2 MP. That was the magic number.
I exhaled, feeling the tension of the bowstring bite into my thumb ring. I pushed exactly 2 MP down my arm, letting the steel broadhead flare with a dull, contained orange heat and-
-Twish-!
The arrow crossed the dark cavern and punched cleanly through the thick, armored skull of a leaping Shrieker.
The superheated metal seared straight through the brain, dropping it without any messy explosions.
By the time I smoothly drew another arrow from my quiver, the warmth in my chest flared briefly as my natural regeneration of 1 MP/s ticked those 2 MP right back into my reserve.
A perfect, infinite loop.
A gale of freezing wind suddenly whipped past my shoulder as Elise stepped back from a decapitated goblin, smoothly flicking her wrist.
She launched a jagged arc of ice from the tip of her longsword in the very same motion, shattering a cluster of incoming monsters into frozen, bloody chunks.
She paused, her cold blue eyes flicking over her shoulder to watch me casually drop another straggler that tried to flank her blind spot.
"Solid foundation…" she noted over the shrieks of the dying monsters, her breath pluming in the freezing air. "Zero ego in targeting. It is efficient."
Off to the right, Vala was putting on a very different kind of show.
She moved like a localized natural disaster. Bright, roaring fire engulfed her arms and legs as she lunged into the thickest part of the swarm, tearing through pale flesh and cauterizing the wounds in the same brutal motion.
She ripped a armored crawler entirely in half, tossing the burning pieces aside before immediately whipping her head back to look at me.
Her chest heaved, a feral, bloody grin stretching across her face while her bushy tail wagged frantically in the firelight.
While I didn't try to steal anyone's spotlight. I kept my back to the cavern wall, my eyes tracking the dark ceiling and the flanks.
"Three dropping from the stalactites, your two o'clock," I called out, letting an arrow fly to pin a smaller goblin to the wall.
Vala didn't even look up. She just spun, lashing out with a flaming swipe of her claws to cleanly bisect all three falling creatures before they even hit the ground.
The pace was relentless. With my arrows keeping the annoying stragglers off their backs, we quickly pushed deeper into the cavern, leaving a literal trail of charred and frozen corpses in our wake.
The stone floor began to slope downward, the air growing thick and suffocatingly humid.
I notched another arrow, stepping over a puddle of dark blood. "Is the monster density usually this-"
-Boom-! Roar-!
Before I could even finish, the ground beneath Elise exploded.
A massive, armor-plated subterranean wyrm erupted from the solid rock in a deafening shower of shattered stone. Its massive, circular maw snapped shut like a steel trap, swallowing the Tier 5 swordswoman whole before I could even raise my bow.
My heart instantly spiked into my throat.
Vala didn't even flinch. She just stood there, casually wiping a streak of blood off her cheek with the back of her gauntlet.
Two seconds later, the wyrm's thick midsection violently bulged outward. A massive spike of ice erupted straight through its armored scales. The beast let out a gargling shriek before Elise violently burst out of its stomach in a localized hurricane of freezing wind and dark blood.
The massive wyrm collapsed dead onto the jagged rocks.
Elise stood in the center of the gore, her pristine silver armor now thoroughly drenched in thick, foul-smelling monster viscera. A piece of gray intestine slid off her shoulder and hit the floor with a wet slap.
Yet her emotionless mask didn't even twitch.
"Find water," she ordered tightly.
We pushed into a narrow, dead-end side cavern a few minutes later. The air here was noticeably cooler, entirely dominated by the sound of a small waterfall feeding into a crystal-clear subterranean pool.
"I am bathing…" Elise stated, already unbuckling her chest plate. "Maintain the perimeter."
She walked out toward the dark water, leaving Vala and me standing in the narrow, shadowed entryway behind a massive, flat boulder.
It blocked the line of sight to the pool perfectly, but left us boxed into a very tight space.
I leaned back against the cool stone wall, letting out a long breath as the adrenaline of the last hour finally began to bleed out of my system.
I looked up at the tall werewolf standing a few feet away. She was covered in a light sheen of sweat, her chest heaving slightly beneath her leather armor as she kept her eyes fixed on the dark tunnel ahead.
"Hey," I said softly.
Vala's wolf ears twitched. She glanced down at me, her crimson eyes catching the dim light of the glowing moss on the walls.
"Thank you," I said, keeping my voice smooth and genuine. "Sincerely."
She blinked, shifting her weight awkwardly. "For what?"
"For bringing me down here," I replied, holding her gaze. "For watching my back and making sure I was safe. You didn't have to stick your neck out for a complete stranger back at the guild, but you did."
Her tough, veteran-adventurer act instantly evaporated. Vala's cheeks flushed a deep, violent red.
She reached up, nervously rubbing the back of her neck with a gauntleted hand as she looked away. Her bushy tail started to sway with embarrassed thumps against the cavern floor.
"I-it's nothing," she stammered, her voice dropping its edge completely. "You... you have a good head on your shoulders. And you smell nice. I mean! You fight well."
I suppressed a smirk.
"At least allow me to thank you," I murmured, pushing off the stone wall. "The only way I know best."
I stepped right into her personal space. I didn't hesitate, sliding my hand smoothly past the cold metal of her armor to rest firmly on the soft, exposed skin of her toned waist.
Vala gasped quietly. Her entire body went completely rigid under my touch.
"Y-you don't have to do this," she whispered, her chest rising and falling rapidly as her eyes darted nervously down to my lips.
"But I want to…" I countered, leaning in closer until I could feel the heat radiating off her skin. "My conscience won't allow it otherwise."
Her breath hitched. She slowly closed her eyes, letting her head tilt down toward mine.
I pressed my lips against hers.
It was a short, gentle kiss, lasting maybe three seconds. But Vala completely melted.
The imposing muscle of the Tier 4 werewolf went completely slack against me.
I let my hand slide slightly higher, feeling the surprising softness of her chest pressing against my chest, contrasting perfectly with her firm, athletic waist.
And by the fourth second, I pulled back, breaking the kiss with a soft exhale.
Vala's crimson eyes fluttered open. She looked down at me, her pupils wide. She clearly wanted more, but the matriarchal instinct to not 'force' herself on a physically weaker male held her back.
She looked exactly like a starved dog staring at a steak she wasn't allowed to eat.
I tilted my head, putting on a perfectly innocent expression. "You want more?"
Panic flashed across her face.
"No! No, it was... I mean..." Her words trailed off into a flustered, high-pitched squeak. She stared hard at the cave wall, entirely unable to meet my eyes.
While I let out a low chuckle.
I didn't ask again. I just moved in, closing the distance to capture her lips in a much deeper, demanding kiss. I slid both my hands around her back, trailing down the leather armor to give her ass a gentle squeeze.
Vala let out a muffled gasp directly into my mouth. Her hands tentatively came up, her sharp metal talons hovering carefully in the air before she finally gripped my shoulders.
The deeper physical contact sent a sharp, genuine spike of arousal straight through my chest.
And as my heart rate jumped, my passive Incubus's Scent flared. The enclosed, humid space behind the boulder instantly flooded with a heavily concentrated dose of the mind melting skill.
Vala's grip on my shoulders suddenly tightened like a vice. Her metal claws bit painfully into my leather strap.
A low, deep rumble began to vibrate in her chest. It wasn't a purr. It sounded exactly like a starved, feral wolf.
Confused by the sudden aggression, I pulled back to break the kiss.
Vala's crimson eyes were completely blown out. Her pupils were dilated so wide that there was almost no red left.
She stared down at me, her chest heaving violently as she bared her fangs in an intense, terrifyingly feral hunger.
Before I could even process the shift, she moved.
She violently shoved me backward, slamming me hard against the cavern wall, knocking the breath out of my lungs before pinning my left wrist high over my head with one hand, putting her other hand flat against my chest to trap me completely against the boulder.
And with a growl, she practically shoved her face into mine, crushing her lips against my mouth with bruising, desperate, overwhelming force.
I froze while a spike of genuine, icy panic flooded my veins as my newly minted Tier 1 stats failed to budge her even an inch.
I was completely, physically trapped by a severely aroused Tier 4 Vala.
[Think I should've done some research on werewolves...]