted at the unsuspecting variant. Before they could react, he was already on the nearest. Rather than take out weapons, Alex tightens his guard, bringing his first in front of his face, and shorten the gap between his feet. Alex was by no mean a boxer, but still have some idea of a passable guard. Moving the upper part of his body, Alex threw a mean jab at the variant head', bursting it when his fist connects, activating the gauntlet's spell.

Bending his knees slightly and lowering his torso, Alex steps forward. Waving and bobbing between the gathered fourteen variants, Alex enchains jab, straight and uppercut, bursting heads each time his fists connected.

Still unfamiliar with proper boxer footwork, Alex was left slightly panting, under the mix of spend magic and the foreign and fast movement who drained a bit of his stamina. Rather than look for the hobgoblin, Alex looked at the pit where the corpses were. Seeing that they were nearly all melted and nothing to salvage, he calmed his breath.

Spreading his sense, he rapidly spotted the hobgoblin Monster gems, the first of its kind he made his hand on. Tearing the five out of their respective place on the roots, he caught at the corner of his eye, the buds opening, deserving their content in the room.

Contrary to what he expected, the hobgoblins didn't die but raised, visible groggy.

-Fuck, they're mature enough to be conscious and survive!-

Unwilling to leave them any chance, Alex retrieved two of his talons, before bolting to the nearest group of still disoriented hobgoblins. Sending a pulse of magic in the handle of his talons, Alex' blades shining blue patterns turn red, after the runestone activate.

Waving through the group, Alex would barely graze each, before passing to the next. The hobgoblins that started to rise behind him, stumble before crashing back down, stunned from the runestone effect on the talon.

Seeing their kins fall rousted the rest of the hobgoblins. Bellowing strongly at Alex, they threw themselves at him.

Seeing the turn in the pattern, Alex immediatly stops playing nice. His magic Damascus blades bite effortlessly in the flesh of the monsters. Being nearly the same size that the hobgoblins, only less than ten centimetres smaller, Alex had no difficulty aiming for the neck and chest. After switching from stunning to heated blades, Alex tail would swipe at any falling corpse, storing the bodies in his storage.

Each time Alex killed one, the vanishment of their kind unnerved the hobgoblins enough to left him space to manoeuvre and don't be encircled. Seeing himself soon overwhelmed, Alex deeply stabs his talons inside two hobgoblins, before they vanish too, taking the blades with them.

Swiftly enchaining, Alex steps forward and jabs the nearest monster. The difference in constitution immediatly shown. Rather than having their head blow off like the variant, Alex could only cave in their face while blasting away two-third of the heads. Even then, this was more than sufficient.

Aiming at throat rather than hard surface like the skull, Alex would blow holes in their neck, most than not separating the head, or snapping their nap with the recoil. The few who survive the initial assault would choke on crushed windpipe or rapidly bleed to death from thorn carotid.

The mental trauma of seeming their own slaughtered and slowly suffering painful death was as much as seeing them vanish. Regretfully for the hobgoblins, they process just enough intelligence to understand what was happening. Mixed with the grogginess of rapid raising, none could bring their full capacity fast enough to strike back.

While their numbers were a definitive threat to him, Alex came down on the monster hard, earning nothing more than scratched fabric and sprayed blood on.