A series of Thumps vibrated through the chamber as the huge boss monster's coils flopped lifelessly to the frosty floor of the arena-like chamber. For a long moment, everything in the chamber was silent and still but for tiny pieces of tumbling debris clattering to the floor. Then the tromp of heavy boots broke the silence. My vision snapped to the source of the sound, on edge, my blood surged, preparing for yet another fight, only to see Kels storming across the chamber towards the section of wall that had been demolished by the impact of Angus. A swift glance around the chambers confirmed Signe rising from the ground, a potion vial still against her lips, tipped to the sky. At least she was on her feet, the potion working away, even if she was covered in more of her own blood than any doctor would be comfortable with.

  I chose to ignore the cascade of System notifications that demanded my attention. Skittering down from the boss' rapidly cooling corpse, I joined Kels sifting and picking through the rubble. Thanks to our combined stats, we managed to have Angus mostly uncovered within moments. He was woozy but conscious when we pulled him from the wreckage which was nothing short of a miracle brought about by the large man's Endurance and sheer dumb luck as far as I could tell. The moment we had Angus freed from the rubble and down on the chamber floor, Kels yanked a potion from his belt and stuffed the vial in Angus' mouth despite the weak protests coming from Angus himself that roughly amounted to 'aw c'mon boss, no need for that, we got em on the ropes.' Needless to say, Kels was not swayed in the slightest by the nearly incoherent mutterings of the battered man.

  I switched back to my human form since the battle was over and we would almost certainly have to pass through another corridor when it came time to move again. Signe joined us as we waited for the potion to take effect, crouching around Angus, already she was moving better. Apparently the Banner did not mess around with their restoratives, I'd already experienced it once but it was still impressive to see it in action. Moment by moment, even as we waited, colour returned to Angus' face, and his breath grew stronger, less laboured. As we settled in to rest for a moment, I subtly directed Vipera to make her way around the room and tag on the monster bodies for me. I was not going to give up a shot at the loot that might come out of this room, especially the boss. That Naga had been damn nasty, and I wondered at the possibilities of what I might be able to make from a forged soul core that came from a monster like that. Perhaps a weapon, possibly a Skill. Maybe even a new Spell I could ram through my [Fell Gaze]. There were several possibilities. Of course, there were also the other monsters in the chamber. All in all, it had worked out in the end, and I was certain it would be quite valuable with a little work. Hopefully, the rest of the dungeon would be the same.

  With Angus down for the count, this time it was Signe who came around with another round of potions for all, and I accepted mine gratefully. When she tried to insist on salving and bandaging my visible wounds, I waved her away.

  "Worry about Angus and Kels, I heal fast enough. Faster with the potion." The combination of my [Totem of Regrowth] and Vipera's [Root Regeneration], along with the potion I had downed, was making short work of the few physical injuries I had currently. Well, except for the eye. The battle with the boss had cost me my right eye, the wound carrying over even from my spider form.

  Which was unusual. I suspected that it had to do with the way the damage had occurred.

  Signe shot me a look I didn't want to decipher, but headed back over to Angus and Kels. Truth be told, I was slightly concerned but not overly so. I could feel a vaguely familiar itching in the socket that reminded me of the few times I had lost limbs. I was fairly certain it would heal on its own, given some time, though the potion would speed matters up a fair bit. It was a pity I didn't have another handy potion of regeneration stashed away in my inventory. That might have been useful here. C'est la vie, such was life.

  I triggered my [Spirit Forge], gathering up the loot, or rather the potential of it, and swiftly stowed away the materials in my [Inventory]. I made sure to set aside a portion for the others, though the boss was mine. There was no sense in getting greedy, and I had a growing respect for these three. I had little desire to screw them over if it wasn't absolutely necessary. My gaze followed her for a moment before sweeping over the chamber with [All-Seeing Eye]. It looked pretty much as expected. Following the mana wash, I found our exit. Right where the monsters had been coming from.

  Simple enough, at least.

  I could see Kels and Signe gather close around Angus. I imagined this dungeon had been rough for them in more ways than one. They'd already lost one of their own and nearly lost another in this latest battle. If I had to guess, they were feeling more mortal than ever right now; mortality was a feeling that seemed to be in short supply for Rankers the majority of the time, thanks to our stats. Beyond the first handful of levels, we might be human-shaped, but at least physically, we really weren't very human anymore. Though the soul was still human, I was more certain of that than most. Staring back at me was a prime example of humanity, three auras intertwined by care. For now, I turned away from the scene with a snort, and I resolved myself to keeping watch while we waited for the potions to do their work.

  ——-

  We emerged from the corridor into yet another snowfield. We stared out at the white expanse dotted by trees, boulders, and hills with growing apprehension. How much more dungeon could there be beyond this? Already, we had traversed two other snowfields of equal size, however many corridors and other smaller chambers. Dungeons should not be this size; they simply didn't exist long enough to gather enough mana to grow to this kind of size before becoming a Breach. Felix had been right before he died.

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  There was something going on here, something deeply wrong. The question was what?

  "Bet the first squad to walk in here is long dead," The unusually grim remark came from Angus, it was greeted only by dark nods from each of us. There was nothing to be said to that. It was overwhelmingly likely that the first squad in was, in reality, dead, having wandered in here expecting a much simpler, smaller, and weaker dungeon than what we had been fighting our way through.

  "No bet," I responded quietly while Kels checked on his watch. We lingered around the chamber entrance. Signe remained silent as the grave, likely considering the fact that they had already lost one of their own. That it could just as easily have been their squad that was sent in first, and would now likely never be coming back out again. A quick glance at the stony look on Kels' face was a solid indicator that whatever he was thinking about was not good.

  "We have less than five hours. Then the worst-case scenario is the only one that will matter." Kels voiced the thought that had put the stony look on his face. A look we all shared now. My own thoughts lurched. Five hours was not a lot of time with who knew how many dungeon chambers left before we even reached the boss. Finding the Anchor and destroying it to disconnect the dungeon from the world wasn't an option either, not in a dungeon this size. We simply didn't have the time, or rather, I didn't have time. Since I was the only one who would reliably be able to wander the dungeon alone without dying, and had the senses, maybe, to be able to find it. In the end, none of that mattered; what mattered was that we were moving too slowly right now. Yet moving any faster than we were posed a different set of risks; throwing caution to the wind and rushing forward could prove just as deadly in the end.

  "We push hard then," I stated flatly, staring at Kels, "I'll take the lead and the brunt of the monsters, we'll blitz through every chamber, avoiding as many fights as we can. Go straight for the boss chamber." We all nodded, a little of the old battle high sparking in our auras as they began to move from passive and contracted to a more active state.

  In these last five hours, we’d either burn out or break through.

  It was one of the few virtues of a ticking clock: there’s no room left for regret, or even much fear—just motion and momentum. There were no more strategy discussions or hypothetical debates about optimal routes. We had all been through enough, and it was tacitly understood that anything less than a full-speed sprint through what remained would get us nowhere except dead in a breaching dungeon that bled chaos and carnage into the world.

  Kels shouldered his shield and hefted his blade. Angus grinned roguishly, palming the head of his war hammer. Signe readied her wand and dagger. I grinned and switched once more from being a man to being a couple of thousand pounds of eight-legged killing machine. We tore off into the white expanse of the snowfield. Come hell or high water, there wasn't a damn thing that was going to stop me from clearing this dungeon and stopping the breach before it could happen, and all hell broke loose.

  ——-

  The strategy worked well, with the others sprinting in my wake, and we made good time through the dungeon. I followed the mana wash and nothing else, ignoring all of the monsters except those that drew close enough to attempt take a bite. They were left dead and dismantled in the snow after a few strikes from my legs. We passed through the snowfield and through another corridor with barely a bump in the road. Another three smaller chambers followed. The monsters, unable to keep up with the punishing pace we set, were quickly left behind in most instances, frequently tangled in heavy strands of webbing I left behind as we moved. Thankfully, at least the dungeon wasn't showing us anything new. The same types of monsters we had been fighting since entering the dungeons were what we faced now, but with more experience in dealing with them.

  A couple of times, we came close to slowing down, either due to the shifting terrain of the dungeon chambers or due to larger groups of monsters ahead of us. Ice wraiths were highly aggressive and often chased us for a fair distance through a chamber or two before losing interest. The Akhlut were much the same, chasing us through a corridor to another chamber but eventually giving up. The groups of revenants we found were trickier in some ways due to sheer numbers. Often, the revenants appeared in groups two or three times the size of the other monster types, allowing them to cover more ground. Often, we ended up circumventing them entirely, or if the numbers were low enough, punching through directly. There weren't any single monsters that lived for more than a moment when the four of us turned on them, which made the groups the only real concern.

  Half a dozen smaller chambers we flew through. Ranging from shorter jaunts through icy tunnels much like the first we had encountered, to smaller snowfields that were much simpler to navigate. This made the dungeon one of the largest the Banner had on record, according to Angus and Kels. As far as we had counted so far, we were twelve chambers deep in this dungeon, and that was a fuzzy estimate at best, given the sheer size of the larger snowfield chambers this dungeon had presented us with.

  I could feel we were approaching the boss room; the mana wash was intense, crashing outward like waves in a storm, almost. I breathed a sigh of relief. It was good to know we were closing in on the end of the dungeon, and with a good bit of time left by my reckoning. Hopefully, it was enough. The rapidly approaching dungeon boss did mean one thing, though. It was time to stop putting off the itch in the back of my mind, the System notifications I had been ignoring since the naga battle.