James looked the monster in the eye with difficulty.

  Though the creature had the same yellow eyes as the Red Oni and the Blue Oni, much else about it was different. Its skin was a sickening purple of uneven shade, like the whole body was one giant bruise. Its stature was greater than the brothers’ had been, at somewhere between twelve and thirteen feet high. It had both the horns and both the tusks that the brothers had possessed, so that the combined creature had two of each, one on each side of its head.

  The creature carried a staff as long as it was tall, topped with metal rings, in place of the axes and the kanabo. Its physique was a middle ground between the over the top musculature of the Red Oni and the relatively more modest body type of the Blue Oni.

  The two opposites had balanced each other out, and he knew that meant disaster.

  They were always meant to fuse, he thought. It’s like Carol’s stealing my ideas.

  He used Identify.

  Purple Oni, Lv. 45

  It’s higher level than any creature I’ve ever fought. It was hard to make sense of how Carol had created such a powerful creature, when he was fairly certain that she herself was still lower level than him. What are the rules for Dungeons?

  His mind drifted to these idle thoughts, because the idea of attacking the purple behemoth was difficult to contemplate. The creature carried a sinister presence about it. James felt a heavy aura in the air, as if another Ruler was present.

  “Well, how do you find me, human?” the Purple Oni asked, looking down at James with pitiless eyes. “A worthy challenge for you?”

  James found it in himself somewhere to smile.

  “If I’m lucky,” he replied.

  The Purple Oni bared all its teeth in a grotesque snarl, and then it swung its staff at James. He dodged and ran. The battle had begun. If he had one advantage now, it would be speed.

  But it seemed he did not have as much of an Agility advantage as he had before the monsters had fused.

  James turned to run around the side of the shrine, and the Purple Oni suddenly hovered in front of him, feet floating several feet in the air.

  “Going somewhere?” it asked in a taunting voice.

  “I liked you better when you were two brothers who loved each other,” James said. He stuck out his tongue at the creature.

  Then lightning struck, and James barely managed to hurl himself to the side.

  How? I didn’t even see him charging Mana!

  James looked up and saw two things: the Purple Oni’s eyes were glowing yellow, and the sky had shifted from sunny blue to a thunderstorm.

  There’s nothing natural about that…

  The staff swung down at James, and as he dodged, another bolt of lightning almost struck him. It thundered loudly by his head.

  Then James darted closer to the side of the shrine. He suspected the creature would not allow its lightning bolts to strike its own home. The staff swung down, and this time, the butt of it caught James, slamming him through the shrine wall. The blow sent him careening into the interior of the building.

  “You’re wrecking my house, human.” The irritated voice of the Purple Oni carried through the gap in the wall that it had created. Then its body floated in, the creature carefully lowering its head and bending its body to better fit. The building was already barely large enough for the Red Oni and Blue Oni, James could see now. It had been built—or imagined into existence—with humans in mind.

  James looked around at the building and had an idea. He activated Meteor Strike and threw himself at the Purple Oni, fists blazing red with fire. The Purple Oni was able to quickly twist and maneuver its body to dodge out of the way, as James had expected.

  But he chased after it.

  As he did, he touched his flames to every surface that he passed. The whole structure was made of wood, and as the Purple Oni repeatedly dodged, more and more of the surface around it was embroiled in the inferno.

  “You’re burning my house down!” the creature yelled, enraged, finally stopping and staring at the flames all around it.

  That was when James managed to leap in close and finally land a clean hit—stacking two abilities at once. Predator’s Strike and Predator’s Venomous Armaments.

  The short sword that the Soul Eater had transformed into plunged into the Purple Oni’s center of mass. It was a lucky hit, reliant on a moment’s distraction, but it should be enough. The wound would be fatal given the location, even without venom.

  “You son of a bitch!” Every vein on the Purple Oni’s head stood out, and a massive fist buried itself in James’s stomach. He felt most of his ribs break along with the entire chest portion of his armor once again. Only the spider silk provided some protection, but even that only partially blunted the blow.

  James’s body was expelled through another paper door, but even as it flew, he began gathering earth Mana around himself. He was working through new plans as the Purple Oni floated out after him, a hand clutched to the center of its chest.

  The Purple Oni’s expression looked pained. Then its arm began to glow green with the familiar healing energy James had seen used hundreds of times by now.

  James’s body touched down on the ground, and he released his earth magic quickly, before he had gathered as much Mana as he would have liked. A small column of soil quickly rose from just beneath the Purple Oni and slammed into its wrist at super-speed.

  The Purple Oni gritted its teeth but continued healing, and James threw himself at the creature. It floated up higher into the sky, just out of range of his leap, but even as James’s body missed the Purple Oni, he was able to touch the little column of soil with his feet. The extra step delivered him into close range with the monster again.

  Suffering from the effects of the poison and trying desperately to heal its wound, it was too slow to avoid him.

  James activated Predator’s Venomous Armaments again as Roscuro transformed into a hatchet in his hands. He used Predator’s Strike again, and carried by the force of his final forward leap, James delivered perhaps the most violent blow with a blade he had ever inflicted.

  There was a terrible sound of blade cleaving through unwilling flesh, and then James was falling backward, along with the Purple Oni’s left arm—the one it had been using to heal, since the right hand still clutched the staff the Purple Oni had been wielding in their fight.

  “Damn you,” the creature grunted.

  It threw the staff like a javelin toward James, and it began applying its healing to its chest with the other hand. James also sensed a lightning bolt hurtling down from the dark clouds toward him, along the same trajectory as the staff. He activated Lightning Strike—he hadn’t had time to use it before, but he remembered it could help him defend against lightning—and he ordered Roscuro to transform into an actual javelin.

  As the butt of the Purple Oni’s staff plummeted toward him, James twisted through the air, moving to the side as best he could. A moment later, the staff passed just beside his body, barely missing him. James grabbed hold of the haft with his left hand, he pulled his body so that his feet rested on the solid material, and he pushed off, leaping toward the Purple Oni again.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Predator’s Venomous Armaments, Predator’s Missile…

  He hurled the Soul Eater javelin just a moment before the bolt of lightning struck him. It was much weaker with Lightning Strike activated. James only felt a tingle.

  He didn’t even look to see whether the javelin had struck.

  Still falling, he shed his skin, activating Monster Generation and pouring in Mana. The newly generated Skin Glider quickly flitted out from underneath the broken remains of James’s armor, glued itself onto James’s back, and stopped his descent.

  The only two attributes he had wanted to give the creature were the Strength to carry him—and the most Agility he could possibly provide. The creature flapped two enormous, impossibly strong wings, and James was suddenly flying through the air, moving back toward the Purple Oni that was still working on healing its chest wound—now with a javelin sticking out of its thigh.

  I need something to do this job permanently, he thought. The feeling of the breeze rushing over his scalp was exhilarating. The sky began to lightly drizzle—and a bolt of lightning zoomed toward him, which James’s monster spun to dodge away from.

  He turned his head to keep an eye on the monster that had hurled the lightning bolt at him, and James saw that it was flying away, further and further up, trying to get above the clouds. With a single silent command, James’s Skin Glider rushed after it.

  James charged Mana as his Skin Glider soared toward the Purple Oni, cutting into the boss monster’s lead as it continued struggling to heal itself despite the proliferating wounds and their contamination with venom.

  The Purple Oni broke through the cloud cover above them, and James smiled.

  If they fought above the clouds, he would be able to charge Solar Ray more quickly.

  After around thirty seconds, James burst through the clouds. He looked around but did not see the monster. Then he sensed it—directly behind him.

  James and the Skin Glider spun, and the Purple Oni breathed out onto him, unleashing a torrent of flames from its jaws. James crossed his arms in front of his face to protect himself from the worst of it, but he did not allow being set on fire to stop him from charging Mana.

  Need to be closer, he ordered the Skin Glider.

  The creature obliged him. It quickly caught fire despite only being grazed by the flamethrower, but it kept flapping its wings. The Skin Glider managed to launch James into arm’s reach of the Purple Oni before it fell away, releasing its hold on him to douse itself within the clouds below.

  The Purple Oni stopped breathing fire for a moment so it could strike a blow with its remaining fist, but James released his Mana at that moment, and the Purple Oni was suddenly covered in spider silk. It wrapped around the Oni’s head, legs, arm stump, and the hand that was extending to punch James, as well as connecting to James by a silk loop wrapped around his waist.

  The Oni’s fist was yanked back by the silk restraints, and it barely delivered a glancing blow to James’s head.

  He grinned, and the Purple Oni opened its mouth again.

  James saw flames emerging from the back of its throat, and he quickly threw a punch of his own, shoving his entire left fist into the wide open mouth. He ignored the pain of his hand being set on fire and the sound of the Purple Oni’s incoherent complaints. He summoned Roscuro back to his hand, and he raised the javelin to aim it at the Purple Oni’s heart.

  The one-handed monster feebly reached up to stop him, but James angled so that his right arm moved in from James’s right side, out of the Purple Oni’s reach, and he completed his stab. There was a squelching sound as he stabbed into the chest and through the heart.

  But the creature kept moving, flailing wildly, struggling to grab firm hold of James through the silk. His left fist and wrist fully incinerated, the Purple Oni’s flamethrower began to burn their way up his arm.

  James allowed the javelin to return to its normal form as a wristband, and he reached his right arm into the hole he’d made. He felt around, looking for a core or some other vital organ that he needed to destroy.

  His fingers found it.

  Predator’s Strike.

  His nails instantly turned to short claws, and there was a second squelching sound, as James crushed the second heart.

  The Purple Oni’s face contorted in silent agony.

  Then its eyes rolled back in its head, the flames from its mouth suddenly ceased, and it began falling from the sky, James still stuck on by the silk.

  He pulled the javelin out of the monster’s chest, and he turned it into a hatchet. He grabbed hold of one of the Purple Oni’s horns, using it as a handle, and he pulled the silk out of the way. Then he began swinging the hatchet, hacking through the monster’s neck, like he was a lumberjack and it was a tree. The creature’s body was still incredibly tough, even after the fatal wounds were inflicted.

  James ignored how quickly he and the monster were plummeting toward the soil. He thought he could survive a fall. He did not want to find out if he could survive going a few more rounds with the Purple Oni.

  He chopped into the spine and put his back into cutting the rest of the way through.

  A decapitation was the only thing he would trust would make this win truly final. The monster had already shown it had healing powers and incredible vitality, as well as a second heart. James was not taking any further risks. He had already avoided using Soul Magic during the fight, both because he wanted to be able to Pillage the bodies, and because he felt a strange sympathy for the Onis. They seemed almost like real people; they were weirdly self-aware about their situation as monsters trapped in a Dungeon.

  As James moved to within thirty feet of the ground, the Purple Oni’s head finally hung from its body by nothing but a thin strip of flesh. Having severed the spinal cord and most of the neck, he let go of the body. Then he ordered Roscuro to turn into a razor blade, which he quickly used to chop through the silk connecting him to the Purple Oni.

  The Skin Glider appeared from behind James and embraced him, flapping its wings hard to try and break his fall.

  He still crashed into the ground beside the Purple Oni, curled into a ball, and rolled for several feet, but instead of possibly breaking both legs, James assessed that he had only sprained an ankle and bruised his torso wherever it struck the ground.

  He got to his feet, dusted himself off, and grabbed a hunk of meat from the ground nearby. It was the Blue Oni’s arm that the Red Oni had severed earlier. James used Meteor Strike to cover his hand in fire and began cooking it.

  He’d worked up an appetite.

  As he laid eyes on the piece of ground where he’d expected the Purple Oni to be, James saw the Red Oni and Blue Oni had separated again.

  A part of him wanted to rush in and try to kill them again before the Blue Oni tried to heal them, but the Onis were hardly moving at all.

  James stepped closer and saw that the Onis had their same injuries from before their fusion, plus the wounds he had inflicted on the Purple Oni. Rather than doing anything to try and live, they were talking quietly to each other.

  “We fought well, didn’t we, Red?” the Blue Oni asked.

  “You were great, Blue,” the Red Oni said. “We couldn’t have won. He beat the Purple Oni. That’s proof.”

  As James stood over them, he found it a little hard to take too much pleasure in the victory.

  “Sorry I had to kill you guys,” he said quietly. “You seem like you’d be fun to keep around, outside the Dungeon.” He gave an awkward grimace.

  “Don’t be sad, human,” said the blue head with serenity in its eyes. “We were only ever creations of the Dungeon. It means that we can never leave this place without the Core’s permission, but also that we never truly die. As long as we remain here, Carol will find our souls and put them back into fresh bodies, probably stronger than before.” It smiled.

  “Yeah, that means you can come and fight us again!” the red head declared hotly. “Don’t expect we’ll go easy on you next time!”

  James chuckled. “All right, then,” he said. “Rest in peace.”

  Their bodies stilled, and the alerts started flowing in.

  [You killed Purple Oni, Lv. 45!]

  [Predator in Human Skin leveled up!]

  [...]

  James gained multiple levels from the fight with the Purple Oni, and the System credited him for killing the Red and the Blue Oni as well, as if they had been separate beings.

  James thought back to how the Purple Oni had behaved and spoken and how the preceding fight with the Red Oni and the Blue Oni had gone, and he supposed they did all feel like separate beings.

  [Congratulations! You have cleared Expert Mode of Dungeon: Carol’s Place!]

  [Your score was 108,000. See Leaderboard? Y/N]

  James selected “Y” and waited a moment while the display populated before his eyes. He was still processing the fight. A surge of power flowed through him, but it mingled with psychic fatigue in almost equal measure. It had been a grueling fight, and he didn’t even feel entirely pleased that it had ended as it had.

  Carol can create souls, he thought. Or she pulls them from the ether to populate her monsters. Somehow, this felt more like a game before I knew that.

  That wouldn’t stop him from going into a Dungeon in the future, he knew.

  But it occurred to him that what had happened wasn’t so different from him killing Carol’s children, though she had explicitly denied that comparison applied. She was luckier than that idea implied, of course. If something happened to one of her creations, she could restore them to life, according to what the Onis had said.

  James had no reason to doubt them.

  He opened his mouth again as the leaderboard appeared.

  “Carol?” James called out. “Is Mina still all right?”