Temperant Dungeon (2)

Its drool melted the floor below, and its overflowing desire for something to devour spread to my own soul, nearly devouring me.

CRACK

The skeleton behind me practically snapped in half as the pair of jaws expanded and ate half of its body.

As it folded into itself, the rest of the skeleton was soon devoured and disappeared into the ethereal blue magic that made up my spell.

I felt something slide down my esophagus without the need to actually swallow; a strange feeling, yet I didn't mind it as it sated my raging hunger.

It expanded into a few tendrils that reached out to the remaining wave of undead, immediately swallowing them whole as well.

"Ugh… zombies taste like shit," I muttered before slowly minimizing the amount of mana flowing into my attack, as I was getting drained pretty quickly.

Any longer, and I would've passed out from lack of mana.

It was an on-and-off battle due to my miserably low mana storage. And if it wasn't for it, the fight would've ended much, much earlier.

Continuously running back to the hallway to escape the vision of the undead and then running straight back to wipe out about twenty more was very tedious.

But, even though the small fry were relatively easy to beat if I had enough mana to work with, the larger and more prominent undead who clearly displayed their status among the others were annoying.

Crack… Crack… Crack… Crack…

A chilling breeze swept through the air, and a skeleton about twice my height slowly approached me, its presence wiping out the small tints of power radiating from the small fry.

"You wanna go?" I smirked, the skeleton immediately looking down at me.

Its shadow loomed over me, blocking out the bright lights that radiated from the massive glowing stones up above.

Most dungeons had a light similar to this, and yes, they were different from experience bags, pots, stones… I could care less what they're called.

The skeleton reached behind its back, pulling out two rusty longswords that it held with surprising skill.

Its weight was distributed evenly amongst both weapons, and as it continued to size me up, I tossed my staff into the horde behind me.

They hadn't been doing anything, presumably under the massive skeletons' command, but I still wanted some extra experience points for when I crushed this arrogant skeleton's boney ass.

Slowly, I pulled out my twin daggers, and I could see the hollow eyes of my enemy squint, almost as if they were judging me for taking out such weapons.

"Only these are necessary to crush you… [Empower]... [Haste]," I muttered, and an orange aura wrapped around both my body and weapons, brewing a sense of excitement that flickered in my soul.

Finally… I can do some physical combat that won't be as easy as crushing a mouse but won't get my ass beat.

Crack… Crack… Crack… Crack…

We both stepped up to each other, and even though I had to crane my neck back for some strange reason, I couldn't help but continue to look down on my boney opponent.

And, in just a split second, the skeleton made the first move.

SWOOSH

Its sword swung right past me as I jumped back, and as it burst forward with an impressive amount of speed, it saw me disappear from its sight.

I wasn't fast enough to completely disappear from existence as of now, but I used the blind spot of each undead, and that was their chest.

Their vision was more like focusing on everything at once instead of shifting a pupil to focus on a singular thing.

But, the drawback is that it overloads their mental, forcing them to subconsciously skew their vision into a smaller diameter than what a normal human would have.

I had a natural experience with it, so there is no way I wouldn't know of this weakness.

As soon as I had slipped into the skeleton's chest, I slipped through its legs and circled around the back of it, swinging both of my arms in an X-shaped attack.

Both blades scratched the back of the skeleton's head, digging about an inch through but nowhere near enough to actually do significant damage.

FWOOSH

After feeling my blades slice through the back of its head, the skeleton swung backward, nearly cutting me in half.

If I wasn't able to flexibly push out the daggers in both of my hands, deflecting the blade just away from my body, my skeleton would've been cut right in half.

"Fooooooo…"

My eyes went deathly cold as I slowly realized the actual battle experience of this skeleton, but it still wasn't the thing whose presence greeted me at their front door.

FWOOSH FWOOSH FWOOSH SHING SHING SHING

We exchanged attacks, but nobody was even able to hit each other due to our experience and proficiency with our weapons.

Daggers weren't my preferred choice, but I wouldn't mind taking them over a staff.

FWOOSH FWOOSH FWOOSH

A few air attacks were dished out as we slowly split apart, and due to our bottomless pit of stamina, the fight seemed like it wasn't going to end any time soon… until I saw an opening.

I shot a bullet of darkness at the back of the skeleton's head and then used the momentum of his swung sword to direct myself downward.

As the skeleton's balance was suddenly thrown off, it stumbled back, revealing its open nape to me.

And just like that. It ended in an instant.

SHING SHING SHING SHING

With a flurry of slices from my daggers, I cut straight through the skeleton's neck, leaving me standing atop its corpse as it attempted to gather itself again.

"Call it. Call that thing," I muttered, but the skeleton didn't need to say anymore as a shiver was sent down my spine, and a pair of glowing black eyes seemingly stared straight into my soul.

Clack… Clack… Clack… Clack…

A shadow washed over the battlefield as the fear skill being emitted from this monster caused my skin to erupt with goosebumps.

Clack