Sitting before the final, immense corridor of the seventeenth floor, I was surprisingly successful in tuning out the rumblings of the expedition behind me. Adventurers decades my senior were camped out waiting for a show, Ais and the Amazon sisters amongst them, alongside that one Elf who was still glaring at me.
I ignored them because I wanted to take in the atmosphere.
To feel the cold, dry wind that probably shouldn't exist down here. To hear the subtle cracks emanating from where the Goliath was hiding in his crystal wall that dominated the entire left side of the corridor. To feel out the cold, dark tide of raw malice that swelled before me; the Dungeon and its Great Monster's will ready to crash down and snuff out the flames of those unprepared to fight it.
It felt overwhelmingly strong, and that fact sharpened my focus like nothing else.
Even if the Loki Familia hadn't asked me to wait until the last member of their Goliath slaying team showed up, I think I still would have taken the time to enjoy this. There were only so many places that could genuinely make your heart beat after-
"-What's this I'm hearing about you fighting the Goliath!?" Judith's panicked voice cut me out of my thoughts, and for a brief moment I contemplated ignoring her, before sighing and opening my eyes.
"Oh you're awake." I snarked cheerfully, looking up at her; she surprisingly did look a lot better than when I'd left her.
"Didn't sleep. Too exhausted." She gave me the stink eye.
"Well you know the solution to that, don't you." I reminded her and she averted her eyes, looking not quite sheepish and not quite annoyed.
"Just… answer the question."
"There's nothing to answer, I am going to fight him." Red gaped at me. "Where did you hear about it anyway?"
"The entire camp is talking about it: they're taking bets on how long you're going to last." She hissed, looking genuinely mad on my behalf.
"Sucker's bet." I shook my head with a smile, before holding up a finger as someone walked up behind us. Red cottoned on pretty quick, and we both turned to face an approaching Elf, one of Riveria's subordinates if I wasn't mistaken.
"Apologies for the wait, the last Adventurer who should have been standing by has finally arrived." The woman relayed, and I got the feeling that annoyance wasn't exclusive to her, and likely meant this dude was in for a bad time. Doubly so considering I was about to steal the fuck out of their team's kill. "We'll be ready soon, following that, Riveria-sama has stated that you can proceed how you wish."
"Thanks for letting me know." I nodded.
She hesitated briefly at the polite dismissal, her gaze flickering to Judith before professionalism seemed to win out and she turned heel back to where her Familia was slowly congregating.
Elves.
They were like Amazons in that their culture was different enough that it overtly influenced their decision making, making them more opaque than I was used to. You could never know whether the thing motivating them to action was something shared with the rest of the world, or if it was something bizarre like their hatred of being touched by other races.
"…What do you mean it's a 'sucker's bet'?" Red spoke up after the Elf was far enough away.
"It means their information is shit and I have good reason to be confident."
"But it's a Rex…" She tried.
"I know Red, don't worry." I grinned up at her. "And don't worry about the future either, I'll only push you to solo him when you're at least level three." I patted her on the shoulder as she froze, like totally and completely froze.
But really it wasn't as daunting a task to saddle someone with as it probably seemed on the surface. By the time Judith was level three I would likely have Smithing, Alchemy and Enchanting up to full mastery, and well…
At that point, it would already be cowabunga time.
"But for now, it's my turn." I breathed, grabbing my swords from where they lay and rising to my feet. The rush of Dexterity that came from merely holding them refining my entire perception as I returned the swords to their rigging and readied myself, my hand never leaving their hilts.
Turning to where most of the Loki Executives were already walking towards me, I could see and feel the mix of interest, of impartiality; or Bete's case, anger. And arrayed behind them the rest of the exhibition force stood, some curious, some derisive, and some just plain jealous.
The only person looking at me with any kind of expectation -like they genuinely believed I could do this- was Miyabi. Where even my student was looking at me with doubt, my sparring partner stood aside from the expedition, looking at me with fond challenge in her eyes.
I smiled back at her as Finn stepped up beside me, leisurely taking in the atmosphere as he cracked a grin at me.
"It's your stage Captain Carne." He began. "Don't worry and just go all out, we'll be here in case something happens." Which when translated said something to the effect of: 'show us everything before you fail.'
I laughed at his audacity as I stepped forward. "I'll make it one to remember."
"Captain…" Judith looked genuinely worried, so I shot her a confident wink over my shoulder.
And as I walked, those thoughts faded away, a welcome tension flooding me as I willingly walked into the metaphysical shadow that loomed over this corridor.
Passing the invisible threshold, a dull pulse ran through the world around me, a tremor that shook everything on this floor. A single crack shot through the immense crystal that covered the left wall, dust hissing as it rained from cracks in the ceiling.
And through it all I kept walking steadily, ignoring the next pulse and the one after that as cracks formed on every surface. The tremors magnified as the crystal started to fracture from the inside, until -with an ear-piercing shriek- the entire structure shattered as the Goliath slammed through it with enough force to throw fragments the size of houses into the air.
Rock rained down in front of me by the ton as the giant loomed out of the dust, red eyes glowing through the cloud as he stood between me and the eighteenth floor.
For one long moment we stared at each other, Dex slowing the world around me to a crawl, until he broke the stareoff and shifted his immense bulk. Planting his feet, he sucked in enough air to fill a swimming pool and tensed his body as we both readied our greetings.
His roar -just a normal roar- came out like a physical thing, an expanding sphere of pure force that pushed back everything around him. A growing bubble of sound that threw back the dust cloud and would likely burst my eardrums.
By the time it had expanded halfway to me, my boots were already gripping the earth, my mind already focused on that which I needed to cut. Feather triggered as I ripped my sword from its sheath with all the speed drawing my dagger into my offhand afforded me.
Burden hit at full strength the very moment the sword reached the peak I could accelerate it to and Hestia's flames spilled over its edge as a final fuck you. What I needed here was not finesse, but the raw power to counter this.
My cut imposed itself upon the bubble of sound, slicing through the very air the roar was travelling through, and the aftershock of my sloppy cut hit just as the bubble parted.
Then everything exploded.
Air rent in on itself and destabilised as I was sent skidding backwards from the shockwave, dust and debris clotting the air as I was forced to cut down chunks of crystal the size of refrigerators thrown out by the blast.
Then, nothing.
The air settled as the debris finished raining down around us and all that was left was the monster looming in the very same spot, an already healing paper cut on either side of his still open maw. As if he wanted me to see how little damage I'd done.
On occasion I ran into monsters that were just that little bit different than the rest. Some of them fearful, some sadistic, but as the not quite human grin spread mockingly across this monster's face, I'd freely admit that this one was the most unnerving I'd come across.
And that made me want to kill it a whole lot more.
Tensing, I shifted into a runner's stance as the giant leaned into an almost casual advance. The engraving hidden beneath the backplate of my armour sparked to life as I cast Feather on myself, my mass dropping to almost nothing as the immense strength of a level two dug into the ground and sprang me forward.
With the benefit of being able to actually understand what the spells are doing, it was fairly easy to see how Feather and Burden came from the same hand. The spells connect with one another, they feed into each other, a dozen different pieces intersecting and building together.
It was why I engraved one each on my chest and backplate, to mirror the spells across from one another and connect the flowing lines at the meeting edges of each plate.
It was what made it so easy to cycle one spell into another, Burden firing off as I took off to turn me into a human bullet; the inertia gained countering the wind pressure to push me well past speeds a low level two should be able to reach.
And with every step this magnified, each spell cycling into the next while recycling the leftover mana, chaining every step and pushing that speed to its absolute limit. And while it still drank mana like there was no tomorrow, there was no questioning the results.
The Goliath started to move faster, seemingly startled as I ate up the distance between us faster than it could have predicted, its fist swinging as I crossed the halfway mark.
And then I was there, Feather affording me the ability to side-spring over the building-sized fist. Hestia's flames sprang to life along my blades and I completed my rotation sideways so I could spin into the most vicious cut possible from that position. Burden dragging my blades deep into its flesh, forcing them through the almost absurd resistance of its flesh to tear furrows in its hide.
The Goliath roared in pain as my momentum carried me sailing past its arm but I wasn't done; my swords lashed out again, cutting glancing wounds in its shin as I flew past at speeds that blurred even my sight.
Digging my blades and boots into the earth, I all but cancelled my momentum thanks to Feather reducing my inertia and flung myself back at the giant.
The Goliath was not a fast monster, what it was, was massive. A single one of its steps could clear a dozen of mine when I wasn't fucking around with the laws of physics. That gave it the perception of being fast under specific circumstances, but that didn't translate when it needed to suddenly turn its enormous bulk around.
I reached it before it could even get half way, throwing everything I had into tearing its achilles heel to shreds, and immediately ran into an issue.
The problem? Its skin was thicker and denser than anything I'd ever encountered, and its muscles were somehow even harder. The wound -which should have compromised its ability to stand- barely even hindered it as I sailed off and pulled myself to a stop again, this time in front of it.
It didn't hesitate, swinging at me almost instinctually despite its poor stance. I slid under this one, leaving it a bloody parting gift before going back to trying to cut this fucker down to the size.
Only, the problem didn't just disappear.
Even as I burned mana to pinball myself around its legs, my swords tearing back open healing wounds, it still didn't fall. Its healing wasn't overwhelmingly fast, but it and the monster's sheer toughness still reduced my efforts to a failing war of attrition.
And it was as I was considering this that it finally learned its lesson.
It stomped its foot to all but cause an earthquake, something that I was already experienced with and therefore easily addressed, simply adjusting the steps of my approach to be off the ground as the force sent cracks spiralling through the floor. Then it used that foot to pivot into another straight and I leaped over it almost instinctually, which is when I found myself right in the path of its trap.
A delayed second punch.
One that it hadn't twisted its body into, so I hadn't seen it coming.
Which honestly is why you should almost never leave the ground during combat; with no leverage and no way to truly manoeuvre you were at the mercy of your opponent's prediction. Or in this case, the mercy of a fist the size of a van travelling with enough relative speed to kill any other level two with zero recourse.
That rule, however, doesn't account for Masters of Alteration. It was a school of magic designed to give the laws of physics the middle finger, and fuck me does it do that.
A bright ring of blue light spun into existence beneath my foot as I kicked it out in front of me, the engravings I'd added to the plates of my boots surging to life as my foot slammed into solid air.
This was the spell Levitate, and it let you walk on air.
At the speeds I was moving at, that really should have broken every bone in my leg, but Feather killed that momentum without issue.
And then I kicked off in an explosion of air, clearing the fist easily and then just carrying on straight upwards. If toppling the Goliath from the bottom wasn't viable, then I'd just have to start from the top.
Rotating peacefully around as I shot up into the air, I could see the expedition, they were so far away and yet I could make out the shock in their eyes as they watched me flip through the air.
Until I was upside down, floating above the Goliath.
Looking down upon it.
It stared up at me with eyes that were nothing more than glowing red rings set into dark orbs the size of my chest and yet, I could see the lack of comprehension in them as I hung there for a moment that lasted longer than it possibly could have.
A blue ring flickered to life beneath my feet.
Feather, Levitate, Burden.
The air boomed as I shot myself towards those eyes, blades already in motion, flames spiraling to life upon their edge eager to blind it the monster. It jerked its head to the side, but not fast enough to save one of its eyes, vitreous fluid squirting out in a torrent as I split the eye in half.
The following roar of pain seemed to shake everything as my momentum carried me past the eye, blades still cutting into the softer flesh of its cheek and then neck as I fell further.
The victory was a bit short lived however, as its random flailing sent its shoulder slamming into me. The damage itself was negligible, but it flung me into open air; something that should have been an easy correction with Levitate, if I wasn't running low on mana.
Righting myself, I fished out two mana potions and swallowed the first as I was falling. And then the second as I touched down under the influence of Feather and skidded to a stop, my back to the wall of the corridor. In that time the roar of pain had died out and the giant refocused on me, turning its glare upon me with its single, furious red eye from a half torn open face.
I was about to charge back in, mana reserves refilled, when the giant started sucking in air once again. Immediately I was reminded of the roar he made at the start, so I shifted my stance to cut through once more.
I realised it was different when I was already in motion, a ring forming in the air before its mouth and its presence practically swelling with malice.
The sight instantly brought my mind back to the show; to the projectile shots of air that the Black Goliath -the enhanced version of what I was fighting here- would spam everywhere.
The records however had claimed that this version veryrarely did that, only bringing it out when its life was in immediate danger; and normally only when overly powerful Adventurers got involved at that.
But it was too late to change my strategy, the blast of air was already barreling down upon me, fast to the point that I could barely keep track of it.
All I could do was swing and believe.
It was just air after all, and I was really fucking good at cutting air.
So I swung, piling on every buff I could and then just sending it, and for one exhilarating moment my sword met the bubble of near solid air and it split.
Right before the magic within detonated.
The force hit me before I could blink, a shockwave that struck hard enough that I blacked out for an instant and when I did blink back to awareness, I was buried in the wall, my sword gone and I couldn't feel my arm.
Looking up I saw the Goliath just looked at me gloatingly, the slowly forming grin on its face twisting the fresh wound into something else entirely.
Glancing down I realised the armour my arm was clad in was still intact, but given its limp state, the blood soaking through the Ork hide and the tightness I could feel in my chest, the force must have passed through my body somehow.
Well, if he wanted to give me time so he could gloat, I'd happily take it.
I sucked down a health potion before anything else, ripping myself out of the dent I'd left in the wall as I felt it going to work, before inhaling another potion as my arm started audibly snapping back together with white hot flashes of pain that I viscerally ignored. As for my sword, I found it stuck in the wall next to me, its hilt shattered leaving only the blade and its tang.
…I'd have to get that later.
I had backups, but none were as good and I hadn't been forced to use my inventory yet, so I drew my rapier despite knowing it probably wouldn't do the job. But it had exceeded every expectation I had for it this far.
Flourishing the blade out of habit, I stepped forward and the monster -its face still slowly healing- showed no signs of shifting. So that's how it wanted to play this, to just keep spamming the only thing it's seen work?
Deep furrows rent the spot where I'd fought off the first blast, painting a rather clear picture of just how much force I'd managed to redirect in that moment. Despite that, the blast had still shattered my arm, and would likely break any other blade I tried to do the same with.
Which only really left one safe avenue.
Tensing as the Goliath began to suck in air by the boatload, I exploded into a dead sprint to the right with all the movement afforded by my spells. The blast struck behind me with the force of a bomb, and I swerved into the aftershock, tearing towards the Goliath as fast as I could.
If I couldn't muscle my way through, then my best bet was to evade and get close enough to that it just couldn't pull this bullshit again.
Unfortunately the second shot came faster than I expected, a weaker blast forcing me to slide under it and slowing my momentum. I grit my teeth and bore with it but as I came out the otherside, I saw a third shooting towards the ground before me, the blast angled such that I could only really go right or up to evade it.
The second I saw that intentionality, I knew where this was going.
With a half and half chance, I gambled on the ground. Triggering Levitate and stamping on the air as hard as I could, not to jump into the air, but to throw myself to the right.
And that gamble was one I lost.
Faced with one last air bullet the size of a truck, I was out of options. And, before the eyes of the entire Loki Familia, I pulled a tower shield out of thin air and hit myself with Burden as the third shot struck home. Despite that -despite how much weaker it felt than the last one I was hit by- the force folded me into it, the world blurring around the edges as my vision went white.
By the time I blinked back to reality, the thickest piece of nosteel I could put between us was shattered, and this time my left arm was screaming in pain. Oh, and I was back in the wall again, right where I started.
I was left faced with the simple conclusion that evasion wouldn't work, and even if I did try, I only had two spare shields to fail with. The big cut didn't work, narrowing my choices down to almost nothing, all the while the Goliath was already sucking in air for another big one.
In other words, I needed something else entirely.
And glancing down I found it there in my hand, the strange rapier that had been prickling my instincts from the moment I picked it up. It was a sword that could not feel, fitting given that I needed a technique to cut through that which wasn't truly there.
The only basis I had to go off was Miyabi's fire cutting sword, a sword which can apparently only cut fire, and one that I hadn't even succeeded with yet.
Not that it mattered.
If I hadn't succeeded yet, then I simply would now. And if the sword doesn't work that way, then I would make it work.
The root of all higher swordsmanship was belief. Belief that your sword would cut your opponent no matter how much reality begged to differ. Belief that it would reach despite the world saying it couldn't.
There was no place for uncertainty in my sword, doubt was for those who could not cut, hesitation was death.
I had to succeed here, so that's what I would do.
I closed my eyes as I raised the blade, picturing the shot in my mind's eye and everything I understood about it. From the structure of the wild magic that barely held the forces involved together, to the sheer pressure it was fired under. Every scrap of information I'd pulled with my senses with each close call, I visualised it all as Miyabi's words repeated in my head.
"Picture it -understand it- and then slay it both within your mind and without, all within a single breath."
So I stepped forward and cut.
Simply.
Imperfectly.
There was no feeling to the sword, the only way I knew I'd succeeded was when I opened my eyes and saw the shell of the shot split apart, the magic within spiralling out of control as it shredded itself. Spinning trails of mana and pressure shooting out and gouging everything around it, while some slammed impotently into the magical shield that had appeared in front of me.
It was an empty sword, and that made it difficult to focus on.
Unwittingly I glanced over to see Riveria staring at me with no small amount of shock, the rest of the executives not far behind after they'd apparently mobilised to save me.
Which was nice and all, but right now they were distractions.
"…Thanks, but can you lower this barrier?" I forced myself to ask with a smile, diplomacy not something I wanted to focus on right now. "I need to finish this myself."
The barrier faded as Riveria kept staring at me wordlessly, leaving me free to advance towards my clearly hesitating foe.
It understood something had gone wrong, it understood that the people who'd just suddenly moved to save me could destroy it easily. But it didn't seem to have a solution to either of those problems, and that was making it hesitate.
Fortunately as I kept walking towards it and others remained where they were, it defaulted back to what all monsters do, jaws widening as it tried to kill me once more.
And again, I closed my eyes.
Miyabi's sword had guttered every flame it touched, forced them to heel, to die in on themselves harmlessly. My last cut hadn't quite managed that, I'd severed what was keeping the spell together, but not everything else.
This time I visualised those details, the swirls of magic I'd seen and felt within that shell. I saw them parting before my sword and shaped my very will around that idea as I swung.
I opened my eyes to see this one peel apart in two halves, chunks of the magic simply vanishing as the cut passed through. Yet, it still wasn't perfect, not as pieces of wild mana still flailed off in random directions, tearing furrows in the earth and even forcing me to swat one of them aside.
So I tried again, and then again as the Goliath got more and more desperate, my steady advance bringing me closer to both the giant and my goal. As I studied both the magic and the sword itself with every attempt.
Coming slowly closer to the perfection I was seeking.
The sword was unsurprisingly complicated, with elements that reminded me of magic owing to the intense visualisation and the understanding involved. Side by side with elements of the Sky Sword, where willpower and intent were key. It was a sword of absolutes, where absolute understanding and absolute belief come together to do the impossible.
And as I put it all together, I found myself opening my eyes to a single perfect cut, the magic of the Goliath simply excised from existence.
And it was beautiful.
Part of me wanted to just stand there and just keep experiencing that moment, enjoying it. But my opponent was clearly hesitating, rethinking its strategy in the face of the apparent ease with which I was tearing apart its most powerful attack.
Which was a shame, it had been a good opponent.
I inhaled another potion to fix my off shoulder and tossed aside the bottle; I'd need both arms for what I was about to do to this poor floor boss. With this sword in hand, a new strategy had opened its jaws wide.
Shifting my stance, I focused my intent as much as I could, practically announcing my intention to come straight at him before it could change its strategy. The warning was received loud and clear as blue rings appeared around my feet, and the Golaith prepared what would be his last shot.
Feather, Levitate, Burden.
My chain of movement spells fired off perfectly and I found myself on a ballistic trajectory with the clear target of the giant's gaping mouth, even as the compressed sphere that was its magic ignited into existence.
Pulling a new longsword out of my inventory into my offhand, I flew towards the rapidly completing shot. What I was about to do next would be rather violent, and I didn't really fancy doing that to my new favourite rapier.
It deserved more than that.
The shot compressed violently as it finished charging and I cycled the movement spells again, accelerating in spite of how close I was.
The boom of its magic died halfway as that perfect cut bloomed into life once more, and I slammed my foot into Levitate to flip my body around as I shot through the last dying gasp of the magic. The Goliath's mouth engulfed my entire vision as I spun into a truly diabolical thrust, the longsword slamming into the roof of the giant mouth, Burden and Hestia's flames punching through weakened flesh into the base of its brain.
The rapier vanished into my inventory as I held on and dumped as much magic as I could into the flames with one hand and with the other, upcast Sparks straight into the blade itself.
I didn't really hear the moment the beast screamed as much as felt it, my eardrums bursting under the sound and white hot pain reverberating through my skull. The very air itself seemed to destabilise under the force generated by the giant's vocal chords, pressure digging into me as I held onto the blade lodged in the Giant's brain.
I was also keenly aware of the wildly spasming tongue drenching my cloak in saliva.
It thrashed furiously, trying desperately to unlodge the sword as I dumped more and more of my mana straight into its brain; the world turning into a confused, blurred mess of pressure and blood.
Then, it just kind of froze, the undulating mass of flesh and muscles around me slackening, before the entire thing started to tilt as I did my best to hold on.
Given that I was inside of it at that moment, everything just kind of fell sideways before slamming into the ground with enough force to dislodge my sword and leave me scrambling to get out as blood, saliva and viscera started to flood the cavity.
Thankfully its mouth had fallen open, otherwise I'd be prying its teeth apart and that wasn't quite what I had in mind for my triumphant return.
Speaking of, I switched out my cloak for my backup emergency cloak and stepped out looking about as good as I did going in, stepping out to see the Expedition starting to gather in quiet disbelief.
Another happy landing.
Well, maybe not for my eardrums, I still couldn't hear dick.
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Goliath gets it rough in the fandom but I think he did well here. Pour one out for the guy, he probably deserves it after getting killed in perhaps the most violent way possible.
Have a good one, and have a shameless plug: next three chapters are up on https://www.patreon.com/c/OneFallLeaf.
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Glossary
Astral Slice
The sword of cutting things that don't physically exist through the power of understanding, love and friendship⋆
Levitate
A Morrowind spell that allows the user to walk on air. It's incredibly mana intensive, but with enough bullshit on your side those costs can be brought down to something manageable. It has a lot more uses here than just letting someone casually stroll around while telling the world to go fuck itself though.