A short lull broke his rhythm as he pulled his blade out of the troll’s hammer fist. And that immediately opened him up to attacks from several of the beast’s companions.

Uhtred roared, meeting the bladed attacks first, they were the ones that could cause the most damage to him. He simply chose to prioritize them and let the blunt hammer attacks hit him instead.

However, the blunt force still hurt like hell.

A hammer hit him from the side, directly against his hip bone, causing him to stagger. Another slammed into him from behind, right across his shoulder blade, eliciting a pained hiss from him.

As he blocked another bladed attack and saw a third hammer strike coming from his front, rage filled his vision.

Instead of allowing it to hit, he chose to dodge and weave under the strike, coming up to grasp the arm of the troll as it swung down at him.

His palm shot for the beast’s face.

His star-metal battleaxe had proved difficult to manipulate because of its superior metal properties, but the metal skin of these creatures was not the same.

Uhtred didn’t mind the hammer strikes coming at him. He focused on the metal of the troll’s body, and the moment his palm made contact, he activated his Level 3 Metal Magic skill, his senses connecting with the metal elements of the troll’s skin.

In an instant, the facial features of the troll warped like a cloth being squeezed. Uhtred didn’t even bother to think about a particular shape, he simply twisted the moment his palm made contact.

Then, weaving his body deftly behind the troll, he used its body as a shield to tank the hammer blows coming from behind him.

A battle-crazed glint shimmered in his eyes, and a grin broke across his face. He had finally found a method to deal with these beasts.

He stopped trying to use his battleaxe as his main weapon and instead started to dodge and weave his way through them, warping the metal skin of their faces.

The Ferrum Stygite Trolls could also warp the skin of their face to correct Uhtred’s manipulation, but the brief moment when they dedicated their focus to correcting the manipulation, Uhtred used that window to deal deadly damage to them.

As it turned out, they could not manipulate their metal skin all across their body. They had to focus on a single area, leaving the other parts more vulnerable.

And Uhtred took advantage of that.

Methodically, he began to whittle down their numbers, first from a hundred, down to eighty, then fifty, twenty... till all that was left were five of them.

Uhtred panted heavily, staring at the remaining five. They still came at him ceaselessly, but he had so much breathing room now that he could take his time to dismantle them properly.

His cosmic essence reserves were nearly emptied. If not for his insane passive draw of cosmic essence, he would never have survived to this point.

He wiped sweat away from his forehead, dodging an attack from one of the trolls. It had been like this for about five minutes. Uhtred could have finished the fight long ago, but he was trying to do something.

Now that he had space to himself, he wanted to see if he could manipulate his star-metal battleaxe. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

He urged his cosmic essence into the entire length of the axe, feeling very carefully for the differences in how the star metal was structured compared to the lesser metal of the Ferrum Stygite Trolls’ skins.

Where the trolls’ metal felt loose and easy to bend, the star metal was completely rigid. Deep beneath the surface of the weapon, his essence bumped into a hyper-dense inner skeleton.

It felt like a tightly packed grid of microscopic crystals, woven together so densely, it seemed impossible that such a small frame could hold that much matter.

His Level 3 Metal Magic was simply too weak to move it. Pushing his essence against this dense structure felt like trying to force his way into an unmoveable wall.

Yet, Uhtred did not give up. He gritted his teeth and continued to force his energy forward, pouring his cosmic essence into the weapon.

He searched desperately for a weak point, a single crack, or just a link that would allow him to form a chain reaction through the dense structure of the star-metal battleaxe.

He had to do all of this while simultaneously keeping an eye on the five remaining Level 19 Ferrum Stygite Trolls.

A minute of deft dodging followed as he threw his body out of the way of their heavy strikes, keeping his focus entirely locked on the star metal. Then, he finally felt it budge.

His cosmic essence managed to spark inside one of the microscopic structures of the metal. From there, it jumped to the next, and then the next, triggering the exact chain reaction he had been hoping for as each crystal-like structure finally connected.

He began to feel every individual aspect of the star-metal battleaxe as his cosmic essence flooded into it at an increasing pace, spreading wildly from the shaft all the way to the blade, fully dominating the entire weapon.

Uhtred let out a chuckle of victory, his eyes flashing with a triumphant gleam. He looked at the remaining five Level 19 beasts and grinned, charging straight at them.

He swung his star-metal battleaxe. Before the blade even landed, the entire blade side, which was already terrifying to look at on its own, morphed into an even more wicked-looking, long, sharp edge.

He struck down at the charging troll, completely ignoring its fist that was heading straight for him. His weapon cleaved the beast in two cleanly, from top to bottom.

The metal of its skin did absolutely nothing to save it as Uhtred’s battleaxe sliced clean through its body like a hot knife through butter.

"Fuck yeah!" Uhtred roared, charging at the next troll, which now had a clear hint of fear in its eyes.

Within the span of just a few seconds, he dispatched the remaining four.

Finally coming to a stop, he dropped the heavy head of the battleaxe onto the ground, resting both his hands on the hilt in a stoic pose.

It was as though he was acknowledging the beasts he had just fought, thanking them for giving him the perfect opportunity to learn this brand new use of his skill.

After several seconds, he opened his eyes, then turned and looked back towards the entrance of Floor 19.

Right there, with her signature flat, expressionless look, Zara stared straight at him.

She seemed to have witnessed the entire fight, perhaps not exactly from the start, but somewhere along the line Uhtred had sensed her presence in that area. He simply hadn’t been able to spare a glance in her direction because of the high pace of the fight.

"You decided to come..." Uhtred said plainly.

She nodded in response. "The healer worked hard to mend my injuries. She wanted me to come help you."

"Oh?" Uhtred could see Diya doing exactly that — resting only for a short while and pushing her use of her healing magic to the maximum, just so that Zara could be a potential help to him.

The state of his mind when he had charged down the levels was not particularly good, and Diya had sensed that.

This was simply her way of ensuring he would be okay.

He noted the gesture and let out a light smile before hefting his battleaxe onto his shoulder.

"Alright then," he looked toward the glowing portal of Floor 20.

"I still don’t really trust you yet," he said, "but for now, stay behind my back and watch. Don’t involve yourself unless I specifically ask you to."

He glanced at Zara, waiting for her response.

She nodded, then Uhtred turned and started towards the glowing portal.

"Let’s go."