"My prince, you don't mean to fight that beast alone do you?" Etragar's words died on his fishy lips, however. Scott had already moved forward into the fight.

"He's not one to waste time, is he?" The fish man shook his head, a toothsome catfish smile spreading quickly across his fishy lips. "Let's see the true strength of this heroic prince..."

The fairy girl pumped her fists and cheered him onward from the sidelines. She was not about to fight for herself if she could help it. Even so, she wished him well!

The minotaur's axe flew downward in a powerful blow intended to cleave Scott in half. It was slow, far too slow. He threw himself to the side and easily dodged the weapon's deadly path. The moment the axe blade slammed into the cavern ground, however, the entire cavern shook. Stalactites broke free of the ceiling high overhead and rained down around the area, even as a massive trench was carved in the earth.

Scott dodged falling projectiles gracefully while he upped his estimate of the beast. Slow, definitely. Weak, however, it was not. Hit points or not, a direct hit of the magnitude could potentially kill him.

He tried a frontal assault in order to test the giant's defenses only for it to punch its massive shield forward. It moved quickly and was large enough to make it easy to dodge. Scott elected instead to get creative. In most of his previous fights he won by the skin of his teeth, or through economical actions. This time he needed to win as quickly as possible and that meant taking risks. As the shield slammed forward, he leapt up and curled his body almost into a ball. At the last moment he pushed outward with both feet and used both his own strength and the shield's momentum to propel himself backwards out of harm's way.

He flipped through the air performed a handspring then landed on his feet. The momentum provided was still to great so he fell forward and used his free hand to help bring himself to a sliding stop.

A feral grin was his only response, before he rush in again. A frontal attack was not going to work, but he had a good measure of the thing's speed now. Precious seconds had been lost, but he knew he had a chance.

His own speed proved to be inferior, however, as the creature only needed to turn slightly to prevent him from flanking it. Meanwhile, Scott would need to run in a wide circle to get the right angle for his own attack. There was no choice.

While he had not taken much in the way of feat enhancements for what he chose to do, it was an innate aspect of the Ferakai warrior. The cost would be much higher for him as a mere hybrid, but he could do it.

Feroki blazed through his body as he began to ramp up his physical prowess. Dozens of points were consumed in seconds as he burst forward with far greater speed and ferocity than before. His stats rose by several points and he soon outpaced the beast enough to approach a free angle. Explosive power surged in his legs a split-second before he launched himself skyward.

"Feeyah!" screamed Scott as arcs of power skirled outward from the core of his being. His eyes glowed brightly even as every hair on his body rose upward and began to whip wildly.

"Yaht!" he cried. Both hands thrust forward simultaneously, a swirl of freezing air so cold that it burned the flesh began to sear the atmosphere. The minotaur tried to use the brief instant that Scott needed to unleash his power to get in place and raise its shield, but it was far too slow. A blast of freezing energy, twenty times the force of a normal feroki ice blast rocketed downward.

The shield blocked a small amount of the blast, but not nearly enough. The beast was too late. It took the equivalent of twenty feroki ice blasts directly to the face. A power easily twice the amount he unleashed to defeat that rock fall trap, it was as though a highly volatile missile made of liquid nitrogen had slammed into its head.

An explosion of cold air washed through the area as the feroki blast flash froze the monsters head, most of its body up to the upper thighs and then caused even the minute amount of water nearby in the ground to freeze slightly.

Scott was not done, however. His feroki dangerously low, the instant he touched the ground he rushed forward with all the speed he could muster then leapt into the air once more. Already, the beast began to move once more. Its motions were tiny, but the force of that blast alone was not quite enough to finish it off.

He sprang into the air with most of his remaining strength then twisted around so that his feet would be facing the beast. At the last moment he used up his remaining feroki to empower his legs. He struck the side of the beast's skull with a brutal flying double drop kick that impacted with the force of a speeding dump truck.

Its skull caved in then shattered completely due to the fragility of its flash frozen nature. Propelled backwards by the force of his own attack, he flipped over in the air, performed a one-handed handspring from the beast's shoulder then flipped through the air and landed on the ground nearby.

The headless minotaur toppled to the ground in a heap of clattering bones then immediately began to dissipate into motes of light. The timer overhead, one that apparently only he could see, froze at slightly over seven seconds remaining.

He panted heavily as the price of his overexertion caught up with him. His body pushed far beyond its limits, he was forced to gulp down a health restorative to make up for the internal damage. It was nowhere near the level of damage that consuming items from the garden might cause him to suffer, but he had overtaxed himself greatly even so. Feroki was useful in that it could ramp up his attributes, provide a nice attack potential, and similar things. However, his body was not designed, or even trained properly, to operate at such high levels for long. He was not a true Ferakai warrior at the moment, merely a human with some Ferakai DNA for flavor.

In many ways the result was a bit like the end result of being subjected to a prolonged adrenal surge, or removing the limiters on someone's muscles. That someone could easily injure themselves by lifting their true maximum weight lifting limit. He should require extensive rest to recover properly by his estimation. Given the fact that he was on a rescue mission, he did not have the time to recover naturally. So, he used a restorative. Thankfully, his hit points also negated a lot of the damage that he would have suffered otherwise. They did take a beating in doing so, however.

While the healing tonic did its work, Scott slowly caught his breath. He turned to look at the frozen ruination that once was a dungeon boss. Something rose up from its rapidly dissipating pile of bones. Curious, he went to check on it. A message window appeared above what appeared to be a piece of a brightly glowing heart-shaped crystal. There was one other semi-translucent piece attached to it that gave it that appearance. The crystal itself simply looked like half of a heart with one round side, and one jagged side.

[Side Mission Rewards]

You have defeated the Underworld Skeletal Guardian Stone Mino in under one minute. You will now receive your rewards.

Side Mission Reward: 100 Crystals

Special Event Reward: +1/2 Sacrificial Heart

A bright green number twenty rose up from the minotaur's dissipating body, a paltry amount of experience for a boss fight in truth. The glowing crystals that appeared were money. The little heart piece immediately made him think of a heart container from The Legend of Zelda, but he did not know how that would work.

Etragar and the fairy came over while Scott collected his rewards. He hummed merrily despite his exhaustion. His hit points were largely restored and his internal wounds were mostly healed by that point, but he was still tired.

"What is it that you have there?" asked the fish man.

Scott shrugged then showed him the heart piece. The fish man blinked then released a low whistling noise.

"Feyah?" asked Scott.

"You do not know what this is, my prince?" asked Etragar.

Scott certainly had an idea, but he could not exactly make a speech about it. He looked to the crystal then shrugged and looked back to the fish man.

"That little crystal is a divine gift from the goddess! They are rare indeed, my prince." Etragar leaned forward and peered at him. "It is said that if someone collects both halves of a sacrificial heart, the heart will die in their place should they take a fatal wound or be cursed to death. As a parting gift, the heart will completely restore the owner to full health and power."

"Yeah, the goddess gives those to people whom she fancies. Usually heroes who fight vicious creatures in the underworld can earn them for beating strong beasts," agreed the fairy. "There are some scattered about inside chests in ancient ruins as well."

"A kiss in celebration?" asked the fairy. She giggled at him then puckered her lips.

Scott smiled at her then turned away from them and drew the heart into his spatial storage. It certainly sounded useful, but he would need to find another one for it to matter.