(B-rank dungeon)
Nicolas, Jill and the rest of the team sat against the wall, breathing heavily. Monster corpses were scattered across the ground.
"Those were some strong goblins." said Nicolas.
"They really were. I've never come across any goblins with that kind of strength before." One of the B-rankers replied.
Even for an A-ranker like Nicolas, facing the goblins were quite a challenge. Luckly, nobody got hurt and they managed to win with only minor injuries. Nicolas stood up, drenched in sweat from the fight.
"Let's keep going. I'll be damned if we stop here just because we're worn out from some goblins."
Agreeing, the three B-rankers stood up.
"Yeah."
"Goblins aren't enough to drain our energy."
"Hell yeah, preach it."
But, the C-ranker had a different opinion.
"Maybe we should take a break. Those goblins were strong enough to give even you, an A-ranker a hard time."
"Ridiculous. We're not going to stop here. We can keep going." Nicolas replied.
Jill also stood against the idea of going on without a rest.
"No, we actually should take a break. If we come across a mini boss or something, how do you plan for us to beat it if we're exhausted?"
Letting out a sigh of disappointment, Nicolas answered.
"It's Only a small chance that a mini boss will appear. On the off chance that one does appear, I'll kill it. "
Jill was angered by his confidence. She was aware of his thought but a B-rank mini boss wasn't a joke. If they did come across one, it would be difficult beating it with a team like this. But then again, Jill did have a trick up her sleeves just in case a situation like that were to happen. Eager to try her new spell, she calmed down and finally agreed.
"Fine. I agree."
"Well, let's get going then."
They all continued walking further but, even if Jill agreed, the C-ranker with them still had a bad feeling about fighting with low endurance.
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They reached an area where many human-sized boulders in every direction. If Jill had to make a guess, she'd say that there were easily over three-hundred. If they split up, it would be really easy to get lost.Up above was a giant blue crystal, giving off light just like every other cave. The silence all around was unnerving. It was so quiet, they could hear the sound of water moving somewhere behind one of the many rocks.
"I can feel something close. It's moving fast." said Jill.
Everyone quickly stood on guard, waiting for even the slightest sign of movement. They could hear wet footsteps running around but, they weren't sure exactly where they were coming from because of how the sound would echo.
Even Jill who had [Sixth Sense] was unsure.
She closed her eyes and focused on breathing calmly.
One breath in….One breath out….One breath in...One breath out. It was a technique to calm her mind, enhancing her sixth sense's sensing range.
With the most sudden moving, her eyes shot open and she stared at a specific bolder.
"Behind the bolder, there's monsters."
"We'll just have to wait for them to come out, we can't risk getting ambushed." Niclolas replied.
And so, they waited and waited...and waited. None of the monsters revealed themselves. The waiting process was making everyone many levels of impatient.
"This is getting ridiculous." said Jill.
She aimed her palm at the boulder then chanted.
"Fire Bolt." A fast speed bolt of red lighting shot forward like a bullet and struck the rock, incredibly destroying it and sending dust and rocks all around.
"Nice one, Jill. Now their cover is gone but we can't see them."
The large amount of dust was something Jill did not expect to happen. Now that it had already been done, she couldn't reverse her mistake.
Everyone gathered close to each-other, back to back, watching each and every-side.
The wind vibrated and the cloud of dushed swooshed away, blue skinned monsters all rushed at them. Withing 5 seconds, all the adventures were engaged in close combat all except for Jill. She was kneeled down, trying to stay low because fighting was not her specialty. But, that wasn't enough to keep her hidden, one of the monsters leaped at her with its claws raised.
Jill reached her hand out and touched its chest, then shouted.
"Fire Bolt!" A deadly red bolt of lighting shot from her hand, piercing the creature's eye.
Boom!
[Exp up]
She turned and looked at B-rankers who were taking heavy damage but, still putting up a fight. Jill knew what the outcome would most likely be. At this rate, they would eventually be killed off. There wasn't much she could do to help, she was all out of Mp and she didn't know how to fight.
Nicolas had blood running down the side of his face as he yelled out with rage.
"Time Slow!"
He pulled two knives from his pocket and sliced at each monster that came his way.
Left, right, left, right.
[Allie has activated 'Quick Attack']
With each swing of his blades, he killed each monster with ease until there were only 3 monsters left. His body slightly leaned forward as he jumped forward and spun his blades like a fan.
There were 5 sudden sounds, followed by the quietness that filled the room once before.
Swoosh. Slash. Swoosh. Slash. Slash.
The remaining creatures stood still like they were frozen, their eyes wide open and blood dripping from a thin line across their chest.
Splurt.
The thin cuts opened wide, gushing out blood as the creatures fell to the floor. Three thumps then there were no more enemies in sight.
Jill's eyes looked all around at everyone's injuries.
Nicolas was breathing heavy with tons of blood and sweat running down his face.
{Nicolas: Hp:3,690/7,890}
But, his injuries were the least severe as the rest of the team.
The three B-rankers were bleeding from many cuts on their bodies and it looked like one more hit could knock them unconscious.
There was the C-ranker, he was holding himself up on one knee. He looked like the one who was closer to defeat than anyone else.
{Hp: 214/864}
Jill, herself, had taken no damage which was fortunate.
Nicolas had one of his eyes closed to avoid getting blood in it as he spoke to Jill.
"You were right. We were just barely able to keep up. If we keep going further, we might not survive our next encounter with monsters. So, if it's okay with you, i'd like for us all to leave."
"At least you realize your mistake. And yes, it's alright, let's all leave." Jill replied.
Nicolas looked at everyone and nodded, letting them know it was time to retreat from the dungeon. But when they all turned around to leave, a scary feeling shook their cores. The entrance they had come from, was nowhere to be seen.
"What? Where'd it go?" Nicolas asked.
Him, the 3 B-ranker, the C-ranker and Jill all looked in every direction looking for any opening that looked like an exit. It was to no avail, there wasn't even the littlest sign of there even being an entrance/exit.
Each one of the adventures knew exactly what they had gotten themselves into. It was a soul shaking thought; A rare occurrence where upon entering a dungeon, the entrance would disappear. This phenomenon was called 'Trap Dungeon'
The only way to escape was to kill the boss then each person inside would be teleported to the outside.
A team that had 1 A-ranker, 3 B-ranker, 1 c-ranker and 1 D-ranker wasn't capable enough to defeat a B-rank boss. And to make the chance of survival even lower was everyone's low Hp and Endurance. Jill was the only among them who had both energy and Hp left; But, she alone wasn't enough to carry the team to victory.
Nicolas let his body slump sitting down against the wall where an entrance once stood. The expression he wore was a worried one.
Accepting the fact that they were stuck, everyone followed along and sat down as well.
"I hate to say it but we're all screwed. "
"Damn right. I don't see how we're going to get through this." One of the B-rankers replied.
"I knew going any further was a bad idea from the start."said the C-ranker.
"Right, I should've listened. You all voted on me to be the leader for this raid but I failed at my job. The only thing I led you guys to was a trap dungeon."
"No, it was our fault too. Us B-rankers all decided to keep going."
They kept trying to comfort each other in this situation by talking. Meanwhile, Jill sat quietly, feeling slightly uneasy but, she wasn't all that worried. This was a situation where she knew that soon enough, she would have to use the ace hidden up her sleeve.
If they could somehow make it to the boss room, Jill would be able to use both of her magic crystals to increase her spells power. She began doing the math of how much damage she would be able to do.
{Note: If math easily bores you, then you should probably skip the next part.}
Her Mp was '178'
The damage will be twice as much as the Mp used.
Example: if you use 10 Mp, your spell will do 20 damage.
So if she used 178, it would do 358 damage. Her bracelet would increase it x 5, making the damage 1,790. And she had two crystals that would increase it x16.
So 1 one her crystals would up the damage to 28,640 then, her second crystal would up the damage to 458,240.
That was enough to surly kill a B-rank boss, it was even enough to greatly damage a low level S-rank boss. However, she would only have 1 shot.
Jill stood up, and the entire team looked at her.
"I have a plan, just hear me out, guys."
"A plan? Let's hear it." Nicolas replied.
"Okay, here it goes."
After explaining her plan to the rest of them, they all agreed.
"Sounds good. I regret not listening to you the first time, so the best I can do is to ahvee trust in your plan." said Nicolas.
"Thank you, Jill. Your little plan gave me hope again." said one of the B-rankers.
"Don't thank me yet. We still don't know if it'll go as planned."
"Alright, everyone, relax your bodies for awhile. When we start going further, there will most likely be no time for breaks." Said Nicolas.
And so, everyone calmly sat down, regaining their endurance.
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Meanwhile…
(Progressive Dungeon, Floor# 100)
Katsuya was crouched behind a big rock, only slightly peeking his head out to see what was ahead. There were a pair of giant red doors; Standing in front of them was a large monster that had hard green-colored scales all over its body. It stood up straight, just like a human, it's eyes were yellow and it had a long tail in back of it.
It was a 'lizard man' , a type of monster that excelled in combat and speed.
Katsuya squinted, at the creature looking closer. In the creature's hand was a long and curved blade.
"I'll examine his stats." said Sora's voice.
{Lizard Man: Class: Assassin/Fighter
Hp: 1,890,000 | Intelligence: 112 | Defense: 472,500 | Mp: 530,000
Atk: 781,900 | Speed: 675 | Endurance: 5,321 }
It's high numbers surprised Katsuya as he looked at them. They were enough to make the lizard man be Legendary-ranked, which was strange as the monsters here were only supposed to be Platinum-rank.
"Why are it's stats so high?" Katsuya asked.
"The last floors were only Platinum-rank difficulty but, this floor is Legendary-rank, Good luck."
"Oh, so that must mean the boss behind the doors is Legendary-rank."
"Well yeah, it's pretty obvious because I just told you."
Katsuya stepped out while a phrase from the back of his mind started repeating " The abyss... Kill all creatures of the abyss."
The Lizard man's yellow eyes shined with evilness as it stared at him.
It's a month open, speaking a sentence.
"What are you doing here? Go back to your floor, lower monster."
"Aha, you're funny, walking pet."
"A lower monster is picking a fight with me?Lizard men are the elite race, none shall look down on us."
The lizard man raised it's curved blade into the air as it asked one more question.
"What will be your last words?"
Looking into the creature's eyes, Katsuya spoke.
"My last words, huh? How about this, you tell me your last words."
"You had your chance."
With a heavy swing, the lizard swung it's blade downward. The sword slashed only air as it missed its target.
Swoosh
The creature's expression was priceless, filled with shock as Katsuya stood only a couple steps from where he was before.
"Oh, whoops. Looks like you missed. Feel free to try again."
"You only got lucky. This one will kill you!"
A silver flash of light followed the lizard blade as it was swung across the air.
Swoosh.
With ease, Katsuya gently ducked down.
"You talk pretty big but, you seem to keep missing."
"I see that you want me to go all out. Then...DEAL WITH THIS!!"
[Warning: Enemy had activated 'Triple Speed.']
Before another second passed, the lizard man ran many circles around Katsuya, kicking up dust with each step. Its speed was beyond anything he had ever seen. However, it wasn't something Katsuya would have a hard time against.
As Matter of fact, the solution was pretty simple. All Katsuya would have to do was activate that same skill.
[You have activated 2 skills: Triple Speed]
The monster sword swung through the air like a beam of light.
"I've got you!"
Swoosh.
Chink.
The sword was missing its tip while Katsuya wasn't in the same spot anymore, he was now beside the lizard whose head was missing. A fountain of blood rained out from its neck. Instead of falling over, it's body still stood in place.
"Here, let me give you a hand." said Katsuya.
He firmly poked the lizard's body, knocking it onto the floor.
Thump.
Letting out a breath, Katsuya looked down at the purple-bladed knife he wielded.
"This thing is really good for taking heads."
His body and walked over to the giant red doors.
"But will it be enough to take down the boss?I guess there's only one way to find out."
His hands shoved both doors wide open and he made his way inside the giant room. Up ahead was a powerful kind of monster, one he only heard about from stories about the alternate world. Now, he was face to face with this calamity.
It was a type of monster that was called a…..