As they finally entered the trial, all they could see were dismembered corpses and limbs lying all across the floor and walls.
"What the fuck happened in here…"
Dan quickly got into his defensive stance, holding his signature katana in front of his body.
Leo was right beside him, ready to react at a moment's notice to protect everyone behind them.
In front of them, they could see a few survivors hiding under a pile of corpses.
"H-help us…"
"Please save me."
As they uttered their pleas, a few shadow figures dashed from the ceiling and walls towards them and sliced their bodies apart, instantly killing the remaining survivors.
"What are these things…"
The creatures in front of them were pitch black in color, with six razor sharp blades as limbs. They had no eyes or ears, so one would wonder how they were able to locate their prey.
Based on their previous attack, Dan's group could see that these creatures were exceptionally agile.
A total of 48 of these shadow creatures could be seen in their field of vision, which equaled the number of adventurers who entered this trial after the first group.
"Fuck…"
Dan cursed under his breath, as he knew they were in trouble this time.
Wyver, the last member of Dan's party, used his skills as an Advanced Enchanter to buff everyone around him, increasing their offensive and defensive stats by three-fold for a short duration.
As the first shadow creature lunged towards Dan, he blocked its attack with his katana and immediately counter-attacked.
However, his slash only managed to create a small dent in the armor of the creature.
"Tch."
Dan quickly kicked it backwards and retreated a few steps, surprised at how light the shadow creature was.
He looked over his shoulder to see Leo also struggling with the shadow creature.
As more of these creatures rushed towards them, Dan and Leo were barely able to hold on, yet they couldn't kill any of them.
After a few minutes of exquisite defensive techniques employed by both of them, they managed to maintain a stalemate with these creatures.
As Helen finished her chant, she yelled out towards them.
"Get back! Let me give it a try!"
Dan and Leo retreated just in time as a large fireball flew over their head towards the shadow creatures.
An explosion lit up in front of them, raising dust everywhere.
As their vision was impaired, Dan felt danger and immediately tilted his body to the right.
A bladed limb quickly pierced through the spot where his head was.
'Fuck, I would've been dead if I didn't manage to react in time.'
Dan knew how dire the situation is going to turn out if they don't quickly do something about the dust.
"Helen! Quickly blow away all the dust with your wind magic!"
"Okay!"
After a brief chant, Helen used her spell to clear out all of the dust, which was created from her own fireball attack earlier.
As their vision restored, they saw the butchered bodies of 7 people on the floor around them.
Six of them were not from Dan's party.
However, Wyver was also on the floor, with his head cleanly removed from his neck.
"Shit! These guys killed Wyver!"
Dan only briefly checked on his party members as he quickly refocused on the enemies in front of him.
However, in front of his eyes, only 30 shadow creatures remained, as the rest of them had gotten impaled by the sharp rocks hanging from the ceiling.
'The explosion from the fireball must've rattled those rocks loose, killing some of these things instantly.'
All of the dead shadow creatures were impaled on their backs, which were directly facing the ceiling.
"Oi, Leo! I think these guys' weak points are their backs! Aim your attacks there!"
"Gotcha!"
"I'm gonna charge forward and kill as many as I can. Could you stay behind to protect the rest of them?"
"You can count on me!"
Dan charged forward, dashing left and right to evade the attacks of the shadow creatures as he unleashed his skill [Weapon Control].
Tens of Weapons that were scattered all around the dead adventurers began to rise, floating around Dan.
He then controlled the weapons to fly over the shadow creatures and targeted their backs.
Due to how fast the creatures were, he only managed to kill 5 of them, while the rest of his attack either bounced off their armor or missed them completely.
"Speedy fuckers…"
Dan retreated back to his party as he needed to wait a few minutes before he could use [Weapon Control] again.
Aside from the cooldown on that skill, it also consumed a large amount of his stamina, causing his breath to become staggered after one use.
Even though that skill was costly, he knew he had to rely on it to wipe out a few of them at the same time, otherwise they could only focus on defending.
As a few minutes passed, Dan charged out alone and used his skill again, killing a few more of those creatures in the process before retreating.
This time however, Dan was struggling to remain in a defensive stance, as he felt like he couldn't breathe.
...
After repeating the process of attacking and defending for nearly two hours, they finally managed to kill all of the shadow creatures.
In the end, Dan and Leo suffered numerous slashes all over their bodies, causing them to become dizzy from the blood loss.
Although Dan was worried about the rest of his friends, he couldn't even move his body anymore, as he was leaning against the last shadow creature he had killed.
Eldun had lost his right arm, but managed to stop the blood loss by using a blood coagulant herb.
Myla had lost both legs and one of her arms, causing her to die from blood loss in the middle of the fight.
As Eldun and Myla weren't as strong in melee combat, they suffered worse injuries than Dan and Leo.
During the times he waited for his skill cooldown, Dan had mainly prioritized protecting his wife, unwilling to let any shadow beasts harm her.
However, in the middle of one of his uses of [Weapon Control], Helen had gotten attacked after a shadow creature managed to bypass Leo.
The shadow creature slashed across Helen's eyes, causing her to lose her vision.
She was also stabbed in a few other places, but luckily, her belly was completely unharmed, which was the only saving grace for her and Dan.
As Dan saw what happened, he felt immense regret for entering the trial, even though he knew it was dangerous.
After a brief moment of rest, he then carried Helen by letting her climb onto his back, as he still needed to hold his sword in case this trial wasn't over.
Otherwise, he would've princess carried her, to keep her within his sight.
Leo and Eldun carried the remaining body parts of Myla and Wyver, as they moved towards the exit of the first trial.
After they left, they saw the 12 members of the first group, who had waited for hours for the remaining 48 members to join up with them.
"Eh? Aren't you supposed to be in the fifth group? Where is everyone else?"
The leader of the first group spoke up, even though he saw the dead bodies of Myla and Wyver, along with all the injuries on the other four.
They were more concerned about obtaining the treasures than the lives of Dan's party members.
"They're all dead."
"What?!"
"This trial apparently gets harder if a repeat challenger attempts it. When the second group entered, stronger creatures were unleashed, which wiped everyone out. We're the last remaining survivors of the four groups, and we're gonna go back home."
"But… what about the treasures?"
"Heh. You guys can still attempt it, but if we join you, it's pretty much guaranteed that we'll all die in the next trial."
As Dan finished his words, he used a Return Stone on the rest of his party to leave. He already tried using a Return Stone during the trial earlier, but it didn't work for some reason.
A common restriction within the trials in the Dungeon were to prevent the use of any teleportation items, and this one had a similar restriction.
As Dan and the others returned to the capital of the Omni Empire, a heavy mood surrounded them.
"Let's go bury Myla and Wyver," Leo spoke up, as he felt frustrated for being unable to protect them.
"Sure."
After digging a hole outside the city and placing Myla and Wyver into it, they all silently prayed for the two.
They had been together for many years, ever since they all started out as novice adventurers.
At night, after they received healing treatment from the priests in the city, they all sat down in a bar to talk about their future.
"I'm gonna go back to my hometown."
Eldun was the first to speak up. With the loss of his arm, he is unable to use any of his Advanced Archer skills now.
None of the others objected, as they understood his reason.
"Well, I guess I will go back and help my brother manage the Loaz Continent."
Leo knew that their adventuring days were over, after losing Myla, Wyver, and now Eldun.
Dan didn't reject any of their proposals, as he decided to just live out the rest of his life peacefully with Helen and their baby.
Even though Helen wasn't able to see anymore, Dan decided to assist her with everything, since it was mainly his fault for allowing her to get hurt in the first place.
Thus, they all decided to drink the night away, as this will be the last time they will gather together like this.
...
As the months passed, Dan hadn't heard any news about the first group of 12 adventurers who continued with the trial, so he assumed they died.
However, one exciting news for him was that their baby was finally about to be born.
Helen already decided the name would be Mary if it was a girl, or Merlin if it was a boy.
The childbirth had taken longer than usual, as Helen's body was extremely weakened after sustaining many injuries from the Dungeon's trial a few months ago.
Her body had never fully recovered for some reason, which inconvenienced her, but Dan had always been beside her to support her daily life.
*Waaa!*
After many painful hours, a wailing sound could be heard as the baby was finally born.
Dan was ecstatic as he heard the cries.
He immediately rushed into the room to celebrate with his wife and child.
However, to his dismay, he saw the weakened body of Helen, lying on her bed.
She had spent most of her remaining energy to give birth to their baby girl.
As she opened her eyes for the last time, she quietly uttered something to him before passing away.
Although Dan had heard her words, he was in deep sorrow at that moment, which caused him to push it to the back of his mind.
"Helen!!! Nooo!!!"
Dan cried for hours endlessly, unwilling to leave her side.
Eventually, he was convinced by the midwife to get ahold of himself, since he still has his baby girl to take care of.
Later that night, Dan buried Helen's body beside Myla and Wyver's graves, allowing them to rest in peace together.
In the following years, he opened a weapon shop with the money he saved from his long years as an adventurer.
Although his wife is gone, he decided to raise Mary into a wonderful girl, to show Helen how lovely their baby girl will become in the future.
He only has two dreams left in his life.
One is to be present for his daughter's marriage, while the other is to help take care of his grandchildren.