Chapter 16: Mist

I come into an open field after walking for almost five hours. And I was about to lose it. I thought I would ascend a floor after killing the sphynx.

But it seems I was wrong. Now that I came here, where do I go? This is a open field.

I look around and see a red mist like smoke floating in the distance. I think I can start with that. So, I walk toward that floating mist and come before it.

Circular mist floating. About two meters radius. There is nothing happening around it. So, next course of action: touching it.

And as soon as I touch it, I get same feeling I got when I went along the wrong direction. I get disoriented and everything goes black. And after few seconds I'm standing somewhere else. Same open field. But there is a same floating mist behind me. And there is another one in the distance.

I walk toward that one. And just as I take a step toward that one, I see a black beam of something coming out of the ground and see some kind of scare crow like thing with sword for an arm. And there is at least ten of them.

Are those supposed to be the monsters on this floor. Kind of lame.

They start to hop toward me as soon as they notice me. It will be easy. I decide to use same trick I used to kill the lizards. Infuse the ground with my mana and wait for them.

My impale distance is about five meters radius around me. And those ignorant idiots hop toward me on their right peg leg. This is pathetic.

But as if they sense my mana field, they suddenly jump up high just before they entered my field and start to spin with their sword arms and free fall toward me. Hmm, they sure can jump high for bunch of scarecrows with peg for legs.

Still, makes no difference. I simply use my third technique with my mana field as a medium. After using it for enough times, I learned to use it in any way I want. Still, if I want to use it at full-power I need to channel it like it was supposed to be channeled.

Still, it is enough for those scarecrows. And as I unleash my third technique, dragons as thick as a bucket comes out of the ground and rip the scarecrows into pieces.

"HAHAHAHA."

No matter how many times I see it, it is cool as fuck. And that is all that matters. Now that I took care of them, I think I will try going toward the other floating mist. Mist sounds wrong. I think it is more of a gate.

I touch it again after coming before it. And like before I get the same feeling and come to same open field. But this time there are two mist gates. Ooh, that sounds much more natural.

Same old routine. Black beam and scare… well, it was different this time. This time I get some kind of demon like creature. Walking on two legs, two curved horns and demonic armor with clubs.

"Die human!"

Ooh, they can talk.

"Don't be so hasty. I will kill you all."

That was unnecessarily ominous. Well, I don't care.

"Fenrir."

And just like that, as soon as I call him out, he jumps out of my shadow and throws blistering darkness at the demons and jump into it after. I see or hear nothing from within the darkness.

And after few seconds the darkness dissipates, and Fenrir walks out. I have no idea what he did in there. And I don't want to know.

After getting rid of the obstacles, I come across another problem. Which gate do I go across?

"Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, which door do I cross?"

Right one it is. I go to the right one and touch it. Same crap happens. But this time I'm in different place. There is actually a house in this one. Typical two storied house.

So, obvious choice is to enter this house and see what's in it. But I refuse to do the obvious this time and simply decide to blow it up.

So, I OD my fireball again and throw it at the house.

BOOM!!!

Hehe. Always so satisfying. Don't know what that says about me and don't care either.

"HAHAHA."

More I go deeper into this dungeon more Alex comes prominent. During last few years of his life Alex become, I would like to say unstable. Frankly, he kind of became a mad scientist. And I think I'm showing same signs of that. Specially this laughter. I need to get rid of it.

"What the hell is wrong with!?"

"What the hell, who was that?"

I suddenly hear someone cursing me from somewhere. I think that came out of the house. Well, at least what's left of it.

"What kind of barbarian set fire to a house without even setting foot in it?"

"HAHAHAHA."

Shit, I just thought about that. Aah, screw it.

"This barbarian. Anyway, what the hell are you?"

And from the fire comes out dude with wings. Two wings made out of some kind of blue energy. Obvious decked in full armor. Huge shield on his left arm and sword made out of same energy as his wings.

"What heck are you supposed to be? An angel? Hehe."

"What the hell is angel? I'm a Solar Folk. Keep that in mind you mindless barbarian."

"Solar Folk? Seriously?"

And as soon as he saw me smirking at his name, he points his energy sword at me and.

"En Garde. Barbarian."

Pounces on me. And this fly is unexpectedly fast. I spread out my mana field and try to impale him with my spears but fails to pierce through his armor. Quite sturdy.

So, I activate my full armor and summon my mana katana.

Clang!

Even though both swords are energy construct, for some reason a metal sound comes out when they collide.

Dude is unexpectedly strong. Still, I push him back and slash with horizontally across his abdomen.

Clang!

He blocks with his shield and swings his sword overhead and brings it down on me. My reflex kicks in and I spin to my right and dodge his overhead swing on me.

After dodging his swing, I take a little bit of distance from him. He turns to me and gets into stance once again.

This sword fighting is interesting. I need to hone my skill with my katana, or else I can bring out everything my katana can do.

And during this fight I can test out something else too.

"HA!"

He lunges at me again with a shout. I wait for him to reach me and swing again. This time he slashes with his sword horizontally. I block it with my katana.

And just as I blocked it, his two wings suddenly raise up and strike at me like snakes. SHIT! I didn't know he could do that.

I push his sword back with all my might and try to block his wings with my katana.

CLANG!

I manage to block one of his wings but other one hits me on my chest squarely. Luckily his wing fails to penetrate my armor. Still, I get thrown back.

If only my ribs could talk. They will curse with worst kind of curses. Hehe. After standing up, I look to the solar dude. He is still where he was. I guess he didn't want to kick me when I was down.

What was it? Honor? I don't care for it.

He gets into stance after seeing me stand up.

I conjure up another mana katana and get into position.

"Time for round two."