The ogre was an unexpected but not unwelcome surprise. Killing four hobgoblins and an uncounted number of their scrawny and smelly minions had pushed Sorin to the edge. This ogre would be the kill that elevated his soulspace to rank 4. All he had to do was claim his prize.

  And this time, we’re not stuck in a small room littered with tripping hazards.

  Well, there were still plenty of tripping hazards, now that he thought about it. But he didn’t expect it to be a problem. Then again, every time the ogre took a step, the ground rattled, and the corpses bounced a little bit closer to it. That just meant the fight needed to end quickly before everything got pulled into the center.

  “Treat this thing like a ruin or floor guardian,” Sorin said. “It’s significantly stronger than the monsters we just killed. A single mistake could be your death.”

  The ogre was so tall that Sorin didn’t even come up to its waist, making it more of a giant in his opinion. But it wasn’t a true giant, just a giant ogre, which was something of a relief. True giants had all sorts of nasty tricks. This one would likely be all brute strength and overwhelming aggression. He could handle that with his current kit.

  The ogre raised both hands over its head, then leaped forward to slam them down onto the ground right where Sorin was standing. He stepped to the side and let loose two ice blades straight into the monster’s eyes, then drove his sword into its neck as hard as he could once it landed. Thanks in large part to the gauntlet enhancing his strength, it actually pierced the stone-like skin.

  That was all he managed to accomplish in the first exchange, due in large part to having to keep his balance when the impact tremors shook the ground beneath him. That dramatically cut down on the amount of power he could put into his thrust, otherwise he was sure he’d have ripped the monster’s throat out in one clean strike.

  Instead, the ogre just blinked its overly large eyelids to clear the ice out of its face and ignored the pinprick of blood dribbling down its neck and chest. One arm swung out, low across the ground, and threatened to smash into Sorin if he didn’t dodge. There was no time to go backward, so he did the only thing he could: he jumped up.

  Jumping was ill-advised in a fight, but a short hop of a foot-and-a-half that saw him landing on the ogre’s arm was as optimal a move as he could make. His feet weren’t exactly on the ground, but he was in a good position to punish the monster.

  He slammed his blade down on its wrist, the arc of his swing guided by his left hand while his right delivered all the power he was capable of pushing down through the sword. This time it bit deep, deep enough that blood spurted into the air, and the ogre let out a howl of pain as it jerked back.

  Sorin leaped free just before its other hand could snake around to grab him. He rolled twice and came to his feet, not needing Blind Sense to know that the monster was already lumbering after him.

  Then Rue was there, cutting to the right and driving both swords into the back of the ogre’s knee between steps. It kicked out, its leg spasming in pain, but she was already moving away. The monster hit nothing but air and a lone goblin corpse, which it launched thirty feet to splatter against the stone.

  It was a bit greedy of him, but Sorin kind of wanted to take the ogre down by himself. Breaking through to rank 4 would be a big step toward fixing his arm himself, though he still wasn’t entirely sure if his soulspace would grow enough to allow him to manually cast a healing spell. By his previous estimates, it was extremely unlikely, but his soulspace seemed to be bigger at each rank this time around, so he held onto hope anyway.

  Of course, even if the rest of the team helping cut the anima gains too much, they’d just move onto the next goblin camp and do it all over again. That was going to be happening anyway, just so that they could fully empower their own soulprints before tackling the floor guardian. Sorin was just being impatient with not wanting to wait any longer than necessary.

  The ogre was deadly opposition, but Sorin kept it under control and focused on him. Every time Rue came in behind it, he made sure to aggressively hack at its limbs with his sword. If that wasn’t enough, an overhead thrust toward its groin never failed to bring its attention back where he wanted it, though it got considerably more hostile about trying to murder him whenever he did that.

  Conspicuously absent from the fight were both Nemari and Odric, though for different reasons. Just judging by the amount of burnt corpses scattered across the camp, Sorin was guessing she’d overtaxed her anima reserves and probably couldn’t afford to go on the offensive. Odric had anima to burn—though maybe not much of it—and was hovering around the outskirts of the fight, looking for his opportunity to get in and put the ogre down the same way they’d done the first one.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  As long as he didn’t actually do anything, the ogre pretty much ignored him in favor of the two humans who were poking holes in it, but Sorin knew the second it felt Venom Strike spreading up its leg, it would realize Odric was a threat. And while their healer might be branching out into brawling, he wasn’t fast enough to avoid a monster this big. Odric was going to get one good hit, and then he was going to be running for his life.

  Sorin dodged a vicious kick and hacked his sword into the calf of the ogre’s other leg. It was the first good, solid swing he’d dished out, both feet set and his full body behind the hit. Steel parted stone skin with a furious eruption of blood, and the ogre crashed down to one knee. With a furious roar that Sorin felt vibrating in his chest, it smashed its hand down on top of him. Fingers scraped across his armor as he threw himself backward, but they failed to find a grip.

  Rue threw herself at the ogre, needling it with both swords while it was distracted. At the same time, a firebolt flashed through the air, exploding in its face and blinding it. Still reeling, the ogre didn’t see Odric coming until it was far too late. His whole hand sunk into the wound on the monster’s calf before he discharged Venom Strike.

  Huh, I think he overchanneled that, too. Didn’t know he’d figured that trick out.

  The ogre screamed. For the first time, there was no anger, no rage, no anything but pure, raw, pain. It writhed on the ground, clutching at the limb as black veins spread up across its skin. Every movement sent tremors through the dirt and limp bodies bouncing around.

  At that point, it was all over but the waiting. The ogre dragged itself forward, clawing at the ground in an effort to reach someone, anyone, but the whole team kept their distance. Within a few minutes, the monster had stopped moving. Five minutes after that, it finally let go, and Sorin felt the rush of anima hit him.

  It wasn’t as much as he’d hoped for, but it was enough. His soulspace rippled and unfolded inside him, growing again as he reached rank 4. Rue’s eyes widened, no doubt seeing something with Aura Sense, but she said nothing.

  Sorin looked around to confirm there were no living monsters anywhere near them, then risked a quick peek into his soulspace. As he’d expected, it was bigger now than a rank 4’s should have been. Without having upgraded any of his soulprints or adding new ones, it looked empty. Less than half the space was filled, leaving mostly long stretches of a dark, blank stone fa?ade between each painting.

  I think… I think this might actually be enough.

  He’d need to infuse some more anima into that empty space, but he was almost there now. It was just a matter of finding a few more camps to hit. Another day, maybe two, and he’d have full use of his left arm again.

  “Let’s hope not every camp has one of those in reserve,” Nemari was saying as he pulled back out of his soulspace a second later.

  “Maybe we’ll just avoid the ones with giant caves nearby,” Rue added.

  Odric just looked down at the body, shrugged, and turned to look at Sorin. “You pushed to rank 4?” he asked.

  “How’d you know?” Sorin asked, surprised.

  “I saw Rue’s reaction, and then you were very still for about three seconds there. It wasn’t hard to figure out.”

  “Hah. Excellent detective work. And yes, you’re right. I think I’ll be able to free cast the healing spell I need, too. It’s D-ranked, so it’s going to be close, but I’m going to try.”

  “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get out of here so you can get to it,” Rue said.

  “Not just yet. I need to build up some more anima first. Another camp or two like this, even without the ogres, should be enough to get me started. By the time you all finish maxing out your soulprints, I’ll have my arm fixed. Then we can hit the portal guardian together and get off this floor.”

  “I’m worried about that,” Nemari admitted. “You said it yourself. The chance of the Black Hellions finding us is highest there. It’s the only place they can be sure we’ll have to come to eventually. I’m sure they’re watching the floor portals, too, and just think we’re foraging out here to survive.”

  “I agree,” Sorin said. “It’ll be tricky, but we’re going to go in with maximum offense and wipe out whoever’s been stationed there, then blitz the boss so hard it’ll drop in under a minute. Once we’re through the portal and into the Antechamber, they’ll never find us again.”

  It was a plan, but Sorin wasn’t as optimistic as he was portraying. He was the only one who had a chance of beating another climber at rank 5 or 6, never mind if they had a rank 10 sitting out there. His hope was that anyone that strong would be too valuable to waste just sitting around waiting for Sorin to show up, but his fear was that Samael knew exactly how unlikely it was that they’d catch Sorin at the floor portals and would concentrate his efforts on the Floor 2 guardian.

  It would all depend on whether Samael had people watching the guardian. Until they knew for sure, it was impossible to make any definitive plans, and the only thing they could do was keep growing stronger. That was still days away, though, with plenty of work to do in the meantime.

  “Uh, hey, does this thing have a soulprint?” Rue asked.

  Oh, right. Forgot to even check.

  “Good catch,” Sorin said as he approached the ogre’s corpse. “Two of them, looks like. I think there’s another Stone Skin in there. That should be a lot easier to get out and preserve with a proper harvesting kit now.”

  “And the other one?”

  Sorin scratched his chin as he studied the dead ogre. “Huh. That’s… unusual. It’s in the blood—very difficult to extract at all, let alone store.”

  “What does it do?” Nemari asked.

  “Blood of the Mountain. It’s E-ranked. It’s an extreme endurance and regeneration soulprint. If I had to guess, I’d say that’s how the ogre lasted so long after Odric hit it. Very rare. Very valuable.”

  It would go perfect with Vigorous Constitution and Minor Regeneration. I want it.