The morning sun over Oakhaven barely pierced the thick clouds as we left the safe walls of the Golden Griffin tavern. Cold air forced its way into my lungs, carrying the familiar taste of wet cobblestone, horse sweat, and smoke from artisan chimneys. I felt excellent. My internal reactor worked quietly, pumping hard vitality straight into the bloodstream of my regenerated Vessel. The base was stable, and yesterday's granting of the "D" Seal guaranteed my girls a foundation, thanks to which they could finally keep up with the upcoming slaughter.
Shnee walked soundlessly right behind my shoulder. She was alert like a bowstring. I walked with a leisurely pace, with my hands pressed deep into the pockets of my black coat. Our goal today was the main dungeon under the city - the Forgotten Necropolises. We had to stretch our bones and check the gear in field conditions. When we approached the northern gate leading towards the underground, our path was blocked by two drunk city guards. One of them, leaning on a rusted halberd, spat into the mud and smiled lewdly. He stopped his blurry gaze on the hips of my elf.
"What's up, kid?" he chuckled, baring his rotten teeth. "You took such a piece for a walk?". "You could have brought her to our guardhouse, the garrison boys would gladly relieve you in the fun".
My Brazen chill did not flinch even a millimeter, but in my mind I immediately issued a cold sentence. Ordinary trash had no right to test my boundaries this way. Without taking my hands out of the pockets of my coat, I simply focused my intention. I used point telekinesis and clenched invisible pincers directly on his testicles. The guard stiffened like struck by lightning. His face turned pale in a fraction of a second, and his eyes bulged from their sockets. He dropped his heavy weapon with a clink, let out a high squeak, and collapsed on his knees straight into the gutter, grabbing his crotch with both hands.
I squeezed harder. A pitiful howl escaped his throat.
"Did I say something about keeping your mouth shut when you speak about my partner," I said with an icy voice towards his trembling companion. "Next time I will simply tear them off completely. Understood?".
The second guard stepped back in panic, trembling with fear and not even trying to draw his sword at my brazen demonstration of force. Shnee smiled predatorily under her breath. We left them in the mud.
Before we entered the gloom of the dungeon, my pure logic reminded me of an important investment. I directed us to the dingy forge of the dwarf Goran. The blacksmith did not even raise his eyes from the anvil when I placed fifteen silver coins on his dirty counter. It was a huge sum.
"I need a proper sword," I threw calmly. "Elite craftsmanship". "A solid piece of tempered steel that will not break upon the first hit on a hard bone".
The dwarf looked at the silver, gasped with appreciation, and pulled out a heavy blade from the depths of the workshop. I weighed it in my hand. The center of gravity was perfect.
Shnee looked at me with clear disbelief. "Why ordinary steel, Dave?" she asked, crossing her arms on her chest. "I saw with what ease you throw destructive lightning and how you crush enemies with telekinesis itself". "Why do you need the weight of this artisan scrap?".
I slid the sword into the leather scabbard with a metallic click. "Pure management of resources, Shnee," I answered coldly. "My lightning magic and force strikes devour power from my tank". "They are powerful, but intended for hard bosses and true elites". "If I start burning precious mana on tearing apart ordinary trash monsters from the first floors, I will dry out before we reach the bottom". "For classic Trash Cleaning, the proper mass of my own body, momentum, and a piece of damn sharp sheet metal are enough for me".
A quarter of an hour later we stood before the massive gates of the Forgotten Necropolises. I opened them with a push of my shoulder. We walked down the wide stairs straight into the stuffy gloom. There was no teleporting or shortening the route here. The first floor was a perfect testing ground. The air tasted of dust, and in the distance we could already hear the dull echoes of shuffling on the floor.
We stopped in a wide corridor. My sharpened senses instantly registered movement in the deep shadows between cracked sarcophagi. I slowly drew the steel sword from Goran. The sound of the blade drawn from the scabbard echoed, acting as an open invitation. Eight skeletons emerged from the gloom in absolute silence. They were primitive constructs animated by muddy mana. Pale fire glowed in their empty sockets, and they wielded old swords and rotten wooden shields in their bony hands.
"Rapier in the scabbard, Shnee," I threw calmly, not taking my eyes off the attacking pack. "I forbid you from using ice magic on this floor". "No freezing". "This is supposed to be a hard warmup for you". "Your organism is still learning fluidity after captivity". "If you rely solely on spells, your muscles will rust".
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The elf clenched her teeth for a moment, but obediently nodded her head. She understood the intention. It was an anatomy lesson.
The first skeleton charged, raising its rusted sword for a clumsy cut. I did not fire up my aura. I did not bend space. I made a fluid half-turn on my heel, entering deep under the dead arm of the monster. I let its weapon pass literally millimeters from my face. Instead of cutting the hard skull, I struck with the flat of my tempered sword straight into its exposed knee joint. The bone crunched with a loud snap. The construct immediately lost its center of gravity. Before it managed to hit the ground, I lightning-fast thrust the tip of the steel under its jaw, prying and tearing its cervical vertebrae in one movement.
The system worked flawlessly. According to the iron mechanics of this dungeon, the destroyed monster turned into a cloud of black ash in a fraction of a second. It fell onto the wet floor, leaving behind only a cloudy crystal.
"Observe their movement!" I called to the elf, entering the middle of three more enemies. "Joints are always the weakest points. Bypass the hard plates and cut the connections".
Shnee did not need repeating. Her predatory instinct adapted in a few seconds. She drove into the remaining four with murderous precision. She avoided the primitive swings with grace, striking the elbows and spines of the skeletons with the heavy crossguard of her rapier. When one of them lost balance, she ruthlessly drove the thin blade into its kneecaps, breaking the skeleton using pure physics instead of magic.
At that time, I blocked a shield blow with the hard steel from Goran. The dwarf's sword did not even tremble. I braced my legs, redirected the enemy's momentum, and deprived two more skeletons of their legs at thigh height with a brutal cut. I finished them off with my hobnailed boot, crushing their skulls against the stone floor.
After a minute, only silence and the crunch of black ash under our boots prevailed in the corridor. Shnee panted lightly, but a smile of pure satisfaction from the completed work brightened her face.
"Eight pieces dismantled to screws without a gram of magic," I assessed coldly, gathering the shining cores from the ground with telekinesis and hiding them in my pocket. "You caught the rhythm, darling. It is time for the final exam of this floor".
Before we managed to pass to the next chamber, the floor trembled. The main guard formation emerged from the depths of the dark corridor. This was no longer a mindless gang. Eight powerfully built skeleton veterans armored in blackened chainmails marched in the front. Each of them wielded an iron-bound shield and a broadsword. They moved in full military synchronization, forming a murderous wall, from behind which only their purple eyes flashed. And behind their backs, towering over them by a good head, marched the Mini-Boss of this level. He was massive. Two meters of yellowed bones encased in plate armor, from which rusted spikes protruded. He held a monstrous halberd in his large hands, the blade of which was the size of a butcher's cleaver.
"Vanguard with a hard lock," I assessed coldly, feeling the battle adrenaline begin to circulate in my veins. I gripped my steel sword with both hands. "This is no longer a normal walk".
"Break their formation from the side?" Shnee asked, ready for a lightning-fast flanking maneuver.
"No. We will destroy their center of gravity," I cut off, starting to run straight at the tightened wall of shields.
I drove into them at full speed, but I did not aim with the sword. At the last second, I bounced off the floor with all my might and drove my heavy boot with momentum straight into the center of the largest shield of the front skeleton. The rush of my hard Vessel acted like a ram shot. The shield broke with a deafening crack, and the struck skeleton flew backward, breaking the enemy line. Before they managed to close the gap, I fell into the breach with my sword in hand. A smooth cut from below chopped off the arm of one of the guards, and I grabbed the second one by the neck and threw him straight onto his ally's blade.
Then the Boss attacked. A piercing whistle tore the air. The armored skeleton with the halberd took a wide swing diagonally, cutting with monstrous force across the entire width of the corridor. He did not care about his own subordinates – the blade of his weapon cut the surviving shield guard in half, and then rushed straight at my chest. I braced my legs and raised the sword from Goran for a hard block. The collision generated a deafening sound of tearing metal. Hundreds of hot sparks showered from the blade. The dwarf's steel performed phenomenally, absorbing the blow and not bending into an arch, but the force of the boss's tonnage pushed me a centimeter into the floor.
The Mini-Boss did not give up. He immediately pulled the shaft back and delivered a vertical blow from top to bottom, trying to split my skull. I took the hit on the guard again. Sparks illuminated the darkness once more. But ordinary matter in this world had its hard limits. It was a good sheet of metal, but in a clash with the multi-ton mass of the halberd rushing from above and the inhuman force of my own resistance from below, physics finally had to exact its toll. The blade screamed for the last time. With a loud clink, the shining sword from Goran broke exactly in half. The upper part of the steel flew into the darkness with a whistle, and only a bent stump remained in my clenched hand.
The boss jerked with all his might, trying to pull the halberd out, but my grip was concreted. I took a short swing with my right hand and drove the sharp stump of my sword straight into the narrow gap between his rusted breastplate and bone neck. The iron entered him with a disgusting grind. I twisted the remnant of the blade with the full force of my wrist. The Mini-Boss's spine broke with a deafening crunch. The purple fire in his eye sockets immediately went out. The massive body became motionless, and a second later it literally exploded, turning into a huge mountain of falling ash.
The heavy halberd fell to the ground with a crash. I threw the destroyed hilt into the darkness and dusted my hands off the dirt, feeling a growing satisfaction in my muscles. A shining essence core flashed from the ash.
"Gather the loot, Shnee," I threw in a relaxed tone, running my hand through my hair. "The warmup with iron has just ended. And now we will clear the rest of this dungeon on my own rules".