With the dragon spear in his hands, Tom jogged at the boss. The geography of the coming fight was simple. The entrance way the four of them had come through was just a gap in a waist-height fence; well, a shoulder-height one for them. It was a circular paddock that was about three hundred metres across, and filled with the same green, yellow grass as the other places were.

  As he ran forward, Tom thought about what was going to happen. There were unlikely to be a lot of complexities or unknowns. That is, if he could draw lessons from the previous floors and from what he had seen on this one. Making assumptions always carried an element of risk, but experience told him that it was a worthwhile shortcut. At least ninety percent of the time, there was consistency between levels in a trial and Adam, while he had been constrained in what he could say, had suggested his setup was no different from normal ones. Tom was now facing a heavily-armoured opponent that possessed special attacks that were probably the same as its lesser cousins, though he wouldn’t assume that. His plan was to take a few minutes to tease all of its tricks out of it. After that, it would be just a matter of wearing it down.

  The boss had seen them the moment they had entered the field, and, given that Tom was the only one still standing, it was focusing exclusively on him. The time dilation he was experiencing was at the lower end of what he had feared it would be - it was a little over three times.

  If he was lucky, the fight was going to be routine, and his decades of training in the tutorial, not to mention what he had done since with April, meant he could fight like a machine. A hundred, a thousand... it didn’t matter - he could repeat the same thrusts and dodges as often as needed. Predictable monsters, if he brought consistency to his actions, were easy to beat.

  Two metres ahead of him the air thickened.

  Instinctively, he stepped to the side to avoid the familiar spell, and, as he rushed past, he felt a brush of heat. When he glanced back, a dinner plate-sized patch of the field had had its grass burnt away to leave a perfectly circular burnt patch of dirt in its wake. The end result was cleaner than before, but he recognised the form of the magic attacks of the third monster-type that he had fought in the valley. For a moment, he searched around to see if any of them were present, but their profile was distinctive and there were none around, which meant that what he was seeing was an innate ability of the boss monster.

  There were other flashes of heat and wisps of smoke the as attacks went off all over the battleground. They were random and spread across the entire paddock, so they were not much of a direct threat, even if they were far more numerous than what the lesser kind had managed to produce.

  The magic bombardment was striking everywhere. Tom did not look back at his friends. Doing so wouldn’t have helped, and he didn’t have time. He hoped they weren’t in range, but he also knew from the one that had literally hit the barrier wall that they were.

  Fate, he thought, should protect them.

  The boss was waiting for him, and, as Tom closed the last fifteen metres, something pointy struck his mind. It was like a spike of ice drilling into his skull that morphed into a pack of mice with sharp claws tearing away at his soft brain matter. Everything was agony, and he stumbled as the taste of the spell spread over him. It attempted to hijack his muscular control, but his ability fought against the assault, and, after a moment of resistance, the attempt to paralyse him was rejected.

  The unexpected intensity, however, had caused him to stop running.

  He stared at the boss, wondering what other tricks it would have and almost on cue, it started trembling. Hesitantly, Tom stepped back a pace as he wondered about what was going to happen. What type of move did that reaction foreshadow?

  He considered fleeing, but Danger Sense was quiet, so he held his ground. He was positioned within range of its shorter charge, but far enough that a simple step backwards would take him to safety.

  Nothing happened, a weird five seconds of inactivity passed, and then the trembling stopped, and the monster sank slightly into the ground. Tom recognised the signs and retreated, but, as he did so, he saw that the air was thickening directly behind him. Without Danger Sense prodding him he would have retreated into a trap, instead he altered his course to avoid it.

  The boss charged forward, and its massive mouth crashed shut where Tom had been a moment before. Casually, with a movement honed against its lesser cousins, he stabbed and carved a small line out of the side of its boulder-face.

  It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

  Like all the other battles in the valley, the monster would telegraph and attack, and, after avoiding the special ability, Tom would counter-strike. Not just once, either - he knew he was on the clock. Despite the risk, whenever the boss was out of action, Tom would hit it twice, sometimes three times. With every exchange, the hole being carved into its side deepened.

  But he was going too slow.

  He was conscious that time was running out. A full tenth of the surrounding grass was now blackened and, while the frequency of attacks further away from the boss was reduced, they were still almost as common.

  An abrupt pain forced him to stabilise himself with the butt of his spear as another one of the turbo mind strikes landed.

  Like last time, it was all-encompassing, but his ability rejected it after only a fraction of a second. Tom looked up to check on the monster and saw it was trembling once more. The clues and signs from the prior encounter all came together in his head. The trembling was not the lead into a special ability - it was the muscle-lock side effect of its own mental attack skill.

  It had been reflected back and, unlike the more general knock out version, this one could apparently impact the physiology of the creature he was fighting.

  It had stunned itself.

  There was no opportunity to double- or triple-check his conjecture. He had to act immediately. A single unlucky annihilation beam could finish any of his friends at any time. There was a time for steady progress and a time for risk-taking.

  Right now, he had to tear into it. He leapt forward as he shifted his strategy to exploit the opportunity being presented. His tier-three dagger appeared in his right hand as he kept a firm grip on his spear with his left to keep the movement speed buff.

  This was the ultimate combination made to deliver damage to the creature.

  Mentally, Tom counted to five while he repeatedly rammed the dagger home. Each thrust hacked off cake-sized slices of rock, admittedly thinly cut. His frenetic effort doubled the distance he had carved into the armour. Closing with the knife had definitely been the right choice.

  The second he reached five, he hurriedly retreated. This time, the creature used the longer-charge attack, which, telegraphed as it was, was easy to avoid. All Tom had to do was throw himself sideways at the right moment. The trajectory it had taken took it marginally closer to his friends, and, as he ran to catch up to it, he had a chance to check on them.

  They still appeared to be unconscious, and they were not safe or unharmed. One of the beams had clearly struck Kang just under his knee. Tom could see the separated foot, then a gap before the gruesome black-and-red scorched flesh that ended just below the knee.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The threat of the annihilation columns was horrifyingly real.

  He shivered.

  On its own, the strike on Kang didn’t matter. He wasn’t waking up and contributing because the mind magic was too powerful and the wound had been cauterised already. It would not be fatal over minutes or hours, and there was a binary outcome. The first possible result was Tom winning, in which case he would emerge in Existentia, fully healed; and, because he was unconscious, he probably wouldn’t even have known it had occurred. Then, if Tom lost… that didn’t bear thinking about.

  The issue was that the attacks hadn’t ceased. A patch of grass between him and them vanished, leaving only blackened soil behind. Tom had no way of disrupting them or protecting the others apart from destroying the boss.

  While it lived, they were at risk.

  He screamed at the setup and prayed that the fate invested would be enough, that it would bend the beams away from critical areas, that the whole thing was calibrated for him to finish before they died. It probably was, but he didn’t know it for sure, and he hated how helpless he was against this particular boss ability.

  Tom didn’t want to think about it.

  Ferociously, he channelled every bit of strength he could into the blows, maintaining perfect form as his rage was building. However, he held onto his sanity. Its special attacks would result in him being literally eaten if he didn’t retreat at the right time. Retaining clarity of mind was absolutely critical.

  But it was unfair, and they were dying.

  Desperately he clung to the memory of their triumphs on other floors; surely this would be no different, and he had made visible progress. His spear strikes were now carving deeper, and his dagger had done significantly more damage than the minutes of hard work that preceded it. A couple more sessions like that, and the boss would be dead. Tom switched his focus to praying that it would hit him with another mind attack, as he cursed his inaction the first time. If he had closed and used the dagger then, this fight would be almost over.

  There was another puff of smoke from near his friends. He didn’t know whether they had been hit or not, let alone if Briana had been, but the smoke around them was darker and denser than it was elsewhere.

  He felt like screaming at the trial; then, once more, he struggled against the uncontrollable anger. Succumbing to his rage was death.

  But it was unfair. When he had seen the boss, he had assumed they were saved. Somehow, he had gotten them all to this point, and all that remained was defeating a single enemy that Tom countered. And he had been right about everything, except the stupid random area of effect attack.

  It was the definition of injustice.

  Tom felt his sanity slightly eroding . The cork he had shoved in to hold his anger was being displaced. The artificial fury coiling around inside him, probing and trying to join his own justified rage.

  For a moment, tears threatened to break out along with a blaze of anger that was intense enough to humble gods who specialised in it.

  Desperately, he suppressed everything. He pushed down on the seething weakness.

  Not during battle. Here, he needed clarity and an absence of emotion.

  He could worry about them later, and, with fate, they might survive, despite the widespread destruction. From what he could see, there was not a human size imprint of grass remaining anywhere in the boss area. But that was fine, as it was only a problem if the beam hit the chest or head. Arms, legs - none of that mattered, provided he won. Provided they were still alive. They would exit this place as though they had been under a full GOD’s shield. Any damage done in the meantime would be erased completely.

  The ice spike struck his brain, and Tom revelled in the brief moment of pain in celebration of what it signified. The instant it relented sufficiently for him to focus, he was hacking at the creature again.

  His mind counted the seconds, and after every precious moment was used he sprinted backward, but not before he caught a glimpse of yellow blood leaking out and droplets falling up.

  It was almost over. One way or the other, it was almost over.

  There was a thud behind, and he spun and thrust without thinking. As his ears had told him, it had finished its lunge forward, and he had the opportunity to strike. With the armour gone, the spear plunged further in than he had managed before, and, when he yanked it out, globules of yellow blood came with it.

  “I’ve got you!” He screamed at it.

  The boss did the straight-line charge, and he easily dived sideways to avoid it. In the corner of his eyes, he saw another puff of smoke near the entranceway. The anger was simmering, still contained, but threatening to escape at any moment.

  He sprinted and landed a blow, retreated, lunged again. Yellow continued streaming; then he somersaulted backwards in a familiar pattern. It wasn’t dead yet, and every chance he got he looked toward his friends and tried to see what was occurring.

  However, his visibility was hampered. Dark smoke was surrounding them, one thick enough that he couldn’t easily see what was happening. They might all be dead or alive. Briana was hidden in her entirety by Kang’s larger body. Eloise’s side looked blackened, and it seemed as if her entire arm was missing.

  But he was getting distracted.

  Tom threw himself to the side and landed two quick stabs before he retreated.

  Pain struck his brain, and the anger about the fight became too much. He cracked.

  The fury was not something he could contain any longer. The boss and its stupid, weird, unfair attacks had to die. Artificial anger joined what he had tried to contain, and they both surged in tandem, a tsunami that could not be denied.

  His mind was still being assaulted by the attack that every other time had halted him in his tracks, but he was so mad that the disabling pain found no purchase.

  With spear and dagger, he closed.

  His knife magically extended its length to penetrate deep within the monster. Power beyond what he could usually channel pumped through him.

  “Die,” he screamed. “Die!”

  Part of him counted. Another bit monitored the flares above, where his friends lay unconscious, and feared the worst. However, the majority of him just wanted the creature to die.

  All of his muscles focused on expanding the hole in its armour and slicing its insides into little bits.

  The five seconds elapsed, but Tom didn’t care. This was between him and it. He was not going to be a weakling and retreat.

  It sunk down.

  The tiny logical part of his mind recognised the tell, but most of him didn’t care.

  Danger Sense screamed a warning, but he was beyond caring.

  He refused to run. He wasn’t a coward. It might be a rock, but it bled, so he would kill it.

  He thrust his hand into the pureed flesh around the wound. Sinking his arm up to the elbow and then flicked the enchantment on the dagger like a little child with a light switch. Its expansion did damage, and, when it was not active, it was possible to twist the knife in the constricting tissue so that it pointed in a different direction before it doubled in length again. He pushed and twisted it, and he felt it scrape against the armour of the other side of the beast.

  The anger that consumed him wanted it dead, and, if it did its stupid lunge, then Tom, with his arm hooked into its very skull, would be taken with it.

  How could it eat him with his current positioning?

  He was stronger than it, and absolutely superior, and he would hold on if it twisted and spun.

  It was madness, but all Tom could think about was its coming death.

  It surged, twisting and lunging to try to eat him. But, hooked onto it as it was, it couldn’t reach him. However, the power it was exerting was skill-enhanced.

  There was a tearing sensation, and Tom went flying.

  He no longer had an arm, but he didn’t care.

  The rock had spun on the spot, and he had been thrown clear. The massive wound on its side was visible, with yellow liquid pouring out of it.

  “Die,” he screamed and unleashed all of his magic on the creature. Both arms were stretched out, his whole one and the bleeding stub, as he used his magic to destroy it. Because of the physical distance between him and the creature, this was the fastest method to reduce it to mulch. Lightning streams crackled from his fingers and arced into the gaping hole his previous attacks had left, while Javelins were launched from the remnants of his arm.

  It wasn’t dead. It was doing the signal for the long charge.

  He closed once more before it could activate its ability, and shoved his remaining good arm into it and his fist grabbed a handful of flesh and yanked a chunk out.

  “Die!” He screamed.

  It exploded away from him, launching itself straight forward and leaving Tom, whose hand had just exited it, untouched.

  Then it was ten metres away.

  He felt weak, despite the fury. The scorched ground around him was wet. A rare patch of surviving grass was more red than green.

  Sanity began to return. He felt wrecked by the experience. It wasn’t his injuries or the extent of his blood loss - it was the ridiculousness of succumbing to rage when he had known that a clear head was all that it would have taken to guarantee his victory.

  The situation was still salvageable. It was simple. All he had to do was stabilise the arm and fight one-armed until it died. He could do it.

  Touch Heal activated, and he pinched off the open blood vessels, and Blood Replenishment solved the immediate issue. There was no mana to spare beyond the free casts, because, in his rage, he had channelled it all into the lightning attack.

  But he was stable enough to keep fighting. He was just going to be conservative until he took it down.

  Everything changed.

  He was no longer on a burnt field that had been fertilised with red. Instead, he was in the blackest void, with trumpets going off, and he realised that the boss had succumbed to the immense damage that had been inflicted.

  He had won. The only question was whether it was a pyrrhic victory.