home

search

Chapter 19: Infested Dungeon

  -----

  Paul and Chris found something weird about the Obsidiaons the moment they stepped into the Dungeon. First, they were at least twice as rge as st time, yet they had just chosen the same difficulty as before, which was already the hardest difficulty before.

  Sed, their bodies were covered in sharp red crystals, growing all over their bodies. Their rusty armor and ons were also no longer present; the crystals seemed to be their spiky armor of sorts, and their ons were just spears made of this red crystal.

  The entire dark ruins were riddled with these shiny red minerals, and they were left in wonder as their foes rushed towards them with the io sy them, as all monsters do to invaders.

  Instance Dungeons create a “server” for the party to fight on, so there is never a dungeon shared by everyone; a separate space, a copy of the inal dungeon is created instead, only temporarily, and it crumbles down after aimated time.

  The harder the dungeon difficulty, the more time it takes to crumble down. The [Obsidiaon Lord Lair, whose Infernal Difficulty was Tier 3.5, takes two hours to crumble down. So, naturally, pyers would usually take it easy and slowly explore the dungeon.

  However, in all of aul has researched, there has never been an instance where Dungeoed that something had ged like this. It felt as if the monsters had pletely transformed and evolved.

  “This could be a game meic that nobody has discovered yet, Chris!” said Paul excitedly. “The monsters are alser; are they all peak Tier 3!?”

  “I don’t know but be careful! Are you using the Trait?” asked Chris as his Ara Aura surged from his body, his magic bow pointing at the ining skeletons.

  “No, I want to test how strong I be with my equipment alone first,” Paul said. “Fire arrows of fire at those that I throw down!”

  “O-Okay? Sure!” Chris was slightly nervous but decided to follow Paul’s and.

  Vd’s armored self-charged, or well, flew through the air, g against a dozen Obsidiaons at oh nothing but his tough armor.

  The first test was that of durability! He wao see how tough his armor could be by taking a few hits first.

  The crystal spears rushed down; Paul imagihey would be tougher than the obsidian bohe skeletons were made of.

  CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!

  The giant skeletons attempted to impale him, only for the spears to slide through the armor and end up hitting the ground, an invisible phantasmal force pulling the force of the impact away and decreasing the damage dealt.

  Paul checked the armor’s entire durability; it had only decreased by 11 out of over 80k!

  When an equipment piece's Durability reached zero, it would break. However, when the pieces of equipment were unified into a set, such as Vd and Paul’s equipment, their durability bined into a single pool that every piece shared.

  This means that unless all the item's bined durability reaches zero, the armor will never break, no matter how many hits it receives. It was incredible and had a strong effect, which perhaps only a few pyers as of now have discovered.

  “He tanked all the hits?!” Chris gasped.

  “Now’s my turn; I am not even going to waste Ara with this!”

  Vd’s Blood Power Aura surged, bining with his Soul Aether, his palms, covered with hard gloves of metal, unleashed a barrage of blows.

  “{Winds Of Speed}!”

  {Soul-Eating Fist Teique}: {Soul-Pierg Needle}!

  Vd’s fingers became golden and crimson needles, pierg the souls of the skeletons in front of him at a rapid, lightning speed. This was thanks to his armor’s Spell {Winds of Speed}, whipassed his body on a swirling field of winds that enhanced his speed by moving his body forward.

  BAAM! BAAM! BAAM! BAAM!

  Owo, three, four, five, six, seve, and ten puruck the skeletons in front of Vd, and none of them died. But their bodies quivered in pain, and their souls felt as if vicious jaws took pieces out of them with each impact.

  “Chris, now!”

  As Vd puhem away, three more skeletons appeared from behind him, attempting to trip him down with their spears.

  “Aye!”

  Chris’ magic bow fred with Ara, magical powers f and bzing together into the shape of an arrow of fmes, firing down not o three at a time.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  Three explosions of fmes engulfed the weakened skeletons, their bodies shattered into pieces and their bones burning. Undead were weak to fire, no matter what weird mutation they had gohrough.

  “RAAH!”

  The three skeletons behind Vd pushed him away; his great size a made it harder for them to forcefully push him. Vd quickly twisted his posture around the air, trolling the power of the simple spell {Float} with more dexterity than before.

  CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!

  The spear attacks impacted him once more, but this time they came with bzing explosions of fire. Paul and Chris quickly learhe nature of the crystals; they were imbued with busting prowess, yet it could only be activated by the wielders of this crystal alone.

  BOOOM!

  “Ugh…!”

  Paul ushed away more thahought, almost falling. The heaviness of his armor was something hard to get used to. The skeletons rushed to finish him off, leaping into the air and rushing down with their spears.

  “{Stone Wall}!”

  RUMBLE!

  A wall of four meters made of stone surged out of the ground, blog the attacks, and colpsing almost immediately after. The skeletons pursued Vd, only to be greeted by his fists as she appeared from below.

  It worked in his favor that they were so tall, hiding right beh the wall, not g about the rubble that couldn’t harm him, and quickly moving his fists upwards.

  Imbued with the Blood Power his Blood Core cultivated, plus the Soul Aether, untouched by his Curse, his fists had bee rather strong.

  BAAM! BAAM! BAAM!

  CRASH!

  The crystals of the skeletons shattered as Vd’s fists broke through their defehen he quickly spun away as their spears attempted to impale him again, only hitting the ground and creating explosions of fire.

  BOOOM!

  “Chris!”

  “Yeah!”

  The Incubus appeared above the skeletons, this time wielding his Trident, right iween the eyes when they least expected it. Their bck skulls were all caved in and broken, the crystals filling their heads exploded, and bzing fmes covered everything.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  “Wooaah!”

  Chris lost bance due to the shockwave of the explosions. It seemed that the skeletons decided to blow themselves up the moment they saw Chris destroying their skulls.

  Losing his bance, Chris fell from the sky.

  “Shit, that’ll hurt- Ouch!”

  K!

  However, instead of hitting the cold floor, he hit etal, as Vd mao barely grab him before he fell, carrying the incubus like a princess.

  “You good?” Vd wondered, his helmet disappearing as it was stored inside his iory to allow for better visibility.

  “…” Chris remained in silence for a moment.

  He felt enthralled by the sight of a handsome vampire knight just holding him in his rge arms.

  “Chris?”

  “A-Ah, yeah! I’m good, thanks, bro, but don’t hold me for too long; that’s kind of gay, haha!”

  Chris quickly flew away from Paul, who inwardly sighed.

  “What’s gay about it? You almost broke your skull while falling. You have to practice flying teiques,” said Vd. “I thought you could float freely, but you need some dexterity to do it, right?”

  “Y-Yeah, yeah, you’re n there,” nodded Chris, trying tain his posure. “Alright, so first room... fifteen? Damn, that’s a lot.”

  “It sure is, but there’s five rooms before the boss, and we’re only at the entrance,” said Paul. “Remember that there’s a hundred of these skeletons before the Lord.”

  “It’ll be a bit plicated then; their new form is a bit more annoying than I imagined,” Chris sighed. “How are we going to deal with them?”

  “Just like we did now, but don’t get too close for now... Their busting crystals seem to only activate at their and; if we break them, it doesn’t explode,” said Paul, analyzing the corpses left behind and st everything. “I’ll distribute ains once we’re out.”

  “Fine by me,” said Chris. “Should we livestream this? I mean, it’s something that has never happened before. We could get a lot of attention!”

  “I-I don’t know if I’m feeling like livestreaming. ’t you just film it and make it into a video?” wondered Paul.

  “Oh, that’s oo, sure!” Chris nodded. “I’m pretty good at that myself.”

  “Your talents never cease,” Paul joked around.

  “What did that even mean…”

  As the pair made their way to the first room, they discussed the capabilities of their new equipment.

  “The armor is much tougher than I imagined; did you see how I tanked all those hits? I’m a sickly and crippled bastard, but I was totally ag as a tank there. Maybe I should get myself a floating shield ,” said Paul with a smile. “No wait, several floating shields... or floating ons? Wait, I do that too?”

  “I think you wouldn’t be able to trol too many floating things, dude, but the bow was good; I liked it~” Chris smiled. “It helped a lot, and I use it from above, so I am pretty far from danger.”

  "Yeah, I made it for that purpose,” said Vd. “How about the skimpy clothes?”

  “S-Skimpy?! Hey, it’s all I equip right now! Their stat boost is good though; yeah, the Ara I get is much more now; I do a lot,” said Chris. “The gamepy is totally different when you have a lot of Ara to work with, huh?”

  “It sure stinks; we ’t grow stronger in this dungeon, but we should raid the others ter,” Paul said. “I nning on going to the outskirts; there are no ces for treasure chests, and it is much more dangerous because you risk getting jumped by hunters or pyer killers, but the energy we get there is much more plentiful.”

  “I like the idea, sure,” said Chris. “Alright, we’re going in then.”

  “Yes, but first, you have yet to use the gloves. The further we go, the more monsters; summowo wolves if possible.” Chris said. “ you do it?”

  “Of course I , bro; leave it to me~” Chris smiled; he liked being relied on.

  “{Crimson Wolf Magies}!”

  FLASH!

  Both of Chris’ gloves shoh bd crimson light, fire and storansf and taking the shape of twe wolves, eaade of that element and around two meters i.

  “Woof!”

  “Awroo!”

  “Nice! Works well! You two protect our backs, alright? you obey me?” Chris wondered.

  The two wolves seemed to nod, making very intelligent summons. Vd didn’t really know what their position truly was; they were simply spells given form, but they seemed smarter.

  “Let’s go.”

  BAAAM!

  With a powerful kick, Vd opehe door to the room. Eighteeons greeted them this time. Eae was the same as before, covered with red crystals, and twice as rge as the normal ones, reag over three meters.

  “These things would wipe out a party immediately; they’re sure huge!” said Chris.

  “Let’s chat ter, though,” said Vd, charging forward. “I’ll get their attention; you shot them down from above. The wolves... use the stone oo protect you if he sed es with me.”

  “Okay then! Redy, go with Paul! Rocky, with me!” Chris said.

  “Redy and Rocky?” ughed Paul. “Those are cute names.”

  “Shut up and just fight! Why do you care how I call my damn dogs?!” Chris got more embarrassed than he would have wanted.

  CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!

  The skeleton's attacks reached Paul, who was quickly attacked from several areas; his armor made him imperable, and the skeletons tried b him with exploding blows ohey saw their first attacks didn’t work, only to get their long legs broken by Paul’s fists.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  CRASH!

  Their bodies quickly colpsed the moment their legs broke, an easy way to deal with skeletons with such thin legs as these. The taller they became, the nkier and thihey were too.

  Explosions of crimson soul fmes erupted with each of Paul’s attacks; the skeletons were only being pushed back!

  Redy also did his part, r, barking, and charging with his bzing body, f tiny explosions that the skeletons didn’t like that much.

  At the same time, Chris fired three arrows.

  “Move!” he said.

  BOOOM!

  The arrows exploded in tact, and the skeletons swarming Vd and Redy met their end at that moment, exploding into tless crystal and bck pieces.

  “GAAAHH…!”

  However, the scream of a few furious, surviving skeletons reverberated from behind Chris.

  “What the…?!”

  His eyes widened as he saw something he didn’t expect.

  The four surviving skeleton crystals were moving as if they were a separate living anism, fusing...

  And theing a winged entity.

  “Chris!”

  -----

  Pach

Recommended Popular Novels