Ultimate Level 1

Tanila cursed, holding her arm as she waited for Batrire to heal her.

Max and Fowl were fighting against the growing pack of raptors, and she was running low on mana.

“Healing!”

Batrire grunted, ignoring Tanila’s frustration as she used her heal on Fowl.

“You can use a potion if you need,” she said after finishing her spell. “I don’t have time to give you anything right now!”

Tanila nodded and held off. She was close to two-thirds health and wasn’t going to waste a potion on that.

“Casting!” Max shouted, the glow of his area of effect ice spell going off again.

Tanila smacked the corpse at her feet once more with her staff as it twitched, even though it was dead.

Max was amazing to watch. His swords cut everywhere as he slashed and thrust. Blood would fly in arcs as he moved to the next raptor, each one disabled or suffering a fatal injury.

“Five more!” Tanila shouted, even though she knew no one needed her to keep count anymore.

Thirteen corpses lay around the two fighters, one was at her feet. More had come when one cried out, summoning friends from all around.

“This blasted jungle…”

Batrire ignored her again.

Max and Fowl were panting, both of them covered in blood and sweat. as Fowl kicked the last one to death. “What in the gods was that? I mean, they just kept coming.”

Shrugging, Max put his swords up and brought out his knife to harvest the bodies. “That red and yellow one was new. You heard the cry it made.”

Fowl bobbed his head as he turned and looked at Batrire and Tanila coming to join them. “I did. I’m just glad she could take that one out by herself.”

“I never doubted,” Max lied. It had been hard to ignore, but there was no way he could have left Fowl surrounded by seven at once. They had been surprised when those other three packs joined the fight, coming out of the jungle.

“I think we owe you two a drink tonight,” Batrire said as she came up and gave Fowl a gentle thump on his back. “Watching you two fight was impressive, even if it took all my mana to keep you both alive.”

“You mean me alive,” Fowl corrected, grinning at her. “I know for a fact you never once healed Max during that fight.”

Batrire laughed and nodded, using her dagger to slice the stomach open on a corpse. “It is true. I feel like I’m spoiled.”

“Nice work on that raptor, Tanila. Glad to see you didn’t die.”

She stuck her tongue out at Max. “Yeah, I didn’t think you would rescue me this time. That bite was pretty painful, to say the least. The good news is, I now know that potion of Bardunac’s works. If only we could get a few more from him.”

“Goblin shite, you used that? For a raptor?”

Tanila glared at Fowl, who stepped back after seeing her gaze. “I’m sorry, some of us don’t have armor and a fancy shield to protect us. Once I had blinded it, I knew I was in for a tough fight and didn't want to risk dying. So I drank the potion, and thankfully, it worked. When it bit my head, and nothing happened, I ensured the next ice spear took it out.”

Batrire chuckled as she pulled out a liver. “It was funny, I won’t lie… that thing had jumped, snapping on her head before its claw caught her arm. I don’t think it knew what to do when nothing happened.”

“Anyways,” Max said, interrupting their back and forth. “Now I know to take out the red and yellow one first. None of the other color combinations had anything like that shriek, and I would prefer not to have to fight this many at once again.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

The second level had been slightly more difficult as the raptor's power and speed increased. Still, Max’s ability to strike from stealth and take out the yellow and red colored raptor that was now in every pack made this a moot point.

“Do we want to try the boss?” Fowl asked as they stood a few yards from the orange portal.

“It’s our first day in a new city doing dungeons, and we are here. Why wouldn’t we?” Tanila replied.

“Because you almost got your head bit off, and I’m tired of getting my backside impaled?”

Max chuckled at Fowl’s statement. The fact that Fowl was wearing full plate was one of the reasons they had done so well. His armor provided a lot of protection against these creatures, and his only real weak spots were the joints and the gaps around them. Thankfully, the raptors had not focused on those areas but attempted to bite and scratch wherever they could reach.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“I’m game for it. I already told you all that the boss will have two or three other raptors with it. You all also know what its specials are.”

Fowl nodded and then turned to look at Max. “You still haven’t gotten a single stat point from these things?”

Max shook his head. “I’m not surprised, though. Dexterity is their attribute, and I did acquire a large amount of that a few days ago.”

“Large amount,” Fowl scoffed. “Like basically three levels worth.”

Grinning, Max shrugged and moved toward the portal. “Regardless, I want to see what the boss looks like, even if we aren’t going to fight it.”contemporary romance

“Well, that doesn’t look too bad,” Fowl declared as they stood a few yards from the glowing yellow line on the dirt floor. “Only two friends.”

Max nodded as he gazed at the boss's room. It was at least a hundred yards wide and was nothing but a dirt-covered floor with walls like a stone cave that angled up slowly to form a dome about thirty yards above their heads. Yellow light magically lit up the room even though there was not a single torch or any other object that gave off any illumination.

“It is a big raptor, though.”

Batrire grunted in agreement with Tanila’s statement. “Those talons look pretty scary too.”

The boss was ten feet tall, and on each of its feet and claws were black talons, almost like metal.

“If we fight this, remember to cut off the feet quickly and secure a few of them,” Max said. “They are worth a decent amount to the right weaponsmith.”

Fowl chuckled. “My dad would like you. Then again, he would probably like anyone who brings stuff for him to work with.”

“How do you all want to do this? Take out the small ones first while Fowl tanks the boss?”

Rubbing his bald head, Max considered the choices they had before them.

The boss had three skills, at least. Two were a powered bite and a powered leap. Each of them would increase the damage it did when attacking. The problem was that if it got past him or Fowl and made it to Tanila or Batrire, they would most likely die from that attack. The third skill was a speed ability, allowing it to quickly dash for a few seconds, providing it a chance to get away from both of them.

“We need to focus on the boss. I have to hit it from stealth.”

Fowl turned and looked at Max, who had switched out his shield and sword and was holding his spear.

“You sure that’s the best idea?”

“I am. If it gets past us, we can’t protect them,” Max said as he motioned with his head at the two women. “Its attacks and speed are too much to deal with if we don’t slow it down or aggro it from the start. Tanila can root one of the smaller ones, and she can actually burn down the other.”

Max flipped his spear and used the tip to draw the plan of attack in the dirt.

“Gods, this is going to suck,” Fowl muttered when Max motioned for him to go.

Stealthing, Max moved toward the boss, his spear in both hands as the dwarf crossed the yellow line, aggroing everything on him.

As the raptors came, Tanila rooted the one on the right and blinded the one on the left.

Max loved her new dark spell. It only lasted five seconds compared to the longer root but gave them a brief respite they needed.

The boss crossed the dirt floor, each stride covering four yards, as it came at Fowl, roaring much deeper than the others.

Fowl prepared for its attack, holding his shield and shouting at it as he moved his hammer around.

It jumped at Fowl, flying fifteen yards and landing both feet against the dwarf’s shield, trying to snap at him from behind.

Max had waited close by, wondering how it would attack and close the distance. Once it committed to the jump, he positioned himself behind the boss when he thrust his spear right at the base of its lower back. It was exposed as it gripped onto Fowl’s shield, its tail bent to provide balance.

Max had easily killed every raptor he attacked like this with his new backstab skill. Each attack had been aimed at their head and always caused the strike to shatter their brain and skull.

Now, as he thrust with both hands toward the boss’s lower spine, he felt the power of the skill flowing through him.

The tip penetrated its thick hide as if it provided no protection and pierced the muscle and flesh until it reached the spinal column he was aiming for. The tip shattered the outer bone, sliding into the small space between the vertebrae and traveling along that path upward, each consecutive round bone exploding from the force of his strike.

The boss’s roar turned into a shriek as it fell backward, legs failing as Max drove his spear a few feet into it.

It thrashed on the floor as it landed, its head whipping around and trying to bite, but its lower half couldn’t move at all.

“Blind down!”

A few steps away from the flailing boss, Max turned and met the next raptor head-on.

“That felt anti-climatic,” Fowl muttered as they watched the boss continue to try to roll over on the ground and off its side. “I’m assuming you want to kill it as always?”

Max laughed, nodding as he moved toward the boss and began to dodge its attempts to snap at him.

“Just be ready to harvest those talons on its feet,” he said as he spun his spear.

Max thrust from a safe distance, landing a few strikes that shattered the neck below its head. Once that happened, it only took one more strike, coming up through the bottom of the boss’s skull and into its brain, before the creature shook for a second and then died.

A cold sensation came over Max, bringing a grin to his lips.

[Consume has successfully Consumed a skill]

[ Skill does not match beings body type ]

[ Consume is adjusting skill ]

[Would you like to learn [Haste]?]

[ Yes / No]

Max clicked yes, and every muscle in his body tensed briefly before they relaxed.

He slid down the shaft of his spear and sensed the others moving toward him.

“I’m fine,” he gasped. “Get the talons.”

Fowl grumbled and returned to the work of harvesting the talons and storing them.

“You ok?” Tanila asked.

Max used the spear to help stand and nodded, yanking it from the boss’s body.

“Elf tits!” Fowl exclaimed, and Max saw the boss's body vanishing into small particles of light. “I only got four!”

“That’s plenty,” Batrire said as she came around to stand near Max. “What did you get?”

Chuckling, Max grinned as he glanced at the three of them, all waiting to hear what he would say.

“I got a new skill. I couldn’t use whatever the boss had, so it made it something new. It’s called Haste.”

done.co