Two new scrolls in hand, Det had to pull deep to get a pair of kernels from within his chest to travel down his arms and into his renditions. Nothing like actual combat to teach strengths and weaknesses. Even though he was a dozen steps ahead of the others with his ability to kernelize, the fact that he spent one on each rendition was a massive drain on his resources. Worse, the more he used, the more of a strain he felt on his body.

  When he’d entered the dungeon, he was practically in top shape. Now? He had sweat running down his back, and an exhaustion creeping through his body. Part of that could’ve been the mad scramble to stop a Wordless from gutting him like a fish, but not the main part. Pushing kernels out took effort. And it wasn’t like he’d had a chance to try and replace them. It took an unfortunate amount of peace to form the kernels. Not something he could do in the middle of a life-or-death struggle with hell-puppets. At least, not something he could do yet.

  Something to practice after Kels is safe.

  All those thoughts passed through Det’s head in the two seconds it took for his square scrolls to flash with magic, embers of burning paper falling to reveal two circles of black ink hanging in the air. Circles that looked like jagged-toothed mouths.

  Placing one hand to the back of each of the floating circles, Det took control.

  While the animals could think and act for themselves, this particular rendition—both copies of it—could do no such thing. What they lacked in autonomy, though, they made up for in versatility and range. Oh, and biting power.

  A thought extended the pair of rubbery necks from the hanging circles, each with nothing more than something like a shark’s maw on the end. Wide went the jaws, before a brutal pair of crunches took chunks out of a Wordless dashing toward the center of the stage. Pieces of it missing—including its head—and the thing fell to the stage floor to join the bodies of the other Wordless the ink-hawks had killed.

  Not that Det was done with just one. Flexible—without the need to worry about things like bones—and fast, the necks could also stretch and twist like a spring-loaded serpent. And with the watermelon sized jaws at their ends, they were yet another nightmare creation. Especially for the Wordless stragglers on the stage.

  Sheer numbers could overwhelm the maws easily enough—like what the rest of the party, and Det’s new summons—were dealing with on the theatre floor. With the stage only having one or two Wordless at a time, though, the maws were the perfect weapons. Striking like vipers, the mouths twisted around claws slashing out to intercept them, only to bite down on—and through—the extended arms. Crunching on those like they were barely a snack, the mouths moved on to other parts of the Wordless’ bodies.

  When Det didn’t have to worry about more than one Wordless, the pair of mouths made quick work of his lone targets. Even two, different targets, he could handle no problem. And he never had to worry about three, with Calisco and Eriba both tearing through swaths of the Wordless.

  “Just two more,” Det said, sending a mouth each to chomp down on the last Wordless on stage. On the right, he slipped the maw between both slashing claws to bite down on the marionette’s head. Just like that, the body dropped, lifeless to the stage.

  The second Wordless, though, was quicker, leaping past the maw as it lunged. Not quite quick enough, unfortunately for it. Instead of clamping down on a head or face, the triangular teeth punched through the material of the Wordless’ calf, halting its leap midair. A flick of Det’s wrist jerked the maw back a pair of feet, then swirled it around to flip the Wordless over, and slam it to the floor.

  Once, twice, three times, Det slammed the Wordless onto the stage, though his rendition didn’t have the strength to do any real damage. Just enough to stall and stun the victim. Luckily, Det had a second maw, and it streaked in to the end the fight with a vicious bite that took the marionette’s head clean off.

  “Done,” Det said, pulling his hands from the glowing circles that continued to hang in the air. Since he hadn’t given them a specific order, they would hang around until their magic expired. The only problem was, he couldn’t move them, so he reached down to pick up his sword once more. Just in case another Wordless made it to the stage while he was getting Kels down. “I’m going to get her.”

  “We’ll cover you,” Sage said, catching on to Det’s intent easily enough.

  Strafing minigun fire and explosions echoed the sentiment, tearing through the Wordless closest to the stage to make sure he had the time he needed. Tena even shifted both of herselves to angle better to intercept any Wordless who thought Det looked vulnerable.

  Det gave a nod of appreciation to each of his friends—even Weiss, who tossed a small heal on him like a glass of cold water to the face—then dashed straight for the stage. Vaulting broken and blasted Wordless bodies, his ReSouled physique devoured the thirty feet, and then he was in the air, leaping up to the stage with a single jump. More broken Wordless littered the space, and Det quickstepped past them, up to the girl left hanging in puppet strings from the roof.

  “Kels, I’ve got you,” Det said. “Just hold on, and I’ll…”

  Det’s voice trailed off as he got closer to the girl. Through the madness of the battle, he hadn’t had a chance to really look at her. She was… too still. Hanging so limply, without even breath moving her chest. Was she…?

  Det got closer, even as an explosion shook the entire stage, rocking him side to side like a minor earthquake.

  “Kels?” he asked again, voice as quiet as Eriba normally was. She was too still. Like a lifeless…

  Det’s eyes widened as a flash of light lit the shaking stage, revealing a porcelain white face. A red dot appeared on Det’s eyepiece, even as the head twisted unnaturally at the neck, revealing red eyes looking right back at him. The lower jaw unhinged like a nut-cracker, then began clacking madly.

  Wordless Angler – Stage Bite, E-Rank. One skull. All in red.

  This isn’t Kels! Wait, angler? Stage Bite?

  The shaking, it wasn’t an earthquake or an explosion!

  Det spun on his heel and dashed, fast as his ReSouled body would take him, then dove off the stage, just in time for the top to come crunching down like the maws Det had just been employing.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Wooden paneling fell away to reveal the white of a Wordless, the entire stage shaking like a dog throwing water off itself. The stage wasn’t a stage. It was the Boss.

  And it had tried to eat Det.

  Rude.

  Up above, near where the curtain had vanished into the ceiling, two massive, red eyes opened, glaring down at the party, even as the Wordless coming from the sides of the theatre finally started to thin. The party had weathered the numbers and survived the waves. Now all that was left was to deal with the Boss of the dungeon.

  As for Det’s giant serpent—and the Rare Spawn it had been battling—the only evidence left of them was the black tail extending from the Stage Bite, while the thing chewed. Not something Det would want to experience for himself, and the inky tail vanished in a splash as the magic was finally unraveled. Like the rest of Det’s renditions, none of the ink made it to the floor before it was gone like it’d never existed.

  The sudden disappearance of what the stage had been eating seemed to annoy the giant Boss, its jaws grinding side to side like it was trying to find the mouthful it’d just been enjoying. When it realized it’d lost the meal, its mouth opened wide again, releasing a tremendous roar that pushed Det back a step, and even made the few remaining Wordless stumble.

  Something Sage and Tena took full advantage of.

  The blue-eyed marionette didn’t suffer the same kind of stun under Sage’s control, and he threw an extra burst of magical energy into it. More blue light glowed from between the joints, steam or smoke jetting out like the surge of power was consuming it from the inside out. Whatever Sage had done came with a cost. One that was clearly worthwhile, as the thing’s speed nearly doubled, while its blue claws shredded Wordless armor like a hot knife through butter.

  A moment ago, Sage’s pet had barely been able to hold its own, and now it was criss-crossing through the remaining Wordless, claws reaping lives with every movement. One look at Sage himself spoke volumes of why he hadn’t used the trick earlier, assuming he’d even known how. Blood ran from his nose at the exertion, and his eyes bulged—unblinking—from the concentration required

  The cost of this buff isn’t just to the pet, but to Sage too?

  It was worth it, though. In those brief seconds while the Boss’ attention wasn’t on the group, and the Wordless were stunned from its roar, Sage decimated the Wordless on that side of the theatre. He had a bit of help, too, with the remaining badgers and snakes leaping at their distracted prey.

  On the opposite side of the theatre, Calisco had already thinned the crowd so much, the inky renditions were moving straight to cleanup mode.

  All that just left the building-sized Boss for them to deal with. How it was going to attack them was a question that…

  From centerstage, the Wordless Angler that looked like Kels leapt out of the mouth like a rocket, puppet strings trailing behind, to slam into its closest target. Tena, caught by surprise by the speed and appearance of the Wordless-missile couldn’t get her shield up in time before arms and legs wrapped around her. Held tight like that, even with her impressive strength, the Bulwark couldn’t do anything but struggle.

  Until those puppet strings connected to the Angler grew taut, and yanked the Wordless—and the tank in its arms—right back into the center of the mouth. The pair had barely landed on the stage, when the mouth slammed shut again. The horrible sounds of crunching and cracking echoed out with every bite, and Det’s eyes went to the crystal-covered tank still in their midst.

  “Well, that would’ve sucked,” Tena said, another crystal double immediately growing out of her.

  They’d gotten lucky. Real lucky. Through sheer chance, the Boss’ deadly attack had grabbed the one person from their party they didn’t need to worry about. In fact, they’d already replaced the lost tank, with the double stepping in front of the group, so that it was the closest ‘party member’ to the Stage Bite.

  A decision that was quickly proven to be wise, as the mouth opened a second time, and the Angler shot out almost faster than Det could follow. This time, though, Tena’s double was ready, and got her shield up for the white Wordless to crash into. Sounding similar to throwing a box of your ex-girlfriend’s-mother-in-law’s dishes off a balcony to the pavement below—Yes, Det had experience—the collision was a brutal cacophony that sent pieces of the Wordless spilling around the tower shield like broken shrapnel.

  Shrapnel that still had strings attached?

  No sooner had the pieces of the broken Wordless gone past Tena’s double, than they snapped in and around like a bola, wrapping the double twice over. Stronger than steel, the puppet strings compressed Tena between them, crushing her shield up against her, pressing her arms in close, and her legs together.

  Then she was gone again, sucked right back into the Stage Bite.

  “That would’ve sucked too,” Tena said, producing yet another clone to move out and stand in front of the group. If the Stage Bite was going to keep going for the closest…

  Yup, and there went a third Tena, snapped up like a fly in front of a particularly hungry frog.

  A fourth clone came out like nothing had happened, though the real tank shifted from foot to foot, her body showing the strain even if she wasn’t saying anything.

  They had a way to keep the Boss distracted—and, full, apparently, with the fifth clone vanishing in the blink of an eye—but how were they going to deal with it themselves? Sage’s pet toppled to the ground, the blue smoke outright dissolving the Wordless it left as a lifeless husk, while Sage also dropped to one knee. Det’s sword wouldn’t do much better, nor would his renditions. Something that big just wouldn’t be threatened by them.

  Turned out, Det didn’t need to worry about it. Gluttonous and unmoving giant Bosses proved to be excellent target practice for miniguns and explosions.

  As much trouble as the party had with the individual waves of Wordless, the Boss was very poorly matched against them. Eriba’s minigun riddled the thing full of holes, knocking out teeth that’d formed from jagged, broken pieces of stage. Each individual shot wasn’t enough to severely damage the giant Boss, but there were just so many. The twin-barreled minigun never slowed or stopped, spitting spikes of hard light in an endless stream. Alone, she likely would’ve been able to slowly whittle down the Boss’ health until it died.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Where minigun bolts punched fist-sized holes into the Boss’ face, it was the explosions going off inside its mouth that were really causing it more problems than just a bad case of ingestion. Calisco was through with holding back, lining up building-shaking eruptions that had the Stage Bite belching out smoke and fire. With the first blast, the Angler that been reeling in Tenas one after the other came out as nothing more than a hand. One that slapped harmlessly against the tank’s shield before retracting.

  The second blast blew one of the eyes out from the inside, to leave the large disk of flickering red light hanging morbidly from the eye socket. The third explosion—bigger than the first two put together—made the entire roof of the stage lift in a comical image, like a cartoon volcano blowing its top.

  Except, after the blast that rattled the dungeon to its core finished, the top half of the Stage Bite crashed down on the bottom. The remaining, good eye flickered on and off, on and off, on and off… right until a concentrated burst of minigun fire shredded it. Then, for good measure, obviously, Eriba kept up her assault for another solid minute. After that, the Boss lay in pieces. The whole left side of its face was gone. The lower jaw had spilled out onto the theatre floor, and the top right of its skull—or whatever it was called—tilted down at a dangerous angle from where it had broken in the center.

  Small chunks of it toppled over, the only noise in the room now other than the miniguns whirling down and the angry hisses of the few remaining honey badgers. The poor guys didn’t have anything left to fight, and that just made them madder.

  “Did we do it?” Weiss asked from where he stood beside the kneeling Sage. The flickering light around him dimmed as he pulled on it with his magic. Whatever Sage had done to himself, it was bad enough to warrant Weiss calling on the extra part of his healing power.

  “Damn straight we did,” Calisco said. A hand went up to her forehead to wipe away the blood from a slash she’d taken. One of the Wordless had gotten just a bit too close, and another inch or two down would’ve taken both her eyes out. She’d gotten lucky.

  They all had. They’ve survived their first dungeon run. Killed their first dungeon Boss. And a Rare Spawn, to boot. That could only mean one thing.

  Loot.