“We should leave,” Sheeron said as soon as everyone had sat down near the door that led to the next room. “If it weren't for good teamwork between Rox and Feera, as well as the lucky effect of Toley's new weapon, Rox would be dead right now. Gods know the rest of us would have followed, too.”
“I hate to say it, but I agree with grumpy,” Feera chimed in. “If that unusual giant was a sign of what's coming, I think we should leave while we're ahead. We don't even know how many more enemies there are between us and the bad guys!”
Kara was silent as she thought about her party member's reasonable worries. If the giant was the weakest thing they'd fight here, then they were in deep trouble. Plus, if they ever entered a room with more than one boss-type enemy then they would almost certainly be wiped. What's worse is that whoever was ahead of them had gotten far enough ahead that monsters in rooms that should have been cleared were re-spawned already. Normally, it would take weeks for a monster in a dungeon to revive if people were still inside and trying to clear it.
However, rescuing the Princling was vital to her overall goal for the mortal races, as the Dragonoids would be a powerful ally. Not to mention the obvious fact that completing this quest would more than likely mean clearing a world dungeon, too, which would be another powerful boon towards her goals. Higher risk, more rewards.
Kara glanced at Rox, who was inspecting the runes of his sword. She had faith in him, he had to know what they were getting themselves into when they came to this place. Every step of their journey, he had blown her expectations of him out of the water, only to reveal himself as one of the notorious Aetherous. He seemed to want her to meet her goals and likely would not have allowed them to come to a world dungeon without any chance of clearing it.
“I think we should keep going forward,” Toley broke the silence, “Call it a hunch, but I'm getting a feeling there's more to this than some random kidnapping. Why else would they come to hide inside of a place as dangerous as this?” He said while gripping the hilt of his dagger-memento. “I think we can do it.”
Sheeron and Feera looked at him uneasily. He was not wrong, something was definitely off about the situation. If a giant as powerful as that was merely a gate-keeper, then they clearly walked into a problem that far exceeded a search-and-rescue mission. They had come knowing that fighting their way through a world dungeon would be beyond difficult, but they had not expected it to be a boss-type, one of the hardest to survive in. Let alone clear it. Only the insane would choose a hell such as this as a hiding place.
Kara looked at Rox again, “You've been unusually quiet this whole time. What do you think?”
He looked up at her from his blade, sheathed the weapon and thought for a moment before speaking, “I think that you should all wait here while I handle the next room alone.”
With the exception of Kara, everyone burst into a series of exclamations about the sheer stupidity of his idea. Suggesting he was insane, that he barely handled himself against the giant and that he would be dead if not for Feera. Kara waited until they had all calmed down to ask, “Why? Everything they said isn't wrong.”
Rox beamed. His smile was full of confidence and gave off just a hint of a teasing feeling. “Trust me, if something goes wrong I'll come back to this room and we can leave. Hell, I'll even let Feera go in with me to watch.”
“Why me?!” She said incredulously, her usual lighthearted atmosphere seemed to be replaced with a more business-like one.
“You can use your shadow ability to hide and watch the results.” He stated, which silenced her.
She hesitantly nodded, “Fine, but if this goes wrong we're leaving. Even if you die.”
“I won't die, I can promise that, at least.” He seemingly joked as he stood up, drawing his new weapon once more.
“Rox,” Kara said, grabbing his wrist before he turned to open the door to the next room. “I'll kill you if you die.”
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He flashed another brilliant smile, “That doesn't make any sense.”
With that, he threw the doors open and Feera used her ability to hide within his shadow. Even if he died, his shadow would remain for her to hide in until she had a chance to escape. To the naked eye, Feera's body gradually lost color until she seemed to be nothing but a pitch black shadow. She then seemed to melt, starting from her head, with a viscous-looking texture until it disappeared entirely into Rox's shadow.
Before Sheeron or Toley could chime into the plan, the doors had already shut. They were left with Kara to prepare to accept whatever results came of it.
“I know I've been wrong about him at almost every turn of this endeavor, but I'm fairly certain that he's going to get killed. Are you okay with the student you sought out for this research dying, right now, in that room?” His voice was hesitant. He may not have liked Rox, but he certainly never wished for him to die, especially fighting a battle he could not win.
“We could have helped and retreated together or something. He didn't have to go alone.” Toley said, voicing his genuine concern.
Kara's silence was deafening. She sat in front of the door in quiet anticipation of the results, only speaking a few words to the two others. “That man won't lose.”
- - - -
On the other side of the door, Rox had entered a hallway that would lead them to the next enemy. It was a well-lit narrow corridor, in which two people might be able to stand next to each other if they were small. He was able to see the next room already and quickly made his way towards it.
[https://i.imgur.com/40FjvM1.png]
The room he entered was, once again, a spacious room that had plenty of lighting. This time, he noticed that the room was almost like an open arena. Nothing was in the room aside from the opponent and himself and was large enough to allow all kinds of attacks or maneuvers with no cover in sight.
His opponent, unlike the giant, was not humanoid at all. It seemed to be some sort of golem-construct. It stood roughly four meters tall and had what seemed to be a stone-like body. However, it was green, which suggested it was made of orichalcum. It had eight spider-like legs and its body was a perfect sphere with a single eye-like contraption on the front of it. There were no imperfections or other distinctive features on the creature at all and Rox immediately knew what it was.
[https://i.imgur.com/Ku8nlIX.png]
“A Chalcite,” He thought out loud. After a moment he smiled widely, “Perfect.”
Are you kidding? Rox heard Feera's voice in his head, presumably because she was in his shadow. The second monster in this dungeon is a boss-type Chalcite? This was the final boss of the original boss dungeon, but it's only the second thing we've found! We need to leave right now before it kills us!
Rox's smile only widened. “Good, the harder the opponent the better I can prove that we can handle this.” His sword's blade crackled with momentary stems of lightning.
You're insane. She stated in disbelief.
“Now you're starting to get it.” He said, walking slowly towards the Chalcite, whose eye had begun to glow a contrasting red color to its dull-green body.
Chalcites were considered guardians of world secrets. The variance in their abilities was incredibly wide, however, they all had one thing in common. They only showed up in world dungeons and other places that had to do with primordial gods. They were almost never an easy thing to kill; when they were, they were encountered in mass amounts with unusual abilities. It was not uncommon for entire armies of capable fighters to be wiped out by a single encounter with such a creature.
“You ready?” Rox said, his sword now in a constant veil of jumping lightning. The sound of each jump of electricity filling the room with powerful echoes of the magic it bore.
No. She replied, resigning herself to their fates regardless. This creature had a chance of undoing her shadow ability, after all. Chalcite could, quite literally, have anything as an ability.
“That's what I like to hear.” He said, brimming with excitement, as he swung his sword at the creature, still several meters away. “I'll end this with one swing.”
As Rox finished the swing of his sword, the lightning gathered on his blade jumped towards his intended target, the Chalcite, in complete silence. However, the sheer size and power of the lightning bolt far surpassed that of a mere magic veiled-blade. From Feera's excellent view behind Rox, in his shadow, she could see that the lightning filled the entirety of the colossal room in front of the sword swing. Not a single centimeter of the space in front of Rox was not filled with purple lightning. Not only that, after a few meters, all of the lightning compacted and converged onto the targeted Chalcite.
After the attack ended, an incredibly loud boom filled the room. Echoing off the walls with such volume that it was incredible Rox did not collapse unconscious with his eardrums in shreds, if he did not outright die, that is.
What remained of the Chalcite could hardly even be called remains. In the place that it used to be standing was now a large scorch mark on the seemingly-invincible dungeon cobblestone along with what Feera could only assume was molten orichalcum.
Rox sheathed his weapon while speaking. “That's what happens when you give someone an enchanted weapon where the attack power is based on how much mana you can gather. Class adjourned.”
Feera took no time in materializing from his shadow. One viscous, black arm reaching out of it and grabbing the ground as if getting out of a pool. She lifted herself out of his shadow and ran forward to the Chalcite remains as her body returned from the shadow-like state, going from a black figure with no features to the large-mountained girl from before. She quickly inspected what was left up close, then turned towards Rox.
“What the hell just happened?!” She yelled, half-hysteric and half-excited.
“That,” He said with a teasing smile, “makes two.”