The next chamber was quite similar to the one before it. It contained 4 more Bloomborn Rippers, and a new type of monster as well - a lumbering hulk of greenery twisted into a quadrupedal canid creature with a massive set of jaws filled with thorny teeth and several pink flowers across its back. [Analyze] told them it was called a Bloomborn Great-Hound, but Lucian had never seen a hound taller than he was while standing on all fours, it was sized more like a bear than any kind of dog - he supposed that was why it was called a great-hound instead of just a hound.

  Annabelle got to work firing [Poison Bolt]s at the rippers, and Lucian pushed off the ground towards the great-hound, activating [Heightened Manifestation] as he moved. The mental strain of channeling two skills simultaneously made itself known as the draw of [Manifest Weapon] doubled, as it stood now, Lucian wasn’t supremely confident he could use [Heightened Manifestation] and fight at his best at once - hopefully that fact wouldn’t last.

  The hound let out a warbling growl and lunged to meet him as the rippers swarmed to follow him mindlessly instead of going for Annabelle.

  As it lunged for him, the flowers across the great-hound’s back flashed with a green light, and orbs of bright green energy shimmered into existence hovering a few inches above each flower. Lucian pivoted as the orbs shot forward towards him. He swung his enlarged blade, striking two of the orbs like a batter with the edge of his blade, splitting them into countless fragments of fading light. He registered a feeling of resistance within his blade itself, as though the magic was attempting to destroy the weapon but was far too weak to be capable of doing it. The other three shots missed, striking the ground around him with flashes of light, leaving craters in the stone they struck.

  Lucian continued the slash, cutting down a ripper that lunged at his side before transitioning into a second horizontal slash at the great-hound as it neared him. Its body was certainly tougher than the rippers’ but not by much. His sword passed through it with almost no effort, cleaving it in two. Two of the rippers collapsed as they moved to lunge as well, taken by Annabelle’s poison before they had a chance to strike him properly.

  Lucian cut the channel to [Heightened Manifestation] and cut through the air in the direction of the last ripper, “[Cleaving Wind]!” A pulse of wind surged out from his hand as though following the path of his blade, a visible distortion in the air as it travelled. It struck the ripper and nearly cut through it entirely, the force throwing it back against one of the chamber’s walls where it slumped down lifeless, a shallow mark across the wall on either side of it shone where the rest of the spell had struck past it.

  The room was still, and Annabelle approached Lucian, “So now we have weird plant dogs with magic bullets. Lovely!”

  Lucian chuckled, “They’re fragile enough. Though, that does make me nervous about what might happen if we slip up.” He admitted.

  “We’ll be fine. We’re always fine.” Annabelle paused, “Minus the one time.”

  “Minus the one time indeed.” Lucian laughed, “Gimmie a bit to let my Spirit recover a bit, then we can move on.”

  “Fine by me!” Annabelle hummed, walking over to the side of the room and beginning to examine the strange flowers the monsters emerged from in order to keep herself busy.

  Before long, they proceeded through the doors to the next chamber.

  They proceeded through several chambers, fighting more Bloomborn Rippers and Bloomborn Great-Hounds, before coming across what they both figured to be an obvious boss room door. Again, they decided to clear the rest of the floor before facing the boss. They hadn’t found any more chests along the way to the boss chamber, but there were other benefits.

  Lucian had hit level 31, and leveled up [Manifested Proficiency] as well.

  Annabelle got [Banecloud] to level 2 and herself to level 30, earning a new skill choice for herself. She chose a spell called [Great Mire], an expensive channeled spell that created an area of slowing magic, “Though, apparently, the slow is less effective against movements empowered by a skill. So, I guess you could still [Quickstep] through it but you would be slowed down a little bit.”

  “Not worried about having so many channeled skills?” Lucian asked.

  “Not as much as you would need to be. I don’t have to worry about dodging hits in close range, so I can devote more of my attention to keeping the various spells active.” She hummed.

  “That adds up. Seems like a useful spell in any case. Try not to tag me with it.” Lucian laughed.

  “Well there go my plans.” Annabelle rolled her eyes and then smirked at him, playfully punching him in the shoulder, “Don’t worry about it.”

  The pair laughed at one another before heading back to the second floor’s main chamber and making their way down the second arm of the dungeon.

  The first two chambers proved to be no threat, but the third introduced a new type of monster. A large insectoid mass of vines and bulbs, a single two foot long thorn protruded at a downwards angle from where its face should be like a giant mosquito. Of course, they had wings as well, but they looked more like highly transparent leaves than wings. The room had 3 of them, which [Analyze] said were called Bloomborn Rotseekers.

  The rotseekers darted around in the air, zigzagging around erratically. “They’re pretty agile in the air…” Lucian frowned. Then they attacked. The one closest to them activated skills of its own, its wings shone with a dull white light that threaded through the veins passing through the transparent membrane, while its proboscis shone a deep sickly green. It launched itself at Lucian like a missile. The two remaining rotseekers also activated skills, beads of green light like the ones the great-hound used began to form in the air around them.

  Lucian reacted, pivoting and swinging his blade to meet the empowered thrusting attack, activating [Slash] as he swung upwards. His strike bisected the rotseeker, but its needle-like proboscises grazed his cheek just a moment before. He felt a heat spread outwards in his face, “Poisoned!” He groaned, his body rapidly starting to feel numb.

  “[Minor Cure]!” Annabelle’s hand glowed a faint golden color as she gestured at him before retreating slightly, then leaping backwards out of the way before several streaks of glowing green peppered the ground where she had been a moment earlier, missing her by a hair’s width. She tumbled to the ground with a groan, now bruised but unhit.

  As the skill banished the poison from Lucian’s body, his instincts screamed at him to dodge as well. He moved, one of the bolts striking against his [Spirit Barrier] - it absorbed the hit nearly entirely, empowered by the Spirit expenditure from the previous room. The green orb shrank as it pushed through the skill’s resistance, striking Lucian’s stomach. The force drew blood, and knocked him to the side slightly. He quickly corrected himself and took a deep but painful breath to refill his lungs then gestured up towards the two remaining rotseekers, “[Cleaving Wind]!”

  The blade of air struck one of the rotseekers, sending it tumbling from the air in two pieces. The second dodged, but the rush of air around the cutting edge of the skill knocked it off balance. He leapt up and cut through it with his blade before landing. He immediately dismissed his sword and turned to Annabelle coughing slightly, “You alright?”

  “Yeah, fine.” She sat up and looked at him, then down to the newly made hole in his hoodie, “But you aren’t.” She frowned and pointed up at him, “[Forest’s Protection].”

  Lucian sighed as a warm current began to swirl beneath his wound, starting to repair his skin. The bleeding stopped shortly after, “Thanks.” He smiled and sat down beside her.

  Annabelle chuckled, “Listen, I’m not against the idea of seeing you without a shirt, but you need to stop getting holes in your tops.”

  Lucian blushed a bit and laughed, “I can only do so much.”

  “Yeah yeah. Get a suit of armor or whatever.” She smirked, then stood, “Alright. Onwards we go. If we run into more of those, just spam [Cleaving Wind] until they die?”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Lucian readily agreed.

  The pair advanced to the next room.