Sorry for the long wait guys, weekend was my birthday so ended up with no time to write so everything got kinda pushed back 2 days. For those who didn't know part of the rewrite for chapter 28 is already out as chapter 28 and 29 so please go re-read those before reading chapter 30.
Also I finally bugged Kana enough and he worked his time wizard skill to fix all the views I got from search engine crawlers so time to re-climb back up to rank 1 monthly and into monthly ranking! >=3
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The demons finally got away from the monsters and chased after the adventurer that got away. They finally saw the adventurer who had fallen down and was currently cowering against a wall making all the demons smile as they saw the adventurer’s fear and slowly walked towards him. “Good boy, now you can join your little friends!”
Just as they got close the demons saw an object fall to the ground before them. They were startled at first but after taking a look they noticed it was a token. The tokens looked very similar to the trial room tokens so after taking one look the demons decided to get back to killing this adventurer. However just before they turned their gaze a blinding light came from the token completely blinding the three demons.
“Argggghhhh, my eyes!” One of the demons rushed forward in an attempt to get the human that he knew was only five feet away. However as he dashed forward he felt something hit him from his side and he was knocked to the ground. Soon he felt a powerful force hit his head causing his mind to go blank and at the next moment he could no longer feel his body. After being sent into shock his natural defenses weakened greatly allowing the adventurer to cut of the demon’s head. The other two demons realized something was wrong the moment they were blinded and they chose to back up instead.
However they weren’t lucky either as there were monsters behind them already, however the monsters were too weak so they only managed to injure the demons lightly before being knocked away. Soon the demons regained their senses and saw their dead companion. At first they were angry but soon they noticed that they were surrounded by monsters on both sides. This caused their hearts to skip a beat as they immediately went into battle mode. The monsters quickly swarmed at them and split the two demons apart.
At first they were doing well dealing with the monsters but soon John and Blue joined in on the fight. Although their fighting strength was only at rank E and would normally stand no chance against these rank D demons, with the help of the monsters they were able to put up a good fight. John channelled all his anger at himself towards the demon and his attacks became even fiercer. Soon the demons realized that if this continued he was going to get exhausted to death as he had to deal with so many enemies at once. Thus he decided to activate his final move but just as he did so another token fell near him and locked him in place.
During the activation of this skill the demons were the most vulnerable and after being caught by the binding restriction they would have to re-channel their mana which would take time. Using this opening John plunged his sword into the heart of the demon before quickly turning around to help Blue. The remaining demon finally began to panic, he never thought that this simple mission would become hard. He wanted to run but was surrounded by monsters and the constant attacks from Blue and John finally caught him off guard and he took a slash at the waist. The demon stumbled back from the shock of the blow and was knocked to the ground by a goblin. John quickly took this chance and stabbed the demon in the throat.
John let out a breath of relief as the last demon died. This battle went exceptionally well for them because those demons were all rank D. The death of the first demon was what really won the battle for them as that not only shocked the demons into thinking they were stronger but also allowed John and Blue to engage one each. Had the third one been alive, it would have been impossible to keep them apart. The adventurer that killed the first demon finally began to cry as he mourned the loss of his friends. He slammed his fist into the ground, tears streaming down his eyes as he cried, “Why! Why did she had to die! Why wasn’t it me instead…”
John reluctantly walked up and stopped him from hurting himself any longer. John wished he could give the man time to mourn but right now it was a race against the clock. “I know you must feel terrible right now but this isn’t over yet.”
The adventurer suddenly stopped and turned to John, “What… what do you mean?”
“Like I said before the demons planned this so every single party that came in has demons. There is a total of 5 parties in here today. We just killed the demons in your party and I have dealt with the ones in mine. Sigrid’s party is down at the third floor with a rank B demon.” The adventurer’s face suddenly turned pale at the words rank B demon. “So there are still two remaining parties of demons left. According to the monsters there is one more survivor like you so we must go and rescue that person as soon as possible. Once we save that person we need to get out of here and get help from the Adventurers’ Guild, only they can help the dungeon now.”
The adventurer was startled by the sudden news and asked, “Help the dungeon?”
John nodded, “Their target is to control the dungeon, imagine what would happen if a demonic dungeon appears within the borders of Zeal! This would be the ideal forward base for an demon invasion!”
The adventurer was once again shocked by the revelation. John felt bad for lying, while it was true that this could happen the chances of it being true were very low with the guild master around. At most the dungeon was turned demonic but quickly dealt with by the guild master. However he was in a rush to save Sigrid so he needed this guy to help him fight instead of moping around. The adventurer shook his head to clear his thoughts and nodded at John. With that they quickly moved through the second floor.
Since Sage could see everything that happens in the dungeon he easily lead Blue and John to the next group of demons. This group had successfully managed to kill their party so they weren’t chasing anyone but trying to clear out monsters as they moved deeper to their leader. Sage used this to his advantage and purposely lured them into many traps. This kept the loss of monsters to a minimal while slowly weakening the demons.
“Guys… let us take a break here…”
“Good idea… we ran.. Into so many traps on the way here…”
“Damn… these… monsters…”
The three demons just wiped out another group of monsters but had suffered through a pitfall trap filled with slimes that tried to digest them. The pit was deep so it took them awhile to get out and lost a lot of mana to the slimes. They stopped at room with only two entrance and decided to rest here.
“Damn, why is the mana here so thin today? Normally recovery is very quick in here.”
“Hahaha, probably the boss is doing work on the dungeon core.”
“Yeah, the dungeon core must be panicking right now trying to absorb more mana. Hahaha.”
The real reason the mana is so thin around them was Sage actively moving the mana away from them. His goal was to weaken this group of demons as much as possible so John and Blue’s group could easily take care of them in one fell swoop. He also secretly dug a tunnel into that room wall opening up right above the demon’s heads. Blue quickly guided the group into the secret passage made by Sage and once they all arrived Sage connected the tunnels.
With a bang the side of the wall exploded and rocks fell down from above onto the demons. The relaxed demons panicked as they tried to find where the explosion came from. When they noticed the pebbles hitting them on their head they looked up and their faces were filled with terror. They wanted to dodge but it was too late as rocks and monsters fell down and smashed on top of them. They were able to knock away the first or second goblin that was dropping down on top of them but soon all three were knocked to the ground.
Once they were down the monsters gave them no chance to get up so the demons could only focus their mana on defending themselves. This didn’t last long as John, Blue, and the adventurer quickly got down and finished off the demons before they could regain their bearings. Normally the demons were strong enough to not get knocked down by the goblins falling on them but they were already exhausted and caught off guard.
John’s heart pounded as he made sure the demons were dead, “Only three more demons then we can get help! Hold on, I’m coming with help soon…” They had no time to celebrate their victory as Blue quickly lead them to the last survivor.
This last party was on the first floor when the battles began as the last group’s job was to keep people from leaving. They decided to not chase after the adventurer that went away because as long as she didn’t get out it didn’t matter if she lived for a bit longer. Once their leader won there would be nowhere left for her to hide.
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“Damn, they blocked the only way out of here.” The female adventurer secretly checked the passage, “I know there are 4 more parties in here today, maybe I can get help from them?” With that thought in mind she began to move deeper into the dungeon. She was very cautious but soon she noticed something was off. There were no monsters as she traveled through the dungeon, this caused her to feel very uneasy as it meant something was really wrong here. After traveling through the first floor for 30mins she got close to the stairs to the second floor.
Just as she got close she heard footsteps and quickly hid herself. Right now the situation was too strange and she couldn’t be too sure on who might be coming. Soon she saw two adventurers emerge. She recognized one of them as John, one of the two rank E adventurers in here today. But the next scene completely shocked her as a boy who was blue and almost transparent came out behind them followed by a group of monsters. Just as she was trying to process what was going on the boy pointed towards her and said “There.”
John quickly turned towards that direction and shouted, “Please come out, we mean you no harm.”
After a while the female adventurer came out from her hiding place, however she was still very guarded and asked, “Care to explain what is going on?”
John let out a wry smile and said, “It’s a long story and we don’t have much time. The simple version is that demons are trying to take over the dungeon and we need to break out of here to get help from the Adventurers’ Guild. The dungeon is helping us because the demons are threatening it.”
The female adventurer raised her brow and said, “And you expect me to believe that?”
John let out a sigh, “You don’t have much of a choice do you? The demons have blocked the exit and without the help of the monsters we stand no chance against them.”
“And what is to stop the dungeon from turning on us once all the demons are dead?” The female adventurer is still very doubtful of the whole situation.
John was starting to lose his patience as he growled, “Because there is a rank B demon on the third floor! The dungeon needs us to to get help from the guild and once the rank A and above adventurers are here do you still think the dungeon can turn on us? Now either you help us or you can try your luck getting out yourself. Remember the monsters haven’t attacked you because the dungeon sees you as a potential ally.”
The female adventurer was shocked by John’s sudden change in tone. She thought hard for a while but finally letting out a sigh and nodded her head. John relaxed a bit and said, “Let’s go then.”
As the group moved towards the chock leading to the dungeon entrance, the female adventurer asked, “Why doesn’t the dungeon core just build us a tunnel out of here? Since all these demons are doing is guarding the entrance, as long as we get past them, it would be fine.”
Blue shook his head and said, “Too slow, no time.”
The female adventurer frowned and said, “So what is the plan then? Those guys must be at least rank E and there are three of them.”
Blue suddenly cut in before she could continue and said, “Rank D”
“Great, even better three rank D. How are we going to win?”
John frowned and sternly said, “Like how we killed the last 9 rank D demons.”
The female adventurer was startled at what John just said, it took her a while to recover before she asked, “And that is?”
John for the first time since this whole thing started let out a smile and said, “With a good plan and help from the dungeon.” With that John explained the plan they had made to take care of those last remaining demons. The idea was to ambush the demons and push them back into traps set up behind them. There were still monsters on the other side of the blockade set up by the demons, they will attack to get their attention. Then John’s group will hit them while they are dealing with the monsters and catch them off guard forcing them into the trap set up on the other side.
Soon they arrived near the choke point where the demons were guarding. They got in position and waited, after a few minutes both them and the demons heard footsteps coming from the other side.
“What! Could the humans have sent help already?”
“No! That’s impossible! We were the last party in so no one could have gotten passed us.”
“Wait! It’s just monsters from the first floor. Damn still that many? Where were they hiding?”
“Whatever, still easy pickings. At least something to do while we wait.”
The monsters arrived and began to fight the demons. However since these were floor one monsters they were very weak and the demons were mostly toying with them rather than fighting seriously. But just as they were playing around John’s group slowly closed in and once they could longer move in any closer without being noticed they charged forward.
The sudden appearance of three adventurers and a large group of monsters startled the demons. They suddenly became serious and started to wipe out the monsters they were currently fighting. By the time John and Blue reached the demons, only a few of the monsters that started the fight remained but they did their job and let John’s group have the element of surprise. The demons were caught off guard and slowly pushed backwards. With the addition of two more adventurers they can now easily keep each of the 3 demons busy and prevented them from working together.
Things were going well and the demons were slowly being pushed toward the trap but suddenly something changed. The male adventurer felt that they had the demon on the ropes so he suddenly went really aggressive. However the demons had been waiting for a chance and this was it. The male adventurer’s attack missed and in return the demon slashed across his chest which sent him smashing into the wall. Suddenly the pressure on one demon was lost as the female adventurer was now pushed back even with the help of the monsters.
“Damn it!” John was furious as the battle began to spiral out of their control.
*Sage’s chamber*
Sage who was watching this also became very frustrated. The plan was going perfect but the rash action of that one adventurer ruined it all. If it wasn’t for the fact that he needed them to get help he wouldn’t mind making that man suffer slowly before killing him. Ideals rapidly went through his head and he suddenly remembered something Alice said just before.
“That could work… but no it isn’t enough with just Blue. Think Sage, think…” Sage began to rapidly analyze different possibilities and just when it seemed there was nothing else to increase the chance of success something suddenly entered his mine. “Maybe… just maybe it will work…”
*First Floor*
The battle was getting ugly as more and more monsters died. John and Blue moved some of the monsters helping them to help keep the third demon in check but it wasn’t going to last long.
“Is this it? Is this the end for us? Is my weakness going to destroy the last hope of saving her?” John began to despair as he see no way out of his. “Is this really all I can do?”
Just at this moment he suddenly heard someone shouting his name, “John, catch!” John turned toward the voice and saw Blue tossing a blue thing at him. He quickly dodged an attack from the demon and caught it. The thing was like a blue marble only it was soft instead of hard. John was very confused by what this is but before he could ask Blue shouted again, “Eat! Trust me!” At the same time Blue shouted that he threw out 2 flash talismans. John knew that this was the final trump card that the dungeon had prepared so he closed his eyes and swallowed it without any hesitation.
As he felt the bright light through his eyelids and heard the cursing of the monster he could feel whatever he swallowed dissolving and spreading throughout his body. Soon mana began to gather at those points in his body where the strange substance had spread to. Feeling the surge of mana inside his body John felt more alive than he had ever felt before.
And for the second time today John let out a smile and whispered, “Yes, with this I can help…”
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Edited by: Nova and The super secret masked editor... from space!