Limitless Path

With a groaning shriek of long unoiled hinges, the doors slowly began to move. They were certainly not hung in a way as to make them easy to move as some large doors were, the hinges being set in a way to help with the weight when pushing them. She was pushing against the entire weight of the steel while fighting the hinges and, considering the size of the doors, even if they were half an inch thick, they would each weigh close to half a ton. If they were more than half an inch, and if the steel were some kind of magic variant that was extra dense, they could weigh multiple tons each.

It certainly felt like they weighed a few tons to Beth, as she could feel all the muscles in her whole body straining as she shoved. Her new, heavily armored boots had started to dig into the stone of the corridor floor as the doors started to finally swing inward and she used that to her advantage, pushing harder before taking a step forward with her left leg. She continued the motion, walking another step forward, with her right leg this time, as the doors slid back before her. Eventually she reached a point where the doors were swinging too far away from her to keep her hands on them while standing in the direct center of them, and she finished her motion of opening them with a shove. The doors continued maybe another two inches before grinding to a halt, but that still left more than six feet of opening between them, considering Beth's impressive arm-span.

As she finished pushing the doors and before she could even glance around, she was assaulted by an angry scream, washing over her like a tide of massive bees and grating on her nerves. She responded instantly by drawing her sword, feeling that whatever made that kind of noise was going to be something more serious than a level twelve kobold. It turns out she was correct about that, as a hulking figure lurched into the light generated by the stone on her belt a moment later. Identify used as the creature staggered into a lumbering charge toward her fed her a bit of a surprise.

Chilblain Kobold Hulk Level 26

This beast was both close to her and Blood's levels and of a special variant, as well as having a special modifier. She noted its skin was a pasty, pale white with blue veins shot throughout and its fur was a grimy white that turned light blue at the tips. The creature had long and gangly arms but was clearly built for strength, as Beth blocked the first fumbling swipe by the beast and was sent sliding back three feet for her trouble. Instead of standing and fighting she leapt backward, not wanting to be hindered by the doors or try to push forward to fight in an unknown area. Pulling the beast back into the corridor also opened it up for Blood to get in and try to get a few attacks off.

The large beast shambled forward with a snarl, following her out into the corridor they had just spent an age walking down. Beth backpedaled a little further to give them plenty of room before stopping and planting her feet, ready for the next exchange. The brute didn't disappoint, firing out a heavy punch directly into her torso, flakes of ice and snow forming in the air around its arm as it shot towards her. She stepped around the blow to the left, swinging her sword in a two-handed grip from left to right to smash into the beast's arm. Her blade barely made a scratch, the creature's arm resembling the trunk of an old, gnarled tree.

The beast snarled as it withdrew its right arm while simultaneously sending a swift slap at her with its left. Beth darted backward while swinging her blade again, chopping at the creature's arm as it passed her by. Again, she did barely any damage, but she wasn't discouraged, following up with a thrust at the Kobold's thick torso. As she did so, Blood leapt in from behind and clamped her jaws around the beast's right leg, attempting to hamstring it. Not that their opponent had shown any impressive mobility up to that point, but anything that could hinder something like that would be a plus.

The wolf's fangs only penetrated the tough, knotted flesh of the beast shallowly and she had no time to work at her hold, as she had to let go and dance away to avoid a swing of the hulk's right arm. Fortunately, even though the massive beast's considerable strength lent its strikes a fierce speed, it was not a very nimble being. Blood with Swift applied was able to easily outmaneuver the enemy, even given the narrow confines of the space they found themselves in. The kobold screamed angrily and sent another swipe at the huge wolf, a futile effort that Beth's companion easily dodged.

Seemingly growing more irate with its lack of success, the hulk let out a shriek as it waved its arm around. Beth was a little puzzled, wondering if the beast had a few screws loose or, more accurately, a few more loose than she had suspected. The confusion turned to surprise and a little fear as a huge wave of frozen air, filled with bits of ice and possessing a powerful chill, exploding outward from the beast in a ring.

Beth brought her arms up in front of her face as the attack slammed into her, feeling the chill start to frost her skin and the ice pelt her armor in a horizontal hailstorm as the wave knocked her back a step. When the attack had subsided, she immediately lowered her arms and looked for the kobold, finding it stomping towards Blood. The wolf had fared worse in the icy blast, trying to shake pounds and pounds of ice out of her fur while blinking to clear her eyes.

Seeing her companion in somewhat serious danger, Beth got serious herself. Bringing her blade up and out to her left at a high angle, she gripped the hilt tightly with both gauntlets before dashing forward toward the hulk's back. As she closed, she began channeling mana into her shoulders and arms, feeling the pressure build up as her muscles swelled slightly, her elbows and wrists popping as she took a step to bring her right behind the kobold.

The beast was still ignoring her, currently in the process of finishing a punch that had just barely clipped Blood's shoulder, sending the wolf staggering back a step with a low growl. Using this opportunity, she planted her right foot and twisted her torso to the left slightly before spinning back to her right, utilizing all her muscles to drive her sword into the beast's side in a dark blur of burnished copper. The weapon slammed into the ratty hide the Kobold wore as a tunic and chopped right through before smashing into the beast's skin and parting it with ease.

The blade slashed more than six inches into the huge beast's side before stopping. This was somewhat of a problem for Beth, considering she had intended that Monstrous Blow to bisect the creature at the waist. The kobold immediately screamed in rage and twisted around the blade, throwing a backhand at her with its left arm, the air whistling around the limb as it shot at her chest in a blur. Beth wasn't getting her blade free from where it was wedged in the corded muscles of the hulk and promptly abandoned it, holding up both arms in a modified boxing pose as she darted backward.

The kobold's arm still smacked into her own arms, Beth feeling the bones of her forearms creak and strain from the massive force the beast delivered. She danced back, thankful once again that the beast lacked maneuverability. It's high STR stat let it have high bursts of direct speed, such as when throwing a very fast punch, but its low DEX meant that it had trouble redirecting a motion, turning, or doing anything much more complex than a straight line.

As Beth retreated, Blood advanced, using her four-inch-long claws to tear at the back of the same leg she had bitten earlier, attempting to pile on damage for an eventual hamstring. The kobold snarled in fury and swung a backhand at Blood, not fully turning to face her but only twisting its torso as it swung. The wolf was prepared for its simple tactics now, and danced away in a dark red blur, slipping its strike with a simple ease developed from their long hours of training.

Beth danced back into range quickly as the hulk slapped at Blood, darting forward with two quick steps before planting her right foot in front of her and twisting on the toes of her left, the rotation traveling up her legs and through her body as she fired out a right straight directly into the hilt of her sword. She wasn't sure what adding Crush might do here, so she simply used every ounce of her outsized STR stat to smash her knuckles into the hilt of her sword at full speed.

The strike wedged the sword deeper into the creature's side with a spray of bluish-green blood, the beast letting out a whining screech as the sword tore through muscle and started to lacerate organ tissue. The kobold straightened back around from its swing at Blood and slapped at Beth, but she had already slipped several steps back, just avoiding the strike as she was barely out of reach. The hulk groaned as it finished the attempt at a blow, the sword digging into its side very painfully at every movement. The creature's twisting and slapping motion were only serving to grind the blade in even deeper.

The thick-skulled brute was quite clearly very lacking in the intelligence department, as Blood was immediately in on it again, slashing with her razor-sharp claws at the wounded leg of the beast. The flesh resisted her efforts, but repeated strikes to the exact same area at the back of the knee were bearing fruit, as streams of the blue tinged blood poured down from the wounds. The hulk made another attempt to slap away Blood, but the wolf slammed a shoulder check into the beast which, thanks to its wounded leg, caused it to wobble slightly off balance. The strike sailed wide as the beast also was interrupted by a massive wave of pain tearing up from its side, the further twisting and flailing have caused the sword to start to tear some of its organs apart.

Blood took the chance to savage the back of the Kobold's leg with two quick but powerful slashing strikes, tearing apart the toughened, gnarled flesh with the gleaming blades that sprung from her front paws. She leapt back with two quick hops as the back of the hulk's fist sailed by her, easily making distance after pulping the beast's right knee. At the same moment, Beth had darted back in, this time grabbing the hilt of her wayward blade. She dug her right foot into the ground with a crack, the ground breaking from the force she exerted as her arms swelled slightly and her mana surged. She twisted to her left with all her might, channeling a truly huge amount of mana through the skill form of Monstrous Blow, her reserves draining to half in just over a second.

The combination of her unerring strength and massive mana expenditure allowed her to rip her blade free of the belly of the beast in a huge fountain of gore, blood and chunks of the hulk's intestines spraying almost to the wall of the wide tunnel. The massive beast bellowed in rage and pain, the air around the three combatants plummeting in temperature as bitter chill exploded outward from the wounded beast in a crystalline white wave. The entirety of the battlefield was immediately coated in frost, the floor, walls, and ceiling of the tunnel a glimmering white as both Beth and Blood were covered in a layer of frozen mana and ice. The searing cold was terribly painful, sapping all the heat from Beth and Blood's skin and outer flesh as it tried to invade their bodies.

Beth ignored the pain and chill, briefly noting that her movements had been slowed by the rage casting of the beast, but she dismissed even that, taking a slight step to the side and lining up her next strike. She pumped her entire body full of mana, feeling not just her arms and torso swell slightly with the power but even her thighs bulge and thicken. It was a bit of a gamble, but she was dumping enough mana into this Monstrous Blow to make it the swing to end all sword swings.

And what a swing it was! The duly gleaming ochre blade of her sword seemed to sing as it sliced the air apart, almost teleporting from where she had raised it out to her left and into the kobold's side. She had aimed directly for the gaping wound she had previously made, and the blade of her sword hit the bloody chasm dead center and punched in further with a deep, wet tearing sound. The floor under Beth cracked like a shattered plate as she put even more force and mana into the swing, feeling after a second as the blade slammed into the spine of the beast and stopped. Such was the force of the strike that as she continued to drive with her legs and twist with her body after meeting this new resistance, the entire hulk was lifted from the ground and sent hurtling through the air. As she started to overextend, Beth twisted back as the kobold was moving away from her, ripping her sword back out from the beast’s gaping wound in a fountain of blood and guts.

The creature sailed across the tunnel with a squealing screech before slamming into the far wall with a crunching smack, the whole tunnel shaking very slightly from the impact. The beast slid down the wall to fall into a heap at its base, attempting to push itself back upright and roar, but all that emerged from its misshapen mouth was a gurgling cough. Beth was panting and still covered in frost and ice, but she wasn't going to stop at that, gritting her teeth as she recovered from the massive strike she had just delivered. She turned to the hulk and advanced on it with a firm step, her jaw set and her sword raised as she readied herself. Dodging a much slower and weaker slap as she closed with the creature, she suddenly flashed forward in a textbook perfect lunge, plunging the tip of her sword in and up. With a grunt as she met some resistance, she pushed all the harder, slamming the blade nearly to the hilt with a roar of her own.

She was nearly face-to-face with the beast, and watched coldly as it coughed once more, blood pouring from its mouth in a turgid waterfall before the light faded from its eyes. She saw the kill notification flash up in the corner of her eye as she stepped back and pulled, tearing her blade free with a squelching, grinding noise that was highly unpleasant. She looked at the blade after she did so, finding the blade absolutely coated in Kobold blood and guts, as well as in a nearly frozen state. She noted the edge was not in particularly good shape, and the entire blade seemed to be slightly twisted.