The werewolf standing before all the others was nearly three meters tall, carrying a massive axe with him. The fur of all of them was gray, but their leader had bluish tones on his extremities. His appearance was even more grotesque, he looked like a completely savage and untamed monster.

  The other fifteen were composed of ten melee attackers and five archers, the monsters took positions as soon as they saw me. The arrows flew immediately, I used gravity mana to deflect some of them, only one managed to slip through and I had to stop it with my sword.

  My weapon trembled slightly due to the powerful impact. The second wave of arrows came as soon as I defended against the first, the leader was staring at me. The third wave of arrows also failed to do anything, the werewolf leader injected even more mana to extend his claws and fangs. I could feel death mana within his claws, this would not be easy.

  His speed surpassed that of the assassins, his agility was at the same level. I received the first horizontal slash of his claws with my swords, the force of the impact lifted my feet slightly off the ground, sending me flying a couple of meters. I had to jump as soon as I touched the floor to dodge his follow-up attack and more arrows.

  Strong! His blows were extremely heavy, I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to withstand his claws head-on. I did everything possible to affect all the monsters within the radius of my crushing zone, the five meters around me became even heavier, anyone within that range would have their movements reduced.

  The arrows kept raining down, I had to move to endure and gradually drain the strength of those around me. I was close to cutting the neck of one of the smaller monsters when I had to halt my movement, twisting the trajectory of my sword to intercept claws aimed at my torso. I could have killed one of them and come out wounded, I wasn’t sure if that was a good option.

  The leader was paying close attention to my movements, from time to time I had the opportunity to kill or injure one, but I was always interrupted by his attacks. I blocked an arrow that had every intention of turning my head into a rain of brains.

  Time kept passing, and I still hadn’t managed to kill a single one. I had injured almost half of the melee fighters. The wounded retreated for a moment, and once their injuries had healed, they returned immediately. They gave me no time to do anything.

  I got tired of playing around, I could win through endurance, but it wouldn’t make sense to waste so much time. I built several Joyeuse for the first time in this dungeon, the first ones were shattered by the arrows of the archers, the next five managed to get close to the werewolves and one of them struck one in the chest.

  “One less nuisance.” My mind could take a slight breather from now on, now there were only four arrows I had to dodge.

  My constructs caused havoc on the battlefield, the werewolves were truly intelligent. The archers focused their arrows on my ice swords and the others could dodge most of my constructs, if they couldn’t, they at least tried to take the damage on parts of their bodies where they wouldn’t die from a single blow.

  In the end none of that mattered, my amount of mana overwhelmed their efforts and their numbers began to decrease little by little. I lost count of how many Joyeuse I used in this round, but finally all of them were dead, except one: the leader.

  I left him for last. His claws nearly tore a chunk of flesh from my shoulder, my sword grazed his ribs. The next movement was a clash between his claws and my Thundersnow Fang, this time I didn’t go flying because I deflected part of the power and his speed had decreased.

  Little by little I was forcing him to lose ground, my swordsmanship managed to overcome his natural advantages. Cuts appeared and closed on his body, draining his blood and stamina little by little, each cut aimed at ending his life. His claws were still dangerous and extremely sharp.

  I made a mistake by stepping on accumulated blood on the floor, I slipped to the side. The werewolf didn’t waste time, his claws aimed at my abdomen with the intention of impaling me. I used my Gravity Burst to slam my body even closer to the ground, his claws sent my arm flying and at the same time my right arm moved to strip him of one of his legs.

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  The monster screamed in pain, the brief delay allowed me to rise from the floor and retreat. The death mana wasn’t affecting both of us, his mana tried to consume or annihilate everything around it, bones, flesh, mana and Imra. My death affinity had similar properties.

  I destroyed the last traces of his mana with my Imra and my own mana, finally restoring my arm with life mana. The werewolf in front of me struggled to keep his balance, I looked into his eyes and he hadn’t given up, he still wanted to fight.

  “That’s the attitude of a warrior.” I shouted at the monster in front of me, I would grant him a quick death for his great bravery and ferocity.

  His claws tried to reach me one last time, it was easier to dodge his final attacks due to his reduced mobility. In the end he couldn’t keep up with my speed and lost his head, that put an end to his life and to the fifth wave of monsters.

  “Congratulations on clearing the fifth wave, challenger! The rest time will be extended.” I let myself fall to the floor with a dull thud.

  I wasn’t as exhausted as in the previous round and it took me less time, but the big difference was that I began using my long-range attacks. That enormous werewolf had been a serious threat, he ended up sending my arm flying as if it were a tree branch.

  It felt a little empty not having Glia with me, we always talked after each fight or during moments of calm like this. There are times when we don’t speak either, she just lies down beside me and that is enough for me. Have I become a little dependent on her presence? My mind asks itself automatically.

  We’ve spent all our time together since her birth, she already feels like a part of me and I can feel she feels the same about me. Being so dependent on my little companion is a headache, we both have our own lives and we never have privacy.

  Sometimes I feel like she wants a bit of independence, she just hasn’t known how to put it into words, all this time she has preferred to keep those feelings to herself, perhaps I should propose that we separate for a while. It hurts just thinking about it, but it would be a good exercise to mature and learn to be alone.

  “I’ll think about it during all this free time…” My mind says it’s a good idea and my heart denies it.

  The sixth round was almost the same as the fifth, the only thing that increased was the number of monsters by ten. It seemed like a tiny number, but the difficulty skyrocketed enormously. I used my long-range attacks as soon as the battle began, those arrows looked more dangerous when a giant monster served as a tank.

  Eliminating all those monsters was pure torment, constructing Joyeuse continuously was torture for my brain. Those damn archers wouldn’t stop shattering my constructs with their arrows.

  I changed my approach, first I focused on the smaller melee fighters. When I had them in range I released a powerful surge of electricity to slow the other monsters’ movements long enough to finish one of them.

  My plan began yielding results little by little, their numbers decreased and the pressure on my brain lessened enough for me to create more ice swords and wipe out all the monsters. I finally put an end to that cursed sixth round.

  The seventh round felt special from the very beginning, the monsters didn’t stop accumulating. Before I could complain to the system I had to dodge a rain of arrows. This time there was no leader monster, but there were one hundred. There were one hundred of them!

  As soon as I finished repositioning, another round of arrows crashed down on me. They had a peculiar formation, there were about sixty-five archers firing arrows. All of them were distributed in small squads and protected by their melee companions, positioned at a perfect distance where they could act as many small groups and one large group at the same time.

  After moving like a mouse inside a cave full of cats trying to sink their fangs into me, I decided to use another ability to deal with this.

  My Dimensional Step teleported me near the closest squad, confidence returned to me when I killed one of them in a single blow, but before finishing the second I already had his bodyguards on top of me and another rain of arrows.

  I retreated to evade their attacks, I had to reposition myself so as not to end up like a porcupine. Their quick reactions were admirable, it took them less than a second to pinpoint my location and adjust their positions.

  I repeated the action again and again, fortunately the distance was short and didn’t require much mana, raising it to level three also helped, the consumption of mana had decreased for short distances.

  I lost count of how many times I teleported into a squad to kill or injure one of them, only to immediately escape and repeat the cycle. My mana pool dropped below twenty percent, if I had attempted this technique in the normal world I would have died before killing all of them.

  The mana in this place was much denser, my mana pool recharged far faster and with so much usage I noticed something, I was consuming less mana than usual.

  “Congratulations on clearing the seventh wave, challenger!” The notification ended round number seven and I could finally afford to rest properly.

  “I’m gaining some good levels and my Banner is benefiting the most.” It had been difficult to raise my Banner, the quality of these monsters must be high. Raising the level of my abilities is another issue. This place is killing several birds with one stone.