Chapter 31: Spawner

The first floor opened up into something that barely any of us had expected by the time we went deeper. The sounds of monsters filled every turn, explosions and the sounds of battle followed as well. It was clear that things were far more difficult here.

"Leah, make sure you stay close by," I instructed her while keeping my eyes locked on what was in front of us.

"Ahhhhhh!" A loud scream reached us. It was coming from in front. I looked over there and I saw someone running. He ran desperately as if his life depended on it, his face twisted in horror and fear as he tried to get away, but before he could go far, a mace swung from behind him, slamming into the side of his head with an explosive force that splattered his skull onto the walls.

His body slid down slowly now that it had no head.

I looked beyond the man and there the monster was, a seven-feet-tall orc. It had barely any clothes to cover itself, each step was heavy and caused a shake in the ground.

"Rawwwwwwwwr!" It let out a thundering roar that shook the wall.

"Is this meant to even be a floor one monster?" I asked.

"No, it’s not." Regan appeared from nowhere behind me and spoke. I turned around to see him, shocked at how he came out of nowhere.

"The dangers of floor one really come from the fact that the adventurers cause it for themselves more times than not.

This orc is one of many that was released from a boss monster spawner. Someone has activated a boss monster spawner, and if someone does not destroy the spawner, stronger and stronger monsters will keep coming out."

’Ah, so that’s it. I guess that makes sense, to be honest. Tch, so now we have to take this thing down.’

I looked at Mira and Lia. "I’ll distract this monster. The two of you use my distraction to land clean and powerful hits that will take it down. Let’s get through it fast."

The both of them nodded, ready for us to get at it. I wanted to go after the spawner, crazy as it sounded, because a spawner would give me so many cores that I could easily become rich. The monsters I killed would have cores, and even the spawner would have its own core. It was the reason that many people tried to get the spawner.

I moved first.

The orc saw me coming and swung the mace before I had covered half the distance. The arc was wide and heavy, the kind of swing that did not need to be precise because the force behind it covered everything in the general vicinity.

I ducked under it and came up close, driving my blade into the orc’s side with the black flames running along the edge.

It roared and grabbed at me with its free hand.

I pulled back before the fingers closed and circled, keeping its attention on me, watching the hand with the mace track my movement. To my left I could already see Mira moving low and fast across the floor, closing the distance from the flank with the particular speed of someone who had mastered her cat-like movements.

The mace came down again.

I parried it sideways, the impact traveling up through my arms with more force than I wanted to admit, and the black lightning coated my blade as I answered with two fast strikes across the orc’s forearm. Blood ran from both cuts.

It healed.

Not instantly, but fast, the wounds pulling closed within seconds, and I felt the information settle in my head.

Head or heart. That is the only way this ends when it comes to orcs.

Lia came in from above, golden flames trailing from her wings as she dove, and the attack she landed across the orc’s shoulder burned deep, the flames holding longer than the blade wounds had. The orc swung upward at her and she cleared it, banking sideways, but the swing had more range than she had accounted for and the edge of the mace caught her shoulder.

She dropped several feet before recovering.

I was already moving.

The orc turned toward where she had been and I drove into its side from the right, black flames pushed from my palm into its ribs at contact range, forcing its attention back to me. Mira hit it from the left simultaneously, her lightning claws raking across its leg in three fast passes that crackled through the muscle and buckled the knee briefly before the healing responded.

The orc planted its foot and steadied itself.

It swung.

Not at me this time, at Mira, who was still close from the last exchange, the mace coming sideways at a height that would have caught her across the chest.

I stepped into it.

The impact hit my crossed arms and the ground cracked beneath my feet from the force of absorbing it, the shockwave traveling through me in a way that made my teeth press together. I held and shoved back, the black lightning discharging from my arms into the mace on contact, and the orc stepped back a single step.

Small. But it stepped back.

Lia came in from above again, this time lower and more committed, and the golden flames she released hit the orc directly in the face, burning through the flesh there in a way that the healing struggled with more than the other wounds had. It thrashed and swung blind, and Mira was already under its guard, lightning punches driving into its midsection in rapid succession, each one cracking through the damaged flesh the flames had opened.

The orc staggered.

Its knee hit the ground.

I moved.

I closed the distance fast and brought the blade around in a full arc, the black flames at maximum along the edge, and the slash connected with its neck clean and complete.

The head hit the floor before the body did.