Bang Bang Bang
A string of black blooded bullets exploded from the barrels of Flo’s pistols.
On impact, they slightly melted the armour of the knight but only just.
Lifting its head and looking through the long vertical slits in its headgear, it watched Florian move backwards while more bullets left the barrel of his gun.
Moving his shield to block the bullets, the front of the shield, in a matching pure red but with a golden flower design built onto it, started to melt from the bullets.
Swinging his sword to the right, he matched the swing of Cath’s scythe at the metals grinded together causing a large screeching echo to sweep around the dungeon.
More shots blasted into the knight as some slammed into its helmet while others missed or dissolved the shield.
But being forced to keep focus on Cath, he couldn’t do anything about Flo.
Pulling his sword back, he slashed down again on to Cath who dodged backwards.
Leaping backwards, the knight set up into a polearm position but replaced his spear with the sword, so the shield was held in front while the blade was held behind in a stabbing position.
Recognising this familiar stance as one used by the polearm unit of the Ironfield Kingdom, he shouted to Cath, “Cath, focus on his knees,” trusting Flo, Cath did as told.
Rushing towards the knight, she kept her scythe low to the ground as she sliced sideways through the air.
Not expecting this, the scythe slammed into the knight’s knees causing his right leg to bash into his left.
Tumbling onto the ground, Cath crafted another cutting motion using her scythe onto the side of the knight.
Bang Bang Bang
More bullets streamed through the air exploding in total the fallen knight whilst Cath’s weapon made contact with the knight, but not penetrating.
It only left a scratch on the fading blood coloured armour.
The knight pushed his weight onto his sword, slowly pulling himself back up.
As the blood originating from the bullets melted some of the metallic armour.
Hoping to take advantage of this opportunity, Flo sprinted to the knight and held both of his pistols in his left hand whilst life essence collected onto his right hand and materialised into black blood.
Cath stepped backwards catching her breath as she watched Florian’s black blood form into a faint shape of a rugged knife.
Using the poorly crafted knife, Flo stabbed it straight into one of the many vertical slits in the knight’s helmet.
He felt the knife pierce through already fractured skin as he heard the hoarse breathing of the knight.
Moving backwards, Flo let the blood knife deform and melt into the skin of the knight.
Thud
The knight collapsed completely onto the floor as dry coughs and breathing were released from the helmet.
His sword and shield were thrown to the side, laying defeated with the knight.
Stepping over the knight, Flo kicked the helmet off.
The face reveal of the knight wasn’t pretty.
His ashy skin already dried and fractured had now fully dissolved revealing parts of its bone.
The black blood continued to eat away, dripping down the throat of the knight.
Grabbing his pistol, he loaded it with a spare regular bullet as he kept many in his back pocket.
Bang!
He Emotionlessly stared at the dead knight’s face, now with a copper bullet lodged into his head.
Cath, only a few steps behind him, spoke up, “you’ve made it to the bronze realm haven’t you, irons can’t at all shape their essence?”
“I’m at the third stage of bronze now,” he replied as he bent down and ripped off the knight’s chest plate, “can I borrow your scythe?” Flo asked as if he had done it a million times before and Cath answered like she had given it a million times before.
Now with the scythe in his hand, barely able to manoeuvre it well enough, he cut a rough line deep into the knight’s body from his shoulder to his torso.
Repeating this for the other side and then joining both cuts with a horizontal slice, he pulled off the chest of the body.
With its innards revealed, the life core also revealed itself.
It was a blood core, unsurprisingly, at the 12th level of the bronze core realm.
Ripping it out, he chucked the core to Cath who placed it into her storage ring.
“So do we go up there for the boss?” He asked Cath, staring up the hill where a perfectly molded tunnel lay.
The branch of a tree resting just above it.
“Correct,” she replied simply.
“Let’s rest for a while, we have time,” Flo said as he sat down on the middle of the hill.
Cath joined him.
Sitting closely together, they gazed out into the sealed room of the dungeon.
A few plain trees with the similar red leaves slept across the unnatural dungeon room.
Water continued to fall from the area they burst from originally.
The same crimson red matched with the colour scheme of the dungeon.
“The owner of this dungeon must be somewhat crazy, even if it’s not real blood, they must still not be right in the head,” outwardly claimed Catherine.
“A lot of people are crazier than you think.
Some are better at concealing their rotten brains compared to others.”
“I guess.
At my school, you can tell who’s crazy but some are less noticeable.”
“Your school is in the capital, right?” Cath nodded her head up and down in response, “You’re not gonna be here in Birnam much longer are you then?”
“Nope, only have 3 sunrises left and then we have to head back.
And after that it’s exam period,” she said the last part regrettably.
Crrrrr-aaaak
All of a sudden, straight above them, the earth began to crumble and rivers of dirt started to drop onto them.
Standing up quickly, they treaded carefully up the hill.
“It doesn’t look like it’s gonna fall but I don’t want to stay here much longer,” Flo said inspecting the small cracks appearing in the roof of the dungeon.
Turning around with their minds made up for them they moved down the tunnel which was very similar to the tunnel at the entrance.
The only difference being that you could see the end of the tunnel.
At the end was a large opening which expanded into a blood red arena.
A shallow pool of blood covered the entire floor and directly in the center of the blood laid the boss.
The shallow lake of blood concealed the dungeon vault door just below inscribed with a lot more carvings than the bronze dungeon they went to.
The boss, being only a small blur in the distance, forced the duo to not make any early assumptions.
All they knew was the battle would be tougher than the one against the knight.
As they moved closer together, what the beast was became more and more obvious.
And the danger the duo was in increased more and more.
Eventually, their 4 feet stepped onto the shallow lake of blooded water, causing a splash onto their own legs.
Now with their trousers splattered in splotches of blood, together they stared at the beast that awaited them.
Each of the beast’s 2 legs and 2 wings were chained by long red chains which dived under the blood and flooring.
Cath spoke first, “is that a dragon?” She asked, her lips shivering as she spoke.
“No, just a wyvern,” Flo replied, spotting the tell-tale differences.
“So it’s ‘just’ a wyvern, how great?” Cath replied, still in obvious fear as the wyvern inhaled a great load of air, the noise echoing around the final cave of the dungeon.
The lids of its eyes gradually peeled back and its bloody pupils targeted the duo.
Clink Clank
The chains rustled noisily as the wyvern stood on all four legs.
Roooooooaaar
Its jaws ripped apart, as a roar exploded from inside the beast.
Clutching onto their weapons, Flo and Cath separated opposite each other.
Gathering essence into the barrel of his pistols, Flo continued to sprint to the right causing large splashes of blood whilst Cath did the same on the other side—creating balls of water instead.
The wyvern didn’t stay still either as a large essence of blood collected into its throat and bubbled into the mouth causing its cheeks to expand massively.
Moments later, the beast released all the blood essence straight into the air, creating a beautiful curtain shower of blood.
Not realising the threat from this, Cath batted the orbs of water straight into the eyes of the wyvern.
Momentarily blinding it, but it was for mere milliseconds as it blinked the water away and caused the sclera to turn a similar colour to the pupils.
About to charge towards the beast, the curtain of blood rained down onto the arena.
Cath’s sight darkened.
She became blind.
To the left of her, a colossal tail whipped at her body.