Without hesitation, War charged straight at the massive spider, wildly swinging his warhammers like he was swatting a fly.
The moment his hammers made contact with the beast, the impact sent shockwaves through the air, blasting all the pink liquid away in all directions.
"!!"
Senzo instantly formed another barrier in front of him and the others, blocking everything.
War didn't care, continuing to swing wildly into the spider's exoskeleton, but it had little effect. The spider just stared at the blood-red warrior, as if he were massaging her body rather than attacking.
With a contemptuous glare, it raised two of its ridiculously long front legs and pierced straight through War with ease.
Then she turned her head to look at the others who had dared disturb its slumber. Rubbing its front legs together, it produced a horrendous scraping sound.
Senzo was about to charge in—seeing War impaled like that—but froze when he heard...
"Raaah!"
War screamed, throwing both hammers straight at the spider's head.
The spider easily dodged both hammers and jumped backward, her confidence faltering as the red warrior kept moving.
It couldn't understand—how was that red puppet still alive? She had clearly killed him, just like the others who had dared challenge her before.
"It looks like I underestimated you, or perhaps I've gotten rusty..." War muttered, His entire demeanor shifted.
He held a single blood-red greatsword in his hand that matched his armor.
"Now, let's have some fun!"
And before the spider could process what was happening, it crashed into the wall.
She looked around, alarmed, unable to process what had just happened.
Rubbing her legs together once more, she produced a much louder, more terrifying scraping sound. War stood completely still, unfazed.
"..."
The spider watched as War held his greatsword steady, blood-red armor gleaming.
Once she recovered, she charged straight at the intruder. How dare this weakling make me look like a fool?
had been surprised when the warrior survived the first strike, but that wouldn't happen again.
Opening her mouth wide, she spat liters of acidic saliva at War. While the liquid blinded him, she struck with four legs, intent on obliterating him completely.
"Hmph!"
War, however, was not impressed in the slightest as he tightly grasped his sword with both hands and held it right in front of him.
In the next instant, time seemed to freeze. War vanished, reappearing behind the spider a heartbeat later.
"???"
Senzo's eyes widened; he couldn't even follow War's movements.
"Wha!?" he exclaimed, but the other three horsemen didn't even flinch.
But Senzo couldn't understand it—nothing was happening. No flashy moves, and the massive spider looked completely unharmed.
But War simply stuck his sword into the ground and bowed toward the spider. "Thank you for the duel," he politely said.
And then it happened: a single perfect cut appeared, slicing through the acidic wave and the spider in one motion.
"Holy shit..." Senzo muttered as he saw the whole room rapidly fill up with the spider's blood.
"Ah! I can't be wasting all these resources."
After War had given him such a show, it was his turn. With a few quick hand motions, he lifted the spider and stored its halves in separate invisible containers.
Only then did he collect as much of the acidic spit as possible in other containers he'd formed. 'Phew.'
He wiped his brows, looking at the eight massive buckets filled to the brim with its fluids.
"That's insane..."
"Indeed, quite a terrific specimen to research." Death added, nodding his bony head.
"Great job, War! But if I may ask, what the hell was that last move?" Senzo asked as he and the others also landed on the ground next to the still bowing War.
Senzo raised an eyebrow, looking at his summon standing there like a stone statue—it didn't make sense.
"Just give him a moment; this is how he handles duels," Death explained, with a shrug.
"Sure, I guess." Senzo replied, looking around for an exit or anything indicating where to go next.
"..."
That's when he saw it; a staircase that had appeared out of nowhere in the dead center of the room.
"Haaah... I guess hoping that this would be the end was naive," He grumbled. But he was also excited; if the first floor alone was like this, what kind of weird, abominable creatures would he meet later on?
"Thank you, master; I really appreciate that." War said suddenly, startling Senzo so badly he jumped like a little girl.
"Ahem, no problem."
"Pffft." Pest couldn't hold it in, seeing Senzo get jump scared like that.
"What a sissy," War mumbled, rolling his eyes.
"I don't want to hear it, ok? That shit can happen to anyone..."
"Yeah, yeah, but I heard you wanted to know what I did, right?" War grinned. "It's actually really simple. I intentionally got him riled up, then let myself get hit to activate Battle Escalation. After that, finishing him off was easy."
"Hold up, you're telling me Battle Escalation is that broken?"
Senzo couldn't believe what he was hearing: just get hit once and one-tap your opponent. What kind of overpowered bullshit was that?
"Well, yes and no. It depends on how much damage you take and how long the battle has been going for and some other factors. For example, would you survive getting impaled like that?"
"Oh... that makes sense."
Thinking back, seeing him get impaled like that was... Guess I'll need to aim for some regenerative powers next, huh.
"Enough about that; can we go to the next floor now?" War asked, almost drooling, as he looked at the massive staircase.
"Sure, let's go. But be careful; we don't know what kind of enemies we will face on the next floor."
"Alright!"
It looked like War hadn't heard the latter part of what Senzo had just said as he rushed up the stairs like a happy child.
"He's a pretty special specimen, I must say," he mumbled, chuckling a little.
"That's War. He's always been like that, so you'll get used to it eventually," Death added, as he and the other three horsemen also went up the stairs one after the other.
"Heh, this doesn't feel too bad." After them, Senzo rushed up the stairs, even though the monsters were ugly as hell, dungeon crawling was still pretty fun.