"Don't fuck with me!" she exclaimed after reaching the bottom floor of the dungeon.
In the game, this could happen occasionally, but it was exceptional. In fact, it only happened if, for some reason, one of the players crossing were diametrically opposed to the guardian from the previous floor. It was something she had completely forgotten about, but now it had happened.
She looked to where the floor pass had been, but now there was only rock. She couldn't go back.
"Dammit..."
There was nothing she could do except keep going, and beat the last boss to find her way out, or so she hoped. For now, she needed to sleep. Gjaki had no idea how many hours she had spent fighting the sun boss, but her eyes were closing.
"It's daytime," she murmured as she saw the clock inside her tent-castle.
This time, the vampiress didn't even change her clothes before falling fast asleep while hugging one of the many cushions on the bed. It was bitten in her sleep.
"Why does the cushion have two holes? Has it always been like this?" she asked herself in surprise.
Since there was no way to find an answer, and it wasn't that important either, she decided to leave it there and take a relaxing hot bath. She felt her body sticky, as she had sweated a lot because of the heat of the suns. Her doze had made her ignore it, but with her faculties recovered, a bath was too tempting.
Luckily, the clothes just needed to be put into the inventory to get clean, hands down the best washer imaginable. In addition, all the material of the tent-castle, such as sheets or cushions, were like new once it was stored and summoned again.
In fact, when later Gjaki looked for the cushion with two holes to fix it and she couldn't find it, she wondered if she had dreamed it. It was a mystery, for those two holes continued to appear from time to time, a mystery that would take time to solve.
After breakfast, she felt somewhat depressed. She had just eaten the last of the goblin candy. The ones left were higher levels, and she didn't want to waste them. Therefore, she soon decided to pay them a visit when she got out of there, "to see how they were doing".
This time, she only sent a Bat to investigate, as she couldn't afford to waste blood. It may slow down the scouting, but it was better than losing some skills, especially Self-Regenerate.
She soon found a spherical being the size of her head. It was floating, spinning, and covered in spikes pointing out.
"A hedgehog..." she muttered while frowning.
They weren't particularly difficult enemies, but it wasn't easy to beat them without a scratch. Each scratch meant a drop less of her blood supply, especially since they were poisonous. Although the poison wasn't fatal, it did force to investing more effort in healing, blood in her case.
The main problem was that they had no weak points, and rotated on themselves. It was difficult to damage them without taking any damage if using the vampiress' usual melee style.
She ordered the Bat to return to her, thus drawing the hedgehog after it. As soon as it was in front of her, she used Scrub with the whip blessed by Dark Touch, in the opposite direction that it was spinning. After fast repeating it once more, she managed to almost stop its rotation, so she took the opportunity to Grab it. Gjaki succeeded and swung the whip violently, thus taking her enemy with it and slamming it against the rock.
Immediately, she jumped over and tried to grab one of the spikes, but they were too slippery. Therefore, she quickly took a step back and, not giving it time to defend itself, pulled out a hammer and smashed it with the blunt weapon.
She had managed to beat it without a scratch. It was a strategy that seemed repeatable without much trouble, but she wasn't satisfied.
After inspecting the whip and the hammer, she noted that they had taken damage, especially the former. It wasn't serious, but it would be in five or six more times. Unfortunately, she had no more of the same level, nor the means to repair them. If she were at level 100, there wouldn't have been any problem, since she had several weapons of each type at that level.
She could use a lower level whip, but it would definitely break down sooner, plus she didn't know if it would be as effective. She needed to find another way to stop it, because the damage to the weapon hadn't been from Grabbing it and hitting it against the rock. It had been from stopping its rotation when the whip had been damaged by the spikes of the hedgehog.
The easiest option would have been to use Blood Hounds, if she didn't have blood supply issues. Darkness Pillar would probably work, but it needed too much mana.
She decided to try Mirror Clones, and confirmed that the creatures in the dungeon ignored them, as did Mirror Trap. It was logical, since illusions affect the mind, and these beings lack it, although Gjaki wasn't comforted by that explanation. She only knew that in the game it worked, and there it didn't.
Tentacles weren't quite effective, as they couldn't coil up and stop the being that was continually spinning and covered in spikes. Shooting Dagger was often repelled by the spinning effect.
Using a shield was effective in stopping it, and the being was damaged when colliding with it, but the shield was also damaged. Unfortunately, the idea of using Manual Block to stop the attack and rotation with her fingers was a resounding failure.
"Dark Wall again? It's the most boring tactic," she resigned herself.
However, it was also the most effective. So, against the next one, she placed a Dark Wall, which was unable to harm her. She just needed to dodge, stay close to the Wall, and avoid any kind of contact from her enemy to continually pass through.
It wasn't something she had used in the game, not in such a small space, since the camera and the controls didn't facilitate such a tactic. In reality, however, it was highly effective, and those hedgehogs were much slower than a Flash.
Since they couldn't make sudden maneuvers in the air, and she didn't need to attack them, it was simple for her, if a bit slow.