As soon as the lunching feeling in his gut and the swirling light disappeared, Akira held his shield out ready to bash any [Furry Abyss] monster that had been pushed into the dungeon's guardian room before him.
But he was met with silence and darkness for several seconds as he adjusted to the heavy darkness that covered his sight.
Sounds soon came to him slowly as he heard the heavy breathing of the minor lycans behind him.
“Watch your step. Knowing what we have seen so far, it is not wrong to think that one wrong step will send you tumbling into the endless darkness,” said Akira while he reached into his bag and took out a prepared torch before handing it to someone behind him.
When the torch was lit, it was only able to light up a few feet away from the group giving them little information on what the dungeon's guardian room or the guardian looked like.
The only thing they could see was a checkered stone floor that extended out in each direction.
“Which way should we go?” asked Zundar as he and everyone else scanned the darkness for any signs of an enemy.
“Where did all of the [Furry Abyss] go?” asked Beater scratching his head in confusion.
Akira held up a hand as he sniffed the air and tried to listen for any trace of the [Furry Abyss] or the boss.
“Yap!” said Fluffball as he looked in a certain direction.
“Over there? Are you sure?” asked Akira.
“Yap!”
“Everyone stay close! Let's use a square formation. Zundar I'll leave the rear to you.”
“Leave it to me!” said Zundar, thumping his chest. “If anything tries to ambush us from the rear I'll smash them to bits!”
They slowly moved forward towards the sounds that Fluffball had heard and soon were able to hear muffled sounds that soon turned into panicked cries that were loud for one second and slowly grew fainter as if they were traveling far away.
As they took several more steps forward the muffled cries stopped.
Akira stopped everyone and scanned their surroundings.
Fwoosh!
Two floating gold flames flashed brightly piercing the darkness all around the large orbs of flame, while also blinding Akira and others for a second before dimming down to fist-sized flames.
“Damn it!” grumbled Beater as he tried to blink and regain his eyesight. “Well, at least we have some light to fight the Guardian.”
“Everyone, now's probably the time to transform!” said an alarmed Akira.
The two golden flames were floating inside of the sockets of a large stone head that was covered in black fur, and they were staring right at them.
[Abyss Golem of Doom lvl 180]
The [Abyss Golem of Doom] was over 7ft tall with thick furry legs and arms that were the width of an average adult human's body. It held two thick square stone shields, one in each of its massive hands. These stone shields covered half of its body on each side allowing it to protect itself from two directions easily.
When Akira's words finally sunk, the royal guards, Fluffball, and the minor lycans all began their transformations. The sounds of popping, tearing, and stretching filled the air as they transformed from their human form into a werewolf and minor lycan forms.
Akira also did not waste any time and was covered in a misty darkness as he also transformed.
The fiery flickering golden lights watched all this silently without emotion or movement.
As Akira and everyone else managed to successfully transform they looked towards the Guardian.
“Wasn't this supposed to be a low-level dungeon?” asked Sister Teresa looking at the Guardian.
Akira remembered that demigods could also somehow judge the strength of monsters they fought with their demigod ways that were too complicated for him to understand. Unlike normally he was not the only one that noticed the huge level gap between the minions and the dungeon guardian.
It was far stronger than it was supposed to be, most likely from killing all the [Furry Abyss] monsters that had been pushed into the guardian room before them.
Akira had a guess that If it grew a bit stronger it could break out of the dungeon. Truly a disaster.
Sister Teresa, now covered in light gray fur, began to chant off buffs for the rest of the minor lycans who were severely out-leveled by the Dungeon guardian.
With the buffs flying out, the [Abyss Golem of Doom] moved its head to look toward sister Teresa.
Fwoosh! Fwoosh! Fwoosh! Fwoosh!
Four more golden fiery lights appeared floating in the air with two floating on each side of the [Abyss Golem of Doom].
Akira immediately realized that these floating golden lights were exactly what had led them down and up the spiraling staircase.
Without warning two of the golden lights shot forward.
“Urgh!” Beater who was holding the torch grunted as one of the lights shot past him and created a large gash in his arm cutting all the way to the bone. The wound was not bleeding as it was automatically cauterized by the heat. The torch was dropped and in its fall, extinguished, only leaving the light that was coming from the golden fiery orbs.
“Your sneak attacks won't work with me here!” roared Rondie. Her metal fists glowed as she activated a skill and swung them toward the approaching fiery orbs.
Pow!
With perfect hand-eye coordination, the second golden orb was stopped and knocked away from its target, Sister Teresa.
The two golden fireballs curved around and returned to floating around the [Abyss Golem of Doom] as it stared at them.
“This looks to be quite the problem,” said Crowbahr.
A blue crescent light shot forward from Akira's sword as he activated the skill [Sword Slash].
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“As expected,” muttered Akira while watching the [Abyss Golem of Doom] move one of its shields to block the attack which only left a small gash on the thick stone shield.
The [Abyss Golem of Doom] retaliated by sending two golden orbs shooting toward Akira.
A black mist burst out from Akira as he activated the skill [Darkness Domain] covering everyone.
When the golden orbs reached the Dark mist, their speed immediately slowed down as if they had dove into a thick pool of mud. With this speed, even the lowest level minor lycan could dodge the deadly attack if they were paying attention.
The Golden orbs were easily blocked by Akira and they once again returned to float around the [Abyss Golem of Doom].
With this Akira finished his inspection of the guardian and finally came up with a plan.
“Rondie, take half of the minor lycans and move to the left, Zundar take the other half and go to the right. Both you and the other high-level members need to do your best to keep the lower levels alive. The more people we have alive the more damage we can put out!”
“I'll do my best!” said Rondie.
“What about me?” Asked sister Teresa.
“It's probably best for you to stay with Rondie and the others. The rest of you should also split up and support each side. Fluffball and I can handle attacking from the front.”
“ROAR!” said the large muscular Fluffball, fully agreeing with Akira.
“We're staying to help!” said Vilkas.
“Right, can't let you face the full brunt of the attacks alone!” said Dolph.
The two were still out-leveled by the dungeon guardian but it was not as bad as the low-level minor lycans.
In this way, they split up into three smaller groups and surrounded the boss in a semicircle. The [Abyss Golem of Doom] was struck with indecision on which of the three groups it needed to block, as it only had two shields.
Akira and the others did not let it have any time to think and they began to attack it with various ranged attacks.
In the end, it decided to block the blue ice shard attack shot from Fluffball's mouth and the attacks from Zundar's side. The stone shields bore the brunt of the attacks showing only small gouges and minor burn marks from the attacks.
The attacks from Rondie's side were able to slam into the black fur on the [Abyss Golem of Doom's] unprotected side. Although most of the attacks were not lethal, if there was enough of them over time they would be able to do major damage.
The [Abyss Golem of Doom] opened its large mouth and let out a silent roar of pain. In a silent rage it counter-attacked Rondie's group sending all four of its fire lights toward the attackers.
But with the [Darkness domain] slowing the golden orbs, they were able to narrowly dodge or block them.
In the next wave of attacks, the [Abyss Golem of Doom] decided to block the attacks coming from Rondie as well as the attacks coming from the front leaving itself wide open for Zundar's side to hammer it with attacks.
This hot potato back-and-forth attack, block, and counterattack kept switching back and forth with little damage to the werewolves or minor lycans. Sister Teresa was also doing a great job keeping everyone alive and fully buffed.
The flying gold orbs continued to try and attack anyone that was not on guard causing several close calls.
The thick layer of black fur covering the guardian's body was becoming extremely raggedy. With each failed attempt of blocking the attacks on its body, the [Abyss Golem of Doom] grew more and more enraged. Its fiery eyes grew larger and slowly turned a deep red.
POOF!
The black fur on the [Abyss Golem of Doom's] body entirely went up in flame, revealing a slightly slimmer black rock body. This surprising thing was not from any of their attacks, but a result of the rising heat coming from the enraged guardian.
The [Abyss Golem of Doom] for the first time, moved from the spot it was standing in and rushed toward Zundar's group. Its red eyes latched on a minor lycan that had been the last to launch an attack.
Akira activated the skill [Shield Slam] and shot forward to intercept the [Abyss Golem of Doom], slamming into it from the side, halting its charge and sending it stumbling a few steps sideways.
Unfortunately, two of the minor lycans were run over by its large feet before Akira could stop the attack.
The two minor lycans disappeared into hundreds of light particles leaving Zundar's side under-powered compared to the rest.
Before the guardian could launch another charge, Akira activated the skill [Shadow chains] to disrupt the boss's enraged charge toward Rondie. Giving everyone a few moments to reorganize and launch attacks toward the immobilized dungeon guardian.
With each attack, the guardian's body began to flash red as it took more damage while it silently let out roars of rage.
“YOU %^#&# look at me!” shouted Akira using the [Potty mouth] skill to draw its attention away from the other groups that were dealing damage to its stone body.
With several of its charges being blocked by Akira, the enraged [Abyss Golem of Doom] turned to the major thorn in its side and strained against the shadow chains restricting it as it tried to crush Akira.
Akira readied himself by taking a sturdy stance and activated [Harden]. From the side, sister Teresa quickly cast a buff on Akira further increasing his defense.
With a silent roar, the [Abyss Golem of Doom] broke free of the shadow chains and charged at Akira.
Bam!
The [Abyss Golem of Doom] slammed into Akira causing him to slide back several feet until the energy behind the charge was halted.
Akira let out a few pained grunts, the impact was no joke. The power behind the charge was brutal, considering how heavy the [Abyss Golem of Doom] was.
Akira activated another round of [Shadow chains] to hold [Abyss Golem of Doom] in place allowing everyone else to rain attacks down on it.
With each attack, the [Abyss Golem of Doom's] body was growing a brighter red.
It had lost all its will to block attacks and only focused on bashing and slamming its shields into Akira who was trying to defend against it as best as he could.
The only problem with this, was as its body continued to grow brighter and its attacks grew heavier and started to have a hot touch causing Akira's armor and shield to start to glow red from the heat. With each heated attack raining down upon Akira one after another his armor and shield slowly started to deform.
“Duke Akira!” shouted an alarmed Vilkas.
“Don't worry about me! Focus on the [Abyss Golem of Doom]! I can feel it in my gut that he's almost finished! Everyone use your best attacks and finish him!” shouted Akira through gritted teeth.
Even though the [Abyss Golem of Doom] was near death it still held on for several more minutes enduring multiple waves of skills.
It was enough to thoroughly wail on Akira.
If it were not for sister Teresa's constant buffs and the ice mist from Fluffball covering the body of the [Abyss Golem of Doom], he would have been in a worse shape.
After enduring the guardian's wild attacks to his limit, the [Abyss Golem of Doom's] red body finally exploded sending a large fireball out, covering a large area before dying down and revealing a large puddle of molten magma. The ground all around Akira is glowing red as well from the 'heated' :p battle that had raged around the platform.
The golden fiery orbs that had been attacking several of the minor lycans fizzled out as when the [Abyss Golem of Doom] exploded.
Ding!
[Abyss Golem of Doom] defeated!
The [Steps to Doom] dungeon has been cleared!
There were several happy grunts and chatter from the minor lycans as they all chatted about their strength rising from the defeat of the dungeon guardian.
Ding!
You have leveled up to level 202!
Fluffball has leveled up to level 160!
Ding!
Hidden mission alternative route finished!
Blank and the [Full Moon] guild have successfully stopped the artificial overflow!
Instead of causing a dungeon overflow, you have chosen the second hidden path and have successfully cleared the [Steps to Doom] dungeon!
+10 fame +10 Honor
+5 to the levels of those under level 150
+2 to those over 150.
“Oh!!”
Several happy cries rang out from the demigods as they received an extra large boost to their levels each of them leveled up by at least ten levels bringing the average level to 110 while the four main bodyguards reached level 145.
Both Fluffball and Akira sighed with disappointment as they only received two extra levels. Bringing his level up to 204 and Fluffball's to 162.