Sometimes dungeons restrained their creatures to certain rooms, while others let them roam freely between them in pursuit of their prey. There was no way of knowing in advance which kind of dungeon you'd stumbled into unless one was foolhardy enough to sprint through a room full of monsters to see if they'd continue chasing you.

This particular dungeon proved to be the latter type.

The first room resembled a rocky valley, completely barren of plant life, with a hill rising to the right and a waterfall carving a ravine to the left. It was just as big as the first Beast dungeon Levi had entered so long ago after first returning to the past, big enough to give multiple types of creature plenty of space to roam.

Unlike that first beast dungeon, the local flocks of dire-turkeys were considerably larger, both in individual size and in number, and they were far from the only adversaries.

As he ran headlong away from the turkeys, Levi spotted the spiky silhouette of a dinosaur that looked something like a cross between a triceratops and an ankylosaurus, with crested head and tusks, along with a spiky and plated back and a heavy quilled club of a tail.

Dungeon monsters did like their spikes.

This one looked altogether too pleased to see them. With a trumpeting call, it charged. Levi noted its proportions in passing as he turned to run, streamlined and long-limbed, narrow body, and clearly not averse to running down its prey.

Not good.

Turned out, it wasn't alone either. Before the echoes of its cry had faded, three more spikysaurs ran out to join it from behind the hill, spiked club-tails bouncing in eagerness behind them.

Not good, not good, not good!

Lash bobbed along behind Levi, twisting his single massive eye back and forth to slow or stop as many enemies as possible, but even that wasn't enough to buy them more than a second. There were too many adversaries and only one soul-seeker.

Levi reached the tunnel to the second room and kept going, the dire-turkeys hot on their heels and the spikysaurs not far behind, giving them no time to slow down and assess.

This room gave an immediate impression of sand and expansiveness, with the secondary impression being that of a huge flying crustacean with both lobster-claws and bird-claws spread and ready to kill as it dropped down on the new arrivals in silent ambush. With a flap of its massive feathered wings, the monster drove itself forward at an incredible speed.

Levi's instincts kicked in just on time. He dropped to the ground, sword already coming up to knock away the lobster claws, and rolled aside with a quick burst of stamina to evade the bird claws.

Not fast enough. This was not a low level creature that could be so easily escaped. His current reactions were trained to level 8 dungeons, even moving with enhanced speed it wasn't enough for a level 20.

If not for Becca teleporting between them, its claws may well have sliced Levi clean in two. He didn't trust his armor's durability to hold up against an assault of this level.

Becca's health dropped by almost a quarter at the impact, then the monster crustacean was past. Levi jumped to his feet and ran across the sand, the extra strain draining his stamina rapidly, but without any of his high power minions he had no confidence in defeating the lobster-roc. Crackle continued to fly straight across, toward the next hallway, and Levi struggled to catch up.

The lobster-roc, though the only one of its kind here, was far from alone.

A small herd of unicorns roamed the area between entrance and exit. The dull brown-haired type with sharply branching thorny antlers they could fire and regrow at submachine-gun speeds.

Of course there were.

They perked up their heads at Levi's approach, and a moment later the air was humming with dozens of unicorn horns as they blasted toward Levi in an arc of antlered death.

These he slashed at with both swords, deflecting them as best he could while still running at full speed. Three got through his guard, but none with enough force to do more than scratch his armor and knock him a bit off balance. Though with both the lobster-roc and dire-turkeys still in hot pursuit, even that could prove dangerous.

Another volley of unicorn horns, and Levi dove into the hallway into the next room. Once again, the transition area did nothing to keep the pursuers in their own territory.

The third room was an ancient forest shrouded in vile-smelling fog. Trunks of grey ancients loomed in all directions, mist gleaming in droplets on strands of webbing forming a maze in all directions.

Levi cursed. He didn't have time to solve a maze.

Instead he charged straight through, slicing apart the webs with his manablades even knowing it would summon the webs' owners to rush to attack. He was already (barely) outracing dire-turkeys, dinosaurs, and unicorns; why not add dodging dozens of spider-skunks to the festivities?

More unicorn horns peppered his back, his hands and focus already fully occupied with clearing the webs from in front of him, and his health fell in a series of quick descents.

Then it continued to drop, as a series of pecks and slashes accumulated across his legs and back.

He was moving too slowly. The webs delayed him too much and the dire-turkeys had caught up.

Levi risked a quick glance back.

Thankfully it seemed the lobster-roc had remained behind in its own room, but the unicorns were spreading out and firing off their horns in waves.

The turkeys were bunched up behind Levi, gobbling and pecking, looking much larger up close than he'd remembered, many as tall as his waist and all looking deadly furious. Before they could quite reach him, Becca pounced. The turkeys scattered momentarily as the rift cat appeared from nowhere in their midst, but recovered all too quickly. They closed in on her, gobbling in ire.

Levi silently thanked her for the distraction, and resumed slicing his way through the webs.

In the back of his mind, the sensible part of him screamed that this was stupidly risky, incredibly dangerous, beyond idiotic. He should have waited, should have gathered more people, and certainly should have cleared the dungeon one room at a time like it was supposed to be.

But logic was futile in the face of his desperate need to reach Irene and Peter before anything happened.

Crackle kept flying, pausing occasionally to loop back and urge Levi on faster.

"I'm coming as fast as I can."

Now the spider-skunks were descending, firing webbing off in all directions. Levi's task of clearing a way forward and not being entangled in the new attacks required more than complete focus.

He was burning through his stamina too quickly for his regen to keep up, but he was already fully committed at this point. There was no way to back out. The only way out was through.

The spider-skunks weren't nearly as small as Frosty, thick-limbed and far faster than their size would seem to indicate. He quickly regretted drawing their ire as they continued to descend, and more and more his full attention was required simply to survive each moment, forget advancing further.

Lash grabbed a spider in each of his seven free tendrils, doing his best to slow them down, but that bought only seconds.

Levi slashed through another web, then was forced back on the defensive.

Skarm had leaped off Levi's back at some point; he was wreaking havoc among the unicorns, causing them to fire wildly in wrong directions.

Though all the chaos seemed to be at an equilibrium, everyone's health was dropping steadily, and their opponents still had plenty. The balance wouldn't hold for long. They had to act sooner rather than later.

The next room was so close, just three more webs away, but Levi couldn't break free. Even with Lash keeping the spider-skunks on the left at bay, there were more coming from all directions and if he let up his defence for a moment he'd end up tangled and pinned.

He needed something more, but there was nothing more.

With a furious yowl, Becca broke off her attack and hurled herself bodily into the webs ahead of him, claws flashing in a furious flurry.

Half the spider-skunks immediately shifted their attention to her, but she teleported to the next web without pause. Strings and globs of web tangled up her rear legs, but she had one final teleport left in her, crashing into the final web before falling to the ground in a web-covered heap.

"Skarm, back, now!"

They weren't going to get another chance. Levi drew on his last remaining stamina and ran through the path Becca had cleared. Webs impacted him and he stumbled, legs entangled, but Lash strained upward to buoy him and they cleared the threshold into the boss room just in time before Levi fell flat on his face.