It did not take long before seven more crimson furred chimpanzees came into view, their eyes gleaming with open malice and simmering rage. Deep, guttural growls scraped through their throats as they began pounding their wide, bare chests like a chorus of war drums, thin, piercing shrieks tearing from their mouths as they panted with restless aggression.
Cassandra smiled faintly as she surged forward with startling speed. She lifted her enormous foot high above them, a foreboding shadow spreading wide enough to swallow the group whole. Most of them scattered in a desperate attempt to escape, but one was not quick enough, caught beneath her devastating stomp and reduced instantly to a smear of blood and viscera, the impact shaking the ground for several meters in every direction.
Two of the creatures tried to use her massive body as leverage, scrambling up her frame as though she were nothing more than a tree to be climbed. They were swatted away like troublesome insects, sent crashing down to the earth only to land directly beneath her heels, their bones and flesh giving way with a sickening crack.
She launched a sweeping roundhouse kick that cut through the air with heavy, displaced wind, catching two more chimps in its arc and eviscerating them instantly.
The remaining three, sensing an easier target, turned their attention toward Mark instead, their killing intent rising sharply the moment their eyes settled on him, and they surged forward without hesitation.
Mark clenched his fists tightly and drove one straight into the jaw of the first chimp, the impact producing a sharp, breaking crack, before twisting his torso just in time to evade a brutal blow from the fist of a second attacker. His leg snapped upward in a swift high kick that sent the creature staggering backward, and in the same motion he tilted his neck sharply, narrowly avoiding the snapping jaws of a third beast closing in from behind.
He followed through with a heavy elbow strike straight to the creature’s head, the force of it snapping its skull backward at an unnatural angle. Without pausing, he spun into a roundhouse kick that caught the first chimp squarely, then drove a sharp hook into the second, the blow landing clean and hard.
Before Mark could press any further, the third chimp was suddenly caught beneath one of Cassandra’s massive heels, its skull shattering instantly like a fragile egg.
Seven corpses of what had once been fierce, snarling monsters now lay sprawled across the ground around them, scattered like broken dolls discarded mid battle. Mark gave a small nod as he assessed the aftermath of the kills, then continued forward along the path with Cassandra at his side.
Judging by how manageable the fight had ultimately been against these particular monsters, Mark could only guess that there was little to no meaningful gap left between their current tiers, a realization that left him quietly satisfied.
Cassandra’s immense size might have seemed like a disadvantage at first glance, but she compensated for it easily, moving and fighting like a truly competent warrior who understood her own balance and weight down to the smallest detail. She carried herself as though her towering bulk weighed nothing at all, despite how obvious and easy a target such size should have made her.
She possessed extraordinary durability, raw strength, and endurance, qualities more than capable of offsetting whatever disadvantage her size might otherwise have presented in battle.
Soon enough, they arrived at a wide, open clearing where dozens of chimpanzees waited, restless and alert. Some lingered high in the surrounding trees, letting out low, howling cries, while the majority remained grounded, gathered in a dense, watchful crowd. Their sheer numbers made Mark narrow his eyes as he scanned the clearing, searching for the one figure that was unmistakably meant to lead them.
It stood far larger than the rest, its long mane braided carefully with beads, bone rings fitted snugly around each of its thick fingers, and fangs jutting prominently from its mouth. Its fur shone a striking orange gold beneath the dim light filtering through the canopy.
Decorative skulls adorned the loincloth wrapped around portions of its body, and hanging from its broad, powerful neck was a pendant fitted with a gleaming blue core, unmistakably the dungeon core itself.
Mark’s eyes sparkled with sudden interest. He tucked his hands casually into his pockets and spoke without even glancing toward Cassandra. "You handle the minions. I’ll go for the boss and finish this myself."
Cassandra glanced briefly in his direction, and as though she had already understood the full shape of his plan, she hefted him up without hesitation. Then, with a single forceful push, she hurled him straight toward the boss chimp, who let out a violent, echoing roar the instant it saw him coming.
Mark landed in a swift, controlled roll following Cassandra’s carefully aimed launch, immediately moving to evade a brutal stomp from the massive boss chimp. The creature’s frame could easily have been mistaken for that of a gorilla, its thick, tough arms built like solid blocks of muscle and bone.
He understood well enough that he was not truly a match for this opponent, not with the sheer, overwhelming aura radiating off its towering form, but he intended to try his luck regardless.
A violent tremor rippled suddenly across the ground beneath his feet, and he knew immediately, without needing to look, exactly where it had come from.
Several minion chimps were sent flying high into the air from the sheer force of one of Cassandra’s brutal kicks. He would have sworn, watching it happen, that she was still holding herself back, barely exerting any real effort against them at all.
Mark swung his fist forward, meeting the boss chimp’s own strike head on in an explosive collision that rippled outward across the surrounding ground. Though he felt the sharp tension and strain of the impact travel through his muscles and bones, he pressed forward anyway, driving his other clenched fist toward its chest with practiced speed, only for it to be caught mid strike in the boss’s iron grip.
They locked into a fierce struggle of raw strength and force, each pushing hard against the other’s opposing power with brute, unrelenting energy.
Mark let out a sharp roar as half the strength of a giant surged violently through his veins, unleashing a sudden burst of might that sent the beast staggering backward several steps.
"Just hand over your dungeon core already!" Mark drove a punch squarely across its head, the blow snapping it sharply to the side. But then its crimson eyes flared brighter, burning with savage fury, as it lifted its head back and let out a deep, thunderous roar that rattled painfully in his eardrums.
Mark’s eyes widened in alarm as it raised both muscular arms high above its head, clearly winding up for a devastating, crushing blow. He realized, with a sinking feeling, that he was already too late to react to the coming attack.
’Exchange!’ he bellowed inwardly, the mental command firing off instinctively, and in the next instant he vanished from where he stood, reappearing exactly where Cassandra had been only moments before, narrowly escaping the downward arc of the beast’s devastating strike.
The boss chimp looked genuinely confused for a brief moment at the sudden shift, some strange magic it clearly did not understand, before it noticed a growing shadow spreading rapidly above it. Mark had just activated yet another of the summoner’s core attributes, one capable of swapping his position directly with that of his summon, which meant, in that very instant, something far worse was already descending toward it.
The boss chimp had no time whatsoever to react before Cassandra came down squarely on top of it, delivering a devastating stomp that shattered the ground across a wide radius around the point of impact. She lifted her foot slowly afterward, revealing the smeared, ruined heel where the creature had stood only seconds before.
Although the boss chimp’s tier of 4.0 technically outranked Cassandra’s own by a fair margin, her enormous size and overwhelming physical strength more than made up the difference, rendering the gap between them practically insignificant in the end.
The dungeon core rolled gently against Mark’s leg with a soft, metallic clink as he deactivated both Echo and Symbiosis, exhaustion finally beginning to settle heavily into his body. He bent down to pick it up, staring at it quietly for a long moment before a small, satisfied smile crossed his face.
Cassandra crouched low, lowering her towering height to meet Mark’s level, the posture of a dedicated warrior getting ready for further duty.
"I think I’m going to start calling you Cassie instead. What do you think about that?" Mark asked, casually testing the weight of the dungeon core resting in his palm.
"So far, it suits my name well enough in a shorter form, and it seems easy on your tongue. I shall allow it," Cassandra replied, her light voice carrying an unexpectedly honeyed, warm pitch beneath its natural strength.
"Here, you’ve earned this." Mark tossed the dungeon core toward Cassie, who caught it effortlessly out of the air.
In that very moment, the dungeon core turned translucent, slowly dispersing into countless fragments of shimmering magical energy that sank directly into her body, absorbed as easily as water into a sponge.
Mark paused abruptly as he felt something shift deep within himself. His muscles grew visibly stronger, his bones denser, his tendons pulled taut, and his nerves and senses sharpened into something far more profound and heightened than before.
Every one of his core attributes, strength, speed, defense, offense, and endurance alike, had risen noticeably in that single instant. He felt like a vessel overflowing with raw, flowing power, his earlier exhaustion fading quickly as his body seemed to rejuvenate from within.
This particular feeling was different from anything he had experienced before, and he realized it almost immediately. Cassandra had just crossed an entire tier from absorbing a single dungeon core, and the speed at which it had happened was nothing short of astonishing.
A/N: I hope that you’re enjoying it so far. Don’t forget to support with a powerstone or two and adding to your library. I would also like you to do me a favor of leaving reviews.