From fumbling caution to fluid routine, Leon had needed only a single day to find his rhythm on the sixth floor. Rough edges remained, but the grind was smooth now.
"Scorch!"
Szzzt...
"What?!"
The kill shot didn't land. The spell fired true, but the War Shadow stood untouched. Flames licked the air beside it and sailed past, scorching nothing.
"Scorch!"
He closed to five meters and put it down clean. Then he stood there, staring at his open palm.
"Missed. At ten meters, the combat tension threw off my form. Accuracy went to hell."
The realization hit instantly.
It's not the magic. I've never actually trained ranged targeting as a discipline. Archery drills would transfer, but this is a whole different skill set. He clicked his tongue. Great. More homework.
Memories of those grueling days drilling short sword fundamentals surfaced, and a headache bloomed with them. He stared at the blade in his hand for a long moment before sighing.
"I need a staff. This short sword... might have to take a back seat."
A proper staff was a game-changer for any caster. Spell amplification, enhanced output, stabilized focus, reduced consumption, improved precision. The difference between bare-handed and armed combat, distilled into a single piece of equipment.
"But mage gear prices..." He shook his head. "Yeah. We all know how that goes."
He shelved the thought. With Proof of Traversal, his demand for valis was a bottomless pit. Sinking limited funds into equipment right now would be a mistake.
Priority one was unlocking his full potential. Dungeon exploration trained his Basic Abilities and banked Excelia on top of that, effectively doubling his returns. The more he grew through combat, the less he'd need to burn on raw stat allocation. Efficient growth meant spending less overall.
Plan reaffirmed, he rested briefly and pressed on.
As he moved, he pulled out a notebook and quill, cross-referencing terrain features to sketch his own map. The Guild's archives included published maps of the Upper Floors and portions of the Middle Floors, but every adventurer worth their salt knew the Dungeon was alive. It shifted. It changed. A hand-drawn map you'd verified yourself was the only version you could trust.
"So this is the northeast chamber." He stood in a broad, open room, notebook in hand, eyes narrowed as he surveyed the space. "Roomy. Good grinding spot."
Grrrrrrmmm...
Right on cue, the Dungeon delivered its welcome gift.
The walls of the dim chamber split open, and Leon watched, mouth falling open, as War Shadows dropped from the stone one after another.
Among them, one figure caught his eye immediately. Smaller than the rest, hugging the shadows of its companions, doing everything it could to stay invisible.
It wasn't invisible enough.
What the hell is that?
His expression stayed blank, but every alarm in his head fired at once. Tactical assessment and threat analysis spooled up simultaneously.
That's not standard Dungeon assembly-line product. Wrong build. Strengthened Species? No... it hasn't killed and consumed any of its own kind's Magic Stones. So what is this, some kind of special individual?
Are you kidding me? This is Floor Six. What is a freak like that doing here? This has to qualify as an Irregular.
Short sword in hand, Leon dropped low, every sense sharpened to a razor's edge. His eyes locked onto the monsters, tracking every twitch.
Nine War Shadows, one special individual. The room's big enough for kiting. Numbers are within my range. Half my capacity as a safety margin. Manageable.
Half a day of testing had taught him the math. With Scorch, he wouldn't feel real pressure until twenty War Shadows came at him at once, and even that wasn't his ceiling. As long as he avoided getting surrounded, his ranged firepower and speed meant he could rampage across the entire sixth floor.
This? This was well within budget.
"Scorch!" Zero-frame startup.
No charge-up, no tension. One calm, measured bolt of flame lanced straight at the special individual.
FWOOM...
Hssssss! The War Shadows erupted into motion, agitated by the attack. Crimson eyes locked onto Leon in unison, and a cold weight settled in his chest. He tightened his guard another notch.
The shot connected. Leon was already backpedaling, opening distance, chaining attacks without pause.
"Scorch! Scorch! Scorch!"
Low stance, full sprint, twisting sideways to hurl spells mid-stride. The War Shadows dropped like moving targets at a shooting range, swallowed by flame one after another.
Full Instant Cast the entire time. Thin the herd first. Reduce pressure. Prevent sloppy form. Then pick off the survivors one by one, cutting away their numbers like trimming feathers from a wing.
He considered his tactical execution flawless.
And honestly, it was.
The chamber wasn't enormous, but it wasn't small either. More than enough room to work with.
Leon hugged the perimeter, staying mobile, leveraging his slight edge in Agility and a vastly superior edge in tactics to kite the War Shadow pack in circles. Bursts of flame ignited monster after monster. Twisted silhouettes writhed and shrieked, painting a brutal tableau across the stone walls.
SHREEEEEE...
Two full rotations of Scorch later, Leon stopped and sucked air through his teeth in heavy, ragged breaths.
This was the first real adventure of his adventuring career.
From a safe distance, he watched the burning shapes with cautious, unblinking focus.
One by one, the ordinary War Shadows crumbled to ash. Only the special individual remained, still thrashing inside the flames.
"..."
Leon didn't rush in. He held position at five meters, the absolute limit of his current reliable accuracy, and raised his hand for one final shot.
"Scorch!"
The instant he moved, the thrashing stopped dead.
A black streak exploded from the fire, hurtling toward him faster than thought.
Leon couldn't react. He caught only a blur, a shape like a living shadow pressed flat to the ground, devouring five meters in a heartbeat. Then it was in his face, nose to nose.
Time froze. Leon's expression locked. His wide eyes reflected with perfect clarity in the mirror-cross faceplate of the War Shadow's skull.
Silent. Effortless. A hooked claw materialized into a streak of killing black, driving straight for his head.
"It was playing dead?! It can fake it?!"
At the last possible instant, survival instinct detonated through every nerve. Leon threw his left arm up, gauntlet-first, faster than he'd ever moved in his life.
Arcane Ward activated passively.
Shhhk...
The gauntlet barely slowed it. Metal tore like paper, and the hooked claw buried itself deep in muscle. Agony ripped a scream from his throat.
"AAAGH, FUCK!"
But the gauntlet had bought him a fraction of a second.
A fraction was enough.
Leon bit through the pain with a raw, guttural roar. His left arm heaved upward, wrenching the claw aside. His knee drove up into the creature's midsection, forcing it off balance. An elbow from his right arm cracked into its body, stunning it for a single precious instant. He used the contact to push off, toes springing backward, opening distance. His right hand was already casting.
"Scorch!"
Sizzle-sizzle-sizzle... BOOM!
Slash!
A vertical arc of black light split the fireball in half. Hooked claws sheared through flame, and the special War Shadow emerged from the blaze, crimson eyes boring into the man it had just savaged.
"Hhhh... hhhh..." Leon's breath came in ragged gasps. His stare was nailed to the thing that had nearly killed him, and something cold and heavy sank through his chest.
That was close. If Scorch hadn't stalled it for a heartbeat, I'd never have made the distance.
Blood ran down his arm, spattering the flagstones in dark red blooms. Cold sweat filmed his forehead. The pain was a searing, living thing, needling every nerve, but it brought with it a focus sharper than anything he'd ever felt.
Okay. Short exchange, but I learned a few things. Unless it uses those claws to physically cut through my spells, its body can't tank more than two hits. Three at the absolute outside.
The picture snapped into focus.
That's what happened. The first attack didn't miss at all... it sliced my spell apart before the fire could reach it. Then the clever little bastard played dead, waiting for me to drop my guard and close in. One ambush. One kill shot. That was the plan all along.
Replaying every moment of the fight, a chill crawled down his spine.
That level of intelligence has no business existing on the Upper Floors. If it had been normal-sized, if I hadn't noticed the anomaly immediately and stayed on edge... I'd be dead right now.
The realization landed like a physical weight. Cold sweat soaked through his shirt, and a sick, retroactive fear flooded in behind it.
Dirty bastard.
One man, one shadow. Silent standoff in the dim chamber. Leon's mind raced.
Left arm is done. Wrecked. If not for Demon Lord's Crest, Scholar's Heart, and Arcane Ward stacking their bonuses on my Endurance, equipment, and defense... that arm would be gone entirely.
Pain gnawed without pause, relentless, each pulse a white-hot reminder. Sweat traced a line down his jaw.
I've got one working arm. That means I pick one: short sword or magic. But judging by the speed it showed in that ambush... this thing might never give me the window to cast.
The War Shadow moved.
From dead stillness to maximum velocity in an instant, physics be damned. A black streak hugging the ground, rocketing toward him.
"Shit!"
No time for debate. The War Shadow made the choice for him.
He purged every stray thought. Sharpened his focus to a single bright point.
Leon ripped the short sword free and met the charge head-on.
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!
Steel screamed against claw in a deafening cascade. Leon twisted sideways, one arm against two, parrying by the skin of his teeth.
So fast. And it's dual-wielding. If its Strength wasn't lower than mine, if my Endurance wasn't this much higher... I'd already be finished.
For the moment, he could hold. Barely. But the fight was reaching a boiling point. Sustained concentration and raw physical output were draining him fast. One arm down, blood still flowing, and the thing just kept coming.
Scritch-scritch-scritch... Scratches accumulated across his light armor and leather plating. More and more. A spreading web of claw marks.
His defensive perimeter was collapsing.
I can't keep up. Against a speed-type fighter, the second I fall behind the rhythm and show an opening, what comes next is a storm of attacks. Lethal combos, one after another, until I stop moving.
Alarm screamed through him like venom in his veins.
All or nothing. If I want to break this deadlock, I need to bait an opening. Deliberately.
.