In her eyes, the monster was blazing.
The dry, furious flame was fluttering in his body, trying to escape its cage. Hungry and malicious, it was. Warm-not-warm, it cast invisible rays on the girl, awakening thrill and fear, warping her spirit into submission.
I see.
A whip of fire leaped and Alice brandished her glaive to intercept the tail. The wolf attempted to ram at her and the blade shined threateningly, warded him off with a swing.
I see!
Life energy in the wolf seemed to slowly devour itself, pushing him way over the limit of simple evolved monsters. Slow, somewhat broken circulation reminded her of cultivation. The source of energy was in the beast's chest, too, only his was the magic core.
Monsters must nourish their cores with life energy. They fight and devour each other, and the dungeon rewards them as killing machines.
Like me!
The girl narrowed her lids. Life energy had moved into her eyes on its own, activating a mysterious ability. Awakened long before its time by the dungeon sending a reward blindly, by the girl stealing it from the ants. They both screwed up, only Alice unwittingly benefited and the dungeon got angry from the fact.
Now, she could feel the energy in her eyes raising without a limit, straining them more and more. Her vision grew strong and crisp, yet it certainly wouldn't last long. Alice had to end this fast!
The girl left an opening and the wolf lunged with its tail at her. She sidestepped, the sheen of the blade drew a 'C', scarred his face. The fur, skin, flesh of the beast were dense, hard to cut and she missed a chance to blind it by one eye. The tail swept her with force, left a broad dent on the armor.
Dull pain stirred a groan and a breath. The small girl in a mask with painted oni and the monster from the dungeon exchanged ferocious gazes and spurred into motion at the same time.
Two blades crossed in the air with a loud ring. The glaive fell down then, with skill and beauty, hacked into the beast's left leg. The tail's dagger slashed out, with wilderness and cunning, sparked off Alice's thigh.
Their harm seemed uneven, but the wolf was much much bigger and easily ignored scratches, the girl understood this point precisely. Another exchange, another dent on her armor, another spurt of blood coloured the stony ground. She grunted. Life energy had partly dispersed the bludgeoning force under her command.
With newfound vigor, Alice grinned and attacked the monster. She bluffed, drawing all kinds of figures with her blade to confuse the monster, parried its tail and slashed tiny pieces of him again and again. The monster was stubborn during the girl's assault, he never tried to overrun her so she could use his force to nail the blade somewhere deep, he even gave up on using its paws to contend after a few tries.
The further the fight went, the more Alice could see indistinct rhythms in life energy rocking in the beast's body, myriad of links to his movements, to changes between attack and defense. Masterless and clueless, this ability still helped her, easied her thoughts, lifted up her instincts. Sounds of her glaive swishing through the air grew clean and fierce, scarlet and bright.
For a minute, the clashes of the two continued in the rocky labyrinth, its terrain advantaged one of them. The wolf destroyed the rocks when Alice hid behind them, worn through the battery and inflicted quite a harm to both the girl and her life energy.
"Gah," Alice gasped and stepped back, lastly. New dents almost ruined the armor and she felt a bit faint after the wolf's tail had slapped her helmet. Her whole body hurt covered in bruises, numerous bones had microfractures and three ribs were broken. The eyes were aching. Two life potions were still circulating, too slow to repair all damages before the grand finale would come.
The wolf licked his injured paws and lifted his head, stared at her.
A strange light flickered in his eyes. Her pupils contracted,
"Burn!", Alice screamed.
Three scarlet flowers blossomed in her eyes. Two on the beast's legs injuries, one on the head right above his right eye. They blossomed from the inside out, striving to tear the monster's flesh in a gorgeous blast.
ROAR! A howl superseded the girl's order. The beast's own life energy pressed onto her blood essence, squeezed it out, vastly reducing the damage. It was similar to her own life energy reaction to snakes' sonic attacks!
He was still injured, but not nearly critical as Alice had hoped. The howl nearly toppled her, and it was not yet over! The wolf's energy went berserk!
Roared once more, the wolf, and shot forward, crushing little stones with pure weight and sheer force. Too fast, too powerful, the death itself...
No. Burn.
Liquid fire running in her veins, Alice evaded teeth and claws, for a split moment almost embracing the ground, only the glaive raised proudly, covered in blood and tatters of fur. Without even looking behind, the girl flipped over the sweeping low tail, its dagger flew right before her eyes. Then she heard a crash.
Still in the air, seeing the monster springing from the nigh destroyed stalagmite, Alice calmly pushed herself away with her glaive, the latter rose up in an arc and crossed the path of the beast after she let the shaft go.
Dangerous. Calculated.
The wolf landed heavily on the glaive; no matter how hard its skin and flesh were, the ground behind the other end of the weapon was even sturdier. The point stabbed directly into his lower chest, dug so deep it disappeared behind the body.
Swoosh!
Trying to stand, the wailing monster took an arrow in a wide wound on its side, the result of their previous clash. Alice didn't fall back, she moved forward, and arrows pierced at every scar on the beast's legs, back, abdomen, everywhere his protection was low. She dodged a weak tail lash, grabbed the shaft and pulled the blade out of his chest, allowing blood to flow out freely.
Alice didn't stop slashing and cutting,
[+1800 EXP, +720 BP]
...until a system notification pinged. She stumbled away, still staring at a mutilated corpse, gasped for air. When a rock jumped into her feet, she sat, fell down.
With a trembling hand, Alice took out a life potion, her eyes flicking right and left, drank it greedily.
"It's over," the hoarse words left her lips after a while. A thought flashed, "If it wasn't someone like me..."
Alice sighed, feeling she needed to scramble away, too weak to follow this good hunch through.
A normal monster was easy. It had status closely linked to size, and therefore well measured by common sense. One species was more problematic than another for obvious reasons, like small-framed snakes and winged snakeflies. Dangerous in great numbers, but still animals, basically.
Evolved monsters, odd abilities and body members aside, surely had some status growth. Maybe their names were classes or templates, Alice hypothesized and then tossed this half-baked guess out of her head.
Finally, three-words named monsters. Evolved second time, she postulated. Alice had a misfortune to meet them twice already. There was a spider whose condition was no good and who definitely preferred to strike from darkness. She still was spooked and guarded her back, yet the problem lied in...
Alpha Chimeric Wolves.
Now, Alice had little doubt a well-armored army squad or even a SWAT team would be able to gun down such a beast with little casualties given good terrain and distance, the most important, some distance.
If they wouldn't succumb to the aura of dread. Very big if. Alice had spent nearly four years making terms with death, from five years old to nine years old. The experience had very little to recommend, yet it had been critical in the ordeal of today and the girl still barely made it.
Thanks to a sonic snake being such a fast-perishable meal.
Very seriously Alice prayed for its reptile soul to escape the dungeon's clutches.
Chat... I want to talk.
How long had it been she last talked to someone? The girl didn't know, and she might be scolded for not showing up. However, Alice decided against logging in now, when she was so weakened and had to stay vigilant. Struggling, she stood up, walked to the dead wolf and started to slice into it, using her glaive like a shovel.
A low-tier magic core was found, as the girl had expected, in the beast's heart.
The grade changes.
Nod and blink. Alice gathered whatever was left of her arrows and attempted to divine the way to the first, ambushed wolf. Then she noticed bread crumbs: more arrows that her less reliable quiver had lost here and there; the girl had paid so little attention that she literally forgot.
She followed the trails of her ammunition and broken boulders, collecting whatever the alpha wolf didn't crush. When the girl reached the place, she found an unexpected guest.
A sonic snake had half its body in a corpse's empty eye socket, must be feeling great about itself. Alice snorted and cleaved it before the reptile could slither its way out.
"Hm... come again?"
Something in the notification bothered her and the girl opened the system log.
[Sonic Snake Lvl. 5]
[+500 EXP, +100 BP]
Level 5 evolved snake, 500 exp points, Alice repeated dumbly. Then she blew up,
"System, the fuck!?"
Read that last Sonic Snake as Solid Snake for a second.
Snake ! What happened ? SNAKE ! Snaaaaaake! :D