Might as Well

The first strike went through the head of the first demonic gremlin to rush at him, cleaving its head in two. He transitioned the movement into a horizontal swipe, cutting two other gremlins into two as they foolishly launched themselves at him.

However, it didn’t really matter, as the number of monsters rushing at him seemed to be endless.

Sam didn’t stop with the swipe, instead, he spun around, bisecting another score of mindless monsters.

But they didn’t stop.

He continued to move in an intricate dance with his sword, cutting down demonic gremlin after demonic gremlin, while his wind mana whipped around him, redirecting strikes, cutting down appendages and even heads.

Shadow mana was mostly used for defensive and buffing purposes. Seeing as they almost vanished in the darkness, Sam felt that they would have at least some manner of shadow resistance. However, based on the carnage he was creating, they didn’t have a lick of resistance against the wind.

A minute after the battle began, Lucky emerged from the shadows landing on several unlucky gremlins, squashing them uncaringly and then he threw himself in the middle of the battle. With one swipe of his glowing paws, his loyal companion killed each and every one of the gremlins he laid his eyes on.

Soon, Sam fell into a rhythm, one sword strike flowing into another, with each step forward another score of gremlins fell down on the floor, while small wind blades swirled around.

Once again, he could only feel the mana thrumming in his body, ignoring the shrieks and growls of the monsters. He simply moved forward with determination and zeal as he reveled in the use of mana and the results it brought.

Then…

“Wuff!”

Sam stumbled as his sword didn’t catch anything and he had to take a second to right himself.

Confusedly looking around he came face to face with a grinning Lucky as they stood at the end of the corridor, behind them a charnel house and surrounded by blessed silence. Then the silly wolf stepped forward and gave Sam a lick on his face.

“Ugh… Lucky! Why?” he grumbled as he quickly used the Clean spell to get the animal saliva off his face.

The wolf nodded to the ground and Sam followed with his eyes. Aside from the lack of gremlins and the abundance of blackish blood and body parts that were beginning to evaporate into multicolored pixels, there were a few items.

Most of them were reagents that were barely worth any money, but there was one book amidst the junk drops. Apparently, killing so many gremlins meant that he got at least one good drop. Sam stepped over, while collecting all the miscellaneous loot to sell later, and picked up the book.

[Congratulations, you gained the skill book, Summon Shadow Gremlin!]

Sam grimaced at reading that and put the book away. Technically, it was a useful skill, with great late-game synergy potential, but it was incompatible with his build. ‘Maybe Lucy would like it?’ he wondered while continuing to pick up every drop.

Soon, he stood at the end of the corridor, which was once again empty of anybody but the flickering torches and the shadows they cast on the walls, floor, and ceiling.

He turned to Lucky and gave the wolf a pat on his head. “Good job, buddy! Ready for more?”

His answer was an enthusiastic bark and wagging tail. Thankfully, Lucky refrained from licking him again. Sam then turned toward the archway leading into the next area of the fracture and stepped forward.

To nobody’s surprise, as soon as he stepped through the archway at the end of the corridor, he found himself in another corridor. To be fair, this corridor had a bend in it and the torches seemed farther apart, but to Sam’s eyes, it looked exactly like the one he just left behind.

Shrugging, he began walking forward, his sword in his hand and Lucky following silently behind, eyes darting around, looking for any hidden enemies.

Reaching the bend, he stepped next to the wall and leaned forward just enough that he could look around the corner.

He wasn’t disappointed.

At the end of the corridor, still as wide as it was previously, was another archway, and in front of said archway was a giant of a man (though probably not human) with bulging muscles visible even under the dark gray metal armor, they wore.

They stood at parade rest, their hands resting on the pommel of a giant greatsword with its tip piercing the stone floor of the corridor. The armor itself was made of overlapping plates with spikes placed at strategic and non-strategic places. The helmet was a type that only protected the nose, leaving eyes filled with fury visible. The sclera was pure black, while the rest of the eye was shining a malevolent red.

Also, they were around eight feet tall, with thighs thicker than his torso. The very definition of an absolute unit.

As Sam observed his next enemy, probing the being with mana to see if they would react, he let out a relieved sigh as the monstrous warrior didn’t notice anything.

He took a step back, closed his eyes, held his sword out, and began concentrating on the blade. Slowly, but surely, wind mana began to gather around the blade, swirling and swirling in a deadly but constrained dense shape. Keeping an eye on the warrior as they stood stoically at the archway, guarding it, Sam kept channeling more and more mana into the mana construct that began to take shape around his beloved Moonlight.

Then the moment he judged the construct dense and powerful enough, he jumped out of the cover and thrust his sword forward launching the dense mana construct at the warrior.

To be fair, the warrior was fast enough to look up and wrench the greatsword from the stonework, ready to defend themselves, however, that did nothing against the pure devastation that headed at them.

Sam walked forward and reached the archway just as the lower part of the warrior’s body fell over, the armor pieces clattering around.

He smirked and waited until the body evaporated. Sadly, it only left behind a few reagents, but at least it gave a good chunk of experience points. With the group of demonic gremlins and now this warrior, he was almost ready to level up.

Entering the next room through a simple wooden door (Lucky following him with a wolfish grin on his face and tail wagging), he was finally met with more than clean stonework. There were desks and benches, with old but well-cared-for carpets on the ground. And, instead of torches, the illumination came from a chandelier. It wasn’t a big room, maybe around two hundred square feet.

He swept through the room both with his mana sense and by physically searching it. However, he came up with nothing. Shrugging again, though a little disappointed, he approached the door on the opposite wall and cast his senses beyond it.

Nothing.

He signaled to Lucky, who immediately jumped into the nearest shadow. Sam leaned against the wall and began waiting. A few minutes later, his companion reemerged, still grinning.

“Alright, how many?”

“Wuff! Wuff!”

“Two? That’s not much. Are they like the one we just killed?” he asked, and the wolf nodded. “All right, get into the shadows. I’ll take one and you the other…”

“Wuff!”

Sam spent a moment mentally preparing himself and then began walking toward the door.

The two warriors went down just as fast as the previous one, finally pushing him to a level up, but for now, he ignored the notifications, wanting to finish the dungeon before he delved into the scary world of numbers.

The room after was more like a barrack, with multiple beds and wardrobes along the walls. After that, more and more warriors came, never saying a word but attacking on sight. They usually only had greatswords, but some of them were wielding shields with swords, warhammers and one of them charged against Sam with a giant flail.

A simple Earth Wall summoned before their feet caused the warrior to stumble straight into Sam’s sword.

By the time he and Lucky killed the twentieth warrior, he was rather sick of them. Though the number of experience points gained on kills was rather nice, they were clearly one-dimensional enemies.

But as they approached the next door, Sam knew that the enemy behind it was different. Mostly because the door was made of metal instead of the usual wooden ones he found through his journey in this fracture.

The metal itself wasn’t one piece, instead, it looked like somebody used some fire magic to weld together a lot of different pieces of metal scrap resulting in a hodgepodge door. ‘The real Frankenstein of doors…’ he mused as he prepared to enter.

As usual, he cast his mana forward to gauge the monsters on the other hand but instead of a few mana signatures, he was met with a churning whirlpool of dark mana, his mana probe slamming into it like a steel wall and instantly being swallowed by the churning miasma.

Nodding to himself, Sam steeled himself and with a decisive move, opened the door and entered the (hopefully) last room of the fracture.

Inside he was met by a stereotypical summoning room, the torches lit by blue flames, flickering to an unseen and unheard rhythm, bolstered by half-melted candles lit by the same flames placed everywhere, while in the middle of the room was a giant runic circle. The circle seemed to be made from blood of some kind that, thanks to some kind of unseen force, stayed in one place instead of seeping away.

And in the middle of the circle, kneeling in front of a horrific altar, covered by even more candles and a veritable pyramid of human skulls was a demon, shaped like a woman. Her skin was light gray, pallid, her hair was dark brown, almost black, and she was wearing a robe without any embellishments.

She was also chanting very loudly in a language that was familiar to Sam thanks to his inherited memories, but not understandable as he didn’t have the skill yet. Though he managed to catch a few words here and there. Especially the word for ‘portal’…

‘It appears she either wants to escape or summon something. How cliché…’

The moment Sam’s foot hit the floor of the room, her head snapped toward him and an ugly scowl appeared on her face.

“You!” she called out, pointing at Sam.

“Me!” he replied cheerfully, holding his sword ready and revving up his mana to be able to defend against any attack.

The woman seemed to be taken aback for a moment, her face showing her confusion, then her scowl returned.

“You won’t stop me! I will escape this accursed prison!” she yelled, and Sam felt the mana begin gathering around the woman while the maelstrom of miasma slowed down.

‘Ahh, she is aware that she is in a fracture… bummer.’

Before Sam could say anything, she flung her arm forward, her hand aflame with eldritch energies, resulting in a ball of said eldritch energies flying at breakneck speed at Sam’s head.

With nary a thought, he raised a Shadow Wall, reinforcing it with mana, allowing it to absorb the attack, and raised an eyebrow at the demonic mage.

Her scowl deepened and soon Sam was bombarded with more and more balls of eldritch energies.

“Suffer, human!” she called out, bringing her hands together and then separating them, creating a giant ball that flew at Sam immediately.

Judging that his shield wouldn’t stand up to that, he waited until it was almost in touching distance of his Shadow Wall and used his superior speed to dodge the attack. The poor door wasn’t so lucky and the giant ball of dark mana swallowed the hodgepodge construction in a second, leaving a circular hole in the wall and ground where the door was.

This time, Sam replied with attacks of his own.

The demonic mage had to conjure her own shield to protect against Sam’s wind blade barrage while he eyed the ritual circle.

It was indeed one that was intended to punch a hole through the dimensions, albeit with a random destination. This drastically decreased the cost of the ritual, which made sense as the demon was all alone in the fracture, with only those mute warriors as companions.

“Don’t think you can defeat me with just those spells, human!” she spat at him and soon they were both jumping around as they exchanged spells. Though it was a rather tame exchange as neither wanted to damage the ritual circle. The demonic woman because her escape hinged on it and Sam because he was hundred percent certain if he interfered with the ritual the game system would activate it ‘accidentally’ and send him to a random destination. He had better things to do than to traipse around in some random desert or jungle.

For a minute, they both stayed silent as they tried to nail each other with simple spells as the miasma of dark energy kept swirling around them. Sam was contemplating using his own runes to contain the ritual somehow when another idea occurred to him.

Waiting for a moment for a lull in the fight, he spoke up.

“Hey! How about –“ he ducked under a spear of viridian magic as it impacted the wall behind him, melting the stone into a sizzling puddle. “ – instead of fighting – “ This time he had to concentrate on casting a wind spear of his own, taking down several balls of dark mana that looked dangerous. “ – I help you escape?”

The woman’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “What?”