Allen spun through the air. He jumped again as soon as his feet touched the ground, just before it exploded upwards, showering him with dust and rubble. Arcane Bolts flew by him while barriers lit up all around, mostly ineffective. Christopher had been running low on mana, so his magic had gotten less effective over the past hour and a half.

When he landed for the second time, the ground exploded again. Allen slid under the fifth troll’s gnarled greatsword and then dove to the side as a spike of earth shot at him. He twisted his body like a cat, landing nimbly on his feet.

Not even sparing a second, Allen accelerated using the spike as a foothold to propel himself straight towards the ogre’s face at a height nearly twice his own. The monster, predictably, opened its rancid mouth to roar.

Allen threw a random bomb from his inventory into the troll’s mouth in the split second before he landed on its shoulder and jammed his knife into its left eye with Heavy Jab. The monster’s eyeball exploded like a ripe tomato, but the damage was minimal. Even the powerful poison on all of Allen’s weapons had proven ineffective, the monsters were just too resistant to it.

Yet the troll’s face was blown out in a fountain of dark yellow blood, teeth and gore barely a moment later. Allen rode the monster’s shoulder as it stumbled forward, its brain cut off for the third time since it had entered the pit.

Likely sensing the fifth troll’s imminent demise, powerful Arcane spells pummeled it from the front while shackles of miasma wrapped around its legs. It fell flat on its face as Allen pulled a sword out of his inventory and stabbed it through the back of the troll’s ribs. The blade sunk in more easily when the monster was incapacitated, so Allen promptly activated its enchantments. Hundreds of small Force Cutter spells surged out from the weapon and tore into the monster with somewhat limited results.

Allen clicked his tongue, Killer Instinct told him he hadn’t killed it. He looked up and winced as the sixth troll body slammed through Ty and blocked Camila’s hammer with its shoulder. The Defender was sent flying while the rabid Berserker pressed her attack. Her second hammer swing connected with the outside of the monster’s knee, but it retaliated by clobbering her to the ground with a crude gauntlet, sending her weapon tumbling away.

Blood streamed down Camila’s face like a river while she struggled to her feet, only for the troll to grab her by the throat. The monster brought her towards its opened mouth as she struggled against its grip and kicked at its face.

A mace smashed into the troll’s jaw just before it bit down. Its neck buckled and it only managed to get its teeth into Camila’s right leg just above the knee, crunching through flesh and bone. In a final attempt to free herself, a wave of red miasma rushed off Camila with enough power to tear apart the monster’s hand and rupture the flesh along its arm. With an angry roar it threw her to the ground.

“That’s not good,” Allen thought. “Christopher, blast this one with every you have, it’s not dead!” He had already sprinted for the sixth troll before finishing that sentence. At the same time, another roar echoed through the colosseum, signaling another monster. “Ah shit, that’s probably it for us.” The thought was distant in his mind, suppressed by the curtain of his fully charged Dead Calm, but he still knew that it was over. They could barely manage two trolls as it was, but a third would be impossible.

Ty tanked heavy downward punch from the sixth troll, having gotten between it and the limp Camila on the ground. Allen launched himself into monster a second later, repeating the same attack from before, except with his fully charged Break. The monster stumbled back while Allen backflipped off. He frowned when the lack of damage became apparent from Killer Instinct. The troll fell to its knees, its brain mashed to bits, but there was nobody to take it any further.

A rock slammed into Ty’s shield before the seventh troll barreled through him just after. The Defender was knocked over, even with Absorption and Reflection likely doing their best to stop the force of the blow.

“I’m out of mana, can’t stop it!” Christopher shouted.

Killer Instinct screamed into Allen’s head as he spun around. There was barely an instant for him to dodge as the troll he had almost killed swung at him with its sword. The blunt weapon still caught his arm, tearing it off at the shoulder. Allen fell to his back and looked up as the monster’s foot came down on him. He tried to push himself away, but there wasn’t enough time.

“Alright, I’m too slow,” he thought. “Come get me Shoam.”

As if in answer to his thoughts, the troll was suddenly bisected from shoulder to hip by a silent, unseen blade. The two halves were thrown back by the violent forces of the attack and sent spinning through the air while black runes spread over them. They then erupted into sickly dark violet flames that consumed both bloody masses before they even hit the ground.

Allen let out a breath and looked over his shoulder and found the fires of already disintegrating the last bits of the other two trolls. The elf dressed in black stood in the middle of where the battle had taken place, yawning as he turned a page in his book.

“Cursed Scourge Fire is kind of overkill here,” Allen thought, smirking to himself as he felt Dead Calm lifting. A few messages popped into his head at the same time. He grabbed his arm from the ground, stopped the bleeding in his shoulder with Mana Shroud and then jogged over to where Amelia was kneeling over Camila. Christopher was also nearby with his mask off, looking exhausted.

Another roar rolled through the pit just as Allen sat down next to the Healer. She looked up, startled and Allen took the opportunity to offer her his arm. “Can you put it back on, or at least stop the bleeding,” he asked nicely.

“Um, but…” Amelia narrowed her eyes at Allen’s stupid smile.

“Hey Reggie, I think we will call it a day here,” Shoam said, looking up at the incoming troll.

“Fine, I’ll stop the bleeding for now; she’s in much worse shape than you are,” the Healer continued, turning back to Camila as she placed her left hand on Allen’s shoulder. Her armor was practically demolished, though it was slowly regenerating from its enchantments.

“Sure,” Allen replied. He normally would have continued to screw with her by giving in to the aftereffects of Dead Calm, but he was actually too exhausted to bother.

The Automaton appeared in a small burst of smoke, bowing theatrically to the group, Shoam in particular. “That’s Lord Regis to you,” he said with a wide smile. “Regardless, I shall await your return!”

Shoam just scoffed, disappearing for a brief moment to slice through the troll before it could reach the group. “Open the gate so we can leave, we might as well camp outside for tonight,” the elf said just after reappearing. “I’ll just smash it open otherwise.”

“Ah, okay then sir,” Lord Regis began, “You certainly needn’t go that far. Good grief, it was just remodeled.”

“Isn’t the golem part of the dungeon?” Ty asked as he limped over to Amelia and threw himself on the ground.

Nora had also joined the group, though she seemed a little bored. Her attention was mostly on the metal Bard man with an expression of bewilderment.

Lord Regis spun to face Ty and bowed again. “Lord Regis at your service, and I am an automaton, for your information.”

“An automaton is just another name for a machine golem,” Shoam muttered.

Allen chuckled at their bickering before putting it out of his mind. He had a few messages to go through, and a lot of numbers a well.

Your group has defeated 8x Mountain Troll – Level 203 - 213

Your contribution: 68% Damage

For fighting 8 enemies in a team of 6, you receive a 1% XP bonus!

For fighting an enemy far above your means, you receive a 100% XP bonus!

Awarded: 2594036 XP

Congratulations, you are now level 57…144

Requirements met: 43684 XP

Tier 10 Unlocked.

Awarded: 440 Stat points – 88 Skill points – 9 Job points

“Wow, that’s… actually more than I was expecting.” Allen thought. “Shoam took out two of them on his own, which leaves me with at most seventy-five percent contribution… I guess their attacks were really weak on the troll. Well, we all expected that. Still, I need to be able to do more damage when I don’t have Assassinate.”

Allen glanced over at Christopher; the Mage was clearly deep in thought.

Name: Christopher

Human – Mage – Level 178

“Damn. Well, he deserves high support contribution... On the other hand…”

Name: Amelia

Human – Healer – Level 98

“Amelia, what happened?” Allen began, trying to keep himself from sounding too mean. “You didn’t even make it to level one-hundred?”

The Healer turned away from the still-unconscious Camila and fixed Allen with a cold glare. “Maybe it’s because you didn’t get hurt enough?” she asked rhetorically. “You don’t even know how Healers get their experience anyway, so shut up.”

“Okay wow, be that way.” Allen stayed silent for a moment, gritting his teeth, before opening his mouth again. “So how much XP will you get for putting my fucking arm back on?”