Haeros Dungeon - Chapter 7 preview (Patreon)

Here’s the thing about Sophia and her skill. I forgot the specific name, but it was basically edged, slicing mirrors or diamonds. It wasn’t actually a skill that created these unmoving, mono-filament guillotines but, from what I understood, it opened up a gap into a dimension of razor blades or something. Basically, she was using portals to slice open anything that came into contact.

The only thing that stopped her skill from being utterly broken was that it took her time to position them, that they could only move very, very slowly and if she did not get the positioning perfect, they did no actual damage.

On the other hand, if you got it right, if the edges of that glistening prism that formed was struck right, you had what happened to the charging minotaur. It went right through the creature, not even slowing it down since the edge was so sharp.

Luckily, Sophia had a second mirror formed right after it, set at the opposite right angle. No cutting this time but because it was an unyielding piece of energy, it effectively clotheslined the minotaur in the chest. The woman had gotten nasty with her positioning of such attacks though, putting it around stomach height so that rather than flipping the creature over backwards, the minotaur flipped over forwards, pivoting all around the mirror.

And that sliced it up further, because once it landed on the ground and started thrashing, its limbs came into contact with the mirror. The juvenile really had no chance, especially as once it was on the ground, she had dismissed her second fractal and set it right above where its legs were. Between already being grievously wounded, unable to get up without slicing itself apart in its panicked state and, well, the crossbow that Sophia had leveled at it in case it did stand, it was as good as done.

Even if, frankly speaking, her skill was rather gruesome to watch. Having a creature literally come apart on itself as it fought to stay alive was not for the faint of heart.

All of this, I had time to take in since, unlike everyone else, I was dealing with my own opponent last. The juvenile minotaur rushing right in with its head down was almost guaranteed to pin me with its horn if I stood there, but from experience shuffling to the side would allow the creature to pivot. The minotaurs had a nasty ability to change direction even when you didn’t think they could, at least on this floor. We hadn’t seen this in the maze of the Aeres fault, which led me to believe it might be an adaptation of their skill meant for a wider place.

Since I couldn’t dodge, and certainly couldn’t step away and let it run over Kira, I had to time my own interception perfectly. I could, theoretically, counter charge it from the side, knock it over. Or throw a spinning, flying kick to its face so that it was knocked to the side or out – but the horn had a way of getting in the way of such things.

Instead, I went for something a little riskier. It required almost perfect timing, but was also very effective. I’d learnt it under its traditional name – tomoe nage – but it was basically a front sacrifice throw. In judo, you had a hold of the gi when they pushed forward and you allowed yourself to fall backwards, planting a foot in the uke’s waist to throw them over.

In this case, since my opponent was half-bent already with its horn projecting outwards to gore me, the focus was not so much on getting the creature to bend over, but to time the fall, grab its upper body for control and then plant my foot into its waist to lift the creature above me.

Now, in practical judo, the goal was to – of course – have the opponent meet the earth with their back, allowing them to break their fall with their legs and arms as they were rolled over. In this way, your practice partner could stand again and you could practice the technique, over and over.

Since the goal at the moment was not for the juvenile minotaur to get up, the rotation I was attempting to generate was higher and the tug on their upper body even more, so that instead of landing on their back, the first thing to encounter the ground would be the creature’s horn and then their face.

Good news was, after having tested this multiple times with various minotaurs, I was getting the technique down almost to the T. The stored energy of the momentum vault helped, not just as I propelled it over me, but also when I first impacted the monster as my hand touched its head and pushed downwards. The pendant that I’d purchased off the Busy Trader was a benefit here, since it had added to my speed again, making me as fast as I had been before I turned on my skill to conserve my energy. Now, when I turned the skill off, I was even faster, which did take a bit of training.

When we impacted, I drained the momentum it transferred to me, near stiff-arming the creature so that its upper body was moving at a slower rate than its lower. Then, as it started to bend over even more and I dropped, I kicked it over.

Then, I accelerated the bottom, while providing the creature the right angle, and the monster just ploughed into the ground. The minotaur’s horn snapped with a sharp crack, sending splinters of bone – ivory? – through the air to impact me and leave a light line of fire across my face. At the same time, the monster’s neck whiplashed backwards and struck its own lower back, before the rest of its body followed in a strange concave motion before its lower back finally met the earth with a slam.

Rolling back to my feet, I focused on the gauntlet in my hand. The singular spike that was part of the gauntlet extended half a foot outwards. On my knees, I reared up a little and then brought my fist down, driving the spike into the monster’s face and targeting the gap that allowed the creature to breathe. Also, you know, where the brainpan lay, right behind a rather thin set of bones in the human skull.

Funny thing: most creatures had a similar weakness. You didn’t want to hit it from the top – I’d seen enough of the skulls to know that – but through the nose with a spike? Pretty damn good. Of course, the juvenile was squirming so I missed and had to swing a couple of times, the wet squelch and tear of bones and spike filling the surroundings before I was done with my messy job.

“I can’t help but think that’s really brutal.”

“Nearly as bad as mace and hammer users.”

“Even worse, Yor.” Brand shuddered. “At least they don’t get as messy.”

“Eh, I don’t mind the mess…”

“You wouldn’t,” Brand muttered as Yorrick finished extracting the stone from his own victim’s chest. The slurping sound of his fist exiting the cavity and the slight burp from the now empty cavity sent a little shudder through my body.

Once again, I made a note to keep an eye out for a really cheap harvesting knife. It would solve so much of the disgusting problems involved, though they were also incredibly expensive. Anything that required teleportation was, though at least in this case it was generally quite short-distance, with a few fixed points and only targeting one direction.

“Alright, let’s get to it. We want to get downstairs before the end of the day, remember?” Kira called out, gesturing for the group to work on their own jobs. Well, all but her since Yorrick was already on the corpse she had created.

All in all, sixth floor – not too bad.