Len punched through a thornback behemoth's stomach, feeling around through splintered wood and sap. His fingers brushed against something smooth and crystalline. With a sharp tug, he pulled free a dungeon core that pulsed with stored mana. He added it to the four others in his pocket.

  Across the battlefield, other soldiers performed the same task - reaching into fallen monsters to retrieve their cores.

  The sound of splintering wood and metal striking wood rang out as they worked.

  Cursing echoed from where Rick hammered away at his fallen giant. His enhanced strikes tore through the wooden beast's remains like an angry woodsman, working his way to the beast's core.

  Len spotted two soldiers huddled around broken equipment, working to fashion replacements. They'd gathered suitable wood from the fallen thornbacks and were crafting new bolts, spear shafts, and shields to replace those destroyed in battle.

  Another soldier came by dropping off wood, the man repairing shields talked to him before he nodded and headed off to get more materials.

  Len checked the guards posted at the new passage—singed and smoldering from the fire tornado's after effects.

  He walked over to help.

  "What do you need help with?" Len asked.

  "Uhh," one troop looked at the other. "Well I was going to work on the bolts next, just finishing up the spears."

  "Alright," Len moved to a pile of thin sticks and pulled out his utility knife, putting it to the side.

  He picked up a length of wood. Running his hand along its surface, Len channeled mana through his palm. The wood smoothed beneath his touch, rough edges and splinters melting into the straightened length.

  He drew his blade, carefully sharpening one end into a deadly point before notching the other for a bowstring.

  The soldiers watched intently as he worked, studying his technique. Their own attempts at repair showed promise, but lacked his practiced precision.

  "Contact!" Vael yelled.

  Len looked up from his work as shouts rang out from the soldiers on watch. No panic colored their voices - just the practiced alertness of trained soldiers spotting a threat. He continued smoothing the wooden bolt in his hands, eyes tracking the unfolding scene.

  The Vael loosed a sling stone that cracked against the approaching thornback's wooden hide. The beast's head snapped toward the sound, thorns bristling along its flanks. Vael dropped behind his shield just as a spray of thorns peppered the area. They coated the ground and shield's surface.

  Dorn and Jackson darted forward with enchanted blades, weaving between the massive roots that covered the dungeon floor.

  The Vael stood, the shadow behind his shield the only spot not bristling with embedded thorns. In one fluid motion, he whipped another stone from his sling.

  The thornback charged, its wooden legs clattering against roots and stone. Jackson struck low, his mana blade slicing through the creature's front legs. The beast's momentum carried it forward as it collapsed, sliding across the uneven ground.

  Dorn leapt onto the fallen monster's back, his blade finding the gap between its armored head and body. A single precise cut, and the thornback went still.

  Len nodded in approval at their efficient teamwork. They'd figured out the creatures patterns, becoming highly efficient killers.

  "Wooh!" Rick's muffled voice echoed from inside the wooden giant he'd been dismantling.

  A moment later, Rick's head popped out from the splintered cavity, grinning like a child who'd found hidden treasure.

  "Got it!" Rick held up a glowing core, sap and wood fragments coating his arms up to his elbows. He climbed out of the beast's remains, completely absorbed in examining his prize.

  "Nice work on the—" Rick turned to Len, then stopped as he noticed the fresh thornback corpse and scattered thorns. His eyebrows rose. "Did I miss something?"

  Len shook his head, unable to hold back a smile at his friend's single-minded focus. Rick had been so engrossed in his core extraction he'd completely missed the brief but intense fight.

  "Just another thornback. The squad handled it." Len gestured to where Dorn was already carving into their latest kill.

  "Huh." Rick used cleanse to get off the splinters and sap. "Good strong one for you." He held the core out for Len to inspect, seemingly forgetting about the battle entirely.

  ===

  add in how strong the core is

  ===

  Lydia strode over, her boots crunching on scattered thorns. Her armor bore fresh scratches from the recent fights, but she moved with the same fluid grace as always. She stopped beside Rick.

  "Only scattered contacts in the last twenty minutes," Lydia said, resting her hands on the hilts of her swords. "What's our next move?"

  Len held out the core to Rick.

  Rick waved for him to keep it.

  Len added it into his pocket, noticing the duo working on repairing gear paying attention to their words.

  "If your people are up for it, I say we push deeper," Rick said. "This dungeon has a lot of capacity, the sooner we can clear it out the better. The trees in here are all uncommon grade. They'll be great for building projects."

  "And the waste we can use as firewood through the coming winter," Len said.

  Lydia didn't answer immediately. Her eyes swept across her unit, assessing each soldier in turn. Dorn and Jackson worked efficiently on the thornback corpse, their movements still crisp despite the previous battles. Vael had picked his way out of the thorns and stood atop a dead thornback, sitting and watching while he repaired his shield.

  After completing her survey, Lydia nodded slowly. "They'll be okay. We've got a good rhythm going."

  "Everyone bumped up their stats?" Len asked.

  "Yeah," Lydia nodded.

  Len looked back to Rick.

  "Deeper we go then," Rick said. "We can come back to clear everything in this area later."

  ***

  Len watched as the freshly repaired and made equipment was distributed.

  The wood from the fallen thornbacks had proven ideal for crafting.

  "Form up, same as before!" Rick yelled.

  They shook out into their positions. Rick and Len took the lead once more.

  "Lets move out." Rick led them deeper into the dungeon, following a gradually descending path between massive roots that broke through stone walls. The few thornbacks they encountered fell quickly to coordinated attacks - shields absorbing thorn volleys while blades found weak points with practiced precision.

  ===

  You have earned

  ===

  The walls of roots stopped at the entrance to the second area. Ancient trees stretched up into darkness, their branches hiding the ceiling above. Pale blue bioluminescent moss draped from branches, casting ethereal light across the glade. The air held a sweet, earthy scent that reminded Len of spring mornings on the farm.

  Roots thick as castle walls wound across the chamber floor, creating natural bridges between different levels. Dried sap like frozen waterfalls, reflected the moss-light in mesmerizing patterns.

  Small streams trickled between the roots, their waters reflecting the blue radiance of the moss above.

  The chamber itself seemed to breathe - a gentle current of air that made the hanging moss sway in hypnotic rhythm. Mana saturated everything, so dense Len could almost taste it. This wasn't the harsh, predatory energy of the thornbacks, but something ancient and patient.

  The glade was peaceful and inviting.

  "Keep your guard up," Len said.

  He felt those behind tense up.

  "Everything in here is trying to kill us. Don't forget that, even if it looks different."

  Len moved cautiously through the glade, eyes tracking movement in the shadows between ancient trees. The trees had been grown into homes and buildings. Branches twisted together into bridges.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  "What happened here?" someone whispered behind him.

  "Look at those markings..." another voice murmured.

  More whispers rose from the formation as soldiers pointed out architectural details.

  Len opened his mouth to quiet them when a man's scream cut through the whispers.

  "Contact!" Lydia yelled.

  Len spun, drawing sword and staff as more shadows detached from the trees. He backed up, going back to back with Rick.

  Grove stalkers - their fur making them nearly invisible against the ancient trunks. They moved with predatory grace, attacking the formation from multiple angles.

  "Tighten up!" Len shouted, sending a blast of lightning through a stalker in mid-jump.

  Once they were inside his domain he could see them, but they were fast, sneaky and on home ground.

  Rick had the crossbow from the forgotten library in his hands it thrummed with continuous fire.

  A man screamed out as he was torn out of position.

  Len's blade bit deep into bark-like flesh as he parried another attack. "Close ranks!" he ordered, backing toward the main group. "Shield wall, now! Lydia!" Len threw his staff to her.

  "Rick cover me."

  Rick turned, fire bolts shooting away from him, tearing through beasts as he raised his shield, smashing a beast out of the air to the ground, firing a bolt through its head.

  "Covering!"

  Len darted forward, his blade moving in precise arcs as he wove between attacks. The sword sang through the air, each strike finding flesh with deadly accuracy. This wasn't just steel meeting hide - it was his will made manifest, carving through anything that stood in his path.

  An expert swordman let free from needing to defend-he attacked.

  A grove stalker lunged at his left. Len pivoted, letting the beast's momentum carry it past as his blade opened its flank. Another sprang from the shadows above. He dropped and rolled, coming up with a rising cut that nearly split the creature in two.

  Through the chaos of battle, he spotted the stalker dragging away its prey. The soldier thrashed in the beast's grip, blood streaming from where fangs had punctured his shoulder. His shield arm flailed wildly, trying to strike the creature, but the awkward angle and close quarters made it impossible to land an effective blow.

  The soldier's eyes locked with Len's - pain and fury warring across his features as he struggled against the monster's grip.

  Len burst into motion, crossing the distance in long strides. His blade deflected another stalker's attack without breaking stride, the movement so ingrained he barely registered it.

  His strength turned the creature as his blade snaked back, taking head from body.

  His focus remained fixed on the retreating predator and its captive, while he used his domain to watch everything coming at him, he turned, dodging an attack at his back cutting them on the way past and kicking off of them, throwing them into another creature as he rolled away from another.

  Len's blood sung in his veins. This was what it was to feel alive. To dance upon the edge of death and destruction.

  His blade hummed through the air as he ran forward.

  The stalkers attacked from all angles - ground, trees, and air - but his domain let him track every movement. His sword found throats and hearts with surgical precision, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.

  Three stalkers dropped from overhead branches. Len rolled forward, coming up in time to parry a fourth's claws. He kicked off a nearby root, using the momentum to slash through another beast mid-leap.

  More shapes detached from the shadows, converging on his position. Len gathered spinning wind into his palm, compressing it into spheres. As three stalkers launched themselves at him from different directions, he released the spheres.

  Each punched through the heads of the beast's head. The beasts dropped like stones, including the one dragging the wounded soldier.

  Len reached the fallen stalker in two quick strides. The creature's jaws remained locked even in death, muscles frozen in a death grip. He kicked the creature's jaw, shattering it.

  The soldier gasped as pressure released from his shoulder, blood flowing freely from puncture wounds.

  "Time to get the fuck out of here don't you think?" Len grabbed the man's belt and hoisted him over his shoulder in one smooth motion. The soldier groaned but didn't resist.

  "Watch my back."

  Len set his stance, feet planted firmly as he assessed the battlefield. His domain stretched out, letting him track the ebb and flow of combat around the formation. Sweat trickled down his back beneath his armor as he adjusted his grip on his blade.

  The shield wall held, but barely. Soldiers pressed shoulder to shoulder, their enchanted shields absorbing impacts from claws and tails. Behind them, spears and swords lashed out at any beast that came too close.

  A grove stalker's tail whipped through the air, catching the edge of Private Mason's shield. The impact cracked through the air like a thunderclap. Mason stumbled backwards, shield arm dropping as he fought to maintain his footing.

  The beast lunged for the gap, fangs bared - only to meet Vael and another soldier's blades.

  Lightning arced from Len's staff in Lydia's off-hand, cutting through the gloom. Some bolts found their marks, grove stalkers dropping with smoking holes in their hide. Others went wide, scarring tree trunks or dissipating harmlessly into the darkness above.

  Through his domain, Len tracked three more stalkers circling the formation's flanks, waiting for another opening. The wounded soldier over his shoulder groaned, blood from his shoulder wound soaking into Len's armor.

  Len stabbed his blade into the ground, freeing his hand to reach for the cores in his pocket. The soldier on his shoulder shifted, but Len kept his balance. His fingers closed around two of the thornback's core's he'd extracted earlier, its energy pulsing against his palm, as his mana carved into their surface.

  The grove stalkers seemed to sense something was wrong, turning their attention upon him.

  He drew out the cores, runes and lines appearing upon their surface as the grove stalkers used talon and tail to rush him from above and on the ground, abandoning stealth for raw speed. Their forms blurred as they charged, converging on his position from all directions. Claws extended, fangs bared, they closed the distance in heartbeats.

  Len activated the enchantment carved into the cores.

  Mana bolts and light erupted from Len's hand. The brilliant flash illuminated every detail of the ancient glade - massive roots twisting between pools of crystalline water, moss-draped branches stretching into darkness above.

  In that frozen moment, Len saw the grove stalkers in their full glory - lean predatory forms covered in bark-like fur that shifted patterns even as they moved. Their eyes reflected the burst of light like mirrors, pupils contracting to slits as they bore down on him.

  Mana bolts erupted from the cores in Len's hand, each one seeking a target with deadly precision. The stalkers' charge faltered as bolts tore through their ranks.

  The first stalker struck by a bolt began to twist. Its fur rippled and bubbled, new growths bursting through skin. Branches erupted from its spine, spreading like a disease through muscle and bone. The creature's eyes multiplied, splitting and reforming across its elongating face as it howled in agony.

  Another stalker's legs snapped and reformed, joints bending backwards as roots burst from its paws, trying to anchor into the ground. Its tail split into writhing tendrils that whipped through the air, spreading spores that dissolved into nothing.

  The mutations cascaded through the pack. Some stalkers merged together, flesh flowing like wax as they formed grotesque amalgamations. Others simply burst apart, their bodies unable to contain the corrupted mana forcing them to grow beyond their limits.

  Len's domain let him feel the chaotic energy surging through each beast. Their cultivation cores, already strained by the dungeon's influence, couldn't handle the sudden influx of corrupted power. The mana tore through their bodies like lightning through dry wood, forcing change after change until they reached their limit.

  The stalkers collapsed one by one, their twisted forms going still as their cores gave out. The mutations continued even after death, branches and roots spreading from corpses before all movement ceased.

  The last of the grove stalkers fell to crossbow bolts and spells, their twisted forms crashing to the ground with wet thuds.

  Those that had made it close to the shield wall were finished by quick and efficient jabs and slashes.

  Len used a healing spell on the soldier to seal his wounds. The remnants of the cores he'd used had crumbled to fine dust, he poured the powder into a pouch, a cleanse spell removing the clotted grove stalker's blood from his hands, letting all the powder fall.

  He retrieving his sword from where he'd planted it and ran back to the formation.

  The shield wall barely had shields anymore, many had shattered from the grove stalkers' tail attacks. Others showed deep gouges.

  Others rushed forward to help take the wounded soldier from Len's shoulder. They laid him down beside two others who'd taken the worst hits during the fight.

  One with a broken leg, another had been raked across the lower half of his armor a talon having carved through his stomach.

  "You, line up his leg in place," He patted a soldier that helped take the wounded one from him.

  "Sir."

  The man with the broken leg moaned as the other lined it up.

  Len worked on the man that had been gutted, cleaning out the wound, healing the organs andmaking sure everything went back in place before sealing him up.

  Len scanned the group, categorizing injuries. Mason's shield arm hung limp, likely dislocated from that tail strike. Vael had deep claw marks across his chest armor where a stalker had gotten past his guard. Three soldiers sported puncture wounds from fangs, including the one he'd just rescued. The rest showed a mix of cuts and bruises.

  He moved to Mason first, placing one hand on the soldier's shoulder and the other on his bicep. "This will hurt." Len pushed mana into the joint, guiding it back into place with a sharp pop. Mason grunted but didn't cry out.

  Len could see mana rushing into the shoulder, repairing it.

  Most injuries that would have been serious the soldiers shrugged off now, using their own spells and mana to heal.

  Len checked on the guy he'd brought in. His shoulder was shattered but he'd been healing it and had also driven out the poison from the stalker's attack.

  "Make sure you clean out your wounds, looks like the stalkers had poison," Len said as he drew black and purple gunk out of soldier's wounds.

  He fused the bones back together in the man's shoulder.

  "Going to be bruised and tender, keep flowing mana into it to heal it up," Len told the man.

  "Thanks for saving my life."

  "Just a nice stroll in an ancient grove," Len winked.

  The man let out a half-hearted snort and started to push himself back to his feet.

  Len worked his way through the minor injuries, using just enough mana to stop bleeding and prevent infection. He kept his reserves above half - experience had taught him to always be ready for another fight. The soldiers remained quiet as he worked, their eyes scanning the shadows between ancient trees.

  He finished checking young soldier sporting a nasty gash along his forearm. The wound sealed under the boy's own spells, angry red fading to pink as new skin formed.

  "Experience up if you've got it," Lydia said.

  ===

  you have earned

  ===

  Len checked his mana levels as Rick signaled them forward. The twisted corpses of the grove stalkers littered the ground around them, branches and roots still spreading from their mutated forms.

  "Move out," Rick ordered. "Center of the glade. Double time."

  The formation tightened behind their remaining shields.

  "Watch high and back," Len pointed at where he wanted the soldier to watch, moving up the formation. "Low and back for you."

  He walked through giving everyone areas to watch.

  He reached the front, a soldier reloading one of Rick's bolt cannisters.

  "Movement, two o'clock high," a soldier called out.

  Rick dropped it from the branches it was hiding in.

  "Three more, ground level, nine o'clock," another warned.

  Rick adjusted his aim between targets, the crossbow's mechanical whine punctuated by the meaty impacts of bolts finding their marks.

  Lydia tapped Len with his staff, holding it out to him.

  "Keep a hold of it for now, I got my cores." Len patted his pocket and walked out of the formation to where Rick marched.

  "I'll keep watch of where we're going," Len said as he reached Rick.

  "Thanks," Rick said.

  "Three o'clock, far, mid."

  Rick continued reaping a stalker harvest.