As the drachnid queen’s scorpion-like tail lashed out, striking him in the shoulder and driving him into the ground, Zeke began to wonder if, in all his battles, he’d learned anything at all. His technique, such as it was, was perfectly serviceable, so long as he could muscle his way into overpowering his enemies. However, the moment he met his match – or worse, an enemy that far outstripped even his herculean stats – he inevitably found himself tossed around like a ragdoll.

He knew he needed to fight smarter. The problem was that he just didn’t have the requisite knowledge to get better. His martial path helped a little, enhancing his instincts to a degree that gave him more of an edge, but it was a poor substitute for actual training. At the end of the day, he was still a stupid kid swinging a club, as opposed to a seasoned warrior with a mace.

“You couldn’t have expected that to work, right?” called Abby from her position a few dozen feet away. She steadily peppered the queen with her conjured silver arrows, driving the hulking monster back. The arrows didn’t sink very deep into the queen’s carapace, and Zeke was certain that they didn’t cause much real damage. But Abby’s accuracy was uncanny, so she was adept at hitting the creature’s softest spots, inflicting pain and frustration with each arrow. It was enough of a distraction that Zeke managed to wrench himself free of the barbed tail. “Never leave your feet. That’s, like, Fighting 101.”

As the queen retreated before Abby’s barrage of arrows, Zeke rolled to his feet, flexing his shoulder. The queen’s attack had hit mostly meat, causing little more than a flesh wound. It hurt, but it didn’t impede his movement.

“Doesn’t feel like it uses poison,” he muttered. “So, there’s that.”

“Joy,” Abby said, firing one arrow after another and keeping the queen at bay. “Got any bright ideas that don’t involve jumping at her like an idiot?”

“Uh…”

“You’re just going to run at her and try to hit her with your caveman club, aren’t you?” she asked, cutting her eyes at him.

“It’s a mace.”

Zeke could practically hear her eyes rolling when she said, “Of course it is.”

The problem was that he really didn’t have much of an idea how to attack the creature. It was the size of an elephant, and it was stronger and faster than him. Between its tail and its sharp legs, its attacks could come from a variety of different directions. And Zeke knew it had some aces up its sleeve, too. The champion had its poison; it only stood to reason that the queen would have some sort of unique attack as well.

“I could go for its legs,” he suggested. “You keep the tail occupied, maybe?”

Abby never took her eyes from the creature as she continued firing arrows at it. “Sounds good to me,” she said.

Zeke gathered himself, getting ready to dart into battle.

“Don’t jump,” Abby reminded him.

“I wasn’t!”

“Or yell,” she said.

“I…I wasn’t going to,” Zeke lied self-consciously. Even in the middle of a battle against a monster that could very well tear him limb from limb, Zeke still had the presence of mind to be embarrassed when a pretty girl called him out. Letting out a battle roar just seemed natural, didn’t it? That didn’t make him weird, right?

“Sure you weren’t,” Abby said, a hint of a smile on her face. “Now, go on. Do your thing.”

Zeke shook his head and tightened his grip on his mace. With a roll of his shoulders, he pushed all of his distracting thoughts to the back of his mind. Given that he still wasn’t quite sure how he saw Abby, it wasn’t easy. But two-plus years of nearly constant battle had given Zeke enough mental fortitude to clear that hurdle and focus on the task at hand. After all, there was a monster to kill.

“Alright,” he said. “I’m going in.”

Protect Abby, he thought at Pudge, who’d been itching to join the fight. Zeke would’ve loved some extra help, but the fact was that the bear cub just wasn’t ready for something like this. Even if he’d had the levels, which he didn’t, he was still little more than an infant. If he could’ve left Pudge behind altogether, Zeke would have. But there was always the chance that they’d missed some of the drachnids on the surface, so leaving Pudge up there wasn’t safe. But then again, Zeke was rapidly beginning to see that nowhere in his new world qualified for that designation. Monsters were everywhere, and given his run-in with Julio and his band of miscreants, he didn’t expect civilization to be any better. Different. But still just as dangerous.

The bear cub sent his assent, and Zeke pushed himself forward. Each step thudded heavily against the rocky earth, announcing his charge. He suppressed the urge to let out a roar – when had he gotten into that habit? – as he covered the distance between himself and the monster. When he drew near, the queen tried to spear him with its tail again, but Zeke had learned his lesson.

And with his feet firmly planted on the ground, he could actually dodge. Maybe Abby’s onto something, he thought.

Pudge returned that thought with one of his own, though his was liberally coated in syrupy smugness. Pretty lady smart, the cub sent. Zeke couldn’t really disagree with the bear’s assertion.

Taking something of a crow hop, Zeke swung his club – no, it was a mace, damn it! – at the monster’s spindly, insectile legs. The queen reacted, pulling its leg aside with frightening speed, but Zeke still connected. When Voromir hit, the force sent reverberations down the haft of the weapon and into Zeke’s hands.

Once, after a particularly bad tournament where he’d failed to even put a ball in play, Zeke had decided to take his frustrations out on the dugout wall. He’d swung his bat with everything he had, and the resultant collision was enough to chip the wall. However, he did far more damage to himself, the impact and vibration fracturing his glove hand. His father had spent the entire drive home berating him, but the man had waited until they’d reached the confines of their own home before beginning the real punishment. Zeke ended up with more than one injury that day. He’d been ten years old.

Past punishments aside, hitting the monster’s leg felt frighteningly similar to hitting that cinderblock wall, and if Zeke hadn’t been possessed of preternatural durability, he was certain that his hands – and probably his forearms – would’ve shattered from the impact. As for the drachnid queen’s leg, a tiny crack appeared, but the hard chitin remained mostly unscathed.

“This is going to suck,” he muttered, already dodging another descending thrust of the monster’s tail. It clipped him, opening up a long, shallow wound on his back, but he ignored the fiery pain. Instead, he kept moving, weaving in and out of the monster’s legs. It danced around, trying to spear him with the sharp, spear-like tips, but Zeke managed to stay just ahead of the battle. However, he barely had the time or reactions to keep from being impaled, much less enough room to do any damage. He managed a few swings, but they were relatively weak and largely ineffectual. Combined with [Leech Strike], they were enough to keep his various wounds from affecting him, stemming the bleeding, but far from enough to close them entirely.

It was a stalemate, though. And Zeke suspected that he would succumb to exhaustion far before the drachnid queen lost any of her vigor. Not only did she have levels on him, she was on an entirely superior tier of power. Without Abby constantly peppering the huge drachnid with her arrows, Zeke knew he’d have long since fallen. Even with their combined efforts, the best they could do was to hold their own. Something had to change, and soon.

Of course, that’s precisely what happened.

Suddenly, thousands of fuzzy, hand-sized spiders erupted from the eggs scattered throughout the cavern. More of the small spiders rained down from the ceiling where they’d perched unseen. They landed with loud thumps, and for the barest of seconds, they were disoriented. Then, the entire mass of arachnids surged. One wave went for Zeke. The other, for Abby.

There’s something altogether primal about a fear of spiders. Whether it’s an evolutionary instinct born of a natural aversion to poison, or if it’s just how they look or their jerky movements – it’s a nearly universal thing amongst humans. That same fear was present with the drachnids, though it was mitigated somewhat by their humanoid upper halves. But few people can look at a veritable flood of arachnids and not flinch.

Zeke wasn’t one of those people.

Logically, he knew they didn’t pose as much of a threat as the drachnid queen looming over him. However, as the tide of spiders reached him and began climbing up his legs, he couldn’t help but react. Suddenly, he didn’t care about the queen’s spear-like appendages. For the briefest of instants, his only concern was to fling as many of the eight-legged creatures from his body.

He was only marginally successful.

As one, the monstrous spiders sank their fangs into his flesh, injecting a familiar poison that very nearly froze him in place. Numbness enveloped him, burning through his veins. He didn’t even feel it when he was speared by the queen’s leg. A dark cloud of unconsciousness began to envelope him, to wrap him in a warm blanket of nothingness. A part of him welcomed it, wanting to give in and give up. But another part, a fire of self-survival that burned in his very core, wouldn’t let him.

And then a thought erupted in his mind. Fun!

He had the presence of mind to turn his head just enough to see Pudge pouncing on spiders, swiping them with his claws. Each blow squished a spider, and somewhere in his core, Zeke could feel a steady trickle of experience. More than that, he could read Pudge’s emotions; the bear cub was having the time of his life playing with his new “toys.”

More than that, though, there was a stream of something else wrapped around the flow of experience. Something vital. Before, the altered [Mark of Companionship] that had bonded them together had been something of a one-way street. It gave Pudge the ability to use [Leech Strike] while also allowing Zeke to funnel vitality to his companion. However, now, the vitality was going the other way. It wasn’t much. The bear cub wasn’t powerful enough for that. But it was enough to push the worst of the poison back. And once the numbness began to fade away, Zeke took care of the rest, smashing spiders and letting his own [Leech Strike] do its job. Before long, he was able to turn the tide, and the flood of spiders abated, leaving him with only the drachnid queen to worry about.

She hadn’t been idle, though. With every passing second came another attempt at spearing the warrior beneath her. And through it all, Zeke persisted. The queen’s screeches of frustration filled the air; she wasn’t accustomed to failure. However, it wasn’t enough to simply endure her attacks. Zeke was there to take care of the problem. And to do that, he had to kill the queen, lest she raise another army of drachnids and begin her decimation of the caravans once again. Or worse.

Zeke needed to be stronger. Faster. He needed an edge. And though he was loath to brave the cost, he knew precisely where to get it. With a thought, he set his core to spinning and practically threw mana through his pathways, shoving the energy into the appropriate rune.

[Heart of the Berserker] activated, and power surged through him. Rage coursed through his veins as his muscles swelled with unspent potential. He felt like an angry god, and he hungered to put the drachnid queen in her place. She was nothing. A bug. A pitiful monster who dared to challenge her betters. And Zeke would crush her.

Zeke abandoned the plan to slowly cripple the creature. Gods didn’t take their enemies apart, one leg at a time. Instead, he would challenge the monster directly like a proper warrior should. So, he pummeled his way through the forest of insectile limbs and leapt atop the monster’s carapace. Then, with a mighty roar and an overhand swing, he began to smash its thorax into submission. The first blow, powered by every ounce of strength Zeke could muster, did little, save for send an echoing thud careening around the cavern. The second was little better. But the third rewarded him with a tiny crack. That small success spurred him forward.

Seven strikes later, and the monster was screaming in frustration and agony. Silvery arrows sprouted from its human-like torso. None went very deep, but it added to the creature’s obvious pain. And Abby hadn’t let up one bit, instead shooting one conjured projectile after another with the rhythm of a metronome. Zeke’s own efforts were even more impressive, digging a huge crater in the monster’s back. It tried to buck him off, but with [Heart of the Berserker] active, his physical stats were unmatched, so he kept his balance with enviable ease.

But it wasn’t enough.

They needed more. And as [Heart of the Berserker] wore on, Zeke’s situation grew steadily more dire. His endurance dropped, and the spearing strikes from the drachnid’s tail bit ever deeper. Great furrows split his flesh and what was left of his leather armor. And despite the might of his descending mace, the influx of vitality from [Leech Strike] was quickly becoming overwhelmed.

They were fighting a losing battle. Unless something changed, they would, all three of them, perish. Zeke refused to let that happen. So, doing something he knew he shouldn’t do, Zeke leapt from the monster’s back. It chose that moment for a tail strike, but unlike before, Zeke had accounted for the blow. Still, it very nearly sent him spinning off his mark.

He dropped his mace. For what he had planned, it would only get in the way. It flew to the other side of the cavern; if his plan didn’t work, he’d be disarmed and out of position. He knew it was a gamble, but the alternative wasn’t much better. He could last a while, but eventually, the detrimental effects of [Heart of the Berserker] would push him past the point of no return. With every thirty seconds, he would lose a little more endurance until the drachnid queen ripped him to shreds. The moment he’d activated the skill, he’d been put on a time limit, and he was quickly careening toward the end.

He almost missed. Despite his monstrous dexterity driving his coordination and balance to preternatural levels, he only barely managed to grab hold of the carapace covering the most vital parts of the queen’s humanoid torso. The carapace itself was comprised of a series of panel-like pieces of rust red chitin that met at her sternum. He dug his fingers into a seam.

The monster clicked and howled as she dug her sharp claws into his back, but she could find no purchase. With his lowered endurance, they raked through him like a molten knife through butter. It was pure agony, but in the depths of his skill-based rage, Zeke barely felt it. He sank deeper, pulling from the skill harder than he’d ever pulled before.

The carapace snapped, exposing the drachnid’s chest.

“The heart! Go for the heart!” he bellowed, even as he lost his grip and was thrown free.

Abby didn’t need any more prompting. In the space of a couple of seconds, she had three arrows in the air. Because the monster jerked unpredictably, the first arrow missed the mark by a couple of inches, burying itself between the drachnid’s exposed ribs. The skin beneath the carapace was far softer than anywhere else, so it sank deep into the queen’s torso. The second arrow hit a little closer, but still, it missed the heart. But the third flew true, tearing into the exposed skin with unerring accuracy.

The drachnid screeched its pain and fury, but all Zeke heard was a death knell. He slowly picked himself up, his body still singing with a berserker’s violent fury.

“It’s already dead,” Abby called. “It just doesn’t know it yet.”

Zeke nodded. “I know,” he growled, his voice harsh with unspent rage. Then, he sprinted back into the fray. This time, things were different. With the monster unable to concentrate on anything but its own impending mortality, it was too uncoordinated to score any major blows. For his part, Zeke did little damage, but that wasn’t the point. He was hurt, and bad. If he didn’t get a little more vitality in him, there was every chance he wouldn’t make it five minutes after the queen died. So, even without his mace, he attacked.

He punched. He kicked. He even bit the monster’s spindly legs. And slowly, it died, giving tiny bits of life energy each time he landed an attack. It wasn’t enough vitality to heal him completely, but it was enough to stave off the worst of it. So, by the time the monster finally gave in to the inevitability of death, he was no longer in danger of bleeding out.

Zeke deactivated [Heart of the Berserker], which was a huge mistake. Immediately, weakness overwhelmed him, and he collapsed atop the slain drachnid queen. Before he lost consciousness, he barely managed to raise his head and say, “That was…a lot…harder than I expected.”

And then the darkness that had been creeping around the edges of his vision enveloped him, and he lost consciousness completely.