A Path of Bone and Poison 44 Ant Nest level 2

An hour had passed since we had entered the dungeon, and before us was the portal for the second floor. We knew the enemies we would face on the second floor would be much more difficult than the small fries we had decimated on the first.

There was no need for verbal communication between us, as our eyes said it all. We entered the portal without a second thought. It was true that these instances could be dangerous, and if you were unlucky they were deadly. This did not matter though, as the thought of innocents dying due to our negligence and fear was a powerful motivator.

I would be lying if I said this is what caused us to push forward though. Both of us had been effected by our relationship with the Goddess of War. Inside we had were gaining a deep seeded lust for battle, that only seemed to grow the more we fed it. I was aware that craving for battle had taken root inside of me, I knew it was on par with an addiction. But, despite this, I could not help myself. The rush of adrenaline when faced with danger, and the feeling of satisfaction as my enemies fell, or the rapid growth I power when I leveled up. All of these things were addicting, all of these were our true reason to fight.

Little did we know that up in her heavenly seat the Goddess looked down on us with a satisfied grin. She relished in our battles, they seemed to feed her own addiction than it grew our own.

The second floor looked much like the first. When we arrived we were greeted by a squad of ants that seemed ready for our arrival. This squad was different though. It still had five members, but one of them was of the flying type. A quick look at my beastiary told me that it was a queens concubine. One of many who fought for a chance to breed with the queen.

The carapiece of the ant was much softer than the others, and it did not have the massively strong mandibles. Instead its agility was highly upgraded, and its acid much more accurate and corrosive. Their normal attack pattern was to fly into the sky and shoot acid at their prey, as the regular ants bullied them on the ground.

It would be a difficult opponent, that is if it had been anyone else. However I was already stealthed when we arrived, and before it could even launch its first attack it had already fallen to a rain of bullets.

Hylia did not wait for me as she launched her attacks at the other ants. Her maul striking wildly at a speed that could not be seen with the naked eye. I could only shake my head as I watched. She was truly even more broken than I was, especially so if she had a hammer in her hands.

Her talents [Maul Mastery] and [Hammer Time] gave her boosted damage and attack power. Hammer gave the normally slow attack speed of a maul a massive boost, its attack speed was equal to that of a sword. Maul mastery let her add double her strength to the damage of her attacks instead of the usual 1.5 for a two handed attack.

Needless to say at the moment she was much more powerful than I was. My core had leveled up in the week we had rested, bringing the damage bonus to bone and poison type weapons up to 200%. This meant my bullets now did a total of 300 damage and the poison was 60 damage per second for 10 seconds. It of course could still stacked up to 10 times.

Don't get me wrong a bullet that does 300 damage (minus the opponents defenses, the poison bypasses the defense) is actually really good, considering I have zero cast time for the spell. The only limitation was my own mana and accuracy. The faster I attacked the more my shots would stray off target. The max I could attack accurately at the moment was 4 times with my main hand, and was limited to only 2 shots with my off hand. The second shot had only a 50% chance to hit a target slower than me.

But Hylia could attack 3 times in a second with her maul. Each strike doing over a thousand damage (Minus the opponents defenses.) Her damage litterally left me in the dust, even factoring in the damage from my poison.

She was an absolute beast. If not for my ability to stealth and use long range attacks I knew I would be completely useless beside her. My own weakness did not discourage me. Rather I was motivated by her stength, and wanted to become strong enough that she would not ever have a reason to look down on me.

I smiled as she finished off the last of the ants. My eyes slowly observing her body move. When she noticed my gaze a slight blush appeared on her face, but she stuck her tongue out at me as she rushed down the hall.

I tagged behind, traveling at the fastest speed I could while still maintaining my stealth. Time stops for no woman, and these ants were not going to kill themselves.

Chapter end