Dungeons Online

'Rush!' Tom thought, pushing the physical prowess of his body to the limit. 

Just like he allowed others to train by fighting monsters while climbing the dungeon, he wasn't going to let go of this opportunity himself. 

With his haste intentionally turned down, Tom swung his spear around his waist. He let go of the weapon intentionally, allowing its momentum to carry it around his hips only to grab it on the other side and push it towards the monster from an unpredictable angle. 

Given the roundish movement of the spear's blade, if he were to delay the action for even a fraction of a second, rather than striking at the monster's side, he would strike right at its center. A fraction of a second more, and he would have to twist his arm and wrist to lead the weapon back on the target. 

'This move is quite risky,' Tom thought, kicking away the massive spider in order to gain some distance. 

Ever since he created his current formation, it kept going without any changes. While the uncle finally grew confident of his abilities, Tom decided not to change the layout of his group by replacing him. 

While it would allow someone else to hone their abilities, given the rapidly rising strength of the monsters, it could also lead to some unnecessary injures and even casualties. 

'Can we even face off with that dragon-girl at our current state?' Tom thought, freeing his mind by using his already practiced moves to finish off the spider. He simply threw the spear right at the monster while recalling another one right to his hand. The second the spider raised its leg to push the spear aside, Tom swapped places with it and plunged his other blade into the monster's side. 

A single, heavy push on the spear's handle allowed him to force the monster out of the balance before pinning it to the ground. He then mercilessly shook the spear in and out of the monster's wound, turning its insides into a bloody mess. 

Even if all the monsters thrived on magic, they were still some sort of living beings. Once their insides would get wrecked, even the toughest opponent would succumb to the wounds. 

"That took a while," Tom thought, pulling out the spear and throwing it directly on the dungeon's floor. It was too dirty from all the blood for him to use it. 'I guess I can only wait for the dungeon to absorb all the blood before reusing it,' Tom decided, summoning another spear to his hand as he moved forward. 

Right now, his group managed to reach the seventy-ninth floor. This was the only reason why he was in such a hurry to push through the corridors and towards the boss that he actually used his standard moves to finish the monster from before. 

Right now, Tom wanted to be the first to enter the eighty floor. Only in this way could he ensure that no unsupervised trouble would appear during the merge of the two big groups. 

With ten small groups of five forming a group of forty-eight within his part of the migration, Tom expected another forty to fifty people to appear during the merge. 

'At this point, I can only hope that not a lot of people have died,' he thought, clenching his hands against the spear's handle. 

The casualties of the dungeon were the one thing that Tom couldn't really control. Unless he could lead everyone personally through the entire place, he had to accept the fact that there would be some groups that would be potentially wiped out. 

It wasn't because he wasn't prepared for the migration. 

'This sort of thinking would only make me depressed,' Tom thought when this idea appeared in his mind for the first time. 

It wasn't that there wasn't anything else that he could test out or anything that he could do to make the passage smoother or safer. 

The truth was, there was a shitload of things that Tom could do in order to prepare better. But in reality, it was only wishful thinking. 

He entered the dungeon in a state of great agitation. He did it when he saw no other path for himself. Even though he calmed down while conquering the path for the second time when he arrived back at his home...

Tom quickly realized that there was simply no time for any additional testing. 

Ignoring the factor of the danger that sneaking around the dome was involved with, his family was already about as deep in the local conflict as it could be. 

While it was not something that he planned or participated in, the catalyst was traded off while Marvin ensured that the news about this fact would be leaked out. Those two simple things lead to destruction on a scale of nuking the entire town to the ground. 

In other words, what started as a local conflict when Tom arrived at the scene, already turned into a full-scale war. 

For the online hub at large, it wouldn't matter whether Tom's family were the ones involved in the detonation of the catalyst. It was doubtful they would even bother to check it out properly. 

That's why, with no other choice once again, Tom forced all his family onto this perilous path. And now, for the second to last time while on this side of the dungeon, he would have to learn the price that others would come to pay for his decision. 

A monster appeared, forcing Tom to throw all those thoughts aside for a moment. This time, it was a weirdly shaped mix of a spider... and a damned bull!

"The hell?!" Tom muttered, weirded out by the monster's appearance for the first time in a long while. 

Just like everyone would be dumbfounded with a centaur... of human legs and horse's upper body, what Tom saw was created with a similar sense of humor... or rather its lack. 

Walking on eight spidery legs, the monster had the torso and a head of a bull, along with two long and spiky horns on top of its skull. Yet, from its back, instead of a simple tail, there was a stinging fang of the scorpion's kind!

'At this point, it's not a mix of monsters but rather a fully-fledged chimera!' Tom thought, grasping his spear a little harder. 

'Fuck it, whatever it is, I simply need to kill it,' he thought, shaking his head to get rid of the weirdness and rushing forward. 

This time, Tom didn't dare to train his abilities. As this was his first encounter with a strange monster like that, he didn't know the pattern of its movement, its abilities, or its strength. In a sense, this monster was a total enigma. 

That's why Tom threw his spear forward, aiming to make it either fly right at the level to cut through the middle of the chimera's tail or to allow him to appear right above its back. 

As the spear flew ahead, Tom called forth two more spears, a magical one in his left hand and the main weapon in his right. 

'Haste,' Tom thought, tightening his teeth. 

Since this was a monster he knew nothing about, he dared not to hold his punches even by the tiniest little bit. 

With all of his usual abilities in full swing, Tom opened his mouth and pushed the air through his lips, uttering the word 'swap.' 

Yet, just as the last letter of this spell was about to free itself from Tom's mouth, the young man's blood froze. 

The chimera lowered its tail, putting its spike right at the level on which Tom's spear was flying!

'Not good,' Tom thought, right as his spell was about to come into action. 

With the last-ditch attempt, he relaxed his hold over his magical spear in his left hand, hoping to redirect the spell on it instead... 

But it was too late. 

With a flash, the scenery around Tom changed, putting him right in the path on the poison-oozing spike of the chimera's tail!

'Guard,' Tom thought when his body suddenly twisted in an impossible angle, somehow forcing his flesh out of the spike's way. 

Regretfully, the rest of the tail still brushed past Tom, changing his direction and smashing him against the ceiling of the corridor. 

'This fucker,' Tom thought as he fell to the ground, only to instantly jump away, avoiding the charge of the monster. 'I guess it's time to stop playing nice,' he thought, calling forth five more of his spear. 

"Taste despair," Tom muttered, letting go of his wrath as he finally summoned his ultimate spell, the spearmage domain. 

In an instant, Tom's five spears got to work, cutting through the monster's leg in two swift strikes. Once it was rendered immobile, Tom's spears skewered it sideways, as if he wanted to split it into five equal-sized chunks of meat for the later grilling. 

'To think that I would be forced to use domain so quickly...' Tom thought, angry at himself. Then he shook his head, killing this invalid emotion. 'No, it's not that I'm getting weaker or even distracted,' he thought, looking down on the floor for its uniform texture to help him calm down. 

'It's the dungeon changing,' Tom realized something that he suspected for a while already. 

'The main question is, right now,' Tom thought, standing up and looking towards the end of the corridor, where the slight shine of the boss room's barrier could be seen, 'is it because I grew stronger, or is it because there is a shitton of people in the dungeon right now?'