The fights after the first were very much the same. Eye-Spies were not difficult opponents after all, they were simple grunts made to take up time and burn resources. Most parties would actually avoid them for that very reason.

But Belladonna’s party did not need to care about resources, and instead were focusing on co-ordination. With each group that they slaughtered, they grew closer and understood each other better.

Not just what each other could actually do, but what they couldn’t. They learned each other’s perception, what they focused on and what they didn’t. They learned how each other thought and prioritised, and how they should act in certain scenarios.

As they were getting to the end of the first floor, they were working like they could read each other’s minds. Which was useful, when they met the other denizens of the first floor.

***

"Lilith, take the heat. Bell, Spell-casters!" Saige barked from the back of the pact, before lifting his staff high and forming a bubble of light around their own spell-casters right before a fireball exploded against the bubble.

Smoke curled off of it harmlessly, as the bubble flickered and disappeared a moment later, causing Saige to lean on his staff as he panted heavily.

"Right!" Lilith and Belladonna shouted in unison. They needed no more orders than that, as they already knew their tasks and how to carry them out properly.

Lilith threw back her head, letting out a deafening roar. Black flames erupted from her body, as her aura swept outwards like a tidal wave. The aura snaked into the minds of the demons that were hit by the wave, their eyes turning pure black as their attention was forced towards Lilith.

Belladonna weaved through the horde of hypnotised Eye-spies, making sure not to touch them in the slightest, as she made a direct line towards the spell-casters in the back. They were strange hybrid lizards, three of them in total.

4 foot tall, with the body of a regular man, but the head of a miniature T-rex with the tri-horn structure of a triceratops. They had two sets of arms, one human on either side of their torso, and another pair of tiny five fingered T-rex arms sprouting out of their chest.

It would have been hilarious, had it not allowed them to cast spells twice as fast, as they used both arms for separate spells.

Belladonna ducked under a spike of rock that shot above her head, letting it stab into another demon, before quickly leaping to the side. Her foot planted against solidified air mid-step, propelling her out of the path of a screaming black fireball.

When she landed, she ducked behind another demon to use as cover, before sprinting towards the spell-casters again along the edge of a lava river.

The river, detecting her presence, erupted at the edge. A serpent made out of the same stone as the ground beneath their feet lunged out of the lava river, it’s red hot magma dripping fangs already bared as it lunged straight towards Belladonna.

However she didn’t so much as glance at it, nevermind try to block its lunge that would most certainly lead to her being dragged to the depths of the incinerating river.

Before it could reach her, a thick vine sprouted through the cracks of the volcanic stone floor, intercepting the magmatic serpent. It wrapped around the snakes mouth, clamping it closed, before slapping its head down onto the ground and stopping its retreat back into the river.

Belladonna kept running, darting past the snake as it was gradually wrapped up and ensnared by the vine that would be her death.

She ducked behind another demon, letting it take the brunt of the fireball sent her way, before leaping out from the demons right... and it’s left, and it’s right again, then two more from its left. Half a dozen Belladonna’s appeared, each taking a different path as they closed in on the spell-casters.

The lizard-demons were so concerned with the ones running at them, they didn’t notice the one that stayed behind the fireballed demon, and picked up the guisarme that it dropped.

The Illusionary Belladonna’s sprinted towards the spell-casters, disappearing one by one as the lizard-hybrids desperately blasted them with spell after spell, their little hands moving as fast as they could trying to prevent the approaching Glyphborne.

When the last illusion fell, they glanced at each other, smug smiles spreading across their T-rex heads, before a guisarme speared through one of their heads.

The other two staggered back in terror, letting out small roars of horror at the sudden death of their friend, before the real Belladonna dropped into their sights.

She grabbed the handle of the guisarme, swinging it - and the body stuck on the hook of the blade - around her until the corpse slammed into one of its friends. The body dislodged on impact, freeing up the blade of the guisarme, as the final standing lizard-hybrid staggered back.

Sparks of lighting crackled between its tiny hands as they moved like a blur. Belladonna glared at the tiny spell slinging demon, and scoffed at it. With a spin of the polearm, she held it behind herself and raised her free arm as a shield manifested on her forearm just before the bolt of lighting leapt from the tiny hands.

It struck the shield, not pushing Belladonna back even a step, as she lowered her arm and let the shield fade away. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

She strode forwards slowly, looking down at the snivelling little demon with disgust, before spinning the guisarme again and taking its head. They considered giving these things mercy the last time they had met them, as they seemed intelligent, but every single time they just used it to launch another attack at their back.

They saw mercy as a weakness to be exploited, so she showed no weakness and expunged their own.

Striding over to the final lizard-demon, which was still struggling underneath the corpse of its friend, Belladonna simply stabbed the guisarme through them both, skewering them like a kabab and pinning them to the ground.

She glanced over her shoulder, seeing if the others needed any help, but they were on clean up duty at the moment. Just mopping up the remaining Eye-spies, it was nothing difficult.

Instead, Belladonna stepped away from the guisarme, which stayed standing upright in the ground, as she inspected the new notification floating in front of her eyes.

[You have leveled up! You are now Level 50!]