In the internal corridors of the dungeon, Colonel Gaydon madly charged towards the monsters. Although he looked tall and frail, that guy was, in fact, a powerful paladin. It would normally take much longer than that to reach the secret room but being a paladin, he used his aura skill to buff himself and many other guards at the camp also buffed him to greatly increase his speed.

As such, he was able to quickly climb the dungeon. The other guards were closely following behind him but they were clearly slower than him; it would at least take them a full minute to reach the colonel.

However, he did not have time to wait. The colonel disdainfully swung his hammer around, smashing to death 3 players of the Gem Family in a single swing. He did not care that the Gem Family was the ally of the general, it was their fault if the general's son was in danger and he did not have time to politely ask them to move out of the way.

Colonel Gaydon charged forward and eventually caught sight of the general's son who was fighting on the frontline. Beside him, several guards were desperately trying to protect their leader.

The monsters were not extremely smart, but they had good instinct; they easily pointed out that the weakest target of this group was definitely the general's son and chose to eliminate the weakest member first.

"Colonel Gaydon! You are finally here. Quick! Help me there!" shouted the general's son as soon as he saw the colonel madly rushing towards him. It turned out that the general’s son was the young master Kenor who accompanied the players. He let out a sigh of relief as soon as he saw the colonel. He knew that he was safe now!

...

In the throne's room, the monsters tensed as they saw the colonel easily slaughter the level 30 monsters they dispatched. Although he was a paladin, the colonel was someone who had a high offensive power and should not be underestimated.

While Five was not aware of that since he could not see the monster's level, the colonel was in fact not any weaker than any of those present in the room. One of them would definitely have to go and stop him if they wanted to stop the rampage.

Harriet quickly spoke: "We need to do something! You should contact master!"

"No, Master is very busy at the moment! He is in a conference with the Duke and cannot be disturbed for such a small matter! In fact, it might be a good opportunity! Master recently asked me to possess more humans! That colonel or the man he is trying to protect would be perfect targets!" commented Mehlroth.

"Mmmm"

"Mehlroth is right. We can strike two birds with a stone this way! But neutralizing the colonel without killing him will not be that easy!" said Roy

"As long as two of you help me, this will be an easy task! But we must act quickly! The guards are coming, and they might have also asked for more reinforcement from the city!" declared Mehlroth.

Hearing that, Harriet also proposed an idea, "I can send some harpies to scout the path to the city!"

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Good! Let's go then. Master will be pleased!"

The tall figure covered in the black cape started to float towards the exit. He was quickly followed by the frogman and another monster that looked like a pile of moving goo. These two did not have much battle strength, but they were extremely good at pinning down their opponents and so, were the best choice to deal with the colonel who they did not want to kill.

"Stay here! I'll speak to my sisters and come back," said Harriet before quickly taking her leave.

Now, Five was left with 5 other monsters who were quietly looking at the screen, three of which were leader monsters. Five naturally recognized Roy who pretended that he never saw him before. As for the other two, one looked like a Lionman and the other looked like a young child, but her hair and body were completely green; she was a dryad!

Only the Lionman seemed to have brought followers but Five was wondering if lizardmen like Roy could also blend with their environment and so, be invisible.

The atmosphere was heavy, and no one seemed to care about him. But Five was very careful nevertheless. On the surface, he looked very focused on the screen but in reality, all his mind was thinking of was the defenseless dungeon core on the pedestal.

He estimated that there were less than 5 meters between him and the dungeon core but Five highly doubted that he would be able to reach it before Kroff's monsters would react. He carelessly readjusted his posture, getting closer to the dungeon core by 20cm but stopped there.

He still had time and did not want to attract suspicions.

On the screen, the colonel was swinging his hammer around him, smashing the monsters head on the ground. He just wanted to retreat and bring the general's son to safety but upon the request of the latter, he ended up continuing to push forward, killing monsters left and right.

The colonel naturally came to the dungeon countless time in the past and had even gone as far as the 52nd floor but never did he see the monsters that the adventurers were killing. In his mind, he was starting to celebrate! A new type of monster meant an unexplored area! That meant that many treasures were probably hidden nearby, and he was currently the strongest person present.

While he wanted to protect the general's son, he also did not want to miss the treasures. After debating with himself, he estimated that he would be able to handle the monsters. In the worst scenario, he would just bring the general's son away and flee. By now, the guards had already caught up and were actively helping in exterminating the monsters.

Many players died in this messy fight but the majority was still alive. That was especially true for the Gem Family who stuck to the general's son and took advantage of the NPCs' strength.

It looked like they would have a great harvest, but at that precise moment, a sudden cloud of black smoke flew towards the guards and the players. The smoke was so dense that they could no longer see anything. Many players panicked but the guards were very calm; they had been trained for this kind of situation. The worst thing to do was to panic since they might end up hurting a comrade by doing so.

But a few seconds after the black cloud surrounded them, many players started to loudly curse before falling one by one, "F*ck, this smoke is poisonous! Don't inhale the smoke! Use your antidotes! Quick!"

"Our antidotes are useless!!"

"The items. Someone please pick up my items!"

"Captain! What do we do!?"

Cries of despair filled the corridors as the players fell one by one. The black cloud was, in fact, the frogman's skill: [Poisonous Miasmic Cloud], a powerful skill that could be used to both blind and poison his opponents. His poison was so potent that a specific antidote was required to get rid of the poison.

While all the players perished one by one, the guards managed to survive. They were stronger and had better vitality. But more importantly, they also had items to help them resist the poison. While they could not completely cure the poison, they could temporarily suppress its effect.

However, being alive now was not necessarily a good thing as several monsters took advantage that they were blinded to attack them.

The colonel was also blinded and naturally heard the shouts of the adventurers. His first instinct was to go back to the general's son, but he could not pinpoint his location. Without hesitation, he took out a small item from his storage bag before smashing it on the ground.

A small explosion was heard but more importantly, the black cloud with a radius of 10m of the colonel was blown away. He used a special explosive which did upon detonating, would release the air compressed inside. The colonel successfully caught sight of the general's son who was unconscious, but he was still moving. The general's son was lying on the floor, but a greenish arm was pulling him by his leg.

"D*mn!" shouted the colonel as he charged towards the general's son. [Aura of light: Protection] He immediately used a skill, projecting a powerful aura that could suppress his enemies. The greenish arm froze for a second but then, three more green arms appeared and hurriedly grabbed onto the general's son.

An alarm rang in his head as the colonel charged to help the general's son but at that moment, he instinctively chose to jump to the side! And his instinct did not fail him as a projectile flew and landed precisely on the path where he was going.

"Sh*t! There's more than one monster!"