The Dungeon Tree

"Neromancy."

A small black dot appeared beneath the monster and Felix, growing larger by the second. Both the monster and Felix looked down at the pitch black floor that had appeared beneath.

Two black chains suddenly shot out from the ground and wrapped around the monster's arms, completely stopping his attack and allowing Felix to create some distance.

"This spell… Steven?" I asked, looking over at where I heard the familiar voice come out from.

A giant black bull suddenly shot out from the trees and slammed into the monster, shattering the chains and sending it flying back. I turned my head towards the bull and saw both Steven and Theo riding atop it. The two looked over at me and Felix before jumping off the bull and running towards us.

"What the hell did I miss?" Steven asked, looking at me with a ticked off expression.

"So me and Felix beat the third monster leader of this island and now their leader is trying to stop us." I explained.

"Wait, those things have their own leader?" Theo jumped in on the conversation.

"Yeah and apparently this monster works under another monster." I shrugged.

"So these monsters have their own hierarchy?" Theo asked.

"Gah that's not important right now! Theo, give Felix and John those mana potions so they can also get back to one hundred percent!" Steven shouted, pointing towards the satchel Theo was carrying.

"Don't boss me around!" Theo shouted, throwing a potion towards me and Felix.

The effects of the potion kicked in almost instantly, the amount of mana this potion restored was almost overwhelming. With my magic fully replenished, this monster should be a lot easier to take down now.

"Felix, do you still need to charge up that spell of yours?" I asked.

"Yeah but only for five minutes now."

"I'm sorry, what?" Steven looked over at me with a confused expression.

"This monster's tough so I'm banking on Felix dealing one massive attack to finish him in one-go. We gotta wear him down first though. " I answered, looking over at the dust cloud created from the monster's impact.

The other three soon turned their attention towards the dust and watched as the monster walked out as if it hadn't just been launched into a boulder.

"This proved to be more trouble than I expected. I guess I better start taking this more seriously." The monster said, bringing out his greatsword.

Just like before, the greatsword began changing shape. The silver-like ooze began to shift around until splitting into two different entities and taking the form of two daggers.

"Daggers?" Steven asked.

"Don't give him any time to react!" I shouted, charging forward.

Steven nodded his head and followed closely behind me as we both charged towards the monster named Godrick. As I charged forward, I aimed Genki towards Godrick and fired beams to keep him from moving. As I continued to fire beams, Steven kept sending shadows to attack Godrick as well.

"Interesting!" Godrick slammed his foot into the ground, creating a large tremor which knocked all the shadows off their feet and up into the air. In the brief moments the shadows were airborne, Godrick charged forward and destroyed all of them in one attack.

"He took them out in one attack?!" Steven shoutted, completely flabbergasted at what we just witnessed.

"Don't slow down! If we can't beat a monster on level twenty how can we expect to reach the top of the tree?!" I shouted, looking back at Steven.

"You're right!" Steven began running faster and even passed by me.

Godrick collides head on with Steven's spear, putting him to a complete stop. As the two had a power struggle, I jumped up and did a vertical slash aimed towards Godrick's head. Before I could land my slash, Godrick raised his right dagger and parried my attack.

"Gah!" I fell onto the ground but quickly jumped back up to support Steven as he too was knocked back by Godrick.

"Where'd all that enthusiasm go?!" Godrick slammed both daggers into the ground, creating more small tremors that made it nearly impossible to stand.

As Godrick looked at us with an excited smile, as if he was enjoying this entire interaction. That smile of his smile soon faded when he saw that both me and Steven were smiling right back at him.

"We've got this Steven!" I shouted reassuringly.

"You're damn right we do!"

Right as the tremors subsided, the two of us charged forward and attacked Godrick from both sides. Even with our speed, Godrick still managed to parry us easily. That wasn't a problem though.

I smirked at Godrick before using the momentum he created to slash his side. Godrick's body flinched in pain, giving Steven just enough time to land his own attack, piercing Godrick's side.

Before Steven and I could land another attack, Godrick spun his daggers around. With how fast the daggers were moving, we had no choice but to jump back.

"You humans are most impressive. I can tell that human charging mana is almost finished so I better wrap this up quickly."

"Good luck with that." I said, suddenly appearing behind him and slashing his legs.

My slash attack caused Godrick to stumble forward a bit, moving right into Steven's shadow pillar. Steven's attack smacked right into Godrick, sending him right back to me.

"Here's a present!"

I smiled at Steven's comment, "Flame Slash: Form Two!" Flames began to surround Genki as I swung my sword into Godrick, landing a clean hit on his side. Godrick fell to his knees, unable to move from the slash attack I had landed on his legs. Godrick dropped his right dagger and placed his hand on his wound created by my Flame Slash.

"Get away!" Felix shouted at me and Steven.

Steven and I nodded at each other before jumping away from Godrick, creating as much distance from us as possible so we wouldn't be in the blast zone. Godrick gave us one last look before slamming his daggers into the ground.

"I can't fall here!" Despite the ground shaking violently, all four of us kept our feet planted.

A large green light appeared before Felix, sucking up the wind in the area and placing it in a large sphere made purely of wind. Godrick's eyes widened as he saw the sphere increase in size.

"GALE DRIVER!" Felix shouted, launching the sphere right at Godrick while all he could do was helplessly stay there and watch.

The sudden sound of a singular clap caused the air around us to freeze. Although time wasn't frozen, I couldn't move my body. Something's presence was enough to freeze my body up in fear.

"That was a close one, huh, Godrick?" A figure shrouded in darkness appeared before Godrick, taking the full blunt of Felix's Gale Driver.

"M'lord?" Godrick had a horrified look on his face.

"That attack just now was strong enough to kill any of my commanders so feel no shame in losing today." The figure aimed his left hand towards Godrick.

Within an instant, Godrick had vanished from sight. It was almost as if the figure before us had erased his very existence. The figure let out a tired sigh before looking over at the four of us.

I finally managed to break out of my trance and charged towards whoever this mystery person was, ready to strike him down at a moment's notice. The figure smiled at me, revealing his razor sharp teeth.

"To think a human can move within my presence. Most impressive!" The shrouded stranger suddenly clapped his hands, disappearing just like with what happened to that monster named Godrick.

"W-who was that?" Felix asked, collapsing onto the floor.

"Well considering how Godrick called him "M'lord", I'm gonna assume he's the big bad we gotta take down." I answered, placing Genki back in his sheath.

"Take him down?! I couldn't even move!" Theo shouted.

"I'm not forcing you to fight him. I'm just saying that Steven and I need to if we wanna go back to reaching the top of the tree." I said, giving Theo a reassuring look.

Steven walked over to me and gave me a concerned look, "I don't mean to doubt your skills but do you really think you can beat that thing?"

I let out a small laugh, "with where I'm at now, not in the slightest. That's why we gotta regroup with the others and train up!"

"Well since the three monsters along with that Godrick monster are now gone, I guess we can start heading out now, right?" Steven asked.

"Uh…" Theo's voice caught the attention of both me and Steven.

"Since you did just kind of liberate this island… would it not make sense to celebrate your victory?"

Steven and I stared blankly at Theo before looking back at each other. I guess a little celebration couldn't hurt too much. I can tell Steven's thinking the same thing with the look in his eyes.

"Felix, wanna join in on the celebration?" I asked, raising my brow.

Felix gave me a baffled look, "what about your companions?"

I smiled, "I have absolute faith in them. I know that no monster is going to get the best of them!"

Felix let out a tired sigh, "where do you find all that trust?"

I laughed, "what kind of friend would I be if I didn't trust my own buddies?"