While Mordecai’s avatar focused on Fuyuko, and his onitored the dungeon in general, Kazue chose to focus on following Gil and Li while passing along a running entary to Moriko, who was rexing while Kazue’s avatar was off uning with spirits. The little ratling had led the rge man to the bat path, which just so happeo not have anyone waiting in li that exaent. She chose to not folloath of thought, following Mordecai’s example and his warning about mental health if she thought about Li’s luuch.

  Uhe god-shard’s normal advehis time he was easy to track. This artially because he was with Gil, but it was also because he was treating it more like most visitors would treat the bat path, and was fighting through the normal challenges. She hadn’t seen him actually fight sihe first day he’d arrived, and it was iing to watch.

  Li was fast, and naturally ed shadows around himself in brief spurts, but not as deeply as he had that first fight. Attag broke his cover, rather than remaining effectively invisible in the darkness. From what she could pick out from his endless chatter with Gil, Li saw this as a game, and based on what Mordecai had told her, that meant that he’d be adjusting himself to the challenge. He e of divinity, nothing here was more of a challeo him thahought it should be.

  As fil, well, it was more obvious that he was ‘sg’. The power that he emanated was rather scary, and the way he mowed through their inhabitants without actually sying them showed his skill as well. They had moved through the first two floors without ever looking like they were taking things seriously; even Zushi found it difficult to cope with Gil’s powerful fists while Li was effectively pying tag with Ryuhoho, and winning. Kazue forted Zushi who was pining about how the hits seemed to nd past Zushi’s defenses and just ignored his ability to absorb energy in any form.

  The only part of the sed floor that bothered them was the maze tunnels, and they only bil. The giant man grumbled the eime he had to crawl through them while Li led the way, chattering away the eime. Kazue wasirely surprised that this part took them an excessively long time, Li wandered almost as randomly as his thoughts did.

  As for Hildegard and Crios, they didn’t have the advantage of a raid boss’s power, and the fight ended with Crios retreating after both of his cws were cracked along with several pces along his main body. The carbuncle had been tackle-hugged by Li and was now squirming iively as a delighted Li hugged her tightly like a child with a favorite doll, but he eventually let go with a verbal prodding from Gil.

  Kazue took fort in the knowledge from Mordecai that this was the top end of the power they should ever see in an individual, barring things like very, very old dragons. He was in essentially the same tier as Aia and Traxalim, which made her rather gd that her had challehe dungeon. Her husband had promised that their raid bosses, aually their deepest floor bosses, would eventually be able to match that power, but they weren’t quite halfway there and growth was going to be a lot slower.

  She hadn’t realized how powerful Aia was before she had this direparison. Sure, she khat her matriarch had been terrifyingly powerful, but when you have no magic or bat prowess to speak of, that’s not a high bar. But now that she was getting a better idea of how strong people could actually be, she had a better grasp of he the gap actually was.

  The third floor caused Gil to snort with amusement. “Bunny soldiers? I know Mordecai too well to think they are soft, but they are still sort of hiriously cute.” Just for that, Kazue mentally enced the bunkin to send as many soldiers as they wanted. Gil tilted his head and then looked toward where her focus’s point of view was, “Oho, we are being watched. By the young mistress of the dungeon, I think. And I would guess that the rabbits are her influence.”

  That, that was sort of terrifying. She’d never had anyone do that before. Were Aia and Traxalim capable of doing that too? Had they just been too circumspect to reveal it? Well, Aia had noticed them unig before, but the way she’d said it suggested that she’d picked up more on body nguage. Maybe it could be both? Kazue went through several iterations of possibilities before she remembered to pay attention tuests.

  While her thoughts had been running, the duo had focused their attention ba the bunkin troops, and she realized only a moment had epsed. Time was weird without her avatar to synize with. She could think so much faster when she was focused, but if there was nothing she aying attention to, she could kind of drift, and time would flow by instead. At least she didn’t get the gray head-fuzz cloudihoughts.

  Even with reinforts, the fight didn’t st a lot lohan the ones above had. Li was never quite where any attaded, and even explosive spells cleared to find him somewhere else. Gil just seemed to barely sway enough to dodge attacks, and even batted the occasional projectile out of the air with little care if it was an arrow or bullet. He didn’t eveo have any sort of fighting stan pce as he moved through the battlefield, slinging aside bunkin easily, and tossing the polecat cavalry mounts at the flying dracobits to take them down.

  Kazue’s description perked Moriko’s i, “That sounds like formless form.”

  “Formless form?”

  “It’s not airely accurate name, but anything accurate would be too long. The grand master of the monastery has mastered it, but I’ve only seen him demonstrate it in spars against randmasters. It’s more accurate to say that it is the pition of all forms, mastering them so pletely that you are always in a stahout actually having to be in the form of a stance. I ’t expin it better than that. But the way you describe him doesn’t sound like a monk otherwise. Didn’t the wolf girl describe him as a ons master?”

  “He’s both,” Mordecai interjected, “Or more accurately, he diversified when he couldn’t find a way to directly improve his swordsmanship and general battle prowess. This makes him more of a true ons master than most who cim the title, but it’s a little unfair to pare against someone who has limited himself by the refusal to bee a demigod.”

  “Wait, what?” Kazue and Moriko excimed together.

  Mordecai’s amusement was clear iones of his mental voice, “I suppose I should have mentio before, I was rather taken off guard by him showing up. But yes, he has turned away from that path. He could have promoted his own legend, built himself up more, and started gathering hero worship and then true worship. He would have been able to take on that sort of faith. But he didn’t think he’d make a very good god. And to be ho, I agree. He was not a great king, from what I know. His battle prowess was great otlefield, but diplomacy, well, let’s just say that this is a more mature and wiser version of the man than when he was a king.”

  “So, we have a nigh-demigod just wandering our dungeon?” Kazue asked incredulously.

  “Aia and Traxalim are toug that edge as well. Traxalim has already turned away from immortality, but I suspect that once Aia does abdicate and is certain her heir has solidified her rule, Aia will bee a wandering immortal too. I think she enjoys life in this world too much, and I don’t think she has the same level of longing to join others who wait ierlife.”

  That was a lot to think about. But perhaps when the immortal iion wasn’t so casually leaving a trail of half-broken inhabitants in his wake. Judging by the way the mana flowed, Gil utting in more effort in not actually killing them than iing them. Wait, “Um, Mordecai?”

  He’d apparently noticed where her attention was focused, “Yes, he’s doing that deliberately. He’s not really gaining anything but eai by being dragged along, so expending the effort to not kill them both ehat we retain the resources to host other delvers properly, and gives us more mana by his expending more effort.”

  That was rather siderate. Kazue wondered how muordecai’s gripes with the man was just the result of being old friends who feel the o pin about each other. She’d never seen this side of him before.

  The battle with Betty and Umbrowl was strange. Gil actually shifted into a stao match Betty’s own and he gave her poio improve herself. It was the painful sort of pointers, to be sure, but Betty didn’t seem to mind. As for Umbrowl and Li…

  “Ahhhhhhh!” Screamed the little ratling as he ran from the cat-owl hybrid and disappeared into another shadow. Umbrowl seemed a little fused but game to keep chasing the god shard through the shadows, though no matter how fast Umbrowl flew or dove, Li was somehow always just a little out of reach.

  The boss fight for the floor ended when Gil plucked Umbrowl out of the air and held him up by the scruff of the neck. Betty was sitting on the floor, panting and bruised but grinning widely. Li appeared from a shadow and attached himself to Gil’s calf. “Oh, thank you thank you thank you, you saved me from the ohing.” He gred up at Umbrowl and stuck out his tongue.

  It was kind of appropriate that a little ratling would be scared by a bination of two major predators of rats and mice, which seemed to be how reality often teo work around Li. And she khat; Mordecai had said as much, but it was still weird to see it in a sometimes.

  By the time they reached the library, the group that had been down there before had already cleared out. Kazue didn’t even have to tweak anything on this level, Gil’s own booming void ughter brought down the wrath of all the bunbrarians on his own, and he seemed amused when a biting word tried to chew on his finger, “Oh, Mordecai, having fun with the puns again already?” A bookwyrm swooped by to bst him with paper flechettes, but Gil flicked his hand, deftly breaking the animated book’s grip on his finger and sending it into the dragon-like struct.

  The library boss fight was just sort of odd. The iioween Gil and Biblios retty straightforward battle that left damaged reams of paper everywhere, as the man demonstrated his strength by throwing the reams back at the paper dragon hard enough to make the reinforced bindings explode on impact. But as for Horad Li, well, Kazue would judge Horace as having won that ‘battle’ if it was just the two of them. Li was humming happily as he messily colored in outline drawings that Horace had provided, having hemmed itle ratling with lots of c and painting options.

  Once Gil had subdued Biblios, he made his way over to Li to observe what was going on. Horace just shrugged and held out his hands, palms up, “Ook.”

  Gil snorted, “Yeah, that works. Alright Li, I think it’s time to go. Other people o be able to py too.”

  Kazue was really curious about how the mushroom kingdom was going to go with these two running through it.

  Zagaroth