Chapter 62: What is a dungeon?
For a spider, she was impossibly fast. She flowed across the floor, Requiem blurring in intricate, deadly arcs. Fin found himself purely on the defensive, his earlier confidence shaken by the sheer lethal presence of the bone weapon.
His blade met the scythe again and again. Sparks flew – bone-white against emerald green. Each block sent jarring impacts up his arm, each parry required precise timing and footing. He wasn’t fighting back, merely dodging, weaving, using the blade to deflect the killing edge by the barest of margins.
She was relentless. A slice aimed at his throat forced him to duck low. A sweeping horizontal cut aimed to bisect him made him leap backward. A sudden upward thrust nearly took off his arm.
He was faster, perhaps, thanks to the Mana Cell, but her skill with Requiem, honed over unknown eons, was terrifying. She anticipated his dodges, flowed around his parries, always pressing, always aiming for a killing blow.
He focused, the blankness returning to his eyes, processing her attack patterns, calculating optimal evasion routes. He needed an opening, but she gave none.
"Impressive, insect," she hissed, her voice tight with exertion and rising frustration as he continued to evade the inevitable. Requiem whistled past his ear, close enough to feel the chill of its passing. "You dance well."
She pressed harder, her movements becoming a whirlwind of deadly bone and focused hatred.
Then, mid-strike, she paused fractionally, pulling back slightly. Her breathing was controlled, but her eyes held a different light now. Curiosity, returning even through the rage.
"Tell me, human," she asked, her voice suddenly conversational, though the threat of the scythe remained absolute. "You wander into places like this, chasing power, trinkets..."
She tilted her head, her gaze piercing.
"Do you even know what a dungeon truly is?"