"What could you possibly be so happy about?" demanded Kelima. "Look at that thing!"

It was only then that Terry realized that Kelima had seized his arm in a death grip with one hand and was pointing at what had to be the floor boss with the other. Wait, thought Terry. Is that the floor boss or the dungeon boss? Both, maybe? He wasn't sure how that worked and supposed it didn't make much difference for his immediate future. What mattered to him was that there were no vengeful minotaur ladies or weeping minotaur children. Just lots and lots of regular minotaurs, mostly. What mattered to Kelima was that the leader of the remaining minotaurs was big. It was really big. It was like the biggest minotaur lady in history had gotten busy with the Hulk or possibly King Kong.

"The Minohulk? Taurzilla? No, that's stupid. Kongotaur?" Terry mostly asked himself before giving a sharp nod. "Kongotaur."

"What are you babbling about?"

"The Kongotaur, obviously," said Terry. "Listen, if you keep squeezing my arm like that, I'm going to lose feeling in it. That'll make fighting hard."

Kelima finally tore her gaze away from the Kongotaur to give him a look. Then, she glanced down at the white-knuckle grip she had on his upper arm. She seemed almost surprised to find her hand there and hastily jerked it away.

"Thanks," said Terry, putting down the stolen axes he still carried and rubbing that spot on his arm.

The rubbing was mostly for show, but why waste the opportunity to crank up the awkwardness? If he made it uncomfortable enough, maybe she'd decide to abandon this stupid tag-a-long routine and go home. God only knew that she'd made this whole trip awkward as hell for him. Turnabout was fair play and all that.

"This is so bad," whispered Kelima. "There has to be a hundred of them. Even you can't fight that many. Not by yourself."

"Says who?" asked Terry. "I fought a whole pack of dire wolves by myself, and those bastards were waaaay more nimble than these cow-people. Plus, I've gotten stronger since then. I think it'll be fine."

"Sometimes, I honestly can't tell if you're wildly overconfident or if you're legitimately crazy."

I vote crazy, offered other-Terry.

There you go with those super helpful pep talks again, Terry answered in his head.

It's not my fault you're crazy. I just call it how I see it.

Are you planning on offering some actual advice here, or will it just be insults?

I'm pretty sure I can do both.

Delightful. Can we at least start with the helpful advice?

Who said anything about helpful? asked other-Terry. I said I could offer actual advice. Not helpful advice.

Doesn't it need to be helpful to be advice?

Definitely not. You've heard of mansplaining, right?

So, it's just the insults?

I expect so.

Great, thought Terry before turning his attention to Kelima.

"I'm not wildly overconfident," he told her. "I'm just the right amount of confident."

"You just said that you think you're going to beat all those monsters by yourself. And that didn't strike you as the least bit overconfident?"

"Well," said Terry, "I guess we'll find out who's right in a minute here. I probably shouldn't hold back with this one, should I?"

Kelima gave him an incredulous look and said, "You've been holding back up until now?"

"I didn't want to get too tired," he answered honestly while stretching. "I'll tell you this, though. Once we're back to civilization, I'm going to find a hot bath to soak in. All of this sleeping in stone tunnels and up in trees and in swamps is making my back a little stiff."

"That's what you're worried about right now? A bath? I take it back. I'm sure now. You're definitely crazy."

"You could use one, too," said Terry as he picked up the axes and started walking toward the minotaurs.

There were a few seconds of silence before Kelima shouted after him.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"What's that?" asked Terry over his shoulder. "I'm not sure what you're talking about. Must be that memory slipping again. Try not to get killed and eaten while I'm gone!"

Idle curiosity, said other-Terry. Do you actually have a plan for this?

I figure that I'll go with the usual.

So, punch, stab, slash, burn, freeze, and more punch?

Maybe not in that exact order, but more or less.

No one can say you lack consistency.

And yet, I feel like you're still insulting me, answered Terry. Now, be quiet unless you have some helpful advice. I need to concentrate.

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For all of Terry's bravado, the Kongotaur was giving him a little pause. He could make some educated guesses about how powerful the rest were based on the strength of the ones he had already beaten. There had been a steady uptick in their strength, the same way there had been with the monsters on the other floors. If these minotaurs followed that same general curve, defeating the entire herd by himself really was doable. The Kongotaur, on the other hand, might actually be stronger than him. It was a strange feeling. He hadn't come across anything like that in a while.

It had happened all the time when he first arrived and had no conscious control over his power. That stupid foliasaur had very nearly been the end of him. By the time he walked out of that abyssal forest, though, he'd absorbed enough power that he was usually the biggest bad in most rooms. That was a situation he far preferred to this present uncertainty. He also wasn't sure if this boss fight would be like the other boss fights. If the Kongotaur stayed out of it until Terry finished culling the herd, that situation was probably manageable. It wouldn't be fun, but none of this dungeon had been fun. If the towering monster got involved from the start and actually was stronger than him, he wasn't sure how things would play out.

"I guess the only way forward is through," he grumbled.

With that, he started focusing. A fireball grew and grew over his right shoulder, while a sphere of ice did the same over his left shoulder.

"Ha! It worked!"

He hadn't been sure if he could just make those appear wherever he wanted them. He suspected that it would have been much more difficult if he'd tried to make them appear five hundred feet in the air. Anywhere near his body didn't seem to create much additional strain. The strain this time came from just how goddamn big he was making that fireball and ice sphere. He had to keep adjusting their positions so he didn't injure himself with them. When they reached a point that started to feel unstable to him, he finally stopped. The plains all around him on the right had taken on a reddish cast from the light the fire was emitting. Everything within about twenty feet on the left was just freezing from the residual cold bleeding off that ice sphere.

Those ought to ruin someone's day, he thought. He was closing on the small horde of minotaurs. He wasn't sure how much closer he needed to get before they charged, but he wasn't going to wait for that. With a mental command and surge of magic that drained him enough that he nearly staggered, he sent the fireball and ice sphere racing toward the minotaurs. The magical attacks must have crossed whatever invisible barrier that kept the monsters from attacking, because they tried to scatter. Tried being the operative word. The two balls of death touched down on the ground, and even Terry stopped to stare.

To the right, a pillar of fire spread out and seemed to reach for the sky itself. The blast of heat from it was so intense that it felt like his eyes were instantly dehydrated. To the left, a wintry hellscape was created that flash-froze everything within a hundred feet, and frosted everything beyond that. Where they met in the middle, steam tried to explode in every direction, only to be instantly devoured by the inferno or instantly converted into ice. Terry just kept staring at the destruction he'd wrought and wondering if there was anything left to do. Could anything have survived the insanity of those diametrically opposed elemental attacks?

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than he lifted the axes. He might have killed the lesser minotaurs, but that goddamn Kongotaur would have survived it somehow. The dungeon tropes almost demanded it. The monster would have inevitably triggered a rage skill or a berserker skill or something else that temporarily boosted its health, endurance, and magic, assuming it had magic. That would let it survive and try to carry out its bovine revenge on him. A bellowing moo of incandescent fury rose above the noise of the pillar of fire.

"And there it is," said Terry.

He wasn't relieved to find out he was right. He wouldn't feel relieved until the fight was over. Discovering the boss was still alive did allow his paranoia to sink back into his subconscious, rather than pestering his conscious mind. That was a win, at least. When the half-charred, half-frozen Kongotaur burst through the fading elemental attacks, however, Terry winced. Those injuries looked painful, and no amount of aloe vera was going to fix them.

Focus! snapped other-Terry.

I'm on it, answered Terry.

He started running toward the visibly enraged boss. Its eyes were literally glowing red. Terry eyed the smoldering axe that the thing still carried. That was going to give it a huge reach advantage. I wonder if its speed has…He never got to finish that thought as the Kongotaur swung the axe so fast that even Terry barely had time to dive out of the way. He lost track of things after that. One second, he was desperately avoiding stamping hooves. The next, he was rolling out the way of the axe. Every time it hit the ground, hundreds of pounds of soil were thrown into the air.

"This damn thing is definitely stronger than me," growled Terry, barely ducking another swing of the axe. "No way I can meet it strength for strength."

You don't need to, said other-Terry. You just have to outlast it.

What the hell are you talking about? Terry shot back as the Kongotaur's fist nearly turned him into a particularly gross red paste.

Those rage and berserker skills only last so long. For a boss as powerful as this one, it might get ten minutes.

Ten minutes is a long fucking time in a fight! How long has it been so far?

Other-Terry didn't answer immediately. It remained silent as Terry desperately dodged and weaved around axe swings, punches, charges, and stamping hooves. Only when Terry had managed to put a little distance between himself and the monster did the construct answer.

Well, the good news is that you burned most of a minute right there.

How long? Terry nearly screamed at the construct.

You've been at this for about five minutes.

I you shitting me? I have to keep this up for another five minutes? This is not as easy as I'm making it look!

You're not making it look that easy.

That should tell you something, jackass!

Terry managed to avoid the Kongotaur's attacks, but only for nine minutes. Then, it managed to clip him with a punch. If it had managed to hit him full on, Terry was certain it would have killed him outright. The glancing blow it managed was only enough to send him flying and make him feel like half the bones in his body had been broken. He rolled and bounced several times before coming to a stop, staring straight up into the sky.

"Ow," he wheezed.

You really need to get up, said a frantic other-Terry.

I just got punched by a Kongotaur. I'm gonna need a second.

I think that's about all the time you have left!

That was when Terry saw the mighty monster high in the air, red eyes burning, and getting ready to bring its mighty axe down on him. Oh, that's not good, thought Terry as he tried to get his traumatized body to move. His body wasn't really interested in moving, but looming death seemed to be enough of a spur for him to start rolling out of the boss's strike zone. Fortunately, it didn't seem able to change its trajectory. Even so, it only missed him by about an inch, and the shockwave from the axe landing sent him flying again. That little adventure both hurt like hell and got his body fully on board with survival mode again. Terry staggered up to his feet and faced the Kongotaur. He was just in time to see the red glow in its eyes wink out.

"Finally," he groaned.

It seemed that whatever skill or ability it had used did not come without consequence. The monster collapsed with a pitiable, half-strangled moo. Terry staggered over to it. It seemed that it didn't even have the strength left to swipe at him. That was a good thing, because Terry hadn't recovered enough to dodge. He spared the Kongotaur a nasty look as he walked over to where the thing had dropped its ridiculously huge axe. Even with his enhanced strength, it took some effort to lift it. But Terry was motivated. He carried it over to the monster's head, lifted the weapon, and brought it down. There was a dull thunk as the Kongotaur's head separated from its body. Terry immediately released the axe and staggered a little.

With one final glare at the defeated monster, he said, "I win."

Then, Terry fell over.

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