A vicious swipe of heat passed over Abel's nose as he ducked to dodge the angry Flame Wolf, its glowing red claws only inches away from his skin. He retreated a couple meters, his daggers held at the fore. Breeze raked his silver claws across the side of the Flame Wolf before also retreating to the wolf's other side, putting it in the middle.
Two dead flame wolf corpses were strewn at the side, two clean cuts running through their necks. They had died swiftly when Abel and Breeze struck suddenly using the element of surprise. Abel had quickly sunk his blades into the neck of the first, while Breeze had delivered a spectacular head strike to the second that stunned it long enough for Abel to deliver the final blow. Now, they were trying to end the last one.
"Careful, Breeze. It knows it's going down, so it will really go wild." Abel warned his beastly companion.
"I should be telling you that." Breeze retorted, his tongue darting across his canines. The two exchanged a look before lunging as one. With an angry snarl, the wolf turned to meet Abel in frontal combat, seeing Breeze as less of a threat.
"Big mistake." With a gust of wind, Breeze appeared right beside the wolf, which was still suspended in the air, his claws drawing a beautiful arc in the air before slicing through the flame wolf's throat.
Eyes wide, and confusion obvious in its frantic gaze, it slumped to the ground, writhing and jerking as it lost blood. In the next moment, Abel appeared with a clear container, placing it under the cuts from Breeze's claws. Although he wasn't able to extract the blood from the other two, from what he was seeing, the blood from this one would be enough.
After a couple of minutes, the container was almost full, but the blood had stopped running. Luckily, he had gotten just the amount he needed.
"What do you need Flame Wolf blood for, Master?" Breeze asked as he stood by Abel's side. Abel grinned as he looked at the blood in the container for a moment before storing it inside his spatial ring.
"Some Blood Mage wants the blood. I don't know what it's for, but I don't really care. As long as I get paid. Too much money is never a thing." Abel shrugged and got to work, slicing a clean cut through the chest area of the flame wolf. He dug around for a bit before retrieving a gleaming red core. The contents of the core flowed like hot magma and Abel grinned widely.
"Looks like we have ourselves a Beast Soul." He whistled and threw the core up in the air a couple times. "That makes two flame wolf beast souls now. I should probably do something about it." He hummed to himself.
The two of them had been in the Tower for two days in a row now. Abel had gotten to see the true worth of the armor he had gotten from Arnold. He was basically invincible on the Second Floor. The claws of a flaming bird that had attacked them out of the blue only bounced harmlessly against the strong chest piece of the armor, leaving only white lines. Breeze didn't take kindly to some random beast trying to take his master's life, and had retaliated viciously.
Now, the body of the bird was stored safely in Abel's spatial ring. Abel methodically worked the cores out of the two other wolves before storing their bodies in his spatial ring. He was ready to return home and sell off his haul.
The two of them made their way out of the forest of dark trees, soon arriving at the clearing that surrounded the portal back to the First Floor. Upon reaching there, they ran into some familiar faces.
"Abel! Hey!" Dwayne waved happily from the side of the portal. Russel facepalmed, while the women giggled at the men's antiques. Even Emma and Stella cracked a smile, turning their faces away from the embarrassing man.
"Hey." Abel couldn't help the smile that spread on his face. He stopped by the two ground rats that carried their equipment, the two beasts turning and sniffling at him, their large button noses looking cute in a way. He patted their heads before turning to face the party members.
"How's it going, kid? Doing good, or do you need a hand?" Russel quirked a brow, his red eye brow disappearing into his low hanging bangs.
"No, thanks. I'm okay. I'm actually on my way back to town so I can sell off my haul." He told them.
"You were going solo?" Russel seemed surprised. He didn't think Abel would have been able to do much on his own here. "For how long?"
Abel counted on his fingers before shrugging and replying, "Just over two days."
Dwayne whistled lowly.
"What's wrong?" Abel had a feeling he already knew what they were thinking.
"We thought you were some inexperienced kid. Turns out you just needed to get used to the Floor."
"Ha! I told you I could take care of myself. I just needed time to get used to the quirks of the place and I would be all over the place." Abel grinned.
The group made their way through the portal as one, appearing down on the grassy hill that held the portal to the Second Floor. Just like before, the area was dotted with different parties that were looking for assistance from certain job classes.
Cries for healers, tanks, or mages constantly rang out as a steady trickle of people came to, and left the area on a constant basis.
"Well, here we are again. A week of too much green and I can finally enjoy some other color!" Dwayne breathed in deeply and spread his arms wide, a wide smile plastered over his face.
"Yeah." Russel smiled. Let's get out of this Tower." With that, the party left the Tower and returned to the town to handle their various businesses.