"Why are you looking at me like that?" Asked Yuki in confusion as she glanced at Alexander, her muffled voice sounding deep and masculine.
"It's supposed to be a joke, but it seems someone is a little too stupid to understand it." Replied Alexander lightly, shaking his head while folding his arms, causing Yuki to grunt in annoyance.
"By saying 'How deep are we going today' while playfully nudging you, he is secretly referring to when you make love and how he deeply penetrates your body with his cock." Remarked Lazuli lightly as she wiped the blood off her armor while glancing at Yuki, whose eyes slightly widened.
"Now, you definitely can't argue that you're not stupid; even Lazuli got it before you. However, it's okay; while you may be dumb, I'll still love you all the same, Yuki." Said Alexander with a shake of his head while gazing at Yuki, only to affectionately rub her armored arm, prompting her to aggressively push him away.
Yuki tended to lose control of her strength when she got annoyed or angry, so that little push of hers slammed me into a nearby tree, knocking it over while I landed on my feet; rubbing the back of my head, I approached Yuki and Lazuli, though this time, I kept my distance from the armored Oni.
"Though seriously, how deep are we going?" Asked Alexander curiously with furrowed brows as she shifted his focus between Lazuli and Yuki, the two taking a moment to think.
"What floor are we on?" "The third floor." Said Yuki and Lazuli, respectively, as they glanced at each other while Alexander calmly waited.
"Hmm, fuck it; let's go as deep as we can." Stated Yuki with a faint smirk as she raised her two mountain-like shields into the air.
"Nope, no can do. We can't just do that without any preparation, and you know that, Yuki; besides, it'll take a long time, maybe even two days if not more." Remarked Alexander blandly as he glanced at Yuki, quickly shutting her down and causing her to huff in annoyance.
"Let's go to floor ten." Said Lazuli, her words causing Alexander to nod.
"Now I can agree to that; it'll also give us a bit of a challenge as well." Said Alexander with a nod as he rubbed his chin before outstretching his arm, causing Trina and Zartha to come flying to him, comfortably resting their hilts within his hands.
"Then let's get going!" Stated Yuki enthusiastically as she clanged her shields together before taking the lead, heading deeper into the forest while Lazuli and Alexander followed.
With Yuki taking the lead, serving as the first line of defense against the monsters, it was only a few minutes after we left our previous spot before monsters once again started to attack as they came from the front and attacked Yuki, which was perfect for her. With a deep and muffled roar, Yuki slammed her shields onto the ground, creating a wall while she used her mana to coat them in a layer of earth with deadly spikes; after that, she promptly pushed against the ground and charged into the seemingly endless horde of monsters, skewering many of them onto her spiked shields.
"If only Yuki had more mana." Muttered Alexander softly as he glanced at Yuki while slashing forward, using [Void Slash] to kill the remaining monsters that she missed with her charge.
Yuki's gotten much better at using her mana over the past years, though she's not really talented when it comes to mana, so her progress has always been slow, yet the main problem is her lack of mana; she focuses all of her status points onto her physical attributes and ignores her mana, so she can hardly use it when in battle since she'll burn right through it in a matter of minutes.
However, regarding Mana, Lazuli is the complete opposite; she has an excessive amount of mana like no other because, apparently, Soom used to feed her mana crystals when he created her, which she somehow absorbed. Again, I don't know how she does that, but she's doing it; even now, if I were to acquire some mana crystals and give them to her, she'd absorb all the mana and turn it into her own. To top it all off, I'm pretty confident she can use every element; granted, I've only seen her use the basic elements and space mana, but considering how easily she made it seem, it just gives me the feeling she can use every element.
Anyway, focusing back on the battle ahead, Lazuli and I killed every remaining monster until we finally caught up to Yuki, who was surrounded by a sea of monsters. Working in tandem with each other, we combined our mana to create a massive fireball while further strengthening it with wind mana, and once it reached the desired size, we threw it at Yuki. Before it could reach her, I infused an abundant amount of mana into my eyes alongside using [Heroes Gaze], and just before the massive fireball connected with Yuki, she vanished from her spot and appeared standing directly in front of me, only for a massive explosion of fire to engulf the sea of monsters, killing them all.
What I had just down was combine [Teleport] and [Heroes Gaze], making it so I wasn't required to touch her to teleport her, and while it was an incredibly powerful ability I managed to figure out about a year ago, though the mana cost isn't anything to scoff at; nearly an eighth of my mana had been used up right then and there, which may not seem like much, but I've got just over thirty-thousand mana so that one use cost me a little less than four-thousand mana.
"Are all the monster's dead?" Asked Yuki as she turned around and gazed at the pile of raging flames amongst the pile of corpses.
"Yep, every monster is dead. Now let's continue; we'll only get attacked 12,000 more times." Replied Alexander with a nod before clicking his tongue in annoyance with a sarcastic tone while he walked forward, Yuki quickly taking the lead.
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Unlike the previous dungeons we've visited, the first five floors were all one massive floor, though they were divided by a line of trees; not like they did anything, though coming across a monster horde was pretty common in this dungeon.
After killing what felt like the hundredth attack on us, which it very well could've been, we finally arrived at the fourth line of trees, meaning the guardian 'floor' was beyond it; however, before immediately going in, we stayed just outside and used this chance to regain our stamina and whatnot.
"Alright, everyone ready?" Asked Alexander as he did a little bit of stretching while glancing between Yuki and Lazuli, who were already standing in front of the trees.
"Yep." "Yes." Said Yuki and Lazuli, respectively, as they nodded, prompting Alexander to do the same while his greatswords grew in size, reaching over two and a half times their original size.
"We've done this fight plenty of times, so just do your thing, Yuki; we know what to do." Said Alexander lightly as he playfully kicked Yuki's butt, causing her to faintly smirk as she charged into the line of trees, pushing them out of the way.
Following the path Yuki forcibly made, Lazuli and I entered the guardian's floor, though when we did, we stopped beside Yuki and blankly looked before us.
"Well… That was anit-climactic." Muttered Alexander softly, his greatswords returning to normal while Yuki and Lazuli nodded in agreement.
The floor was empty, with no giant horned rabbit guardian for us to fight, and since that was the case, we just shrugged our shoulders and headed toward the passageway in the distance, which would lead us to the actual second floor of this dungeon.
It wasn't unusual for this to happen; it usually just meant another group or party had come through here recently, and there wasn't much we could do about it other than wait for the monster to be reborn again, though none of us felt like doing that.
While walking down the passageway, Lazuli created a small flame that illuminated our way and served as our light; once we reached the bottom and exited the passageway, we entered into a humid, wet forest, or in other words, a swamp.
"Ugh, I fucking hate this place." Muttered Alexander in pure disgust while his body involuntarily shivered.
"It's not that bad." Said Yuki lightly as she glanced at Alexander, who spat on the ground in slight anger.
"Hmph, say that after you've had a massive leech suck the blood out of your very face!" Yelled Alexander in anger as he grabbed Yuki by the waist and violently shook her, causing her to raise her arms while nodding.
"Tch, c'mon, let's get this fucking place over with." Said Alexander in annoyance as he took the lead while Yuki and Lazuli followed.
It didn't take long for a group of monsters to emerge from the shallow waters and dense vegetation as they charged towards us with the intent to rip us to shreds, and just as anyone would expect, only animals that you'd find in a swamp existed here; snakes, crocodiles, alligators, frogs, toads, LEECHES, mosquitoes, etc.
However, every time we visited the swamp, I made sure the monsters here experienced nothing but a nightmare as my swords grew in size while I spun them around in the air, creating a [Firestorm] that rapidly grew, although the water did slightly dampen the power of my spell, it wasn't enough to make a difference as numerous monsters were thrown into the air, prompting me to continuously use [Air Steps] as I darted through the flaming tornado, killing every monster I came across.
"Die, you fuckers!" Stated Alexander loudly as he sliced through two massive alligators before leaping towards a leech, only to set it ablaze, burning it to a pile of ashes.
"Alex really hates this place." Muttered Yuki softly as she and Lazuli calmly watched Alexander kill every monster by himself.