My muscles wanted to tense, but I didn't allow it. If I tensed up it would be harder to move. I needed to be able to react if something happened. Especially since I didn't have a weapon. I was relying entirely on my mana alone.
It wasn't a fun feeling. My muscles tensed regardless of what I wanted as the sound of skittering legs reached me. There was a buzz in the air as well. It reminded me of a hoard of mosquitoes in the night. I couldn't see them yet because the lights on the walls only extended so far.
I laid down on the bed, and hoped for the best. I shook off the hallucination, and let out a wave of fire. I needed to see what was coming. I was horrified by the large number of insects coming my way. If the trail dungeons had a limit on the number of monsters that spawned within then this one didn't.
I rushed ahead without really thinking about it any further. I thrust my flames outward in a dome. My flames temporarily stopping the flying insects. I didn't really know what was going on. I frowned to myself as I rushed into battle. I was strong enough to kill one per blow.
The problem was there were hundreds on me at once. I kept on striking out one by one. I could keep going. All I had to do was keep fighting. I kept on fighting.
The only way I was going to survive was if I didn't stop. Sometimes I would just hallucinate the most random things. Going to bed. Playing a video game. Reading a book.
All of them were a relaxing scenario. I frowned to myself. In that moment I was a killing machine. Completely focused on decimating the enemies before me. Flames flared out from where I was standing.
Keeping the flying insects at bay as I killed the ones that were running up to me. My partially unlocked bloodlust skill activated again. Pushing me out of control as I went straight for the kill each time. I couldn't stop myself. The armor did well to block attacks.
I accelerated. My body moved fast. I was completely out of control as I laughed maniacally. Killing everything that came close with little to no control over my mind let alone my body. I needed to gain control of this ability.
It worked similar to adrenaline, and kept my body functioning at peak condition well past what I should be capable of. There were several drawbacks though. The more I killed the more I wanted to kill. I could very easily lose control of myself completely if I went at it too much. Only a small fragment of my mind remained intact during this slaughter.
The increase in my vitality was working in my favor. My body was healing as it was wounded. My blood clotted quickly, and the small wounds would seal up within an hour. Bruises, and scratches didn't do much to me. I let myself fall into the feeling of euphoria.
There were no humans around, and I couldn't control myself while there was so much blood around me to be spilled. So why even attempt to stop myself? The energy seemed to just keep coming. I lost track of how many I killed a long time ago. I didn't know how long I would be able to keep this up.
Eventually my body would give out whether I wanted it to or not. I wasn't really paying attention to what was going on in front of me. It was a whole lot of slaughter. I sped up even faster. I didn't really care about it.
The more I killed the closer I was to hatching my dragon egg. I wondered if each bug counted as a kill. If they did I was carving down those numbers really quickly. I was looking forward to the time that I would have a reliable partner. Someone who was strong enough that I didn't have to worry about protecting them.
I could fight as hard as I wanted, and my partner would be able to join me in those fights. No more being worried about who was behind me. A dragon wouldn't be afraid of me when I was spiraling out of control. I would be able to spiral as much as I needed. Kill as much as I needed without having someone judge me for going out of control.
I could be the monster I wanted to be for as long as I needed. I lashed out. Killing everything in my path without hesitation. There were no humans in here, and the only way out of the dungeon was to kill all the monsters on this floor. Each impact was punctuated with a burst of fire.
It didn't take very much mana to hit them with a burst of fire after a punch. My mana capacity had grown to a point that I was able to fight freely as I wanted as long as I was careful. Each strike was fatal to the small bugs. I kept on going long past what most folks could handle. Pushing myself to the point that my muscles were screaming.
I kept going until there weren't anymore bugs. My body folded under my own weight as soon as the bloodlust let up. My mind becoming completely my own once again. I was left gasping for air, and covered in small wounds. I wasn't in a whole lot of pain, but I wouldn't be able to fight like that again for a little while.
There was only one path I could take out of this cavern. I took a minute to collect myself. Then I moved on to start collecting crystals. There were dozens of small useless crystals. I felt an urge to collect them all.
I didn't know why, but my gut was rarely wrong. I didn't have a good way to carry them though. I stacked them up, and moved. Heading further into this floor of the dungeon. I hadn't cleared it yet.