The man dodged by crouching down, but refusing to let go of Eleanor. However, she followed up, and the hand quickly moved to flatten the man. It was here when he finally let go and dodged back, going far away from her, before the hand hit the floor with a booming slap.
She fell to the ground, coughing as she held her neck with her right hand, while the other one touched the ground, where the large black hand had left an imprint.
“Hmph! An interesting trick, but that won’t be enough for—” Another explosion was heard from upstairs, and the man glared once more. “More? Are there more men that think in the same way as that drunk?” He shook his head and then looked at Eleanor, who was looking back with difficulty. “No matter. I’ll deal with you all!”
After saying that, the man boomed from the spot, his hands ablaze and aimed straight at Eleanor. Her eyes were widened at the incoming attack, and it seemed like she might not be able to block, but in the last second, she instinctively raised her arms to block, causing the man to crash with the black arm. An explosion of fires ensued at the point of contact, but both people remained standing in place.
They struggled in their spots, one trying to crush the other while the other tried to hold it back.
It was while the flames were surrounding Eleanor, that the other men in the basement decided to join the fight. They infused their bodies with their own kind of magic; from ice, water, lightning, or fire, and all rushed to crush Eleanor. She turned to look at the incoming men, but from her stance, it appeared like she didn’t know what to do.
One of them got to her side, a hand raised, full of ice, ready to stab her with it. Just as Eleanor closed her eyes and prepared to suffer the attack, lightning hit the man, causing him to fall with the body released steam. From behind Eleanor, Dom stood back up, his spear pointed at the man that just fell.
“I ain’t dead yet,” he whispered, after which he also dashed from the spot to fight with the rest of the men. They reacted just as fast and raised their defenses by creating magical barriers of their own elements. Dom crashed with them, before turning to look at Eleanor. “Girl, you gotta get it together! You gotta pick it up and fight! Quit standing around!”
Eleanor looked at that side with difficulty, where Dom created yet another explosion of lightning and sent a man flying from his spot as another approached him with a fist full of fire. He raised his spear to block and surrounded his body with lightning as he tried his best to fight back.
It was while being distracted, that the boss finally realized that he didn’t have the strength to push Eleanor back and dashed away from his spot. Eleanor stumbled forward, taking a couple of clumsy steps, which the boss used as an opening to attack her. He dashed to the side, and went for her right side, where the black hand wasn’t.
He appeared right next to Eleanor, and with a fast punch, he landed a fiery explosion on Eleanor’s side. She let out a gasp of air, and her body was thrown to the side of the room, crashing into a wall.
Seeing this, Dom turned an urgent look at her. “Get up girl! I didn’t just throw my hide in here to have it all—whoa!”
There were more men surrounding Dom now, and one of them managed to bring his own sword with him to this basement, using it to stab Dom, but missing as the man drunkenly swayed to the side.
Eleanor, in the meantime, heaved while holding her side with her left hand while on the floor, causing the large black hand to appear as if it was covering her. Seeing this, the boss smirked, and slowly approached Eleanor.
“What’s wrong with you? How did you manage to get so far in this Void Dungeon? Did you use your body to get others to take you here, only to leave them behind to die? Did you stab them after they slept with you? Were you planning to do the same, whore?” he mocked, his steps hardly being heard by the fighting taking place behind him. “Well, it ends here!”
He boomed once more from his spot, going directly for Eleanor, who once more managed to block the incoming attack by raising her hand. The man crashed, and Eleanor was pushed into the wall, where rocks, dust, and fire was sent everywhere. However, this time, I noticed something else.
Eleanor was able to follow the man’s movements with her eyes, and despite being in a panic and unsure of what to do, she managed to move before being hit. She was able to keep up, but her inexperience was the thing that was keeping her down. The boss was used to fighting—both people and monsters—while Eleanor had been thrown into this place for only a few days and had managed to stay alive due to both her own luck, desire for survival, and some of my interference.
The boss knew this as well, and he continued to attack the blocking Eleanor. Fists full of fire continued to bury her into the wall, which was then followed with fiery kicks, all of them exploding on impact with Eleanor’s large black hand, sending shockwaves across the basement, increasing its temperature and… burning alive the few women that were still holding on to their lives.
“Oi girl!” shouted Dom, creating and shooting a lightning strike at the man in front of him, before turning to block an icy punch from another. While keeping his block up, he half-turned his face to look in Eleanor’s direction. “Stand up and fight already!”
“Ugh!” was all Eleanor could reply when another powerful punch pushed her deeper into the burning hole.
“That’s a good girl,” the boss said, taking a deep breath and accumulating a large amount of fire in his hands. “Stay down and take it!”
A torrent of fire was shot into Eleanor, and this time, the large hand wasn’t enough to completely block it, which in turn set her on fire. She screamed as the fire engulfed her, but in a final desperate attempt to survive, she slapped her hand at the man. The large arm moved, and the boss wasn’t able to dodge in time due to his focus being on burning Eleanor alive.
He was sent flying backwards, and while he was in the air, he did a flip, and landed on the wall at the other side of this basement. He stayed there for a split second as he turned his gaze back to Eleanor, and then exploded from the spot with a powerful flame that burned everyone around him. Like a fireball, he flew straight at Eleanor.
I knew Eleanor could see the man coming from the look in her eyes, and I took that short time in which her senses were heightened to call her attention by jumping in the air, and while doing so, I gestured with one paw as if I was punching. Eleanor managed to notice my moments, and almost without thinking, she repeated my movement.
The boss was flying so fast, however, that he didn’t have the time to change directions, and when he was right in front of Eleanor, she punched as hard as she could. The only thing the boss could do in that moment was raise his hands and brace for the impact, one that sent shockwaves all over the basement, causing the men that were fighting Dom and Dom himself to lose their balance.
With booming speed, the boss crashed back into the wall at the other side, where he was buried like Eleanor was just a moment ago. Eleanor then walked out of the hole that he pushed her into, and desperately used water magic to turn off the fires that were burning her dress before turning to look in the direction of the fallen boss.
There was no movement, and the rest of the men inside the basement stopped to look in that direction; except for Dom, who used that time of stunned silence to stab the man closest to him with the spear, piercing him straight through the chest.
“We ain’t done here yet, you degenerates!” he shouted, removed the spear and moved on to stab another distracted man, only to toss him aside and run to Eleanor’s bed, where her sword still remained. He reached for it in one move and tossed it her way. “Here girl! Catch!”
Eleanor quickly turned her attention to the blade, and just as fast as Dom threw it, she was able to grab it with her right hand. It was then that she seemed to remember how to fight and stood with the sword ready on one side and the large black hand on the other as if it was a shield.
With a renewed, determined look in her eyes, she gazed down at the hole where the boss remained unmoving. However, as she took a deep breath, there was another loud explosion from upstairs, followed by a lot of smoke coming from this basement’s entrance.
