For a moment Levi considered turning to engage the pursuit but one glance at the turkeys dissuaded him of that notion. There were twenty of them, three of them pluses, and still close to a hundred fish divided into smaller swarms of twenty or so each.

There were too few of them and the enemies were too high level. The tiny skirmishes whenever the attackers caught up were doing plenty of damage as it was. He didn't dare risk open conflict, but the deeper into the dungeon they went the harder it grew to avoid.

With a grimace, Levi pulled himself onto the far bank of the river and took off for the nearest hill. He slowed just long enough to get his bearings and reorient toward the exit again, then downed a stamina restorative and took a running leap off the hill.

He'd been playing it safe and trying to stay sustainable for too long. Sometimes, the only way to win was to act as if you had nothing to lose.

There was an art to stamina usage, a balance to be found between drawing on it too sparsely and surging it so forcefully that the body is unable to fully handle it and the excess is wasted. Beyond ordinary surge levels the efficiency of using more stamina at once dropped very quickly.

It generally wasn't a good idea to oversurge. Not only did it waste stamina, but forcing power much past normal limits caused physical damage as well.

Though the system helped nudge stamina use to stay within safe thresholds fairly aggressively, it was ultimately a soft limit. One that could be ignored at need.

Levi hadn't done this in months, even before the world ended and started back at the beginning again. Efficient use of every available resource was one of those tenets they pounded into you with every look, every action, every reprimand for wastefulness. 'If you can kill one enemy with an oversurge, or three enemies more slowly without, then it's your duty to go for the slow route.'

Not to mention, nearly everyone Levi knew who made a habit of oversurging ended up dying prematurely.

But, in particularly dire circumstances, it was an option.

Right now, perhaps the only option.

Fighting past the instinctive resistance as his body and the system both tried to prevent the oversurge, he forced stamina and mana through his body at an unsustainable rate. He hit the ground hard and immediately leaped forward again, pushing himself recklessly past his limits.

Power hummed through him, straining at the edges of his control as he hurtled forward at explosive speeds he wouldn't be able to match for another dozen levels at least. He felt his skin crack and muscles tear, blood seeping through his armor.

None of that mattered. He didn't dare stop until he was clear. The aftereffects of oversurge could easily get him killed.

A second sabercat jumped up in futile pursuit. Levi was past and out of reach before it had taken three steps.

Over the past month of near-constant fighting he'd gained what would have been an impossible amount of muscle for anyone not pushing themselves this far, but the limits of the human body were still well below what could be done with the system's augmentation at higher levels.

Skarm's claws dug into his shoulder and Lash clung to him with all eight tendrils just to stay on, their pursuers left far behind.

Another flock of startled turkeys gobbled in anger and joined the chase, only to be rapidly left behind. They never got close.

His health was dropping by the second as it tried to keep ahead of the damage he was doing to himself by forcing stamina to surge through him in ways his body wasn't ready to handle yet.

At this rate, he would reach the next room just before running himself dry.

He could only hope it had a relatively safe entry area. But if the only other alternative was slow decline to certain death, it was worth the risk.

Levi's health dropped past 50%, but he was committed.

He whipped past a small pack of dilos in a blur, left them all in his dust.

Then he was out in the open, the exit right there, and he dove into the tunnel without slowing.

The next room was a forest, younger trees more distantly spread apart than the spider-skunk room, trees a bit larger than Levi could reach his hands around at the biggest, most closer to the width of his arm.

Levi burst into the room in a fading rush of stamina, stumbling as his reckless oversurge ended, his reserves at their absolute limits.

He slowed to a breathless jog. Even then it was a struggle just to maintain the pace.

His whole body ached, his health hovered right around 30%. 80 of 271.

A quick glance around wasn't enough to spot their adversaries, if there were any. Despite how full many of the previous rooms had seemed, this was still an only partially-respawned dungeon at the moment. Which... probably was the only reason they'd survived this long.

As much as he'd like to believe there were no enemies lurking to ambush them, he didn't trust this place in the slightest. There wasn't time to rest and reconnoiter.

The trees, though small, were incredibly leafy. An unnatural number of low branches grew in all directions in a way normal trees didn't, with no consideration for actually reaching sunlight. Almost like they deliberately obscured as much visibility as possible in every direction. They didn't move or rustle except when Levi brushed against them, didn't creak or shift even when a false wind gusted briefly through the enclosure with a silent chill.

Panting, Levi swallowed hard and forced his wrung-out body to keep moving. He'd temporarily left his pursuit behind, but he couldn't count on them giving up.

Don't stop. Keep running. Or keep up the stumbling jog, if that's the best he could manage.

Still nothing from this room's inhabitants, if there were any.

The door hadn't sealed, so it wasn't a boss room.

He pressed on, the entrance soon out of sight behind them as the branches blocked the view back. He'd like to imagine that the same lack of visibility would slow down his pursuit from the previous room, but doubted very much that they'd rely on sight alone for hunting. It was never a good idea to underestimate dungeon creatures. He'd learned that lesson more than a few times.

Then the trees shook. The ground trembled. Leaves rustled as the branches swayed in a sudden storm of movement. Levi spun to search in every direction, but there was no indication of where the--

CRASH!

A tree slammed to the ground just behind him, then another to the left.

Something stomped down, a third and fourth tree falling together.

In the abruptly clear space, Levi caught his first glimpse of their opponent. Huge and black-furred, it was easily two or three times as tall as Levi and just as wide, its feet and hands oversized in proportion to the rest of its body.

He'd take dodging a giant monkey over swarms any day, but right now he would prefer to do neither.

Level 20+

(Giganto Gorillagus)

Health 100%

And it was a plus. Of course. So much for Lash keeping it occupied.

It swiped an arm at Levi, who dropped flat just in time to evade. Lash, still clinging to Levi's back, wasn't so lucky. The soul-seeker was large and round and much less flexible than a human.

The massive creature's swipe tore Lash off Levi's back with enough force the soul-seeker's tendrils left rope-burns where he tried to hold on.

Too much, too fast, too big.

Lash flailed in an uncontrolled tangle of tendrils, then came to a stop in a limp tangle. If he hadn't been injured he may have survived the hit from even a giant gorilla. But Lash was still quite low on health from the previous room, and this was more than enough to finish him off.

There was no time to think, no time to mourn, no time to plan.

The gorillagus hadn't slowed. It grabbed the tree behind Levi and tore it out of the ground in a single yank. The trailing roots tumbled Levi over in a sudden disorienting upheaval of earth.

Cursing his low stamina, Levi scrambled to his feet.

The tree was already raised, ready to smash down on the irritating pest. He instinctively ran straight toward the massive gorilla monster, ducking under its legs to escape the swing of the tree, then kept going to evade its attempt to stomp him flat.

He shifted his course just enough to grab Lash's limp body so it wouldn't be left behind as he charged into the forest.