Prelude to Climax

Haruto stood there gripping the axe and club with his hands, stopping their attacks from reaching Selianna behind him.

He frowned with the strength of both minotaurs, even stopping it required a lot of efforts and his hands were trembling. He proceed to kick the minotaur with the axe on its gut, sending it flying a few meters away before doing the same to the other minotaur by rotating his body and launched another solid kick to its side.

"Y-You..*cough* why... are you.. here..*cough*?

Selianna asked while still coughing out blood and enduring her pain.

Haruto turned to her and observed her condition, it was quite severe, a little more than this then her life would be in danger. But thankfully the blow from before managed avoid any vital organs.

"To think a person as strong as you was reduced to such state. Well I can mostly guess the reason though...." He looked at the surroundings and noticed the two nearby knights with the arrogant male knight currently injured too.

With that he could guess what happened for Selianna to get injured like this despite her being stronger than her enemies. She most likely protecting her subordinates.

His expression turned grim and he took out a few bottles of potion from his pocket. These potions were given to him by Fia when he asked for some. He never suffered any injuries since the fight against the giant boar, even that was because he's not fighting seriously and intending to stall the battle for his improvement on his fighting skills. But still he couldn't be careless just because of that, he made sure each of his companion would bring potions in case of emergency.

Along with this thought he decided to ask for a healer for his next summoning when he found the crystal Eisha asked for him.

He used the potions on Selianna, two for her bodies and one for her to drink. Selianna moaned from the pain when he poured the potions on her wounds and bruises. The potion worked immediately and her wounds were closing a little bit but it still need a lot more time to recover. Heck she couldn't even walk for a few days like this. While he's doing this, he recalled Selianna just asked why he's here.

He was just finished doing his quest and were on the way back to the city. This time it was him that received the quest for subjugating harpies. Different than Fia, dealing with harpies was much easier for him since he's capable to fly even faster than them. Without much effort he slayed them flawlessly.

He followed the same road as Fia and Elsie on the way back, so naturally he passed by the forest too. For some reason he was curious and decided to take a look at the dungeon and Selianna.

Sensing 6 familiar presences he met this morning he immediately recognized them as the knights from before and went to their direction.

When he neared, another one suddenly appeared from the entrance of the cave. He erased his presence and listened to their conversation.

Apparently the knight encountered troubles inside fighting mutated minotaurs. One of them returned to the city to report on the situation while the rest decided to aid the current exploring unit and entered the cave.

Haruto decided to show himself to the knights. Rather than following them secretly, it would be much faster if they brought him along and showed him the map they had.

The knights were surprised seeing someone suddenly appeared and put on their guard. But Haruto explained that he was an adventurer by showing his card and coincidentally heard their situation so he decided to help.

They hesitated and debated for awhile but in the end decided to bring him along since having more help wouldn't hurt.

After entering the cave he still couldn't sense Selianna's energy, he suspected that every floor were on a separate dimension too. So when the knight took out the map they drew he instantly stole it and dashed forward alone, he didn't want to waste more time because he grew uneasy for some reason.

He pushed forward to the fifth floor as fast as possible, ignoring all the monsters on the way. Just when he entered the fifth floor he realized that the number of monsters on this floor were very scarce compared from before. He sensed a few large presences in a distance, two of the energies felt disturbing and full of malice which disgusted him very much.

Suddenly one of a large energy seemingly fighting against the two vile energies were dimming very fast, that person must be in danger. He was alerted since he realized the energy that just gotten a lot smaller was belonged to Selianna's.

He put his fingers on his forehead and concentrated on the energy of the people from behind so they wouldn't see him teleported there.

*Fwip*

In an instant his figure disappeared and appeared in a room about 30 meters width. The mage knights he just teleported to did not notice him appearing behind them.

He saw that Selianna was heavily injured, lying on the floor with a pool of blood. The black minotaurs approached her and tried to deal the finishing blow with their weapons.

Haruto ran forward and intercepted their attacks, saving Selianna.

Selianna below him seemed to try to talk again but she coughed even more blood so he shut her mouth with his finger.

"Don't talk, you'll worsen your injuries. I'll tell you later how am I here okay?"

He saw a female knight near her, looking like she was just trying to save Selianna but Haruto beat her to it. He recognized this Knight to be the one he met 2 days ago.

"Umm, miss knight? Can you take Selianna away from here?"

Lena the knight was in daze seeing a familiar youth that suddenly appeared. She went back to her sense when he called out to her and realized he's trying to fight that minotaurs.

"N-No, you musn't! That minotaurs were very strong!"

"I know but aren't they injured too? If all of them were in a prime condition then that might be bad but If it's the current them I can handle them just fine."

"You don't understand! They're-"

"ROAAAAAARRRRR!!!!"

She tried to convince him but the minotaurs already went back up and roared furiously to the newcomer.

"Well there's no time to argue right? Just let me handle them and fall back." He said gently with his eyes.

Lena gritted her teeth and proceed to take Selianna and the still dazed Jake with her. Her superior struggled a bit, she too did not agree with Haruto fighting them alone but Lena prevented her from escaping. Since she was heavily injured she couldn't resist and brought by Lena to a safer place behind.

Haruto turned his head back to the minotaurs in front of him. He once again felt their vile and evil energy emanating from them. To be more precise, the evil and dark feelings were originated from the red mist all over their bodies.

'I don't like their energy, just what is that mist? It felt so disturbing...'

He put on his stance and prepared for battle. In any case, he must defeat them first.

Even if they were injured, they still a lot stronger than the giant boar he couldn't underestimated and them. He proceed to release his full power.

His aura flared and his energy spiked up in an instant, flinching the roaring minotaurs trying to charge at him.

Selianna's eyes opened wide from the back. To think that he's capable of suppressing his energy. It was a very high level technique that only a few amounts of people could do.

Haruto ran forward towards the minotaur with an axe and hit its chest with his elbow.

"Gra..ahh..!"

The minotaur stumbled and bend its body from the blow. Haruto continued to pummel its chest with his fists and released a right hook to it's head.

The other minotaurs threw its club towards Haruto but he jumped to the side and dodged.

He created two balls of energy and fired them to the minotaur. It rolled to the side avoiding them but Haruto controlled the spheres from afar, changing the trajectory and pursued the evading minotaur.

*BOOOMM*

The energy balls exploded right on its head, scattering it's brain matters.

Now only one minotaur remained. Their bodies were tougher than he expected and his punches were not that effective against it.

He decided to fire another energy sphere but something strange happened with the remaining minotaur.

It suddenly went limp and dropped it's axe. It was growling as if in pain and clutched its head.

"GAAAAHHHHH!!!"

"W-What?"

The red mist on its body suddenly exploded and burst strongly, enveloping its body.

Its body was fully enveloped and it's figure could not be seen any longer from the dense mist. After that black sparks appeared on the swirling red mist, damaging the nearby grounds.

"I have a bad feeling about this...."

Haruto fired numerous energy bullets from his hands, launching them to the vortex of red mist.

But his attacks were repelled by the mist, failing to disrupt the strange phenomenon.

Haruto clicked his tongue and prepared stronger attack but the vortex suddenly dispersed strongly, pushing him away a few meters.

After the red mist disappeared, what remained was a transformed minotaur.

Its body grown larger, reaching about 5 meters tall. Its previously pure black body was now tinted with crimson red on it's horns, hands, and legs. Its eyes turned completely yellow and a strange rune was drawn on its chest.

"What's happening...?"

Haruto was extremely shocked with the minotaur's new appearance. Its dark and evil energy also spiked, dozens of times stronger than it was before. The pressure it gave was suffocating as it body was glowing with horrifying indigo aura formed from the demonic energy possessed by every monsters in this world, the problem was the aura it produced was much stronger and thicker compared to before. Not only him, all the knights on behind too were astonished, the weaker knight were trembling heavily as their face turned pale.

"ROOOAAAARRRRRR!!!"

It roared loudly, producing a massive shockwave to the surroundings. Haruto crossed his arms, defending against the storm of wave. The walls and ground were cracking while the air turned sharp and painful to bear for weak people.

'What a monstrous power! It's nothing compared from before!!'

The knights along with the injured Selianna was pushed away by the gust. Lena held Selianna's body tightly to protect her from the harmful wave.

When Haruto realized the minotaur already closed their gap and launching a terrifying punch with it's massive arm carrying demonic purple energy a lot stronger than before the transformation. The air was shaking as the fist moved with lightning speed. The force of this punch could destroy a skyscraper into pieces.

He rotated his body, barely evading the punch but it still grazed his side, injuring him.

"Ghh..!" He groaned from the hit.

The minotaur started to rush on him with Haruto desperately parrying it's attacks. But the bruises on his body kept increasing little by little.

Although he's desperately defending on the onslaught, Haruto couldn't keep up with its improved strength and speed as he exchanged blows with it. If this continued he would go down soon.

"GROAARRR!!"

The minotaur punched strongly downwards resulting a huge crash on the ground.

"Grr!?"

It realized that it hit nothing and its opponent was missing as if he suddenly vanished out of thin air. Alas, it didn't have time to search for the figure of its enemy.

*Fwip*

Haruto appeared on it's back, charging a sphere of blue energy on his side.

"Take this...! Haaaa!!!"

He unleashed a Kamehameha to the minotaur, it was astonished by its enemy's sudden appearance on it's behind and couldn't dodge the energy beam.

*BOOOMMM*

The Kamehameha struck perfectly on its body, landing a critical hit to its side. Its right arm was destroyed and its leg was injured along with one of its horn being broken. The disgusting flesh and black blood could be seen from its wound.

"Grr..aaahh....!"

But suddenly red mist began to enveloped the missing arm and injured leg. And just in a few second they had already completely regenerated. Its strength was not decrease a single bit even after this.

"What!?"

Haruto was startled seeing it fully recovered. The purple aura clad minotaur then rushed forward extending his arm aiming at Haruto's head. He quickly tilted his head to evade but a powerful kick struck his abdomen strongly.

"..!"

He managed to jump back a little before the kick struck but it still damaged him quite heavily. He splurted out blood from his mouth and blown away, crashing to the wall behind him.

Selianna screamed seeing him being hit and blown away. Lena too was shocked and covered her mouth.

"Guu...!" Haruto raised his body while staggering from the after-blow.

Blood flowed out on his mouth as he stood up again while holding his chest.

'This might be bad.. should I do it? But...'

He looked towards Selianna, currently looking at him with face full of concern and wet eyes. He chuckled a bit seeing that. To think she's actually worrying about him.

The minotaur charged forward again towards him. Haruto immediately jumped high avoiding it.

'Looks like there's no choice after all, let's just think about it after I finished this...'

He leaped forward creating a distance from the minotaur. After he landed, he steadied his body and clenched his fists. While concentrating his mind, he gathered power inside his body.

"Haaa...."

Power were gathering on his body and the ground near him started to shake while his body began to glow with yellow light and his hair were raising. His body tensed up and veins appeared on his forehead and arms.

"HAAAAHHHHH!!!"

Along with his shout a bright golden aura burst out strongly, creating a shockwave. In the same moment his hair and eyebrows turned golden in color while his eyes turned green and his pupils disappeared.

"GRAAH!?"

The minotaur was startled and took a step back from the sudden burst of energy.

Haruto relaxed his stance and smirked.

"Call me Super Haruto."

Now his enemy would learn of the might of a Super Saiyan.