Blood Shaper

“That’s a miniboss?” Kay demanded, pointing at the hulking, forty-foot tall golem.

“Yeah. It’s a dungeon that tier fives can progress in, what were you expecting, a cuddly kitten you could kill with a look?”

The miniboss lived, whatever that word meant when used to describe a magically created figure made out of stone that had never breathed, in a suitably large arena that gave the towering monster enough space to move around freely. The path that led from the last room opened out onto a short balcony that overlooked the arena, only ten feet higher than the top of the miniboss’s head. Angled walls surrounding the space made it into one gargantuan cone shape, with the point being the two hundred foot wide circular arena floor. A steep ramp was the only way down to the floor other than jumping and it would send you tumbling straight down to the ground if you didn’t make the descent carefully.

“I have several other questions.”

Eleniah shook her head with what Kay hoped was fond exasperation. “Go ahead and ask, then.”

“How is there this much space under the island? We’ve already been waking for at least a mile and we didn’t backtrack once. If this is a miniboss arena the actual boss’s arena must be insane. How does it all fit?”

“That’s actually a good question,” She replied, looking pleased.

“Are you implying that I don’t ask good questions the rest of the time?”

“You tend to waffle when you’re surprised and it takes you a few to move onto the decent ones.” She pointed up at the ceiling hundreds of feet above them, “Dungeons that reach a certain age, the good ones at least, start to be able to do spacial trickery like your flasks. We aren’t actually taking up as much space under the island as you’d think.”

“Are we smaller or is the space bigger on the inside?”

“The second one, only a handful of dungeons can shrink people.” She paused to make a thinking face, “Or try to shrink people? That’s an interesting research subject. Are the dungeons who don’t try and shrink people able to? I need to remember that to see if anyone I know has looked into it.”

“While seeing you in your scholarly mode is refreshing, since you don’t pull that out much, is this the time or place?”

“Right, sorry.” She coughed into her hand. “A dungeon shrinking you is lot like other people trying to use their Skills on you. The more powerful you are compared to the dungeon who’s making the attempt the more likely you are to resist it without even trying, so the dungeons that use that tactic are limited to delvers at least a tier below them.”

Lauren stepped forward with a concerned look on her face as she watched the miniboss carefully. “Can we afford to just stand here, chatting?”

“It’s fine,” Eleniah waved her off, “At least one of the minibosses per section is a challenge type. They won’t attack until you accept whatever kind of challenge they present. For this one, you have to enter the arena or attack it to start the fight.” She looked at Kay, “Not that I want to spend all day talking, I want to get into it with big boy here before we take too long and have to leave.”

“That actually answered one of my questions, kind of. I was going to ask what’s stopping us from just standing in the archway where it can’t reach us with its big hands and start hitting it with long range attacks.”

“It’ll go on the attack the instant it gets touched and if you try shit like that the dungeon puts a wall behind you and pushed you out into the open. It doesn’t seem to mind cheating in the normal rooms but it won’t tolerate for its challenges. What else you got?”

“Last question.” He turned and pointed at the miniboss. “You have asura here?”

The towering miniboss was humanoid in shape, at least from the toes to the bottom of its chest, after that the term humanoid got a little stretched. The golem’s shoulders were bulky, with multiple arms coming off each of them in different directions, one on each side in roughly the normal position, two lower than that, and two higher. The shoulders rolled up into a thick neck that supported a larger than proportional head. Where the ears should have gone on each side were additional faces that gave the miniboss at least two hundred and thirty degrees of vision. The carving of the golem’s body was even more detailed that the regular golems with intricately detailed muscles, eyes that glowed a deep red within arched brows, viscously sharp clenched teeth that added to the demonic expression on each face, and a pair of long pants draping from the golems’ legs, looking like flowing fabric even though it was stone. Except for the coloration, Kay couldn’t think of a better example of an asura.

“That word didn’t translate.” Eleniah replied. “So… Maybe?” She shrugged, “That just means we don’t have an equivalent in this language, but that doesn’t prove anything. And the inspiration for this guy had to come from somewhere. What’s an asura?”

Kay chuckled. “I’m not really the person to ask. My friend Noah is the mythology fanatic, I just learned stuff through exposure to him. It’s a mythological demon type of creature,” He continued, seeing the look everyone was giving him, “Or a religious being, depending on your belief system. They have multiple heads or faces and multiple pairs of arms. They’re known for being violent, angry, hard to kill, and I think at least one of them was a giant or could become giant.”

“That does fit our friend here on all counts. Fun! Let’s kill him.”

“Just the two of us?”

“Yes! I could solo him, but that’d take too long and I’d probably be pretty badly banged up. The two of us can take him no problem.”

Kay started walking toward the ramp. “Alright, well-“ He got interrupted by Eleniah grabbing him and spinning him around.

“Ah, ah! You’ve got restrictions.”

He clicked his tongue in disappointment. “Dammit I thought we weren’t going to be doing that. This is a dungeon that could actually kill us!”

“All the better to train in! Don’t worry, we’ve got backup, and this isn’t a fight you’ll need everything for. He’s a great enemy to get some levels in against without worrying about getting dead.”

“Fine. What’re my restrictions?”

She ticked them off on her fingers. “No flying above it, no ranged attacks, no simulacra. You have to only use melee, and punch daggers only. You need some more experience in how normal people have to level, and the sooner you get your punch daggers Class high enough the sooner you can combine it into a tier five Weapon Master Class and free up two slots.”

“Do I really need to worry about Class slots? I can practically print them on demand.”

“If you’re only going to be getting Classes from your Line, but that’s shortsighted. A Commander or General Class to buff your simulacra armies would be fantastic synergy, and there are great Classes out there that could mix really well with your crafting side of things.”

“Are you trying to turn me into an unstoppable juggernaut that even the leaders of other powerful nations fear?”

“That’d be a good start!” She grabbed the back of his shoulder and pushed him toward the ramp, “Now let’s get started!”

Stopping at the edge, Kay created a pair of punch daggers in each hand and waved them at his guards and Miri. “See you when this is done.”

“Good luck, your majesty!” Miri cheered, “I’ll be waiting for your victory with baited breath.”

“… Thanks…”

“I’m sure you won’t need it, but we’ll be ready to reinforce you or pull you out if necessary.” Lauren told him, ignoring whatever was happening with the maid.

“Thank you, Lauren.”

“Of course, your majesty.”

“Are you done?” Eleniah demanded absentmindedly balancing on the very edge of the platform as she stared at Kay.

“You’re the one who encouraged me to become a big shot leader type, now you’re getting bored when I’m being responsible?”

“Big fight!” She whined like a child being deprived of dessert, pointing at the asura golem.

Kay rolled his eyes and stepped onto the ramp, liquefying the blood of his boots to make a slick surface for him to slide down. Eleniah sprinted past him at full speed, doing a naruto run while she descended. The golem, which had been standing motionless as they spoke, moved for the first time, bending its neck slightly and turning its head to trace their movement. It shifted to face them head on as they landed on the arena floor and it flexed each of its arms in concert.

“This is going to be so fun!” Eleniah cheered.

“What would young teacher you think about this moment?”

“Learning that she’d eventually see the things I’ve seen so far and eventually become strong enough to beat this thing into rubble? Young me would be thrilled.”

The golem slammed it’s lead foot into the floor and threw it’s chest out, all six arms flaring out around it. For the first time something other than limbs showed articulation on one of the golems as the mouths opened wide and the miniboss silently roared its challenge at the two of them.

Eleniah whooped in excitement, rushing into a headlong charge at the enemy. The golem brought up its foot to squish her beneath it and she nimbly dodged out of the way. Using the opportunity to get some hits in, she slammed a full combo of hits into the carved achilles tendon. The stone cracked and chipped into finger-sized pieces but the damage was insignificant.

Kay sprinted forward, weaving around a pair of fists that made craters in the stone floor, aiming for the other leg. He let loose a series of slashes and stabs with his pair of punch daggers that made tiny scours in the golem but failed to truly penetrate. Scowling, he backed away from the foot and started adding more blood to his weapons, increasing their density and sharpness while he avoided getting pancaked.

The golem miniboss was exactly what Eleniah described it as, a big bruiser that wanted to smash them flat. Without any distance attacks or magic, it was forced to chase down the smaller and more nimble pair that were harassing it to hit them with its fists. At one point it swept all six of its hands toward each other in a massive clap, trying to pin Eleniah between to enclosing walls of fingers. She nimbly wall-jumped from side to side, popping up and landing on the topmost hand with only a foot-wide gap left a the end.

It took Kay a few seconds to empower his two daggers and they seemed to be faintly vibrating with energy when he reached a level he liked. He moved back in, once again aiming for the same foot. Dodging its big move seemed to have focused the miniboss on Eleniah and Kay used that to slip right next to its toes. He pulled back and slammed both daggers into the smallest toe and danced back. Seconds later the concentrated blood he’d pushed into the golem exploded, tearing off the toe.

“She said punch daggers only,” Kay muttered with a grin, “She didn’t say I couldn’t turn them into bombs.”

So caught up in his successful attack and his own cleverness, Kay didn’t see the golem swing down an arm at an awkward angle behind its back. It it weren’t for the strange shape of the shoulders, it probably would never be able to pull off the maneuver. But it did, and the attack Kay didn’t see coming slammed into him with the same force of a runaway train, catapulting him up into the air and slamming him into the sloped wall of the arena.

As the dust and stone fragments from the crater he made trickled down past him, Kay spit up some blood. He let it join in the rest of his armor and sent some mana to the spots in his lungs that had ripped from the impact. “A real fight, huh?” He looked up to see two fists following up on him, about to turn him into red paste. “Oh, right, this is what that’s like.”