Reminiscent of grinding of gears, a peculiar voice filled the air inside the chamber. Soon, seven doors manifested on the walls of the chamber and they opened up with a loud bang!
The overlapping noises bestowed the party with a ringing sensation that didn't leave their ear for a whole minute.
The dust kicked up by the abrupt unfastening of the locks of the doors soon settled down and the party's face darkened.
Grr...
Seven beasts enjoying their slumber in tranquillity exited the doors in exasperation. The intrusion of strangers wasn't to their liking and an intimidating aura swept from them.
"Don't kill them straight away. Make sure they suffer for a while and beg for death." The impassive voice resonated from the jewel and it slowly descended into the cabin beneath the platform.
The beasts exited their cells and the illumination gave away their species and characteristics.
"Bone-Tail Ice Wolf, Giant Arid Scorpion, Lightning Antelope, Hellfire Tiger, Acid-Talon Falcon, Iron Tusker, Hypnotic Rattlesnake...
We walked into a pseudo-Delta tier dungeon!"
A realisation struck them five like lightning as they all witnessed an array of A-grade beasts walking to them.
"Whatever happens, just don't die today!" Gary felt otherworldly courage coursing through his veins and dashed ahead. With his unsheathed sword, he swung and released the Solar Nemesis skill.
But a second later, his grin vanished.
"The hell..." Theo's eyes narrowed. To cancel the effects of Solar Nemesis, the Hellfire Tiger stepped forth and blocked the flames.
Finding the beast intelligence irritating, the party reminded themselves of the Dungeon Heart's final warning. After exchanging a few blows, they confirmed that the beasts are not exhibiting killing intent, and was trying to disable their movements and actions, just how the heart ordered.
Adam fought against the Lightning Antelope. It was more like a mutually consented selection. When the antelope entered the scene, the beast had its eyes on Adam and vice versa. Somehow, they felt an unspeakable rivalry between them.
The same went with others too. Gary, Tara, Walter and Theo found themselves bound with a single beast while the remaining two, the Giant Arid Scorpion and the Acid-Talon Falcon, stood before their cell doors waiting for permission to enter the playground.
Finding the antelope's fur and skin impregnable and efficient against melee attacks, Adam quickly peeked at the others. As he witnessed every one of them occupied with a beast, he nodded in content.
After gaining a distance from the antelope, the spear disappeared from his palm with a flick of his wrist. He stood up with his torso leaned forward like a veteran boxing champion. His guard wasn't perfect and resembled a dying soldier's last attempt.
"Heh, giving up so easily?" The A-grade beast smiled conceitedly at Adam. At once, it rushed at him with yellow streaks of lightning flickering through the long, twisted pair of horns.
'Heh, bazinga!' Adam's grim face lit up as soon as the beast entered a definite distance. His eyes sparkled and a vicious grin crept up his face.
Danger!
The beast could not only talk but also think rationally. But the wild and untamed side would poke so frequently that battles make the worst places for them to think logically.
Finding Adam's grin as the preface of an ominous event, the beast immediately applied brakes and came to a halt. But before it could leap and go away from the spot, the condensed mana had already created a glyph.
"Impale."
Be it a savage beast or a normal animal, the underside of the belly always remained soft and vulnerable. Adam carefully guided his expressions and created a pretence that he had some hidden cards up his sleeves. Thus the beast desired to flee the range rather than simply turn the trajectory.
Puchik!
About nine stone spikes rose the very moment the antelope's acceleration became zero. It was a gamble that Adam wanted to take and it was a hit. To carefully calculate the spot where the beast might be when its velocity reaches zero before escalating exponentially, Adam had suffered a great deal of mental ache.
"No..." The Lightning Antelope's words faded into oblivion as it succumbed to death. The spike remained lodged in its body and a puddle of blood was formed beneath the skewered corpse.
The cry wasn't too loud but the focus of the remaining six beasts instinctively turned to the antelope only to see it dead. The adventurers also saw this unbelievable sight.
Wait...wasn't he a berserker? Did he use magic? But he didn't have one. Then how?
If it's not magic, then what was it?
Under the pressure of relentless strikes, the four of them couldn't spare a glance at others. Thus they missed their chance to witness how Adam did it.
Roar!!
The six beasts roared at once and the dominating voice from before rumbled again. "To kill one of my guardians, your abilities are indeed bizarre. But your journey ends here!"
With a shade of malice and brutality, the voice gave its verdict and the beasts went through a fundamental change. Their restrained killing intent was let loose. The animals turned savage!
By the time the falcon and the scorpion charged at Adam, he had already neared the corpse and pulled out the beast core.
"Damn, this is huge."
The pink coloured crystal was larger than his both palms combined. It had quite some weight and Adam quickly stored it in his storage ring.
Danger.
A premonition alerted his heart and he quickly dashed from the spot. The next second, several acid droplets fell where he stood a second ago and dissolved the sturdy floor.
At once, his eyes caught the sight of a shadow rising over him. Without waiting for a second to ponder what it was, Adam rolled to his side and a scorpion's stinger pierced the spot where he was a moment earlier.
The situation was quickly revealed to his mind. "One gets killed, two replaces the spot."
After cornered by the scorpion on the ground and the falcon in the air, Adam flickered his wrist and several beast cores went into his mouth. Simultaneously, a surge of energy began to travel through his blood.
The spear appeared in his hand and he sneered at the beasts in an attempt to enrage them. "Come at me, you filthy mud-eating imbeciles!"
"..." Gary and his party.
"..." The beasts.
Every beast halted their aggression to take a good look at this young arrogant human before resuming their execution of commands. The scorpion and the falcon were infuriated so much that fumes were rising from their head.
'That's it.'
mana reinforced his agility and it rose by a few digits. He quickly covered his distance with the scorpion and began to run around it.
As a giant beast with a size larger than a lion, the beast had an exponential mass. Its stinger packed immensely powerful weapon that could melt a being from its inside. Thus each of its strikes was precise and powerful.
The falcon fell into a dilemma. As a beast with acid talons, anything it grabs or claws gets destroyed. It should have been able to neutralise Adam ages ago but the fact that he was running close to the scorpion and the beast flailing its stinger furiously made its condition conflicted.
I don't have to worry about the aftermath.
Finding its resolve, the falcon beast dashed at Adam. Its talon almost scratched his face but that near-encounter was enough to give an introduction to the acidic sensation.
'If that beast touches me, I am a goner.' After determining his condition, Adam noted in his heart. But this conclusion also gave him a wild idea.
That's it!
Finding the feasibility of the unnatural idea unlikely high, he took the gamble and ran frenziedly around the scorpion. Jumping over and sliding beneath the beast, the absence of a spear in his hands made him extremely agile. While executing parkour, he was keeping an eye on the falcon's position.
Thwack...thwack...thwack...
The sound of the stinger frantically piercing the ground in an attempt to eradicate the jumping pest resonated inside the chamber.
The adventurers were exhausted and they only defeated the Bone-Tail Ice Wolf after combining their strengths and coming up with a strategy. The remaining three beasts swiftly joined forces and surrounded them.
Left to fend for themselves, they saw Adam singlehandedly aggravating an avian beast and a giant scorpion beyond compare.
Though his face was blank, his expressions weren't pleasant.
'Why the hell does these beasts have such endurance? Why won't the stinger break? Why won't its scales be damaged by the acid? Where did my calculations go wrong?'
It was a truly wise decision to bring two deadly beasts together to fight and nimbly drift between their legs and to let them fight and kill each other. But he thoroughly underestimated the dungeon heart's effort in nurturing them.
Therefore, rather than solving fire with fire, Adam found himself standing in between a circle of flames!
Unbeknownst to his perception, several networks of cracks were appearing on the floor as he burned beast cores as fuel. Under the combined effort of an unparalleled poison and unyielding stinger, the floor suddenly collapsed!!