DD 204 Ch 28

Penny and I fought our retreating battle back towards the staircase that would lead up to the twenty-second floor.

However, by the time the stairs were in view, ranks of Naga were already forming up, preparing to storm the stairs. Somehow, they had slipped around us. 

"'Ken, we've got to stop them,” Penny urged. 

I flipped forward, killing the Naga that had been chasing after us, only to spin my blades and stare at the staircase. 

"'You go ahead and guard the bottom. I'll push my way up the stairs.”

Penny considered the plan for a brief moment before nodding in agreement. "'Get them!' she pointed her sword as if she was siccing me after the Naga. 

I shot forward. At this point, my [Liminal Speed] stacks had scaled decently high. There had been pauses in the fighting which had kept me from continuing to scale to ridiculous levels.

But I was ending each fight with more than I started, and that was by design. I had even let the healers survive a bit longer than necessary so that I could continue the fights and build my stacks. 

While I had not expected the Naga to get behind us, I had learned that in the dungeon it was best to always be prepared. I shot into the crowd at the base of the stairs and through them like a bull in a china shop.

A wave of Naga spirits roared after me and more popped up from those that I felled, turning the bottom of the stairs into a chaotic mess.

I almost felt bad for the Naga, barely able to turn their heads and realize that I was there before my blades rang against their skulls multiple times, putting them down before they even knew they were in a fight. I raced back and forth through the crowd of Naga, mowing down a path for Penny to reach the stairs. 

Penny certainly wasn't hesitating as I cleared the way, though it felt slow compared to my speed. She had only made it halfway through towards stairs by the time I had killed two dozen Naga and began fighting my way up the stairs.

Fighting on the stairs was a little trickier. Even though these two swords were my best stat-wise, I switched out to a pair of daggers so I could maneuver better. The daggers were a slight downgrade, but it never hurt to keep a spare set of weapons for specific forms of fighting.

The Naga were not nearly as flexible. They struggled to fight, their large flambergs held in front of them, limiting their movements to a basic chop and checking me with the blade. More than a few Naga braced the sword across their body and tried to charge me rather than swing.

In that case, all I had to do was brush up against them, punch my daggers into them until their armor and then their chests gave way, and then toss the Naga corpse down at my feet before taking another step up the stairs and repeating the steps on the next hapless serpent man.

They barely even realized their folly before they were sprawled and sliding down the stairs, a spirit rising from their body and joining to block the bottom of the stairs.

I tore through them all the way to the top of the stairs, Penny coming up behind me and securing my back.

The frost knight looked like she was willing to die on these stairs to protect my back as she squared up and made a position with ice on the stairs. It was a little overboard, but perhaps being overboard was exactly what we needed, because when I got to the very top of the stairs, the situation only got worse.

Naga had already spilled out into the floor above.

Luckily, scattered members of the UG had also arrived to stop them. It appeared they had not arrived in time to hold the stairs.

The situation had devolved into an open battlefield, with a Naga matriarch at the center, commanding the enemy forces and blowing away any opposition that came from the safe zone. A quick glance at my CID pegged her at level 51. 

The Naga matriarch stood out like an overlord amidst her people, all three pairs of her hands weaving around and casting multiple spells simultaneously.

“Ken!” Penny's father shouted upon spotting me without his daughter. His eyes set into a fierce glare momentarily. 

"She's blocking the stairs," I waved behind me. "Can you spare a healer?" 

He didn't need me to say any more. Penny’s father suddenly started shouting and waving two other adventurers to the stairs.

I didn't have time to talk. I didn’t want my [Liminal Speed] stacks to decay. So, I dove right back into the fighting. I blew through a cluster of male Nagas, then switched to the females, trying to put an end to the constant stream of heals prolonging the battle. 

With my [Liminal Speed], the healers might as well have been wet tissue paper.

I activated my abilities to tear through them even faster, but my attack didn't go unnoticed.

The matriarch reared her head, crossing the distance between us far faster than seemed logical given her otherwise large body. She was on me in a flash, scooping up two of her nagas fallen flambergs and swinging them down at me.

I managed to dodge away, but was still shocked by her speed.

The fact that she could even put up a passable attack against me was impressive in its own right. 

I noticed sparkles of magic coming off of her skin as one of her pairs of hands continued to cast what appeared to be buffs on herself. Only then did I realize how she was keeping up with my speed. She had something similar to Harley’s haste and was using it to level the playing field.

I wove back in, slipping inside of her guard and slashing apart her scales. However, fighting a Naga matriarch was like fighting three people in one, perhaps even more. 

With her lowest arms, she was casting buffs on herself. With her middle two arms, she held a two-handed weapon in each, swiping back and forth with powerful abilities. Meanwhile, her upper two arms were switching off between casting heals and offensive abilities. It didn’t help that my blades failed to cut deep as her scales turned a metallic gold and Any of the wounds I managed to inflict rapidly sealed back up.

It was as if the Naga Matriarch was a full party, two warriors a support and even magical cover fire as she flicked off spells with her top two arms. Yet, it was all condensed into a single entity who had complete control over where and when everything happened. It was incredibly hard to fight against, like a perfectly coordinated party.

I blocked her flamberges, my hands going numb as I searched for openings.

However, the Matriarch moved at incredible speeds, her stats already well above average for her level and twisted to match me moments later.

I traded blows with her, slipping around her side and inflicting several wounds, only for her to scream in rage and summon her warriors from all around.

“Ken!” Penny's father shouted in warning across the space, trying to get my attention while fighting off other Naga trying to reach me. He gathered who he could muster to throw themselves between my battle and the rest of the Matriarch’s forces.

I couldn't let his efforts be in vain. 

Shadow Limb stretched out and latched onto the Naga Matriarch's tail as I zipped around her, keeping both of her flambergs occupied with my own blades. The longer we stalled, the faster I would get. Each time our weapons met I would be faster until it became an absolute advantage. I took solace in reminding myself of that. 

As our metal blades pinged off each other, I spun around and delivered slash after slash to her midsection, not letting the sight of the wounds healing make me lose focus.

My attacks sped up, and I kept working to reach a speed that would outpace her healing ability.

Finally, one of my strikes did not immediately heal, and my adrenaline surged even higher, like a shark smelling blood in the water.

The Matriarch noticed the slowed healing as well and quickly activated an ability with all six hands, causing the ground around us to turn blood red before absorbing up into her. Her already red scales turned dark crimson, and her speed increased even further. 

As I went to block her first strike, I realized she hadn’t improved only her speed. Whatever ability she had used had increased her strength as well.

My feet slid on the ground as her strike threatened to blow me away.

I kicked off, coming around the other side and dodging another strike

Only for her to cast a water spell with the snap of a finger. A pillar of water shot up from my feet.

Even as I tried to dodge out of the way, the pillar clipped my leg, injuring it before hitting my elbow and taking one of my arms out of commission for a moment. 

I spun away from her next sword strike, only to be forced once again to block her other arm. My rushed block smacked into her weapon at an awkward angle and she pressed her strike.

She had a height advantage, and it seemed a strength advantage in that moment, bearing her whole weight down on me and pinning my feet to the bog.

I gritted my teeth in pain as my leg protested the added pressure after just getting hit by her spell.

She swung with her other arm, the massive flamberge reflecting the rainbow surroundings as it sliced through the air, straight for my head.

I activated [Shadow Ambush], melting into the ground and reappearing behind her as I popped another healing potion to get over the pain in my leg and recover my other arm.

I resumed my attack on the Naga Matriarch who now had a red tinge to her from an ability that was similar to a frenzy.

Her speed and strength were going absolutely wild. However, I noticed she had stopped healing herself, instead redoubling her efforts to cast offensive magic.

My best move was to put up a strong defense and make sure I survived while I wore down  whatever ability she was using.

I had continued using [Shadow Limb], and I knew that soon it would effectively drain her mana.

Her mana would have depleted faster with her frenzy ability and how she was chain casting that water blast.

I dodged several more sweeping strikes as she continued to pressure me, one strike at a time.

Whether she realized how [Liminal Speed] worked or not, she had adapted well and refused to give me any opportunity to go on the offensive. Instead, she pushed me, again and again, her swords taking up an extreme amount of the space between us while her spells came in at me from behind. 

I marveled at the intelligence of the Naga Matriarch.

She had changed her strategy considerably given my abilities. And she managed six arms, three of which were actively casting spells. There was a whole lot of brainpower behind the Naga Matriarch.

Concerned that I wouldn't be able to outthink her in this situation, I instead focused on the strength of my speed, bearing down on her with all of the speed I could muster. 

The Naga Matriarch, however, lost in her frenzy, was going absolutely wild. With nearly an eight-foot reach with every sweeping strike from the blades she was a whirling dervish.

I absorbed her next spell, discharging to stop her casting for just a second and dodging aside one of her strikes to get inside her guard. I unloaded [Triple Breach] and [Shadow Claw] on her before gliding back out of her range as she began to cast once again.

The spells kicked back up, forcing me on the defensive once again.

I sent out a thought of thanks to the dungeon for my trial, even if being mauled by a panther repeatedly had not been the best experience ever. Yet, it was undeniably helping me right now.

For any normal person, or even someone of an equal level, it was probably impossible to go up against one of these Naga Matriarchs. Yet, here I was, fighting one seven levels above me, toe to toe, even forcing her to use something like frenzy. It just showed the power of abilities from the trials like [Liminal Speed] or [Limit Break], able to even outperform the Naga Matriarchs who had a clear advantage baked into their natural abilities. 

When the Matriarch went to cast a spell that fizzled out on her fingertips, I couldn't help but grin.

In the momentary pause of confusion, I tapped my blade against her torso, activating [Mana Implosion] before zipping out back away from the Matriarch. My execution ability lived up to the name as the small bead of blue mana expanded within her, becoming a void that swallowed her stomach, collapsing back down to a bead, and then ripping her apart as I put as much distance between us as I could make.

The Matriarch's death wail tore through the air as she exploded, sending shock waves out that ripped apart several nearby male Naga. A few humans were tossed back by the secondary expansion effect of the explosion. However, the explosion itself did not harm those I considered my allies. The dungeon's abilities were odd that way.

As soon as the Matriarch fell, the Nagas lost all cohesion. The remaining male Nagas scattered, looking confused and becoming easy targets for the human adventurers to cut down. It was a swift and brutal display, as they were torn apart in minutes.

I did my part, sweeping through the Nagas with my blades, finishing them off one by one until there was nothing but a scene of carnage blanketing the dungeon floor before me.

“Ken,” Penny's father came up beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. "I can't believe we did that. There were so many of them. It was so sudden, and our guild was so poorly prepared.”

“Weren’t the UG people here to help?" I asked.

He scoffed, "Yeah, maybe in a couple hours. There's no way they would have gotten here to do much more than sweep up the corpses in our safe zone. These guys are all locals or a few of my guild we were able to round up before they got far." He shook his head, defeated, "But you came in and you crushed that Matriarch. Even a level 46 that I saw charge it earlier was ripped apart by her."

I grunted, "I do alright. After all, it would be a shame if I let Crimson call me her protege and couldn't fight above my level." I wasn't great at receiving compliments. "I suppose that might make you feel a little better about Penny diving with me. Do I have what it takes to protect her?"

"Yes, you have my blessing," Penny’s father dipped his head.

I paused. Blessing was a weird word. Then it clicked and I felt immediately uncomfortable. Marriage wasn’t even on my radar at the moment.

Penny was part of the party, and perhaps after the date and everything today, her being part of the party would lead to more, but marriage? I felt like I was suffocating a little bit. Forever was daunting.

"Thank you for your blessing," I spoke mechanically, not wanting to offend him but suddenly wanting to be standing anywhere else in the dungeon. I looked around, wanting another Naga to go kill. "If you don't mind, we should probably go get Penny. She's defending the stairs with those healers, and it would be best for her to know that everything is alright."

"Oh, of course," he said, letting me escape. With [Liminal Speed] still active, I was at the stairway a moment later, sweeping down past Penny and killing the few Naga that were stuck on the stairs going spastic after the Matriarch had died.

"Ken.” Penny beamed, a giant smile flashing on her face as we brushed aside the Naga corpses.

The dungeon would clean them up eventually, but that usually happened out of sight. That, or a monster would come by and dispose of the body. The Naga weren't like monsters that disappeared into black smoke. Instead, the dungeon would slowly absorb them if no one was there.

"Well, now that this is done, Ken, I think we're owed plenty of loot." Penny smiled at me.

I rubbed my hands together. "Would you like to extend our date and loot corpses?"

She laughed. "I can't think of anything more romantic," her tone dripped with sarcasm.

I gave her a big smile and a shrug before I moved over to the nearest corpse and got to work.