The tunnel took her straight down for a few hundred meters, further confirming that the graveyard’s range limitation was bypassed by her new trick, and she then found herself above another cavernous room.
Four more guards on this side of the tunnel. It would really be impossible to brute-force this place for someone at my level. Still, I wonder what the intended solution is for someone without the ability to go through walls.
Maybe the dungeon’s name is a hint like the floor names were in the ranking tower. But Fenrir is just the name of the moon and I have never heard of the word Ragnarok.
Can I get a definition?
Sofia found the dungeon notification in her recent logs and focused on it the same way one could focus on their skills to access their details. That did nothing.
Would have been too good to be true.
Unless…
Sofia tried something that usually did not work, she tried to [Identify] the words within the system window.
Initially, there was no response from the spell, as usual, and then, out of nowhere, as Sofia was already ready to move on, she received a new notification.
[Hint 2 of 5 found!]
[Hint 2 : Ragnarok is the prophesied end and rebirth of a world]
Oh. Now this is new. There might be more to this dungeon than just finding an exit after all.
It also looks like I already missed the first hint…
End and rebirth… I fail to see how that is supposed to help. Let’s get back to exploring.
Sofia found it hard to discern anything much about the contents of the caverns from the spirit realm, the only clear thing was that there were still Veik everywhere, but they were a lot calmer in there, which Sofia thought was likely because they were too deep to have noticed the bolt explosion. She roamed around this new cavern’s ceiling, searching for another tunnel with a group of guards.
On one hand, she wanted to be done with the dungeon as fast as possible, especially since the warning she got through the new title’s description was worrying her a lot more than she initially thought. The Venerable physique of the primeval void was already messing with her body in all sorts of ways, and her soul was also already deformed as all hells. She did not need nor want to also become some sort of half ghost or whatever else the ‘irreversible changes’ might be.
On the other hand, her current mana regeneration was under 3000 points per minute, and her stamina was even slower to come back as getting dragged through the spiritual realm wasn’t exactly the most comfortable experience. If she could just find the exit and avoid getting in any fight throughout the dungeon it would be fine, but considering the guards had managed to feel her through the walls, she doubted it would be that easy when she supposedly had to go near the king.
The good thing, though, is that this dungeon doesn’t adapt to my and Pareth’s strength like the previous one, so it should be relatively easier, in theory.
Then again, the reward is a large heart catalyser, when the one we got from dueling Tarren was a small one which allows to go from rank C to B. If we consider that there might be a regular type in the middle, the large probably allows the heart to upgrade from A to S rank.
It would make sense for that one to be much harder to get.
Unless the small – large thing is only about the stats it gives, could also be that…
Tunnel after tunnel, Sofia delved deeper inside of the Veik hive, taking care to never go too close to the guards. The hive was gigantic. Finally, after almost three hours of wall traversal during which she never found a single safe space to emerge from, she found a relatively small, and very well guarded part of the hive. It had a whole group of ten guards protecting the entrance, their strong spirit looking like a bright bonfire shining through the spiritual realm.
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The inside of that subsection of the hive was particularly interesting because Sofia saw very few Veik inside. The cavernous room was about five hundred meters across, and there were only three creatures inside, two small ones which could be any of the regular type Veik, and a very big one shining brighter than any of the guards until now. It was roaming slowly around the room.
I don’t know if it’s the king but it has to be some kind of Elite either way.
This room is a dead end, though, so the exit can’t be there. Still, I need to leave the spirit realm for a bit… I’m starting to feel uneasy.
The big Veik is a bit worrying but I think I can hide behind one of the pillars and I should be fine with the invisibility. As long as it doesn’t come too close.
Sofia observed the movements of the large Veik across the room for a short while, she found no obvious patterns to them.
Whatever, I really need to step out right now.
She had the graveyard skeletons carry her through one of the pillars, and she emerged from the pillar inside of the room, near a corner, as far as she could from the three creatures. Finally she reentered the physical realm.
Her invisibility instantly broke out as she was incapable of standing still, in fact she was incapable of standing at all, falling to her knees with a highly distorted sense of sight and a spinning head.
Shit.
The next few seconds were a hard-fought battle to stop herself from emptying her stomach on the ground.
It took her half a minute to suppress the symptoms of what she decided to dub the ‘spirit sickness’, and she was very grateful that the Veik were busy roaming around the other half of the room during that time.
That being said, while she again managed to stand still for three seconds and reactivate her invisibility, she could not feel the Veik at all. Her mana senses were useless as there was no ambient mana the Veik could be displacing and they also had no mana at all. Smell and hearing were likewise useless in an environment without air. She could only rely on sight, and she was facing a corner of the room, so there was not much to be seen besides white stone and rocks.
It’s alright, I just need to be careful when I summon them…
Out of her bone storage came a round bone token, which she hurriedly caught midair with [Bone dominus] and sent gliding along the pillar she was next to. Connecting her vision to it, she could finally really see what she had stepped into.
Oh fuck.
The ‘big’ Veik was a lot more intimidating than even its spiritual body could have hinted at.
[Veik Royal Guard - Lv.??? - Imprint power : ??? - Effect : ‘Veik Fortress’ Skill shard (1/3)]
What are the chances that it is over level 300?
Pretty high.
To say that it was a walking fortress was no exaggeration, its gigantic armored body would make even current Pareth look like a dwarf in front of a castle, and the skill shard imprint further reinforced that notion.
And the small ones… They are literally wearing crystal crowns…
[Veik First Prince - Lv.217 - Imprint power : 0]
[Veik Third Princess - Lv.185 - Imprint power : 0]
Worst of all, they were not mindless monsters.
The ‘Prince’ who looked like some kind of giant human-sized long mix between a crab and a shrimp, was currently polishing its own shell with a large brush, while the ‘Princess’ which looked about the same but much smaller, about the size of a large dog, was busy writing something on stone tablets.
Writing.
I can’t read it but it’s hard not to recognize that these are structured sentences in an unknown language…
The paper people were one thing but even these?!
And they don’t even have a class! They don’t even have the system!
I always thought all intelligent ‘people’ were automatically given system privilege. Even Tarren, a Sunless, clearly had it. So why…
This changed little about Sofia’s main goal within the dungeon, she had no need to kill them, but she did feel like this instantly narrowed her possibilities a whole lot.
She had thought up plans to have the hive collapse or such other colorful things to potentially farm imprints, but these instantly all went out the window.
No wonder you don’t have to ‘kill the boss’. It would just be cruel, wouldn’t it?
Now that I think about it; I don’t even know for a fact that they are hostile… They reacted when I blasted a hole through their hive, but that’s it, chances are they could be a peaceful species overall. Surviving by themselves on a lonely moon…
How do I go from here?
If I could isolate the Princess and find a way to communicate…
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