Gamelions.
As C-Rank monsters, their strength was on a level that made the Goblins Rei had faced in this dungeon thus far look like mere toys.
Their fangs could easily crush a human, armor and all, and their blade-like ears were sharper than the strikes of most mediocre adventurers. They could lash out with their long tails like whips or thrust the tips forward like spears.
Standing between two and three meters tall, their bodies were corded with dense muscle. A strike powered by their rabbit-like leaping ability, combined with their sheer mass, was more than an average warrior could hope to block with a shield; they would be lucky to escape by dodging. Furthermore, their ferocious temperament—hardly what one would expect from a rabbit-based creature—made them more than worthy of their rank.
A Gamelion was a monster that even a C-Rank party would struggle to face one-on-one. And yet, nearly fifty of these creatures were currently gathered before Rei, their collective hostility fixed squarely on him.
Ten Gamelions had already lunged at him, only to be cut down where they stood. Their bodies now lay slashed open across the floor. Perhaps because they hadn't expected their kin to be slaughtered so effortlessly, the remaining pack was no longer rushing him blindly. Instead, they circled him, searching for an opening.
Rei met their gaze, ostentatiously flaunting the red magic power that swirled around his body. Under normal circumstances, he likely could have handled the pack in his base state. However, facing such numbers, Rei had judged them worthy enough opponents to fight while shrouded in his own magic.
Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor. As Rei's ultimate skill, it granted him the power to trade blows with even an S-Rank adventurer like Noise the Immovable.
"What’s the matter? If you won’t come to me, I’ll come to you."
Rei gripped the Death Scythe in his right hand and gave a sweeping gesture with his left. As he did, the magic power compressed enough to be visualized that coated his body seemed to tear away from his palm. The manifested energy streaked through the air toward the Gamelions.
Sensing the danger, the monsters used their powerful legs to leap away, desperately trying to evade the Deep Flame. However, several were too slow. The Deep Flame impacted the ground nearby, and the resulting eruption of fire engulfed them.
Their fur—some white, some brown—was instantly scorched. Thrashing in agony, the burning monsters collided with their kin, spreading the fire and the burns to the rest of the pack.
"Gaaaaaaaaah!"
Perhaps it was an instinct to avenge its fallen comrades, but the Gamelion closest to Rei let out a roar and kicked off the floor. It lunged at him, ears poised to slice him apart. It had witnessed the first wave of its pack try to bite through Rei’s slender frame with their fangs, only to be evaded and killed by the Death Scythe's counter-attack.
To use their fangs, they had to pause their movement for a split second in front of their target. Realizing that this pause was a fatal opening, the Gamelion had opted to slash at Rei while passing by at full speed.
The reasoning was sound. It was the mark of a monster specialized for combat that it would not repeat the same mistake twice.
However...
"You think that level of speed is enough to stop me!?"
Rei shouted as he reached out and caught the Gamelion’s ear just as it was about to bisect his stomach.
Had any other adventurer been there to witness this, they wouldn't have believed their eyes. Rei hadn't used the Death Scythe to parry the blow. He had caught the strike with a single bare hand.
The Gamelion attacking him was not particularly large for its kind, but it still stood over two meters tall and possessed immense weight. Rei caught the blow effortlessly, then seized the base of the ear—the part that wasn't a blade—and hoisted the massive beast into the air before slamming it into the ground.
"Gyapi!"
Its head struck the floor with a sickening crack. Between its own weight and Rei’s superhuman strength, the skull shattered instantly. The Gamelion's death cry echoed through the hall. Soft, downy fur fluttered through the air, contrasting sharply with the brain matter, bone, blood, and meat that sprayed across the floor.
The other Gamelions surrounding Rei froze, realizing the sheer abnormality of the scene. They growled and hissed, but none dared to lunge.
"What's wrong? Come on. I won't run or hide. I’ll fight you all head-on, right here."
Rei muttered provocatively. He stored the Death Scythe in his Misty Ring to show them he was empty-handed. However, as the red magic power of his armor rippled with every movement, the Gamelions only grew more wary.
Even so, the monsters had little choice. Though they had been summoned by the Dungeon Core, they were too wide to pass through the exit. They were effectively trapped in this hall.
Normally, even a Gamelion would want to avoid the current Rei. For all their ferocity, they were intelligent enough to recognize a predator when they saw one. But with the only exit blocked by their own bulk, there was nowhere to run.
"If you won't come to me... then I'm coming for you."
Rei took a single step forward. The Gamelions couldn't understand his words, but they understood the threat of the red magic. The circle surrounding him buckled and retreated.
"Hup!"
In the next heartbeat, Rei vanished, reappearing directly in front of a Gamelion.
"Hah!"
His fist flew forward with a kiai. The blow shattered the monster’s head like a water balloon hitting pavement, scattering viscera everywhere. Several nearby Gamelions were pelted with bone fragments and teeth, and some were even nicked by the blade-ears of their own dying comrade.
"...Tch. I used too much strength."
Gamelion meat was valuable, but so were their other materials. The pelts he had just ruined were expensive items. Damaging them felt like a failure on his part.
"Gah, Gaaaaaaaaaaah!"
A Gamelion that had taken a tooth fragment to the eye growled in pain and fury. Another, whose limbs had been sliced by its falling comrade's ear, joined in the roar. One by one, the cries spread through the pack.
They were aggressive monsters by nature. Though Rei's strength had cowed them initially, the sight and sound of their wounded kin caused their bloodlust to boil over, drowning out their fear. They realized they had no escape. Rei wouldn't let them go, and they couldn't get out.
Trapped, they did the only thing they could: they attacked the marvel and the threat before them with everything they had. The entire pack lunged at Rei simultaneously.
"Finally decided to get serious, have you?"
Rei decided that facing these numbers unarmed would be a nuisance. He pulled the Death Scythe back out of the Misty Ring and stood his ground.
"Gaaaaaaaaah!"
The monsters closed in from the left, the right, and the front. The passage behind Rei was too narrow for them to flank him, and their bloodlust was too great to consider complex tactics anyway. The ceiling above was out of reach, and their sheer size prevented them from attacking from the diagonals.
At most, only three could reach him at once.
Rei ducked to avoid a whip-like tail strike from the right. Simultaneously, he used the butt end part of the Death Scythe to strike the jaw of the Gamelion charging from the left, sent it reeling. Then, he used his free left hand to grab the fangs of the Gamelion lunging from the front, halting its momentum. With a grunt of effort, he hurled the beast into the Gamelion attacking with its tail.
The monster on the right hadn't expected someone as small as Rei to lift a member of its species with one hand. It couldn't evade, and the two massive bodies collided and were sent tumbling back.
"That's two!"
Even as the words left his lips, Rei slashed through both beasts, cutting them in half. Their consciousness faded into the dark. Gamelions possessed a natural resistance to slashing attacks, but it was useless against a strike from Rei's Death Scythe.
"Gaaaaaaaaaaah!"
More Gamelions surged toward him. Rei leaped into the air, activating Sleipnir's Shoes. He kicked the air to reach the ceiling and swung his scythe. The Death Scythe's Blade sheared through a massive stalactite as if it were nothing. The heavy stone plummeted toward the ground—directly onto the heads of the Gamelions who were looking around, confused by Rei's sudden disappearance.
The sound of stone crushing flesh echoed through the chamber. By the time the dust settled, Rei had already moved from the edge of the room to The Center.
Treading on air with Sleipnir's Shoes, Rei danced through the air, dodging tail strikes from below and severing them with the Death Scythe as he passed. He positioned himself above the densest cluster of Gamelions and dropped.
"Gyan!"
A Gamelion directly beneath him tried to move, but the press of its kin left it no room to maneuver. It managed only a slight flinch. The Death Scythe's Blade caught its Gamelion Right Front Leg, severing it cleanly.
Rei didn't stop there. With Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor active and his scythe singing with magic power, he unleashed a whirlwind of destruction in the heart of the enemy pack.
"Haaaaaaaaah!"
He took the head of the three-legged Gamelion in one fluid motion, using the momentum to spin the scythe's shaft in his grip. He became a blur of red light. Legs, ears, tails, torsos, and heads were severed indiscriminately as he tore through the pack.
He had abandoned his concern for the pelts. With this many monsters, he could afford a few ruined materials to ensure a swift victory.
In a matter of seconds—though Rei had only been swinging the scythe for a heartbeat—nearly ten Gamelions had already been slaughtered. Their bodies were hacked into non-viable pieces, dying in a way that defied nature. Yet, despite the gore, there was a terrible beauty to the dance—a grace that rivaled any Sword Dance.
Blood sprayed through the air, but it never touched Rei. The intense heat from the Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor caused it to evaporate into steam before it could even reach him.
Rei had originally earned the alias of Crimson during the Spring War, a result of his firestorm's devastation and the blood of Bestia Empire soldiers that had stained him. While the circumstances were different now, anyone witnessing him shrouded in the red radiance of his armor would surely have bestowed the same name upon him. If anything, he was even more deserving of the title now.
He continued to swing the scythe with reckless abandon, carving through the pack. Rei wasn't being careless—he knew he was surrounded and that every creature in the room was an enemy.
But it was precisely because of that focus that the incident occurred.
A sensation completely different from rending meat or bone—something hard and unyielding—vibrated through the Death Scythe and into Rei's palm.
And then...
【The Death Scythe has learned the skill 『Terrain Manipulation Lv. 2』】
The announcement message flashed through Rei's mind.
"What!?"
Rei froze mid-swing. His eyes widened as he saw what he had hit: the Dungeon Core had been sliced diagonally in half.
"...Why the hell did I get a skill from a Dungeon Core again?"
All Rei could do was mutter in disbelief while continuing to swing the Death Scythe at the Gamelions that were still lunging at him.
【Death Scythe】 『Corrosion Lv. 3』 『Flying Slash Lv. 4』 『Magic Shield Lv. 1』 『Power Slash Lv. 2』 『Wind Hand Lv. 3』 『Terrain Manipulation Lv. 2』 (New) 『Pain Burst Lv. 1』 『Penetrate Lv. 2』
Terrain Manipulation: Allows the user to manipulate the terrain within a Specific Range centered on themselves while the Death Scythe's Shaft is in contact with the ground. At Lv. 2, the ground within a thirty-meter radius can be raised or lowered by approximately fifty centimeters.