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"Arrogant brat!" Natalia growled as she lunged forward, closing what little gap was left between them.

Her axe swung upward in a wide arc, and the force behind it was enough to send Zich skidding backward two steps even through the block. His arm numbed slightly from the impact, and the sensation reminded him clearly of the level gap between them.

He rolled his shoulder once and adjusted his grip.

On the other side of the cavern, things were not going smoothly either.

The dark green-armored woman had stopped retreating. She planted both feet, absorbed a full club swing from the Silverback Grunt with her forearms crossed, and the impact cratered the stone beneath her boots but did not move her.

Slimy’s poison shots hissed against her armor, eating small holes through the surface, but she was tanking it with the grim patience of someone who had survived Layer One long enough to develop real endurance.

Her eyes found Zich across the room, and she glared at him, looking at him as though he was already dead meat.

’She’s going to break off and flank me.’

Zich made his decision instantly and gave a mental command to Blood Leech.

"Go help them." 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

The summon peeled away from Natalia’s side without hesitation and shot toward the dark green woman like a thrown blade, intercepting her just as she began moving.

BANG!

The collision was brutal and loud, and it bought him three seconds.

Quickly, Zich pulled up his system status and dumped 10 free stats into Strength, bringing his Strength from 12 to 22!

He had been saving his stats for moments like this so he could distribute them depending on the situation, prioritizing what he really needed.

Feeling the surge of strength, he quickly shifted his gaze to Natalia.

Natalia pressed forward the moment Blood Leech left, exactly as he expected, her axe coming down in a heavy overhead strike aimed at splitting him from shoulder to hip.

Zich sidestepped, let the blade graze past his ear close enough to feel the displaced air, and drove his elbow hard into her jaw on the way past.

BANG!

The elbow contained tremendous force, and her head snapped sideways as blood flew from her mouth. It was not enough to drop her, but it gave him enough breathing space to do what he had planned.

He was already moving before she recovered, closing the distance to the dark green woman from behind while Blood Leech held her arms.

The dark green-armored woman’s eyes widened when she saw Zich break off from his fight and suddenly come at her. She tried to move, but Blood Leech and the Silverback held her back, with Slimy wrapping its body around her leg and holding her right in place.

"You sneaky little bra-"

She was not able to finish her words as Zich’s sword found the gap between her neck guard and helmet cleanly.

Natalia straightened up slowly, blood on her lip, and stared at the body of her companion with an expression that had gone very flat and very still.

"One more to go," Zich said while turning back toward her, breathing heavily. However, this time he was not alone. He had the company of Blood Leech, Slimy, and the Silverback Grunt, who let out a deep growl, eager to turn her into a mashed pulp with its club.

Natalia raised her axe, her teeth grinding back and forth. The friendliness from earlier was completely gone. What replaced it was something older and uglier, the look of a woman who had survived too long in one place and knew, finally, that her luck had run out.

"Hmpf, if I’m dying, you are going down with me!"

BANG!

She stomped the ground, her body surging forward within a millisecond.

In a few seconds, she was upon him, and she came at him hard, her axe screaming through the air.

She was faster, her strikes tighter and more violent as she tried to take her opponents’ lives, and twice she came within a clean hit of ending things.

Zich gave ground steadily and let Slimy absorb one strike with its Silk Barrier, but after another smash, the barrier cracked and burst into fragments.

Natalia, clouded with anger, lunged forward through the shattered silk barrier, her expression extremely ugly as her axe split the air, screaming toward him.

Zich didn’t retreat and, after dumping another five stats into Strength, dropped low under the swing, drove his shoulder into her midsection, and before she could bring the axe back around, Blood Leech hit her from the left while the Silverback’s club came down across her weapon arm from above.

CRACK!

Following the loud crack that resonated through the entire cavern, Natalia staggered. Her axe arm dropped uselessly.

She looked at him with something in her eyes that was not quite fear but was close to it as she growled.

"You bastards, why don’t you fight fair!"

"I thought we passed that already!" he shouted back as he went in for the finishing attack.

Zich’s sword arm shook once and then...

SPLASH!

Blood splashed across the dungeon ground.

The cavern went silent again.

Zich stood still for a moment, trying to catch his breath. He had quickly returned his summons back to the graveyard for them to heal.

Just then, three glowing spirit orbs rose up from the three corpses.

The spirit orb closest to him, which belonged to Natalia, entered him first, followed by that of the green-armored woman.

[Ding! Your tomb slot is full 25/25]

The last orb, which belonged to the pale yellow-skinned woman, disappeared midair.

Letting out an exhausted breath, Zich didn’t dare stay idle. He had already spent too much time in this fight, and the duration he paid for the dungeon would soon come to an end. He needed to leave.

But before he did, he searched the corpses of all three women and found a bunch of mana potions and other stuff, nothing useful enough to stop him from clicking his tongue.

For people who had spent so much time here, he expected better.

Some time later, Zich stepped out of the dungeon, and when the guards saw him all bloody, they couldn’t help but frown.