Chapter 104 No Oretail
----------------------------------------
"Why aren't we reaching it? It has been over a day. There was no crystal anywhere but occasional salamanders or lizards…." Alistar complained while Sig was perturbed by the lack of crystals in his imagination.
"Where? We have mined a few in the past, but it should not be this far. We should have already found some!" Another day passed, and now we were in a full-blown panic as there was no trace of the aforementioned Titan ores. Instead of the ores, we found stairs leading to the next floor.
"Will we find it if we reach deeper floors?" Alistar asked. His hope now turned into despair as we had to tackle another dungeon floor.
"Yeah. Probably. I have never ventured that far, but the farther you go, the better the ores you will get. But in the next biome, there should only be an assortment of silver, gold, and diamonds, not titan ore there." Sig sighed.
"So we need to march on for another two floors? We have been in this place for almost a week now. I am worried about the outside world." Edelweiss muttered.
"We could not return empty-handed either. Let’s move one Edelweiss. I am sure the people back home will be able to hold on just a little bit longer." Alistar said while going down the stairs.
"Where are the diamonds? All I see is molten metal…." Mattheus murmured in disappointment when all that I saw around me was a lava lake with thin bridges swirling on it. Various moving platform reminiscing of the previous boiling lava was also there.
"Well, let's move on then. I guess it is safe to say all of Sig's previous knowledge is useless."
"I agree. The dungeon has changed," Sig nodded.
"Maybe we can find the titan ores here!" Lily said hopefully.
"Watch out! Heavy mana signature inbound!" Edelweiss shouted.
"Where!" Alistar exclaimed. Snapping his gaze unto Edelweiss at once.
When a mage said that Mana's signature was detected, it usually meant a monster that was using magic or using magic passively was around them. And monsters that did those things were generally powerful monsters or specifically had mage build.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
"Below us!"
The ground trembled, and then the massive dragon we had encountered previously in the boiling lake appeared. It was the same beast. The number of heads and injuries are the same. The once eight-headed dragon was now four-headed as it emerged from the lava. Molten metal drenched its whole body, but it was unfazed and glared at us. It then shook its body like a cat trying to dry its body. It was cute for a cat, but this one was a giant four-headed dragon, and it was not water it was trying to spray onto us, but lava.
"Shields over our heads. Get cover!!" Lily stole my buckler and raised it over her head. We grouped up on some wandering platforms on the lakes as the hydra swam and tried to splash molten metal on us.
"Edel!" Sig shouted, but we all knew we were helpless against it in this terrain.
"I can't do anything with it constantly moving around!"
"Damn it. What should we do?" we hold on with hope when
"Lily, I will cast the fire dragon," I muttered as I spied the surroundings with my senses. I was hoping the dragon would distract the hydra enough until we got to safe ground.
"I will distract it with fire dragons!" Lily shouted as waves of Mana formed within my tail and rose up to create the flame dragon. It rose up, and from the ceiling of the cave, it roared with fire breath upon the hydra. It was a stupid idea since lava was supposed to be hotter than fire. I would think it will have no effect on the hydra. However, it was handy as bait, and the hydra was targeting the dragon. It was more effective than I thought. It was determined to chase it that it forgot we even exist. We could only watch it in bafflement as the hydra forgot about us altogether.
I ordered the dragon to flee with an occasional fire breath to the chasing hydra. The hydra was chasing it with passion as if it could not allow another dragon in the same space as it was. It ignored us altogether and pursued it like a stupid cat chasing a red laser. When it tried to fire its beam of light, I ordered the dragon to hide in one of the bigger stalactites, and the beam destroyed a random rock in vain instead.
"Alistar, are you okay? Joseph?" Edelweiss came near and cast her healing power to their burn. Edelweiss only called her fellow elves, but there were others who suffered several major burns on their body from the blazing lava. Edelweiss then came to them and healed them just like Alistar. Everyone was fit again the moment my dragon finally died after being punctured by a laser beam.
"Run toward the exit!" Alistar shouted as our platform meandered close to some thin bridge leading to the exit of this lava zone. The hydra, satisfied after killing the dragon, turned its gaze towards us and swum like a shark tailing its prey. We ran like mad towards the exit and finally left the beast behind as it splashed out from the lava. Its mouth glowed with the preparation to cast one of its trademarked breaths. As we entered the cave, trying to run away, the hydra blasted his beam toward the cave where we were at.
"Watch out!" Alistar ran toward the rear of the group and shielded us from the incoming barrage. The beam scattered as it hit Alistar's shield, and the caves began to rumble. Cracks appeared across the wall of the cave, and all of us scrambled for safety.
"Run!" Alistar shouted and ordered us all to flee as cracks along the wall grew, and rocks began falling on top of us. We scrambled to the depth of the caves, scattered and lost. The caves branched in several places, and we all scattered, trying to dodge the incoming boulders.