Limitless Path

Beth stopped and waited for the creature's approach, readying her sword to strike. The spider leapt at her at the last moment, trying to land on her torso and sink its fangs into her flesh, but she countered with a textbook thrust, slamming the point of her greatsword into the joint between the head and abdomen. The spider was cut shallowly and tumbled back, righting itself at the end of the tumble and quietly hissing at Beth.

Level eleven was definitely a step up in terms of strength, as the combination of Beth's strength and the spider's momentum had only caused it a minor wound. The creature rushed her again and made the same leap the second time, Beth repeating the strike against the center of the creature.

The creature tumbled away again but was not much more wounded than after the first strike. The spider hissed at her again and charged yet again, rushing her with a surprising speed. Beth prepared to receive it again, watching as the spider's legs flexed and it leapt. This time, however, she was totally unprepared, as the spider leapt low to the ground, diving right into her legs. Beth tried to step back but was only able to move her right leg back, her left leg still being caught by the beast, which immediately sank its fangs into her thigh.

"Shit! You bitch!" Beth cursed, removing her right hand from the hilt of her sword and pumping her entire arm full of energy. After a second, her whole arm had become charged with Crush, and she struck down powerfully, twisting her body as much as she could to deliver as much force with the strike as possible. The result was not as impressive as her strikes were against lower leveled creatures, but it still certainly got the job done. The top of the spider's head shattered with a sound like a glass pane dropping on concrete, blueish white ichor spewing out into the air.

"Fuck!" Beth cursed even louder, only realizing her mistake after she killed the spider. In her panic she had smashed the beast's head with its fangs still imbedded in her thigh, driving them even deeper inside. With much swearing and grunting, she tore the creature off of her, throwing its corpse to the side and stumbling immediately. She turned to Blood who had engaged the second spider already and yelled, "They have paralyzing toxin in the fangs! Don't get bit! Cover for me while I heal quick," Blood barked a loud affirmative as she danced around the next spider and partially crushed one of its back legs in her massive jaws.

Beth sat down right away and started meditating, struggling only for a moment to get into the right mindset. She was still pumped with adrenaline, but her high Pain Tolerance and the numbing effect of the venom meant she wasn't really distracted by the wound. She very quickly dropped into the proper state and pulled energy out of her reservoir, forming the threads needed to heal with her technique.

It was somewhat different this time, as she needed to push the threads through her circulatory system to purge the venom. Luckily, not much had spread through her body, and it took only a few minutes until it was isolated in her thigh. It took a good bit longer to purge the rest from her body, using a considerable amount of mana. Once she was toxin free, she used a little more mana to close up the two puncture wounds, finally getting up a minute later after recovering a little more mana.

Blood had been busy in the meantime, killing two spiders and wounding a third. It seemed that they hadn't yet been attacked by two at once, and Blood had taken the opportunity to worry at the spiders more slowly. She had burned more stamina prolonging the fights, but the wolf was still unharmed and had given Beth time to recover before things became too frenzied. Beth sat back for another moment, dropping into a light state of meditation on her feet while Blood finished the third spider of her fight, the fourth spider overall, off slowly.

"Alright, switch! Try to rest while I fight. We'll see if they swarm or not," Beth said to her as she moved toward the fifth spider.

She was a lot more cautious in her approach now; having gotten caught out once, she definitely wouldn't make the same mistake so quickly. She felt that she should rely on her increasing stats more, making full use of them, eking out every little bit from each point of STR. As the spider skittered toward her and leapt to grab hold of her, she stepped to the right and brought her sword around from the left, twisting with her left foot as the pivot. Flexing her arms as the sword intersected with the spider, she slammed the blade into the beast with a monstrous force. Two of the spider's legs were caught between its body and her blade, directly being snapped by the force of the blow. The spider soared away, crashing into the ground a dozen feet back and tumbling several feet before coming to a stop.

Beth wasn't eager to rush in to finish it, having adopted a much more cautious approach in fighting after getting bitten the first time. She returned to a guard position, watching as the spider struggled back to its feet, still surprisingly agile for having two legs heavily damaged. The spider charged towards her again a moment later, but suddenly stopped and reared up, slinging its rear-end towards Beth. She knew immediately what this meant, years of video game knowledge plus a smattering of common sense leading her to suddenly leap to the right just before a long string of web sailed passed.

Extremely luckily, it looked like the spider couldn't fire out multiple strings of web in a row. Either that or it chose not to for some reason, so Beth remained cautious regardless. The spiders definitely seemed to be a small notch above everything else Beth had encountered so far, but in the end, they were still rather low-level enemies. The crippled spider charged her again, making the same flying leap towards her torso as the first time. Beth countered with the same sidestep into a horizontal swing. She again put all her focus into the swing, utilizing every scrap of STR and DEX she had without overextending. The middle of her blade impacted the spider in midair, with her flexing her arms and even adding mana into her upper arms right before impact to add even more force.

The spider's abdomen, which had only been lightly cracked from the first great blow, now thoroughly collapsed, caving in like a great sinkhole had opened in the spider's gut. The creature sailed through the air, landing on its back and skidding to a stop on the icy ground. Its legs twitched a little after it came to rest, but the messages let Beth know it was clearly dead.

Level 11 Frost Spider slain.

One Copper Coin acquired.

Monstrous Blow Copper[0] acquired.

Beth was a little better prepared for such a thing now than she had been, her eyes widening but still looking around for the next threat. Seeing the next spider out of the surrounding pack skitter towards her, she dismissed the new acquisition for now and stepped up for the next fight. She waited for the spider to charge her and performed the same action again as it leapt for her torso, sidestepping into a tremendous horizontal strike. She could feel the subtle difference in the swing, instinctively engaging the new skill she had just acquired. The action was more natural, and she marveled at the feeling of her muscles contracting and energy flowing through her arms empowering the blade.

This spider was smashed spiraling even farther out than the last one on the first hit. Beth then watched as it was very noticeably slower in getting back up, the injuries more severe this time than her previous first strike. One of the spider's legs was entirely pulped, a mangled mess of chitin pieces and flesh hanging from the arachnid's body.

The spider was slower, but still charged gamely ahead, trying to inject Beth with its toxin for all it was worth. It wasn't able to leap at her with nearly as much force this time, and she took that into account, her new skill smashing across the back and right side of the spider, sending it rolling across the chilly ground. Ichor spumed into the air before the creature's corpse came to a flopping, twitching stop.

Level 11 Frost Spider slain.

One Copper Coin acquired.

Beth turned to face the next spider, engaging a third opponent while Blood rested. This spider wasn't any easier of an opponent to deal with, and she was caught by the sharp end of a leg when she countered the first leap, slicing a shallow gash on her upper left arm. She continued the fight, smashing this spider a total of three times before putting it out of its misery.

Level 11 Frost Spider slain.

One Copper Coin acquired.

Blood was rested and ready by this point, joining the battle as Beth stepped back to rest and heal her arm. This began a pattern that lasted through all one hundred spiders. It seemed with the difficulty and the fact they were fighting one-to-one, the challenge wouldn't send more than one opponent at once on this floor. After all the spiders had been taken care of, the two sat down to treat their wounds and rest. Once Beth had spent time resting and healing up, she went over the gains for the level, including distributing stat points. When she was done, she looked over both of their stat pages.

Name

Elizabeth Anne Bell

Class

Brawler

Level

12

Strength

30

Dexterity

20

Endurance

20

Intelligence

14

Wisdom

14

Free Points

0

Titles

Silver Flame Empress Inheritor

Skills

Ancient World Gate[0]

Crush Copper[9]

Focused Meditation Copper[5]

Identify Copper[6]

Lordly Reconstruction Copper[5]

Monstrous Blow Copper[4]

Pain Tolerance Copper[8]

Swords Apprentice[5]

Unarmed Apprentice[4]

Wealth

2s 48c

Emblems

CRA Copper Badge

Bonds

Blood

Name

Blood

Race

Red Wolf Queen

Level

12

Strength

30

Dexterity

32

Endurance

20

Intelligence

16

Wisdom

16

Free Points

0

Titles

-

Skills

Meditation Copper[4]

Regeneration Copper[3]

Swift Copper[6]

Wealth

6s 31c

She noted that Blood had leveled Regeneration up twice just from the constant healing in their downtime. She had also gained another level in Swords as well as Lordly Reconstruction, and leveled Monstrous Blow up to Copper[4]. Both Blood and she had gained enough experience from the slaughter to push them to level twelve, and she had distributed her free points into INT and WIS. She had put a good number of points for Blood into STR, a few into DEX, and four each into INT and WIS. Her next priority for both of them would be bumping their END a bit, as she didn't want to have to wind up taking a nap or even a full rest between floors.

Beth also noted how much, or really, how little the two had made for killing one hundred level eleven mobs. They had made about half a silver, the odds of getting a copper increasing in hitting level eleven in enemy strength. Looked like they wouldn't be getting rich, even after killing a thousand beasts.

Beth turned to Blood after getting up, saying, "You still alright?"

Blood answered with an affirmative bark.

"Alright then, we'll try the next floor. We should get at least another level there, and I want to spend those points on END. Sound good?"

Blood barked happily in response.

The two walked forward to the door that had appeared to the next floor, Beth pushing it open and leading the way inside. They arrived in a land rather similar to where they had just been, except for being warmer. It was a mostly empty land, with only scraggly bushes here and there and hardpacked ground with little grass on it. The beasts to fight this time were rather unusual, Beth noting that they clearly weren't in Kansas anymore, as the saying went. They looked like a combination between an armadillo and some type of dog or wolf. They were larger and leaner than an armadillo would be, but they were smaller and bulkier than a wolf, with thick armor plates on their bodies and heads.

Beth scanned the area and then turned to Blood again, "Let's take it slow. The armor on a level twelve is definitely gonna make them a bitch to kill." Blood looked back at her and gave a low growl, a sign of deep agreement from her.

Beth moved forward, sword in hand, coming into range to pull the attention of the first of the beasts. She used Identify on it before she stepped into range, the creature still sniffing at the ground and ignoring her when she paused.

Level 12 Zhoge

Helpful, she thought as she started moving towards it again. The creature finally took notice of her and behaved in a fairly typical manner for a low leveled beast, as she was coming to find out. It charged her without hesitation, and she readied herself to respond, being a little more careful after not just the first incident, but over an hour of fighting the spiders. She was still learning, often painfully, of just how dangerous a life of battle could really be.

The next four hours became a blur to both girls, as they slowly slaughtered their way through the tough opponents. At some point about a third of the way in Beth had found it becoming somewhat easier, only barely taking note of the level up. At the end of the floor, they both sprawled on the ground, panting heavily and sweating greatly. The final ten beasts had attacked as pairs, forcing both the girls to fight together, making the end of a marathon turn into a sprint. The two spent some time just resting naturally before sitting up and beginning to meditate, recovering their highly depleted mana and stamina.

The huge wolf just leaned her head against Beth, a rumble in her chest.

"You up for one more floor? Then maybe we'll have to sleep," Beth asked her.

Blood pulled back and gave her a nod and a short bark.

"Right. I hate to admit it girl, but looks like we're going to be having to do one or two uncomfortable sleeps in here," Beth said with a sigh. Blood gave a rumbling noise in response, leaning against Beth again for a minute, Beth stroking her fur.

"Alright, let me go through our level up stuff here, then we'll move on," Beth said, continuing to pet Blood as she started looking through her menus.

Beth spent a decent bit of time browsing through the various screens and thinking over how to allocate their free points. It was a little tougher for Blood, as she currently didn't get any assigned points and instead Beth needed to allocate all six points herself. The two had leveled two times during this floor, just hitting level fourteen in the final rush, so Blood had twelve points to assign. After thinking it over for a little, Beth finalized the points assignment and reviewed their stat screens.