The labyrinth itself was the same as the prior two with high walls and a corridor wide enough for roughly 2.5 people. But the air felt different and there was already a tenser mood than the two had felt before.
Neil was still taking the lead but was moving much more cautiously than he had on the prior floors, he knew this was the one where his strength would start becoming somewhat obsolete. He used his enhanced perception to constantly keep watch on the furthest point he could see of the corridor that was in front of them. This floor was small enough for them to only have 4 battles within it if they consistently chose the correct path. That being said these four battles would likely be more difficult than all of the prior ones they had had combined.
After five minutes of walking Neil saw the first group roughly 100 feet away in the curving corridor.
"Up Ahead, five of them, three crawlers and two crystalbacks." Neil whispered to Amelia who was behind him.
"Okay, I'll deal with two of the crawlers and one of the crystalbacks, but I'd like to see how you do against a crystalback if that's alright?" She replied back to him quietly.
Neil simply nodded, it was now his turn to be tested and he felt as prepared as possible. After his numerous stat boosts from the last floor he felt the crawler wouldn't be too hard, but the crystalback still worried him.
These were large crystal lizards incomparable to the prior ones they had come across. They stretched 8 feet long and were three feet tall. They walked on four feet that were adorned with spiked claws, they also had a dangerous jaw that was extremely powerful and could be deadly if it clamped onto you. If that wasn't enough they had incredible control of their tails and could also attack with that leaving few open spots. They were equally as fast as the crawlers while being much stronger and durable. Their large body had huge crystals that shot from their entire back giving them their name, and also an incredible and almost unbreakable defense on their back.
He would not have the time to stop even once in this fight and would have to his moves and dodges together unlike he had done before. He would need to learn the fluidity of the fight and keep his body in constant movement. This both worried him greatly but also brought an excitement unlike he had felt before.
"Ready" He said to Amelia and then began quietly walking towards the group. They were in a formation of three crawlers in the front then the two crystalbacks side by side behind them.
He held his axe in his right hand and picked up his walk into a full sprint once he felt the creatures had noticed him. He was now five feet in front of the group and he leapt into the air. He pulled his axe above his head with both hands on it. As he went to swing down into the middle crawler he saw arrows pierce the head of both of the crawlers next to him. It seemed Amelia would be sparing no creatures from there immediate death.
Neil was both in front of and above the crawler now and he brought down his axe with all of the force his back, arms, and core could muster. He made contact with the crawler and instead of his axe becoming stuck in it as had happened before it cleanly sliced through the creatures head, killing it immediately.
'Easy' Neil thought as he realized just how much stronger he had became since the last floor. Nonetheless he would not let himself get cocky and immediately once he hit the ground he did a backwards roll. With this he was able to dodge a pounce attack from one of the crystalbacks and was now standing in front of the two.
After planting two arrows in the left crystalback its focus switched from Neil to Amelia as it began running at her. Neil paid this little attention and instead stayed staring at the crystalback assigned to him.
"Grr!" It growled at him and then began to charge.
Neil recognized this as a pounce and quickly shifted to the left, causing the creature to completely miss him. In this opportunity he brought his axe up and tried his downward cleave.
"Chink" The axe simply bounced off the monster as it quickly turned towards him.
While turning to face Neil the lizard went to swipe Neil's legs out from under him which it was successful in.
While the move wasn't very damaging to Neil at all he was now in the dangerous situation of being sat on his ass as the crystalback was about to pounce onto him. Realizing the danger of the situation he was in Neil brought his axe above his head and slammed it into the ground, this time not yelling the Name of the skill out.
The skill still worked perfectly fine and a wave of fiery blue particle shot out from his axe and into the crystalback that was preparing to attack. The crystalback was stunned only momentarily, its strength and pain resistance was far beyond the wolves he had fought before.
Even so he was able to recover himself in the moment and stood in the same face off stance with the wolf that he had just been in.
'I'm gonna have to do something different if I want to damage it' He thought to himself brainstorming the options he still had.
The crystalback came at him again, this time shooting towards him at a much faster speed while raising it two front legs and pointing the sharp claws at his body.
Neil saw the perfect opportunity to better perfect a move he had used earlier and ran towards the lizard a little himself to gain momentum. He then fell into a slide on his hip and held swung the axe up into the les guarded underside of the crystalback.
"Grahh!" The crystalback roared as the axe head became stuck slightly behind it's right front leg. And out of this cut Neil could see the blood of another creature for the first time.
Neil quickly tightened his grip on the axe, not wanting to lose it, and swung with it onto the spiked top of the creature. He was standing cautiously on the back of the creature, avoiding all of the dangerous crystal spikes. He stared momentarily at the blood coming from the creature and grinned, he had finally found an enemy who bled.
The crystalback disliked Neil's current location and began trying to buck him off similar to a bull or horse. Neil could feel a rise in his stats from the blood and gripped the axe handle even tighter to stay on
Neil realized he wouldn't be able to stay on for long so he grabbed the handle of the axe an pulled it up with all of his might.
The crystalback roared yet again in pain as the axe head cut through it body and emerged at the top.
'Haha, that what you get!' Neil thought to himself looking at the large gash he had just made on the right side of the creature. Yet again Neil had lost focus and this time he would pay for it.
The crystalback tossed him off with its bucking and jumped onto him in mid air, pummeling him into the ground.
"PAY ATTENTION, Goddamnit how many times do I have to say that!" He heard Amelia yell at him from behind. It seemed she had been watching the two of them fight quietly after she killed her own crystalback.
'I never even noticed' Neil thought to himself in surprise. He had really become focused on the battle.
Neil was crushed under the weight of the izard and could feel its claws digging into him, trying to break past his armor.
Neil would not allow this as he still had a hand on his axe, he was able to pull his other arm out from underneath the beast and now preformed and overhead cleave while being trampled by the crystalback. He swiftly planted the axe into the head of the crystalback who hadn't noticed what Neil was doing as it was still too concerned with digging its claws into Neil. Once he pierced the head of the creature it's movements quickly stopped and it went limp on top of Neil.
"Finally!" Neil said to himself out loud. As he slowly pushed the creature off of him and stood up.
He looked at his body in an attempt to analyze the damage that had been done to him. He was relatively happy to see that none of the animals claws were able to pierce his armor and he had only gained some damage from the crushing pressure of the crystalback.
"I suppose you did alright, but if you actually kept your head in the fight the entire time then you would've been able to leave that fight with no injury." Amelia said to him in a serious tone.
"Yes, yes, I realized, but you've gotta say that swing move was pretty cool!" Neil responded to her, he had grown used to her lectures and at this point somewhat enjoyed them as it was an excuse to hear her beautiful voice and try to start conversation with her. Regarding her comment Neil was still somewhat used to Archemia being a turned based board game and not being real life so keeping his mind on the fight and it alone was still a struggle for him. But he felt with continued practice he'd be able to get it down as he had already been doing better and better.
"It was creative, I'll give you that" She responded in a slightly lighter tone than before, which made Neil smile.
"Anyways, we have to continue moving" She returned to her normal serious voice and began walking forward.
Neil accepted that this was the best he was going to get in the current situation. First he had something he had to do before catching up to her, he had thought of a wonderful plan. He grabbed his pouch and pushed the creatures dead body into it. After doing this Amelia had gained some distance so he ran up slightly ahead of Amelia and then began walking forward at her same pace.
They quickly ran into a split in the path where it seemed the pattern Amelia had picked up on continued and they both agreed on which way to go.
'I can't believe it never mentioned something like this in the board game.' Neil thought to himself, again giving proof that there was much more to this world than there ever was in the board game.
They then continued to traverse the dim corridors, Neil always watching out for monsters ahead. After another ten minutes of walking Neil caught sighting of the next group of monsters they'd be up against.
"Four crystalbacks" He said back to Amelia.
"Two and two?" She asked to Neil, questioning if he was ready to take on two.
He just slowly nodded his head and continued forward. Within his mind was an array of thoughts on how he could take on two of the large creatures and also how after this it would mean the next set of even stronger monsters would start appearing.
"The danger is becoming apparent it seems" Neil muttered to himself shaking his head.
He then began to intensely stare at the party of monsters.
'If I can't take out two of them, what worth do I have on the later floors then?' He used this as motivation to fight his hardest. Creating an ultimatum in his mind, 'take out two crystalbacks or lose your companion after this dungeon.'