Ultimate Level 1 - 193 - Cooked Minotaur (Patreon)

“Get the left one!” Max shouted, motioning to the furthest minotaur from him.

A pack of three more were charging at them, their cloven hoofs pounding on the hard-pack dirt of the tower floor they were on.

The floor was a mix of farmland with massive corn stalks and other crops filling fields and a village filled with stone and wooden houses and shops.

Massive minotaurs filled the area, some brown and some black. They were ten feet tall, and the brown ones wielded two axes, while the black ones carried a massive two-handed axe that would make the dungeon ogres jealous.

“Rooting!” Tanila shouted, and Max cast a dark spell on the middle one in the pack of three, charging them.

Roots sprang up and ensnared the one Max had called out, his attention focused on the pair he was currently fighting, grateful the black ones were only using one weapon instead of the two weapons the brown ones Fowl was dealing with used.

“Charge coming!” Fowl called out.

“Mine’s down!” Cordellia yelled as she focused on the black one coming at Fowl.  It was coming right at him, the two brown ones flanking the dwarf, their axes causing some injury, but Fowl was dishing out more than he was taking.

A Power Shot zoomed over Fowl’s helmeted head and struck the charging beast in the ringed snout, causing it to stumble and fall, plowing up a good five meters or more of dirt as it skidded face first.

Over twelve corpses were already on the ground, and the fighting was worse than Max had expected as they learned the brown ones could occasionally call for help.

The minotaur on his right swung its axe, and Max saw it flash red.

His sonar and evade skill allowed him to barely duck underneath the slash that almost took his head off, instead swinging wide and past, hacking into its own ally just a yard away.

A loud howl that almost made Max laugh, one that sounded like a cow in distress, came from the black minotaur he had also been facing as its body was cleaved in two.

With a window of opportunity, Max attacked the last one he was facing, ready to end its life.

[ Power Strike ]

His weapon cleaved through the midsection, cutting through the chain armor the beast wore.  The top half toppled to the ground, and a cold sensation flowed through Max.

[ Consume has Consumed a skill ]

[ Current Skill is Equal in Power ]

[ Storing excess Power ]

Resisting the urge to groan, Max had gotten three of those messages now.  

Is it too much to ask for their skill to be higher?

Running the ten yards between him and Fowl, Max took off one of the legs on the brown minotaur Fowl was facing before making his way to the new additions.  

Without missing a beat, Fowl turned and focused on the one on his left, leaving the one Max had just immobilized alone.

-----

Everyone was panting slightly and sweating. One last group had joined the fray. Before Fowl had brained in the single-legged beast, it had mooed loudly, bringing another pack of beef to the slaughterhouse. 

“Twenty-one… that wasn’t too bad, was it?”

“I think our dwarf is crazy,” Cordellia called out from across the distance.  “Not too bad he says…”

Cutting a few more horns off, Max stored them and watched as everyone worked together, harvesting a few items from the corpses.

“I’m just glad there aren’t any balls to be collected,” Fowl said. “Imagine the pair swinging from these things…”

Everyone chuckled as Fowl started to shudder.

Max moved to one of the houses and climbed up on the roof, moving to the peak and staring out over the tower floor.  It was smaller than they all felt it should be.  The stone sides of the tower floor left no doubt that this space wasn’t as big as the other tower floors they had fought in.  They were too close, and the town didn't have enough buildings or size to present a real presence. Even the fifth tower floor was bigger.

“I still don’t see a portal, but there is an open space inside the village with some covering.  Maybe a boss?”

“Only for you four,” Cordellia called out with a grin. “Everyone else would just find more things to kill.”

-----

The battle in the village hadn’t gone much better as more minotaurs continually came.  Even attempting to kill the brown ones first, they sometimes called for help even before they were within melee range.

It had taken a few hours, but they had cleared out most of the town the hard way, fighting through massive fights of eight to seventeen minotaurs in a row. A few materials were dropped, but nothing, besides some extra two-handed axes that Max liked to keep on hand, were usable for weaponsmithing.  

As they gazed at the hole in the center of town, Max felt the overwhelming presence of dread coming from it. Moving to the edge, Max sensed with his new sonar skill that it had a thirty-foot drop before a floor was visible.

Tiny amounts of light could be seen from what they all knew had to be a tunnel or something.

“We’re going down there, aren’t we?” Batrire asked. “I mean, why not… who doesn’t want to climb down into a tunnel under the ground?”

“At least I have rope," Max said as he started tying it to a wooden column that was near the hole. “I’ll go first, make sure it's safe, and then the rest of you can come down afterward.”

“Glad to see you’re still a gentleman,” Tanila teased before rolling her eyes.  “We’re going to have to work on acquiring some kind of light source that won’t make us hold a lightstone in our hands.”

“I have something like that,” Cordellia said as her eyes darted about.  A moment later, she pulled out a backpack and set it on the ground.  Digging through it, she offered the glass orb to Tanila.  “When you need to, smash it on the ground.  A ball of light will appear and follow you.  Depending on how much light you ask for, it can last from four to twenty-four hours.  Tom has some for sale.”

Max stood near the hole, holding the rope between his hands, and watched as the two women talked.

“When you’re done, just know I’m about to jump in.  Fowl can go last.”

“What?!” Fowl gasped. “Why me?”

“To protect us women,” Batrire replied with a groan.

Snorting, Fowl shook his head.  “Something tells me you three are quite capable of that yourself."

-----

Max waited at the entrance to the tunnel, his Sonar skill giving him a sense of the massive tunnel system they were about to enter.

Cut stones lined the floor and ceiling, and a slight incline told him they were going to descend into the earth.  A pair of torches about twenty and fifty yards ahead gave off a small amount of light.  They flickered in the tunnel, and Max knew that the next part of what they were about to face would get worse.

“How tall are the ceilings?”

Without turning, Max knew Tanila had come down first.  

“Right now twelve feet but they get a little taller, maybe fourteen as we go deeper,” he replied.  “You and I might need to be ready to stone, ice and wind wall if things get crowded.  Fighting twenty or more creatures in here can get bad.”

Bobbing her head, Tanila studied the tunnel.  They were about six yards apart, and with the limited height, they could easily create a choke point section until the creatures inside broke through.

“Any guesses on what we’ll face?”

Max smirked and shook his head.  “Only one way to find out.”

-----

“Another group is incoming!” Max yelled.

Tanila was limited to just helping him hold the choke points of the tunnel with walls, unable to get any rest and regain her mana.  

Twenty minutes had passed since their first fight, and it had been a nonstop rush of minotaurs.

Max had cast multiple fireballs into the pack through the gap in their rotating barrier of stone, ice, and air walls.

The pack of minotaurs was at least six deep, and they continued to fall back toward the spot where they had dropped down.

“We’re only twenty yards or so away from our rope!” Cordellia called out.

A steady barrage of arrows shot into the mass of black and brown monsters, and the stone tunnel they were fighting in was filled with the wonderful scent of roasted beef.

Fowl stood slightly to the left with his shield and hammer, holding the creatures at bay. His strength and speed kept the horde of burnt minotaurs from moving through the opening and reaching the rest of the party. Max was on the right, his halberd hacking through the ones who got a turn in the meat grinder.

“What are we going to do?” Batrire shouted.  

The trepidation in their voices concerned Max as he knew if they got pushed back into the spot they had come down, there would be no retreating.  The tunnel was allowing those stupid brown minotaurs to call for help with ease, their insistent mooing echoing off the walls.

“Can you hold the entrance?” Max shouted over the battle's din. “I can try something after the next walls are up!”

“I got ya!” Fowl shouted back, his hammer smashing into the black minotaur before him in the knee, buckling it and sending the creature to the ground.

“Tanila! Next wall summons, I’ll go inside! Be ready to fireball!”

Without waiting to hear her respond, Max started getting into position.  They would need to back up a few yards to give Fowl time to adjust to his new spot.  Hopefully, their dwarven warrior could hold the rush while Max attacked from behind.

“Wall in five!” Tanila called out.

Max slashed once, taking a leg off of the newest monster to step through. Then he jumped back, preparing to match Tanila’s spell.

Fowl moved back quickly, getting into position while waiting for the new blockade to spring into place.

Two ice walls formed, and Fowl attacked the black minotaur that came over its fallen ally. Its two-handed axe struggled to swing as it wanted. The lower ceiling and the packed area made their attempts at fighting back almost impossible.

Max moved forward, trusting his team to hold on.

[ Demonic Teleportation ]

Coming out of the portal, Max could see the group of about nine brown minotaurs, all near the back, allowing the other ones to push forward.  They almost seemed content to take turns, mooing and letting their voices echo back down the space behind them.

A blast of fire erupted from the front, washing over the rows of beef between Max and his allies.

Time to get to work!

With his weapon already moving, Max started hacking at the backs of those creatures.  They hadn’t noticed him yet, and the first two fell before one realized what was happening.  It barely got off a call for help before Max had cut it in half from the waist. They were not as strong or as tough as the other ones.

As one, the next row turned, and Max let the fireball he had been building up go, the flames roaring into the back line.

Cries of pain and the smell of burning meat filled the tunnel, and Max smiled as he dove in, a whirlwind of death even without the use of his skills.

Legs, arms, and torsos fell victim to his skill and their ability to attack was marred by the pressing of bodies now trying to turn and get to Max.  

In less than thirty seconds, the group of brown minotaurs was down, and all that remained were some badly burnt and injured black ones.

“One more spell!”

Max wasn’t sure if his voice was heard over the sounds the cows made, but when a fireball from Tanila impacted in their midst, it provided the last aid he needed before killing the few monsters that had not succumbed to the flames.

Fowl was soon before Max, smiling and laughing.

“You ok?” Max asked, seeing how his friend was behaving.

“Never better,” Fowl replied, storing his weapon and shield. “I just wish I knew if it would be okay to eat one of these guys. They smell amazing.”

Groaning, Max could only shake his head. He had wondered the same thing, too.