Chương 52: An Abnormal

My Shadow Vision caught a bug-like monster scurrying out of the hole. It was hard to see properly because it blended in with the background. I quickly backed away and drew my sword. A shell, tiny legs, and the shape of half a sphere characterized the bug-like monster, which was about the size of my head. It had barely fit through the hole I had made in the wall. Despite its small size, I could see a tremendous amount of Mana coming off the monster, and my Danger Sense was practically screaming at me.

This was an Abnormal. A monster that broke the guidelines of the dungeon. It was far more dangerous than the Minotaur and was not a 2 nd layer monster or even a Champion of this layer. It moved at great speed. Climbing toward the ceiling, it moved behind a stone pillar. I lost sight of it as I circled the pillar, and I looked around everywhere, including upwards. Monsters would always attack beings not from the dungeon. The monsters in the lower layers were more intelligent, but they still attacked.

They might hide or stalk, but they never ran away. The blaring warning in my head from Danger Sense wasn't going away as I frantically spun about, looking everywhere. I crept to the middle of the chamber, constantly looking everywhere. Running wasn't an option. It would only attack when I tried to fall asleep. Not like I could with my Danger Sense skill going wild. Making my way back towards my pack, I planned to get my shield. It was a small monster, so having a way to block it was important.

Just as I was picking up my shield, I heard something move behind me. I spun and swung my sword. My sword passed through the monster. It was immune to physical attacks! The bug leaped at my face, and I overextended. It physically reappeared as hundreds of tiny suction feet latched onto my face. The monster then lowered itself, its shell snapping into place around my face. I was frantically hitting it with my sword, but I couldn't get a proper angle on it, and its shell was too hard. Each hit just bounced off.

I was rapidly losing air. I needed to think of a way out of this. The tiny feet digging into my face didn't help. Think! Bringing up my sword, I tried to wedge it in between the monster's shell and my face to pry it off. I just ended up cutting into the side of my face near my ear and jaw. I couldn't breathe. The most dangerous thing was to keep panicking. I stopped slamming my sword against the bug monster and sat down on the ground. It's hundreds of little feet wriggling against my face.

I attempted to bite the monster, but it held my face so tight I couldn't move. There was no time to use runes. I couldn't pry it off. It had far too many stats, and the shell was impenetrable to my sword. Slamming my head into a wall or the floor would break my head before the shell cracked, but it might stun the monster. Bringing my head back, I slammed the shell part of the monster down on the floor as hard as I could. For a single moment, it loosened its grip, and I tried to pull it off.

I could draw in some air before it clamped right back down on my head. I slammed it down on the floor again, but it didn't budge this time. My head spun, and while I had gotten a few more moments, my time was quickly running out. I refused to die! If my mother could rescue me, she would have already shown up. This was it. I had to do something. Everything could be fixed after that if I lived. But I had to live. I had one idea if I were ever in a desperate situation.

I said a mental apology to Healer Castelle as I focused on my Soul Sense. I could sense the monster on my face. Its soul pressing up against mine. Focusing on my soul and the monster's soul, I brought my hand back and then slapped the monster's shell with my soul extruding slightly from my hand. This hurt immensely, like pulling out a tooth with my bare hands. Everything was screaming at me not to do this, but I refused to die. As my physical hand struck the shell of the monster, my soul pushed into the monster's.

They didn't merge or combine, but my soul forced the monster's soul away from its shell. The monster froze as I felt its soul ripple and rebound. My soul was already chaotic after everything I had been through, so I barely felt the side effects of what I did. I struck again, and the oscillations in its soul grew. Just as I thought I would pass out from the pain or the lack of air, the monster went completely limp and fell off my face.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. I sucked in a deep breath of air. Looking around, I saw my sword. I quickly picked it up. I then stabbed into the bug monster that was lying on the ground with its shell facing downwards and its tiny feet exposed. My blade only went in a few inches.

"DIEEEE!" I screamed in rage and pushed down with all my might. The sword slowly sank into the monster. It squirmed. I kept pushing, pinning it to the floor. I wasn't about to give it a chance to recover. Even with it being upside down and pinned with my blade in its center, it kept trying to flip and throw me off balance. Its Strength stat was relatively high, enough to contest me even in a disadvantageous position.

Blood trickled down my face and onto the ground from where I had tried to pry the monster off and where its feet had dug into my flesh. I could deal with that later. The first thing I had to do was win.

"DIE!" I would not be monster food in the dungeon. I was Justin Burnstock, future legend. My story wouldn't end here! That was when I felt an overwhelming sense of danger coming from above. I brought my arm above my head and leaped forwards and to my right, letting go of my sword still in the bug. A second bug landed on my raised arm and quickly crawled towards my face. I brought my left hand up and over my mouth just as the bug reached my face.

The second bug clamped down on my face, but my hand allowed me to breathe, and I knew what to do. I brought my right hand back and focused on my soul, forcing it outwards. The pain was immense, but I would not stop. I was going to win. I swung and beat the second bug, just like the first. After six hits, it finally fell off my face, stunned. Looking around, I saw my sword on the ground, and the first bug had disappeared, but there was a green blood trail.

I kicked the second bug over towards my sword as I raced for it. The second bug skidded across the floor on its shell. Scooping up my sword, I drove it down with my weight. You wanted to fight, then let's fight. I kept pushing down and moving around in a circle with my blade as a pivot point, digging into the underside of the bug monster. Bringing my blade up a bit, I then slammed it back down while leaping up slightly and pushing down.

I needed to keep the bug pinned, so it wouldn't run away while trying to kill it. That meant increasing the damage by moving my sword while it was in its body. The monster didn't make a noise as it thrashed about. If it could, it was probably screaming in pain. I felt no sympathy. It had tried to kill me and was a monster. Nothing in the dungeon deserved any sympathy. I leaned to the side and pushed the bug across the floor on its shell into a stone pillar. I reached up and grabbed the magical torch on the pillar.

Once it was disconnected, the flames began to die quickly, but they were still going, which was enough. While I kept one hand on the blade, I shoved the burning end of the magical torch onto the underside of the monster. The flames only lasted for half a minute before going out, but the monster was struggling less now with several of its tiny legs burnt up. I cast the exhausted torch to the side and moved on to the next one.

I used up three of the eight torches on the various pillars throughout the chamber, slowly burning the monster to death. I made sure not to target the wound that my sword had created, so it would keep bleeding out. After the third torch, I quickly brought my sword back out and then stabbed downward. The monster wasn't quick enough to flip over, so I would strike its shell. When I finished, the entire underside was burnt-green slurry.

"Now to find your friend," I muttered and went back to the blood trail from the first monster. It had retreated to a corner of the room and was clearly trying to recover. Hiding from pursuit wasn't one of its strengths. I raced over and slapped the top of its shell with my hand, using my soul as a weapon. The pain was immense, but I was hoping to stun it. I slapped it five more times to ensure I disabled it, then grabbed its shell and tossed it back on the ground upside down.

Bringing my sword up, I stabbed down over and over. After the third stab, it spun and flipped over again, and my sword deflected off its shell. It tried to scurry away quickly, but was bleeding out over the floor. It was moving much more slowly than before.

"Think you can get away? After trying to kill me, think again," I said with feral rage coming out in my voice. Of all the ways to die in the dungeon, being smothered by a bug monster and tons of tiny legs all over my face was not how I would pick to die. The monster had a gimmick, and I had beaten that gimmick. I slapped its shell several more times before flipping it upside down again. I began stabbing the softer underside of the monster.

It tried to flip back over but had become too weak as I turned its flesh into green slurry and chopped-up bits. When its legs finally stopped wiggling around, that was when I knew it was dead. I had a new monster that had gone to the top of the list of what I hated fighting. These shell face bugs were the absolute worst. Once I knew their weak point, I could beat them, but it had been close, too close. Using my soul as a weapon was a move of complete desperation.

Thinking back on it, I could have raced over to one torch and heated the outside of their shell, forcing them to let go or cook. I had been too panicked to think clearly. My face, neck, and jaw wound had stopped bleeding, but my healing points had bottomed out. There might be scarring, as I felt the area where I had cut myself, which had scabbed over, another foolish mistake. I shouldn't have tried to cut my face off. That was stupid. Really stupid.

I didn't want to know what my mother thought about what had happened. I couldn't even take a healing potion because I needed to rest and hope my healing points recovered fast enough to prevent any permanent damage or scarring. I let out a groan and knelt over as my gut clenched up, and a massive headache hit me. Note to self, don't use my soul as a weapon, it has consequences. It wasn't as miserable as before, when I had the second soul fruit, but I felt terrible.

Each time I tried to move or do anything, my body felt terrible. So, I just lay there on the floor. My head turned towards the secret chamber I had opened, and from which the bug monsters had most likely come out. I wanted to keep an eye on it in case anything else came out. My Danger Sense wasn't triggering, but I had missed that second monster completely.