Neil pulled the small bag of blood out from his pouch. He then opened it and poured it over his head.
"What is that?" Amelia asked
"Blood" Neil said turning to look at her as the blood flowed down through his hair and across his face.
Neil looked different now than she had previously seen him and she swore she could make out a small hint of insanity in his eyes. Even so she decided it was reasonable considering his class and that he was likely just trying to do his best.
Neil then turned back at the group of monsters. He began to stalk towards them as he was in no rush and they had yet to notice him. After 30 seconds of this slow stalking he decided he was ready to fight.
He had completely forgot about Amelia and other outside thoughts at this point and focused himself on the two monsters that were in front of him. He decided he'd take out the two front crystalbacks.
Neil threw caution to the wind as he began charging at the pack of monsters.
"What the hell!" He heard Amelia yell from behind him but paid it no attention.
He took his axe in his right hand and let it hang at his side. As he charged the four crystalbacks they made a formation of two at the front and two at the back which made Neil chuckle.
'How helpful" He thought to himself.
He had now closed the distance between himself and the lizards, and after his earlier fight against the crystalback he now knew a good strategy to fight it.
The four lizards prepared to simultaneously attack him when he yet again brough his axe above his head infused mana into the axe and slammed it into the ground.
The familiar wave of blue shot out from it but this time instead of standing still as it moved out from the axe Neil began attacking.
With his increased speed from the effects of being in contact with the blood he was able to make use of the momentary pause from the crystalbacks and began attacking their underside.
In the few seconds of time he had he swiftly kicked over the fist lizard to its back and then sent an overhead cleave directly into the middle of its stomach.
It simply shook from the pain as it was unable to cry out. Neil was now covered in blood from both himself and the crystalback. Next he aimed another overhead cleave directly at the neck of the beast and was able to sever it it's head.
He turned to face the second lizard but it seemed he had become too preoccupied with the first. A combination of claws swiped at him and sent him hurtling into the rock wall of the corridor, leaving a large indent of where he hit. The claws were unable to pierce his armor but did hit him with great force.
Even after taking combo attack Neil stood back up, coughing up a little bit of blood and walking back to the remaining crystal lizards. It seemed Amelia had already taken out one as well as there were now only two of them left.
Neil then dropped the axe to his side again and this time ran up to his targeted lizard's side and delivered an upward swing into the bottom of its jaw before it could comprehend what was happening.
In retaliation the lizard let out a flurry of strikes towards Neil's direction but he simply let go of the axe which was now stuck in the jaw of the crystalback and jumped overtop of the it's attacks.
He landed on it's back, which cut up his feet some due to it's sharp spikes. Even so Neil remained focused on the battle and grabbed the hand of his axe which was sticking out to the side of the crystalback. He grabbed it and pulled it until he heard a snap from the creature he was on top of.
The crystalback went limp and fell to the ground as Neil pulled his axe out of it's jaw which was now facing upwards. Neil had severely twisted and broke it's neck through his tug. Neil looked behind the corpse to see the other two crystalbacks laying dead, each with multiple arrows stuck in them.
'Seems like it now takes more than one arrow' He thought to himself.
"How was that" He asked Amelia in a harsh voice.
"I didn't think of anything but the fight" He added on to his question.
"That was...... good" She answered him worryingly. While Amelia hadn't known Neil for that long she did still did notice the difference in how he was currently acting and his normal self.
'Must be that damn class.' She thought to herself looking at him more intensely. He had now been in close contact with the blood for about five minutes which was seemingly having some effect on him. He seemed to be itching for the next battle.
'I'll watch over him a little more closely for the rest of this floor' She thought to herself, knowing the situation could become dangerous. She also now shared Neil's feelings as she wished to clear this floor quickly and try to return him to a more normal state of mind. But they were only at the second battle, how many did they have left she could only hope it was a small amount.
Neil was now running through the corridors as though he was under a time limit. Once he reached the fork in the path he was still able to remember to wait to here Amelia and upon hearing her say what he was thinking he went to the right and continued running through the dark and quiet halls.
'I want a better fight' He thought to himself
'I want something that truly challenges me' It seemed he had become impatient now and wanted to feel danger unlike he had before. Part of what caused this was the loss of sanity he was feeling from the blood but another part was an inner craving in him to come across another deadly challenge to fight in. They seemed to call out for him and were one of his favorite parts of the new world.
'The ability to fight with my life on the line!' He thought to himself.
That was when he came across the next group of enemies. Six crystalbacks this time in a double arrow formation (>>).
Neil wore a scowl as he saw this.
"All just easy ones" He muttered to himself as he began dashing towards the group.
"Three for each of us!!" He yelled back to Amelia who was carefully watching him through all of this. She didn't necessarily hate what was currently going on as Neil was becoming quite a bit stronger and they were clearing the dungeon much quicker. Furthermore it seemed like Neil was more focused on the fights and was actually fighting better currently than he had been before. She was just cautious of hat was going on as she knew that it could become a dangerous situation if he began gaining some bloodlust for her instead of the enemies they were facing.
Together the two of them easily cleared the group of six, Neil's fighting abilities had already increased greatly against the crystalbacks in comparison to when he fought the first one. Furthermore his stats had increased greatly at this point so he was having much less difficulty with landing hits on them and avoiding their attacks. Neil now remembered to place the crystalbacks he had killed into his pouch along with the other he had collected.
Amelia was slightly disturbed by his corpse collecting tendencies but decided it was alright and that he likely had a fair reason doing it, even if she couldn't understand it.
After stuffing the bodies into his pouch Neil returned to his running through the corridors, they had only been in the third floor or maybe an hour and yet they were almost done with it already.
Neil was feeling nothing but bloodlust and desire to fight as adrenaline rushed through his body he couldn't even feel the exhaustion racking up from his multiple fights.
He came to the next crossroad and again waited for Amelia, still retaining his sanity and respect for her. In his mind he still had a decent control of himself and what he was doing, it was just that his urges for fighting had grown much stronger and thus he was working to appease them. Even if from the outside he had gone completely battle crazy, he was still in there controlling himself just with a weakened restraint.
"Up to you" He hear Amelia say and immediately began going left again. It was true that the distance in between the corridors were now basically equal, it seemed the dungeon purposefully made the tactic less helpful as you went down more floors, he wondered what the next floor would be like. All of this shot through his brain in a few seconds as he continued through the corridors, it was as though he was on a stimulant of some sort with how quickly he was thinking.
After a few more minutes of running through the corridors he finally spotted a pack of monsters containing what he had been waiting for.
"There it is!" He said out loud smiling.
In front of him was a group of four monsters, three of which were crystalbacks which surrounded one larger creature, a crystal troll.
This creature was somewhat similar to the golems and crushers they had come across earlier as it also stood on two feet. It wielded a large spiked crystal club and had rough crystalline skin. It was much more intelligent than any of the other creatures they came across and would prove a very tough battle.
Neil turned to Amelia and began to quietly speak.
"I'll gather all of their attention you kill the crystalbacks and I'll go after the troll, deal?" Neil said this sounding more composed than he had been for the last 15 minutes.
Amelia stared at him in deep thought on whether the deal would be acceptable. She could tell he was itching for the fight, but was also worried that he might not be ready to fight such a dangerous creature. She was also surprised by his calmness and reasonability when he turned and gave her the proposition, but she also realized that could just be him grasping onto the small string of sanity that he has left.
"Fine, but if I think your in a lot of danger I will step in, even if you prefer I don't." She finally gave her answer giving Neil a serious stare.
Neil nodded upon hearing this and then turned around.
'Finally time to face a good foe!" He said Excitedly with familiar grin covering his face.